Bubblehammerblog

I don't really want to talk about Damien Hirst, it's far too depressing. We're told he's raked in another $22 million. The press has been bigging up his 'inovative' notion of flogging off the shite he turns out at auction, in one comprehensive greatest hits' sale, rather than having an exhibition as lesser talents might. Sensational.

His agent 'let slip' that he's now coined himself a billion, pounds or dollars doesn't matter. He's bought himself more palaces that Saddam Hussein dreamed about.

I'm relaxed about people skanking the hyper-rich. Given the chance I'd do it myself,it's preferable to eating them.'Art', Hirst is on record as saying, 'has always been about money'. Well, yes, but this short sentence implies that he views himself as an artist, to be considered in the same breath as the great patronised artists of the European heritage. He's nothing of the sort. He's a con-artist, pure & simple. The man's sheer greed makes the flesh crawl - maybe that's the whole point of the endeavour. Perhaps this is the emotional response he's really after, clever devil. Mildly diverting 'art' that causes a feeding frenzy among a lot of vacuous rich people.'I'd stop fucking them up the arse', he says, 'but they won't let me.'

I met him once in a pub in Soho, though he wasn't well known at the time. He was with Lilly Allen's old fellah, who I sort of recognised as a bit part actor I'd seen on TV. They were both obviously seasoned piss artists, all one line wisecracks & bellylaughs.I noticed he never bought a round of drinks, & I'd stupidly left a packet of Bensons on the table which they both helped themselves to. The only time I made eye contact with him was when he gurned at my fag packet & seeing only one left made a grab for it. Just in time I swept up the packet, put the fag in my mouth, & grinned at him in triumph. He pointedly ignored me for the rest of the afternoon.

As it happens I may have a souvenir of that afternoon. There's a bin liner somewhere in my attic containing items I ought to have dumped, but couldn't bring myself to - my Communist Party membership card for instance, & a couple of photographs of a former girlfriend I can't bear to look at now. There's half a beermat with the phone number of someone I've forgotten on one side, & a drawing by Damien Hirst of a matchstick man pissing into a bucket on the other. Offers over $20,000 will be considered.

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