I haven’t seen a photo of Father Brian for some time, so I was most surprised to discover that facially he is now a cross between Bob Harris and Stuart from The Thick Of It.
I did like his description of creative art (or culture) as anything we do in our surplus time. Reminded me of Stephen Fry’s description of his love of Abba because “they’re better than they need to be”.
I’m not sure whether anything he said justifies obligatory Government funding of the arts, mind you. Pretty much no artist covered in this site, for instance, will have received a penny of Westminster subsidy.
I would say that plenty of artists lived on the dole while starting out. And plenty of them played Universities paid by the Gov (at the time)
He clearly brings something to the party because people like Bowie, Daniel Lanois and U2 are no one’s fools, but I get a distinct whiff of snake oil whenever he pops up. I remember in the Bowie doco one of the band said they only got any work done when he had gone, as, whilst randomness is interesting, it doesn’t actually get anything recorded.
Sounds like there needs to be an Oblique Strategies card that says “Stop faffing around and get on with it already”
I thought lecture was excellent. The concept of ‘scenius’ is really interesting. Brian is the go-to pop polymath.
He wasn’t arguing that there needed to be more subsidy of the arts. But I took it as a warning as to what can happen when you start dismantiing the state.
He said he’d benefitted from state education, the dole, the NHS and the BBC, all of which are currently under attack.
Father Brian was good/dull/dull/very interesting/interesting – woulda made better radio.