Men Don't Feel Bad When They See This, They Just Stop Buying.

I've tried twice to compose this entry and each time stopped. This is for the simple reason that anyone reading will take one look at a photograph of a male model and think "Oh, I don't know seven dials was gay". Well, I'm not. But you won't be able to stop yourself thinking it when you page down.

And that's why no-one has ever written anything about the subject of male models. Female models they can hardly stop themselves withering on about. If it isn't about how fabulous the girl is, it's about how she's making every other woman in the country feel fat and less-than. Now, how a grown woman could suppose than she's supposed to look like the cutie above, I have no idea.

Because I don't think I'm supposed to look like these guys. If you told me I was, I'd give you the number of the Tavistock Institute and suggest you sign up for some group therapy. I have no idea if they are straight or gay, but I know what fantasy the stylist and photographer are asking them to project.

I don't know how it works for you, but an ad works for me if I can identify in a good way with the people and the message. I see Chris Cox at easyandelegantlife or Guiseppe at An Affordable Wardrobe wearing or discussing something and I pay attention. This is because they are closer to my age and general bodyshape so what works for them might work for me. I see the ad below and I'd like to be able to pay more attention but that just is never going to be my life again. One reason I pay attention is because he has a slight Orlando Bloom thing going and Orlando is the kind of guy I'd've liked to look like when I was his age.

So who are they selling to? I've always had the suspicion that all those high-end editorial pieces in Vogue and Harpers are aimed at the mistresses of rich men. Here's some more stuff for your sugar daddy to buy for you. Is someone telling me that i-D is aiming at the, ahhh, same-market-different-gender? I would at this point put in a photograph from GQ to prove that other magazines use the same sharp-faced, high-cheekboned look on their boy models, except I won't go near GQ now until they stop using those kinds of models. I'd like to wear some of those clothes, but the idea that someone would think I identified with those models is just plain off-putting.

Here's the thing. I don't feel bad because I see implausible-looking boys in fashion spreads. I just stop buying the magazine. (Unless, like i-D, it has more pictures of implausibly-pretty girls in it.) Are we sure that women don't feel the same way and do the same thing? And that all the fuss about how bad the average female feels on seeing an Abby Lee pictorial is, well, just more self-promotion for the fashion business?

Michelle Braun and the Fringe Benefit of Glamour Photos

There was a long article in the May issue of Vanity Fair about Tiger Woods' sex life. Which seems to have been pretty much semi-sham marriage, rich young athelete, lots of girls. Seems he didn't spend much money on them though. Michelle Braun, who's already caught your eye, was the madam who set him up with a lot of dates towards the end. (I know she doesn't look this good in real life, but when guys over the age of, oh, thirty-five, are thinking about sex, this is what we're thinking about.)

What's interesting is the description of her rosta of girls. Loredana Ferriolo, who finally got Tiger spending money, was a Hawaiian Tropic model. Who was being run, or represented, by Ms Braun. It seems that girls good looking enough to model for suntan lotion ads don't go home to a Cup-of-Soup and re-runs of Friends in the evening. They go out for £5,000 or more the time. It's not surprising that porn stars make money as escorts and maybe it's not that surprising that some models do as well. But here's the thought: maybe the real money is in escorting and the porn and the glamour photography (Page Three, miscellaneous men's magazines) is really just, well, advertising. Not for all of the girls, but for far more of them than you might want to believe. Call it a "fringe benefit" if you like.

I'm Seven Dials and I'm an ACoA

I have a drinking problem. For me, one drink is too many and a hundred are too few. I have definite addictive behaviours and tastes - but this is a family show so we're not going to discuss those. Am I an alcoholic? No. I'm an ACoA with a drinking problem. My recovery was / is about gaining self-respect for the first time and a sense of my proper right to advance myself in the world, not about the restraint of a runaway ego that characterises a classic AA recovery. The ACoA "Laundry List" is a better description of me, or at least the earlier me, than any characterisation of the alcoholic in the Big Book. It was reading Beattie's Codependent No More that made me think "Yes! This is me!", not reading the Big Book. I always felt the Big Book should apply to me, but I've heard hundred of people say they felt that it did, right from the start.

I've mooted this idea before, but there's a difference between considering an idea and adopting it. When you adopt an idea you need, amongst other things and in contradiction to Walt Do-I-Contradict-Myself Whitman, to remove those current ideas you have that are inconsistent with the new one. This way change lies, otherwise the result is stagnation (no new ideas) or craziness (rampant inconsistency). You don't do this in one grand gesture but slowly. I know I'm better off for going to at least one meeting a week, but I need to re-think what it is I want to get out of it. I still have the drinking problem, and if I pick up a drink because I think it will make my life better, the next time you see me, it will be in a coffin.

I have a problem with alcohol, but alcohol is not my problem. (AA's love that sort of phrasing - it's probably some rhetorical device with one of those are-you-kidding dog-Latin names.) My problem was / is the ideas about myself and the world and other people I picked up at an early age. My problem was / is finding an accommodation between what I want from people and what they are prepared to give in return for what I can afford in time, money and attention. My problem is that I have an addict's body chemistry (those people who say "I have an addictive personality" don't understand Fact One about addiction, which is that addiction is physical). It gets triggered by booze, chocolate and sex amongst other things.

It's not enough for me to stay clean and sober. Even The Steps aren't quite enough - though both sobriety and Steps are essential. The final part is keeping the dysfunctional, defeatist thoughts at bay - in a realistic manner. None of that New Age affirmations crap for me thank you.

And I'm 56 yesterday. Shit. I am going to be SO poor when I can't earn any more.

(Roughly) How The Great Art Bubble Worked

I bought a DVD of Ben Lewes' 2009 documentary on the Great Art Bubble while visiting the Tate Modern last Tuesday. I watched it a couple of times and let the whole thing simmer in my unconscious for a while. Lewis never did work out what was going on, or if he did, his lawyers told him not to explain it. But the following Sunday I got it. It's almost as complicated as explaining a credit default swap, but that's why everyone got away with it for so long. It's not something you'd think up for yourself unless you worked in the markets (I don't, but I didn't think it up, I just figured it out afterwards).

Here are the ingredients: 1) a low cost of borrowing, 2) a bank or banks willing to lend a reasonable amount of the value of an artwork to its owner, 3) a thriving but very secretive private sales operation, 4) a thriving and very public auction market, 5) an acceptance by all concerned that the auction market sets the price of an artwork (however temporarily), 6) a small enough number of insiders who “all know each other”, 7) a sufficient supply of outsiders, marks and newcomers, 8) a supply of recognisable but essentially commodity-like artworks.

Now suppose you own four of Andy Warhol's Jackie screen prints. You bought them for, say $50,000 each. You put one up for auction with Sotheby's and ask me to bid for it: I can go as high as $500,000. You will be bidding by phone, to create the appearance of genuine activity and to make sure the price gets up to target. The auction comes, I bid and “buy” your Jackie for $500,000. You pay Sotheby's the seller's premium and cover me for the buyer's premium. Since you're an insider, you get a discount on both. You hand me $500,000 of your money so I can pay Sotheby's so they can pay you $500,000 of your money. Net zero. You have now established (item 5) a new record price for a Warhol Jackie. Not bad huh? Especially since you get your Jackie back in a “private sale” which is as fake as the auction sale but keeps the paperwork straight. (Because I paid with your money – remember?)

Here are some ways you can benefit from this little maneouvre. You can borrow some money from the bank (item 2) against the new value of your four Jackies. Since the other three of your Jackies look just like the fourth (item 8 and the important one), it's easy for the bank to lend me you, say, 50% on the new value of your Jackies (item 2). So you have $1m, on which you are paying perhaps 4% (item 1).

Or you could sell one of your Jackies privately (item 3). Believing the auction price (item 5), the buyer is expecting to pay $500,000, but most likely will be thrilled to get it, after a little fake negotiation, for, say $200,000. You have certainly sold it for more than you could have done before the auction. Anyway, the buyer doesn't care, because they aren't using their money, they can borrow it from the bank (item 2).

Even if I had to pay Sotheby's the full auction price, I can negotiate delayed payment terms. Like maybe a year. Which gives me plenty of time to sell a couple of my Jackies at the new, improved price. I'll get the money back and make much more profit than I would have done selling at the pre-auction price. Is it risky? Yes. But then that's part of the rush for these guys.

And there's even a chance that some third party follows our bids up, and at a pre-arranged price (say $400,000) we both drop out and let them have the painting. Which will be real money from a real sale. Double win.

It's a rich man's game – you have to pay auctioneer's premiums, interest, insurance, packing and storage and none of those things are cheap in absolute terms. But it can beat the heck, on a risk-reward basis, out of leaving your cash on the overnight markets. And you get to hang out with some cool people, read about yourself in the papers and maybe score with some of those pretty girl who hang around the art world.

The commodity nature of the art – Hirst's Spin and Dot paintings and those endless Murakami's to name but three – is essential to the game. Bankers don't know much about art, they have no idea why one Victorian painting of a country lane is worth ten times more than another one. If they wanted valuations, they would have to hire an art consultant or ask the auction houses. But one Spin Painting looks like another. (And one Monet Haystack looks just like another as well. Red Jackie, Green Jackie, Yellow Haystack, Blue Haystack. These guys weren't the first to produce commodity art.) So if one Spin painting goes for $6m, so should the next. It's also why the publicity is so important: the bankers need to recognise the names. The books, the exhibitions, the jargon-filled articles in the Art magazines – all these go to creating and improving the artist's brand.

Seems too fantastical to be true? Do you really believe that these dealers actually hand over those sums of money when they buy their own artists? Do you really believe that Roman Abramovich, a man smart enough to get $12bn out of Putin's Russia, really handed over $80m of his own actual cash for a Francis Bacon painting? When he knows the only people with more money who buy paintings are the Arabs, so he has no market to sell on to? Anyway, if he wants to throw away money, he has Chelsea.

No. If something sounds crazy, it usually is. What I've described – and the endless variations a skilled trader can play – is about how it has to be. All that art was bought with money borrowed at low rates against a hefty fraction of its auction value. The real sales happen at much lower prices in private deals, and while the majority of auction dealings in regular artists are as kosher as auctions ever are, the dealings in the big-name brands are best assumed to be, well, fake. And if you're looking for at least one of the banks prepared to lend, why do you think UBS sponsored all those art fairs? Oh, and yes, all the auction houses know what's going on and yes they are that, well, client-focussed, though others may prefer the harsher word 'unscrupulous'. Read the books about them.

Marantz CD6003: Review

In an earlier post I mentioned that I was having problems with getting delivery of a Marantz CD6003. Well, I picked it up on Wednesday morning, set it up and went up to town to see Whip It at the Prince Charles and then Psy from the Sept Doigts du Main at the Peacock Theatre. My fandom for Heloise Bourgeois is unabated. 

Thursday and Friday I listened to my new stereo set-up, because with the CD6003 matched to the PM6003 and the B&W speakers I bought earlier, the sound is utterly fantastic. The CD6003 replaced a Cambridge Azure, which was a little harsh and confused. I wondered if I should have carpets on the floor or if I'd made a mistake - because the improvement that the Azure made to my previous system was very noticeable. But all that stuff about equipment matching is true. The sound from the Marantz CD and PM 6003s is clear, projects into the room, more detailed and much easier on the ear.

The young folk at work looked at me like I had just disembarked from the Ark - "a CD player? Do you still buy CD's" - and my reply was "Audiophile. MP3 files playing from your iPod just aren't going to make it."  I really can hear the difference. And it is worth every penny.

It's not been a restful week off. The hay fever wakes me up around 06:00 and won't let me get back to sleep. It's too cold and cloudy just to wander around anywhere. But sometimes time off is like that.

(Edited: 27/1/2023)

The Vegetarian Bus

I've been passing this old Routemaster on Brewer Street for months, each time telling myself that I really should try it out. Just for the experience of sitting in a Routemaster and eating a meal. So one recent Sunday I did. 

I had the lentil soup and chickpea stew. Not sure how much that fitted in with my attempt to go carb-free for a few days to get back into my target range, but at least it wasn't a Shepards Pie laden with mashed potato.

The food is okay, I'm no real fan of vegetarian, the view is good and the bus moves every time the guy comes up from the kitchen. I should have carried on to Stockpot for a cheap and card-free salad, but my willpower isn't always what it should be. There's also a wonderful view over the rather tatty porn shops of Brewer Street.

How those places stay in business while the Internet drives record stores out of business almost weekly, I have no idea.

Smug PR From Marantz

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a Marantz CD6003 through Sevenoaks Hi-Fi. There were availability problems, but they were confident they should be able to get me one by Saturday. Or not. Maybe next Saturday. Before the next Saturday I called them and made a polite fuss - I have a sixth sense when something isn't quite going right. They told me they were having problems getting a firm date out of Marantz, and I sent Marantz a snotty mail saying that it wsn't on for a company of their reputation to be unable to give delivery times for a piece of kit made in China - this isn't high-end lab-assembled kit we're talking about here. This is what I got as a reply. I promise you, it's cut-and-paste from the mail..

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for your feedback.  We are sad to hear that Sevenoaks sold so many of this unit that they completely depleted their stock.

You are correct this is one of our more highly produced products (within its niche you’ll understand) and is the possibly the most popular CD player in the UK at the minute.  The fact that it was awarded CD player of the year in its price range only drives sales even further beyond our expectation, to the point where we have had to increase production considerably – but even still it is almost not possible to keep up with the increased demand for this product. We had no way of knowing just exactly how well received this product would be – not to mention that it would get such a prestigious award.

What I can confirm for you however is that Kingston do have these on back order, but we are currently unable to confirm their anticipated delivery date – as the next stock consignment has not yet been allocated to retailers. As much as we’d like to be able to quote certain delivery times to our dealers when goods are not in stock at our central this is just not always possible due to logistical circumstances. When goods are in stock, we can usually have product to dealers in approximately 4 days shipped in from Europe.

It should not be too much longer now.

Thanks

(I've left off the guy's name as a courtesy.)

I need say no more. By the by, Sevenoaks called round and found one for me which I should be picking up this week.