Danny Dyer on 'How to be a Man'

 Danny Dyer in ‘How to be a Man’ Channel 4, two one hour episodes.

Danny Dyer seems quite  likeable as he puts together a collection of rambles round this subject, from a kindly chat with his daughter about his grandson to looking at bondage gear and hearing about boundaries in a sex shop.
I read that he met his wife when she was 14 and they are still together so maybe he’s as nice as Paul Newman. He was discovered as an actor at a teenage acting club for disadvantaged children.

Danny  tells us the high suicide statistics for men and goes to a gym where men box and sometimes talk. He insists men and women are different- men not liking to talk on personal subjects face to face, being competitive, protective, physically stronger than women, but he also  finishes with an effective unpaid  advertisementent for cacao in a men’s retreat, dancing, venerating women and suggesting there are many ways to be a man outside the stereotypes.
Its good - hearted and might encourage both sexes to relax a bit about how they express their gender.

One thing bothered me in the first program so I made a tally in the second. One man other than Danny used the f word -  and in the presence of his small child. Danny however, in the 45 minutes if taking out the ads, and saying he spoke half the time, used ‘fuck’ or ‘fuckin’ 56 times - an average of about every 30 seconds. Once this referred to sex.
Now when he was on ‘Whose life is it anyway,’ investigating his ancestors, I do not remember this habit.
Is there a group for involuntary expletive addiction?

Bruce Parry travels up the Amazon, BBC4

 Amazon with Bruce Parry, BBC 4   April 2024 Dir. Rob Sullivan

I watched Bruce Parry for an hour as he spent time with two isolated tribes in the Amazon forest and some loggers.
I got some appreciation that it’s a vast region in which tribes can remain fairly isolated although their clothes and gadgets show contact with the outside world as does their vulnerability to hepatitis B, originating from contact with prostitutes in the nearest city.
Bruce goes along with whatever the people around him are doing, from balancing on logs in the river to ordeals for men by ant sting.
He does not offer medication for suffering children or suggest that hours chanting over them may not cure them.
It does occasionally cross his mind that the natives may be playing to the camera. He calls the way they laugh at his difficulties ‘having a good sense of humour.’
I don’t hear Bruce asking what about if there’s equality between the sexes, toleration of differences, or acceptance of same sex relationships. He doesn’t find out how decisions are made, or what childcare is like. How do people go out beyond the tribal society and do they ever return?
There’s a great deal of male camaraderie - in fact what it mostly reminds me of is an episode of Top Gear - competition, jeering and public school peculiarities.
 In this Bruce holds up ok, eats, sleeps and after hearty hugs, leaves.

Art Exposed Julian Spalding

Art Exposed.  Julian Spalding. 2024

Julian Spalding has been a controversial curator and director of important art museums in uk and in this book he presents various writings about his experiences and his thoughts on art. These are put in alphabetical order which is novel as is that every person he meets is described physically.

Julian would like better lit art galleries. He has several times mooted shows such as one about Jesus, which were not mounted and he goes into the frustrations of his jobs as well as his successes.

He dislikes Duchamp and asserts that Damian Hirst’s work isn’t art. He  likes Beryl Cook ‘s paintings, using one for the cover of the book which made me hesitate to buy it.

He includes writing about very famous artists and lesser known ones that he has boldly championed. 

He deplores the lack of open submission shows and the undue influence of commercial art dealers. He dislikes Anthony Gormley, calling him ‘ the hollow man of British Art’. He extols drawing and loves Ruskin.

However, whatever his views are, this is a writer whose great energy and enthusiasm is clear and who has a wonderful ability to write clearly and vividly.

I was on the same unusual BA course as Julian Spalding at Nottingham University. It combined fine art taught in town at the art college with art history studied at the University on the out of town campus. There were only about ten students in each year and the four year course only ran for four years, I think because the two sets of staff could not cooperate.

I remember how articulate and passionate Julian was in telling our Professor what our demands were when Hornsey students came up to politicise us and we had our own minor revolution.

The revelation to me from this latest book is that Julian was brought up on a council estate and reared on ‘puritanical communism’. I was in the year after his and seeing him in action and being  best friends with a student who had lots of money I was entirely taken in by what he calls his adopted ‘aspirational accent’. One of my friends was secretly, as far as I know, in love with him.

I still can’t quite believe what he says about having these origins. 

I’m not mentioned in the book. I effortlessly failed to make what might have been a very beneficial contact with this man who went onto a stellar career. Once given a general invitation by his first wife Frankie, the renowned art historian, who was also at Nottingham, to visit them when I met her  by chance at a Bobbie Baker performance years later, I could not really imagine going to stay at their house because I couldn’t have returned their hospitality having nowhere to put up guests.

They both chose the art historical path after University whereas I pursued being an artist and supporting myself via school teaching at the comprehensive chalkface.

Anyway it’s a fascinating read by a man who struck me as very clever and  eloquent and has  written a number of books that are original and enjoyable.