DIARY
NICHOLAS GARLAND Eany this year I agreed to give a talk, next spring, at the Royal Society of Arts, on cartooning. Or rather on something to do with cartooning, the problem being that the previous summer I had written another long lecture in which I had said all I knew about the subject. I thought the deadline was so far away that I'd think of a new angle in plenty of time. And I did. While laughing with Michael Heath and David Austin about the sort of questions cartoon- ists are asked, Michael repeated a common and particularly interesting one: `Can you draw properly if you want to?' The theme for my talk grew from that; I've been writing an essay on the difference, if there is one, between comic and fine art, and how these two styles or modes are looked at and judged in our country. The market for, as well as the artistic value of, comic art was very much in my mind. A few years ago a collector friend from France came to London to buy some drawings by English cartoonists. Without really thinking about it he expected prices to be about the same as in France. Finally he chose a drawing for Which he was prepared to pay up to £200 and was astounded to discover the price was £15. He bought £200 worth. But he would be lucky to find bargains like that now. Even in the last few months the prices fetched by comic or humorous art has rocketed. Some caricatures by Gerald Scarfe went for £3,000 or £4,000 in an auction not long ago and I've seen draw- ings by Mark Boxer for sale at £1,500, and by Vicky at £900. If it goes on like this I'll have to rewrite my talk. The whole busi- ness arouses mixed feelings in me anyway apart from my difficulty with the RSA. I would not mind my own work becoming fabulously valuable but it saddens me to know I'll never be able to afford a Searle or a Low or another Vicky. It makes it extremely difficult to know what to ask for your own work or even whether to sell it at all. But here is a tip for readers who are collectors or who though they have never thought about buying a drawing before are beginning to panic about Christmas. The bargain I mentioned above was found at the Cartoon Gallery in Lamb's Conduit Street.
At the same time as comic art is going Up in the market it stays low in the minds of some of the journalists who commission it. Recently I was asked by an editor to do a drawing to illustrate an article that would be written at the last minute if, against all the odds, Dukakis won. 'We'll know if he's going to win by Wednesday morning so I'll quickly do something then and your draw- ing can go with it. I would ask X to write something now assuming Dukakis' victory, but its a kind of torture being asked to write something that may never be used, isn't it?'
0 n the subject of Christmas panic: instead of wondering what to buy, wonder about what you could make. And wonder no more. Go and buy an enormous quanti- ty of unblanched almonds. Put them in a bowl and pour boiling water over them. You might have to do that twice but you'll find you can then easily slip off their tweedy jackets. Take the white nuts, spread them on an oven tray, or if you are doing this properly three or four trays, and dry them in a hot oven for a few minutes. When they are dry, melt butter into the tray so that each kernel is shiny. Roast the almonds for 25 to 30 minutes until they've gone a bit brown, turning them from time to time. Spread them out on sheets of foil and sprinkle them with lots of salt and, if you like, a little cayenne pepper and leave them to cool. Half an hour later put them into small kilner jars and Bob's your uncle. Don't you remember your mother saying to you, or you saying to your own infants, 'Granny/Billy/Betty/Aunty would much rather have something you made yourself. Makes them feel good. Very Christmassy, very cheap. If you want to you can start making lovely labels. All you will need is a pair of ordinary kitchen scissors, some glue....' I wonder if anyone will do it. It is just boring and time-consuming enough to make you feel virtuous when you've finished and roasted almonds are delicious.
There is a journalist's catchphrase around which is a good description of the middle-class world that I live in. We are described as the 'chattering classes'. One of the subjects we've been chattering about lately is the fate of Herr Jenninger, the German politician who resigned after speaking on the anniversary of the pogrom known as Kristallnacht. Incidentally, I've only heard one man chatter against the speech, everyone else chatters extremely sympathetically about it, believing Jennin- ger's intentions to have been good and expressing regret that such an honest and decent man should have come such a cropper. But why should anyone pretend to disapprove of people who discuss things with each other? I'll bet that every single journalist who has ever used the phrase 'chattering classes' enjoys conversation, so it is odd that they invariably use the phrase pejoratively. They are not singling out bores or those people who remorselessly tell anecdotes or any kind of pomposity. I have a feeling that behind it lies a very English attitude at once dully hypocritical and anti-intellectual. It does not belong either to the Left or the Right; it is just English. It is related to another mingy English notion — that any socialist who likes good wine or well cooked food is a crypto-capitalist and a phony.
The upsets I mentioned last week did not put me off riding my bike at all, and I still love it. I particularly like the odd fleeting contacts one makes with other riders. They are so brief they are almost non-existent, but they are extraordinarily pleasing. This week, as I was riding to work I caught sight of a traffic cop in my wing mirror. I checked my speed — 42 mph — and slowed down to 30. As I did so another rider, a messenger on a dirty Honda overtook me. I figured he must have seen the policeman because we rode along more or less at the same speed for several hundred yards. Every now and then I glimpsed the cop's yellow jacket and white bike cruising along behind us. After a bit, no doubt realising he'd been spotted, he suddenly accelerated past us looking straight ahead expressionlessly. As he swept by, the messenger looked round and caught my eye. Under his visor I could see him laughing.
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