www.worldwidereview.com

http://haunchofvenison.com/exhibitions/current/the_mystery_of_appearance/

10 Old british boring men painters. Oddly Euan Uglow and William Coldstream come off well. Despite all the measuring mumbo jumbo uglow pulls off a great little still life, tiny and morandi like focused, and a pretty in pink nude of high colour. Coldstream's paintings have an odd anachronistic feel appealing to the disillusioned postpostmodernist. Hockney's roughness of surface is always surprising, the naked bum picture looks like its been rolled up in a cellar, he's too much a graphic designer, there is a bad freud in a box too. Actually opening sentence notwithstanding it's quite an entertaining show, as time goes by you forget the reactionary crap they represent and enjoy the paintings.

Caulfied seems like the odd one out to me. Would have been better to have just gone for a 50s vibe and included people like Roger Hilton and John Bratby. Enough of this cliquish RCA shit! Hamilton seemed to spend most of the 50s taking the piss out of Coldstream and the Slade's dogged doctrine in things like Renude (1954) and his many studies for Hommage a Chrysler(1958). All that gets lost in the push to name him Father of Pop. Hilton was definitely an influence on Early Hockney. I mean if we're going to have a 'conversation' or dialogue between figurative painters of the times, let's keep it real.

Coincidentally, I was just watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingsall demonstrate how to properly prepare haunch of venison for a traditional (I suppose medievel) English Christmas feast.

Also I note the Haunch site still lumbering with all that hokey Flash animation nonsense and pissy little JPGs. That is so 2005 chaps!

On that note the xmas food specials have been appalling, even the normally pleasant Nigel Slater made the most revolting collection of xmas shit. Nigella also seemed to be scraping the barrel.

She doesn't just scrape the barrel - she licks the spoon!