Sunday 16 May 2010

What a bummer

Pensioner spends over seven years doing 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle... then finds ONE bit is missing

By Vanessa Allen

A pensioner who spent almost eight years working on a 5,000-part jigsaw finally finished it - only to find there is one piece missing.

Dedicated Jack Harris, 86, had been painstakingly piecing together the puzzle since 2002, when he was given the jigsaw as a Christmas present.

But when he put the last piece in place and stood back to admire his work, he was horrified to spot a tiny hole in the middle of his 'finished' jigsaw, where the missing piece should be.

The puzzled pensioner has searched his home in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, for the elusive piece but his family fear it has gone for good.

They have even asked the puzzle's manufacturer if they could provide a spare - but Mr Harris has taken so long to complete the jigsaw that Falcon Games has stopped making it.


His daughter-in-law Eve Harris, who gave him the Christmas present, said she thought the 5,000-piece puzzle would be a challenge for the retired businessman.

He is given a new jigsaw every year, and usually finishes them by spring-time, but this puzzle was to prove different.

Mr Harris said he started the 5ft jigsaw - which shows the 19th Century oil painting The Return of the Prodigal Son, by James Tissot - as usual.

He spread the 4,999 pieces across his dining table and confidently thought he would be done by summer.

But seven years later the pieces were still spread across the table as he struggled to complete the mammoth puzzle.

Mrs Harris said: 'We got him this one as a bit of a joke really, because he always boasted he could get them done so quickly, he's a bit of a whiz with them.

'There was so much to do. We'd all have a go at it each time we went over there, but it seemed to just take forever.

'It was marvellous to see it finally completed. But when we saw there was a piece missing from the middle, we just couldn't believe it.

'He was just so disappointed when he found one bit was missing. It's sad really because now it will never be completed.'

The family fear the missing piece has been thrown away by mistake, or eaten by one of Mrs Harris' two pet dogs.

Mr Harris said: 'I always said I could get the puzzles done by the end of March so I could get out into the garden, but this one took a bit longer.'

Vocabulary

Some Definitions from the 'Politically Aware Vocabulary' series by John Tyndall.

Evolution

The process of natural selection whereby the strongest, most adaptable and resourceful organisms are able to survive and reproduce while the less viable ones become extinct. The evolution of mankind has always been spearheaded by a few gifted races and their most outstanding representatives, albeit at the expense of their natural inferiors. Liberalism seeks to invert this process by exalting and fostering weakness, humility, mediocrity, degeneracy, and the mongrelisation of humanity. By contrast, the Race-and-Nation philosophy is entirely in accord with the cosmic scheme of things and must therefore ultimately triumph. The alternative is the collective regression of humanity.

'Extremism'

The majority of people are innately conservative (small ‘c’) and wary of anything sounding at all radical. This fact is cynically exploited by liberal politicians, who describe all opposing viewpoints as ‘extremist’, with a view to scaring the public away from them. British Nationalists are unblushingly ‘extremist’ in their opposition to a liberal ‘moderation’which is leading this country to disaster.

‘Moderation’ in the cause of treachery is no virtue; ‘extremism’ in defence of our nation is no vice.

Free Trade

An economic doctrine based on removing all undue governmental restraints on business enterprise. The word ‘undue’ is crucial here, since no sensible government can allow private businesses to engage in activities damaging to the national interest. In practice, some companies, especially those with international connections, are quite prepared to ignore the national interest whenever it suits their purposes. The test of a worthwhile business is that it not only shows a profit but that it also improves the quality of life of its employees and serves the national economic interest.

Freedom

Absence of unnecessary and unjust constraints on thought, speech and behaviour in society. Freedom, however, is necessarily limited by social obligations and legislation designed to provide an orderly and safe environment for the general public and to ensure conformity with certain standards of behaviour (aptly summed up by the phrase "Your freedom to wave your fist ends where my nose begins").

It is said that the real test of an allegedly free society is the way it treats its dissidents. Only those individuals who have personally tested the Establishment's tolerance (or lack of it) of political dissent are qualified to judge the real extent of personal liberty in Britain today. Their reports are at once very illuminating and profoundly depressing. We now have laws which make it a punishable offence to discriminate in favour of kinfolk, to recognise the actual differences between races and sexes, to make certain unfavourable but manifestly true comments about multi-racialism, and to demonstrate in support of British patriotism. Such tendentious legislation and ideological tyranny is repugnant to any genuine freedom-lover, but has been all too easily imposed on a population besotted with mindless entertainment and the dependency culture.

In an unjust society the worst people celebrate their freedom while the best are liable to find themselves in jail.

Family

The basic unit of any worthwhile and viable society. This is nowadays contested by feminists, homosexuals and dotty sociologists, with about as much credibility as criminals contesting law and order. It is incumbent on government to cherish family values by giving taxation benefits to married couples with children or with elderly or dependent relatives to support.

Marriage and parenthood must be regarded not as a right but a privilege. Motherhood must be seen to have a social status above that of any other female occupation. Breakdown of the (extended) family is self-evidently a prime cause of rising delinquency, drug addiction, child abuse, poverty, and an insupportable social services budget. A truly family-based socio-economic order is not only basic to the quality of life but also vastly cheaper in terms of taxation and social services.

'Gay'

Homosexual slang for male sex pervert. Such euphemisms are intended to hide disgusting behaviour behind an attractive label. In fact, less than 4 per cent of people are actively homosexual; and while some of these may exhibit ‘gaiety’ now and then most are notoriously neurotic and dismal specimens.

In any dialogue where someone uses the word ‘gay’ in this way, one should always insist on the term ‘sex pervert’ or ‘sodomist’ until the neutral word ‘homosexual’ is substituted.

Genocide

Campaign likely to exterminate a particular race, either by direct attack or by multi-racial policies which can only disadvantage that particular racial group and lead to its ultimate subjugation by others. In a world where the white race is vastly outnumbered, ‘multi-racialism’ is a plainly genocidal policy for white people.

Gender

The role of women is to complement men and not to compete with them. Sadly, when men cease to be men, some women are apt to assume male roles, however inadequately. Feminist policies have no place in a wholesome society and pose a real threat to womankind and children. No man worthy of the name should accept a subordinate role to a woman in those occupations obviously better engaged in by men than women; for example, heavy industry, the police, the armed forces and top business management.

There will always be some women unsuited to marriage and motherhood for one reason or another, and these can of course seek fulfilment in other ways. But those women besotted with gender issues are driven not by concern for natural justice but by private resentments arising from childhood traumas or unhappy personal experiences with men (see RP Syndrome).

'Gliberal'

Term of derision for those given to egalitarian claptrap.

'Human Rights'

A fashionable liberal term to describe what, at root, amounts to anarchy. There are no rights without commensurate responsibilities; and in any event so-called ‘human rights’ are never more than social or political conventions. Even the child's right to care and protection carries the responsibility to care for its parents when they become frail and dependent. Rights and duties are therefore indivisible sides of the moral coinage.

‘Humanity’

Another liberal buzz-word, denoting the presumed ‘totality’ of humankind and indiscriminate concern for any creature recognisably humanoid. No one ever did anything for ‘humanity’; and it can be taken as an infallible sign of political and religious humbug that those who profess an all-embracing concern for ‘humanity’ are the worst enemies of its best representatives.

Indoctrination

An attempt to gain uncritical acceptance of some concept or ideology. It takes more or less subtle forms depending on the nature of the message and the calibre of people exposed to it. Examples are legion in the content of party-political and religious tracts and mass media. Most ‘soap-operas’ today artfully insinuate multi-racial, feminist and homosexual indoctrination into their plots and casting, defending such tendentious tactics as ‘social realism’.

Integration

If something is an integral part of something else, then the latter could not exist without it; thus the yolk is integral to the egg as the egg is integral to the omelette. But the notion that Negroes and Asians can ever become ‘integral’ to British society is therefore patently absurd, since their departure would in no way diminish or damage that society. Such people may adopt the superficial attributes of the British native for reasons of social convenience; but they remain at best only passengers in a culture that is not their own. The so-called ‘black Englishman’, for example, is a complete oxymoron.

Intolerance

We should rejoice in our intolerance of invaders, renegades, traitors, parasites, perverts, criminals and other obvious threats to the health, happiness, prosperity and security of our kinfolk and country. When we cease to be intolerant of such people we also cease to be decent and loyal citizens of our homeland.

Justice

Supposedly the whole purpose and soul of the law. In practice the disparity between justice and law is all too apparent to those who emerge from complex, obfuscatory and expensive litigation with a manifestly unjust verdict.

Legislation is the instrument of political ideology, and when that ideology is fundamentally misconceived or corrupt we all have a duty to avoid it, frustrate it and finally eradicate it in the best interests of our kinfolk and country.

Under a corrupt regime, what is the virtue of being law-abiding?

Liberal

Refers to an ideological rag-bag of egalitarian, multi-racial, effeminate, welfare-mongering doctrines and their supporters. Liberalism is the church of self-righteousness, the sanctuary of traitors and the philosophy of fools. It is analogous to the AIDS virus in destroying the immunity of the body politic to self-destructive policies.

Loyalty

There is no honour without loyalty, and loyalty to the nationalist cause is simply an extension of loyalty to one's kith and kin. It is a commitment of heart as well as mind, and therefore soars above petty conformity and political dog-fighting. The real test of loyalty is seen in the extent to which individuals are prepared to sacrifice self-interest in pursuit of an ideal or adherence to a cause. One thing is therefore clear enough: the loyalty that costs nothing is worth nothing.

Leadership

This is the prerogative of naturally superior individuals and races, and is the cutting-edge of human evolution. Our main business as nationalists is to nurture and support the natural elite of our race, and to enlist in our ranks the kind of individuals most sensible parents would prefer as role-models for their children. To paraphrase Shakespeare, some are born leaders, some achieve leadership and others have leadership thrust upon them; which is to say that leadership is a compound of natural aptitude, motivation and favourable circumstance. But motivation is the dynamo of all achievement in the field of leadership.

‘Multi-cultural’

A liberal euphemism for multi-racial. To the extent that a society is ‘multi-cultural’/multi-racial it ceases to be a society in any meaningful or worthwhile sense. We are nevertheless told that British society is ‘enriched’ by the presence of other races and their so-called ‘cultures’; a contention which is impossible to justify on the evidence so far available. It takes rather more than curry parlours, dreadlocks, outlandish garments and primitive dancing to make a ‘culture’. And since when did our native European culture, at the crown of human achievement, need ‘enriching’ by the world's least successful peoples?

Masochism

Psychiatric term for a sexual perversion which derives gratification from personal punishment and humiliation. A common affliction among liberal sophisticates (many of them homosexual), who seek to expiate their guilt-feelings by promoting national and racial surrender and humiliation.

Multi-Racialism

Attempts to deny or ignore self-evident differences between the races regardless of the evidence from genetics, evolution, history, anthropology and everyday experience. It asks you to believe that the most successful race can remain so and even be improved by mixture with manifestly less successful races. They may as well contend that mixing the well water of primitive tribes with vintage wine will produce a beverage for connoisseurs!

‘Male Chauvinist’

Feminist term of abuse for any man worthy of the name.

Majority-Rule

A synonym for ‘democracy’. It is a fundamental contradiction in terms because application of this principle always results in an unruly state of affairs.

The only sensible form of government is by the natural élite of the race (not to be confused with the arbitrary ‘ennoblement’ of unworthy individuals by an effete and corrupt establishment).

Miscegenation

Inter-racial breeding. Popular with ethnic aliens as a way of insinuating themselves into white society, and also practiced by degenerate and sexually perverse/desperate Whites. As a tactic of ‘integration’ it is an obvious failure; it merely debases the white partner without improving the coloured partner's status or acceptability at all.

‘Multi-Racial Society’

Another contradiction in terms; to the extent that if it is multi-racial it cannot be a society.

‘Media Mafia’

Useful and fairly accurate label for those abusing their power and influence in the mass media to debase British nationhood and values by means of censorship, tendentious propaganda and heavily biased patronage.

Misinformation

Unwitting deception by those responsible for providing relevant, accurate and timely information. Attributable to personal ignorance and incompetence rather than perfidy or self-interest. (see ‘Disinformation’ and ‘Propaganda’).

Mind-set

Meaning at worst the mental ‘blinkers’ in the form of bias, bigotry, self-interest, ideology or plain ignorance which limit or distort an individual's perception of the real world. Mostly unconscious, it tends to make us see only what we want to see and to interpret events according to our preconceptions. There are, of course, circumstances where a particular mind-set is entirely sensible and appropriate, e.g. team-work, military discipline, respect for the law, health and safety precautions, basic morality, loyalty and so on.

Nationalist

Synonym for patriot. Supporter of the nation-state founded on racial integrity, a common culture, historic achievement, and occupation of the same homeland for centuries. One who is invariably loyal to his ancestry, kinfolk and native country.

Nation-State

An authentic nation-state incorporates certain basic features:-

  • At least 90 per cent common racial ancestry.
  • A common language (which does not exclude retention of some subsidiary ancestral languages like Gaelic).
  • A shared culture in terms of racial literature, art, music, religion, science and technology.
  • A highly-developed legislative and judicial system, including trial by jury, sensible rules of evidence and an independent judiciary.

Many of the so-called 'nations' set up during the last century (and particularly since 1945) must be regarded as synthetic and inherently non-viable. They are the product of political expediency and fashionable ideology of the egalitarian variety. Much, if not most, of the present international instability and conflict is a direct consequence of imposing an arbitrary and synthetic 'nationhood' on fundamentally disparate and incompatible populations; examples include African 'states', India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the USSR, most of Latin-America, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Yugoslavia and some Arab republics. Many of these are also economically non-viable and remain 'independent' only in name, subsisting largely on Western charity.

'Negotiated Settlement'

The present government's term for protracted surrender to IRA terrorism. There can, of course, be no 'settlement' to detach Ulster from the United Kingdom and transfer it to the Irish Republic. The mere fact that the government is negotiating at all gives the IRA a coded message to the effect that, as and when it is politically expedient, Ulster will be betrayed. The Irish government has nothing to offer Ulster except renunciation of its spurious claim on that part of Ireland. British Nationalists will support their Ulster compatriots in preserving the territorial integrity of the UK by any means necessary.

Negrophilia

An extreme form of liberalism whereby negroes are absurdly over-indulged. Typical examples occur frequently in the mass media, publishing and entertainment worlds. Negrophilia finds its most extreme expression in miscegenation.

However, what sometimes passes for negrophilia is often the product of minds entirely lacking in any regard for black people but interested only in using their supposed 'grievances' for political purposes.

Parasite

There are only three kinds of relationship between different species:-

    (i) Symbiotic, i.e. mutually beneficial.

    (ii) Predator-Prey, the former always subsisting at the latter's expense.

    (iii) Host-Parasite, the latter subsisting always at the former's expense.

A parasitic organism subsists wholly or mainly by attaching itself to a higher organism - without contributing anything which the host organism could not otherwise obtain from its own resources. The essence of the matter is that the parasite itself would cease to exist, or would suffer a greatly reduced quality of life, if separated from the unwitting/unwilling host, whereas the host does not need the parasite, and usually suffers more or less severely from its attachment, even to the point of its own premature extinction.

In the context of human evolution, some races have proved incapable of self-advancement beyond the bare subsistence level; consequently, they can only improve their lives by attaching themselves - i.e. becoming parasitical upon - more successful and resourceful races.

From the evolutionary standpoint, it is therefore accurate to describe some races as parasitical upon others. In the long term this tendency could well reach a point at which the host race is crippled by its parasites and the entire evolutionary process is put in jeopardy.

Passive Resistance

Means doing nothing at all to assist a bad government and everything short of criminal behaviour to get rid of it. It therefore represents the minimum response for anyone opposed to anti-British legislation.

'The People'

For the renegade politician the term 'people' simply means election-fodder, without regard to race, religion, language, education, family status, work record, service to the nation, etc. Whatever the subject under discussion, the acid test of any politician's credibility is his/her definition of 'the people' whose welfare is supposed to be the central concern. And anyone who fails to equate the 'British people' just with those of English, Welsh, Scots, Irish or kindred European ancestry has nothing to say worth listening to. So when you hear a politician refer to 'the people', simply ask: "What people?"

Political correctness

Derisive term for all attempts to re-write history, revise language and regulate behaviour in order to protect the self-esteem of racial and sexual minorities. Its most appropriate icon is the black lesbian dwarf wearing a crown.

Progress

This term is discredited when applied to fundamentally undesirable changes. Thus, for example, British power, influence and prosperity have actually regressed during the present century to an extent our ancestors would have deemed incredible; so politicians' talk of 'progress' is extremely suspect. Any country, like any individual, not actually gaining in power, influence, territory and other assets is not achieving progress.

Propaganda

Systematic measures to mislead the general public as to the true state of affairs, and to indoctrinate people with an inherently undesirable ideology. It relies upon ambiguity, half-truths, euphemism, censorship, ignorance, patronage, repetition and the 'media mafia', as well as downright lies. Thus, for example, all popular radio/TV programmes are loaded with 'political correctness' on subjects like multi-racialism, feminism, homosexuality, Gentile guilt, anti-nationalism and highly tendentious accounts of British history. Much the same applies to magazines and advertisements.

Proscription

Official outlawing of an organisation or faction. Jews, Blacks, Asians and liberals are always demanding proscription of the British Nationalist movement; but the problem for the Establishment is that, much as it would like to oblige, this would only create a dangerous 'underground' movement with very widespread popular support. Consequently, the Establishment resorts to more devious and indirect tactics to contain and frustrate the nationalist movement, for example:-

  • The Race Relations and Public Order Acts.
  • Legal and quasi-legal harassment of leading nationalists.
  • Indulgence towards militant anti-nationalist organisations.
  • Exclusion of nationalists and nationalist material from the mass media, libraries, booksellers, schools and colleges, all public and many private appointments.
  • Prominent and generous support for multi-racial policies and activities in order to present nationalism as a 'lunatic fringe'.

These tactics seem to be working well enough so far to make legal proscription superfluous now or in the foreseeable future. Even so, proscription could still be the Establishment's last-resort tactic when the BNP attracts more and more popular support.

'Race Relations Industry'

Derisive term for the motley of renegade politicians, academics, aliens, media people, etc. involved in promoting multi-racialism. While this 'industry' succeeds, of course, all others fail.

'Racism'

Liberal term of abuse for the natural and altogether wholesome preference for people of one's own race. At bottom what is called 'racism' is neither ideology nor ignorant prejudice, but an ineradicable fact of human nature. The 'ism' suffix is therefore a deliberate but ultimately futile attempt to misrepresent this implacable fact as a mere matter of opinion or personal prejudice which can be corrected by 'education' (meaning indoctrination). As a social phenomenon 'racism' should be seen as an integral part of a nation's immune system, protecting it against potentially fatal infections by alien invaders. And on the same analogy, multi-racists perform the role of the AIDS virus in helping to destroy national immunity against alien invasions.

So if it is wrong to protect our nation from such invasions, it is also wrong for the healthy to resist disease.

Reactionary

The Marxists' term for anyone resisting the imposition of their own ideology. It implies that all other viewpoints have no intrinsic merit but only a greater or lesser capacity to impede the 'inevitability' of Marxist 'progress'. Of course, to the man at the North Pole everyone else is a Southerner; but where else can a man go?

Referendum

An opportunity to vote for or against a specific policy or measure instead of a political party. The use of referenda is becoming not only essential but also much more practical in an era where the party-political system no longer reflects or implements the will of the British people on fundamental issues like immigration, Euro-federalism, media pornography, basic education, crime and punishment, law and order, social priorities etc.

Computer technology today makes the process of conducting referenda very rapid, easy and economical.

The Establishment, and in particular the 'Westminster Club', naturally regard the whole idea of the referendum as abhorrent; knowing that the results of referenda on such basic issues would overwhelmingly reject its own policies and impositions. We are therefore repeatedly told by 'constitutional experts' that the referendum is 'inappropriate' and unnecessary in our Parliamentary democracy. Well they would, wouldn't they?

However, a point of warning is that, when forced to conduct a referendum, the Establishment will seek to phrase the questions in such a way as to fudge the basic issues and get the result it wants; so that the wording of the questions is all-important.

Revisionist

A term properly restricted to those who challenge the versions of history purveyed by so-called 'court' historians (those with privileged status within the present Establishment). The genuinely 'revisionist' historian is concerned to present the real evidence of the case, and is not interested in telling the Establishment or the general public what they would prefer to believe. The very fact, for example, that we never get to hear or read what Germans have to say about modern history is enough to cast serious doubt on all 'histories' produced by Jewish and other anti-German writers. Had Germany won the war, the history books would, of course, be entirely different.

The 'Holocaust' myth is a classic example of pseudo-history; its fragility proved by the extreme reluctance of public figures to express any doubts on the subject, the vicious hostility of the Jewish lobby towards anyone daring to question the 'evidence' and the rigid censorship of 'revisionist' historians by the mass media and major publishers.

Renegade

Anyone disloyal to racial kith and kin and to the security and future of the nation-state and homeland. The term therefore applies in particular to those advocating or supporting the surrender of national territory, or absorption of the nation-state into some supra-national entity like a federal Europe, or subordination of Britain's government to international agencies like the United Nations; those actively promoting or implementing multi-racialism; or those who passively co-operate with the people and policies involved in such activities.

Under a nationalist government those in the first two categories should incur the loss of citizenship as the most appropriate penalty, while those in the third category would not occupy senior positions in society.

Repatriation

The programme of returning coloured immigrants to their ancestral homelands within a period not exceeding 15 years of a nationalist government taking office.

Resettlement grants should be funded from the former 'Overseas Aid' budget, and the programmes should operate on a 'last in, first out' basis. In the meantime, there should be positive discrimination in favour of native British people in respect of housing, employment, education, taxation and social services. The programme should be conducted with all those British qualities of fairness, justice and generosity which attracted the immigrants here in the place; immigration is, after all, the sincerest form of international flattery.

Reverse Stereotype

Refers to the mass media practice whereby Negroes and Asians are cast in roles that they are unlikely to occupy in the real world. The aim is to protect their self-esteem and to persuade white people that racial differences are only skin-deep. Thus Negroes are now commonly cast in the roles of judges, scientists, police chiefs, admirals, academics, executives, tycoons etc., where they are shown rescuing white people from ignorance and incompetence and demonstrating their own superior attributes. These media fantasies provide a kind of social safety-valve for alien malcontents; but the effect is short-lived, as the aliens are daily reminded of their inability to compete in the White Man's world.

RPI Syndrome

Rationalised Personal inferiority (RPI) is a neurotic condition in which the individual is constantly fabricating spurious 'reasons' for his/her inferiority or failure. This attempt to protect a fragile self-esteem is associated with a tendency to project the blame onto other people or 'the system' or whatever.

It is characteristic of such people to make common cause with others exhibiting the same syndrome, such as 'under-privileged' immigrants, feminists and homosexuals. The condition is extremely widespread and therefore readily exploited by demagogues, unscrupulous lawyers and others in the grievance industry.

Religion

What passes for Christianity in this country today can only be described as superstitious sociology; a bland doctrine of welfare-mongering with guilt, humility and self-abasement as its cardinal principles. We can only have contempt for a Church which, in the name of Christianity, facilitates the Islamic occupation of whole neighbourhoods, condones homosexuality, promotes multi-racialism and will forgive everything.

Our race is our religion, and the nation is our church.


Wednesday 12 May 2010

Artist who spent three days painting portrait of her dead mother

A candid painting of an artist's mother after she had died is in the running for a prestigious arts prize at the National Portrait Gallery.

Daphne Todd completed Last Portrait Of Mother in April last year - painted over three days as the body of mother Annie Mary Todd lay at an undertaker.

Annie, who is shown unclothed and wearing a white wristband, had been living with her daughter for the last 14 years of her life.


She had been the subject of several of the artist's paintings during her life, and had agreed to the post-death portrait after celebrating her 100th birthday five months before, the London gallery said.

Daphne Todd, 63, from East Sussex, who was the first female president of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, said: ' I talked things through with the undertaker, and they kindly gave me the time and space to paint the portrait. She was on a trolley, raised up on pillows, as I remember last seeing her in hospital.

'People do change and move after death. They sink into themselves - they continue on their way.'

Ms Todd said she carried on with the work until she began to feel uncomfortable.

Three artists have been shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award, an international arts prize that received a record 2,177 entries this year.

Ms Todd took second place in the gallery's Portrait Awards in 1984.

The other two artists this year are David Eichenberg, 38, and Michael Gaskell, 46.

American artist Eichenberg is shortlisted for Tim II, which shows his friend, sculptor Timothy A Stover, seated at work in an old warehouse in Toledo, Ohio.

Gaskell won second prize last year. Originally from Sheffield, he recently relocated to Leicester and only got to know his subject, Harry, when he agreed to sit for him.

Having seen Harry while he was out shopping with his family, the artist was persuaded to approach him by his wife.

The portrait, titled Harry, was completed in a 'short burst' of intense work last winter

National Portrait Gallery director Sandy Nairne is chairing the judging panel and described entries as 'another outstanding year'.

For the fourth year there will also be a BP Young Artist Award of £4,000 for the work of an entrant aged between 18 and 30.

The overall winners will be announced on June 22.

Fifty-eight portraits have been selected for an exhibition of entries at the National Portrait Gallery which will runs from June 24 to September 19.

Article

*****

I have recently become very interested in art, so much so I am teaching myself to paint. So I was very surprised to read that this rather unusual, if not macabre piece, has actually been short-listed for a major and prestigious prize.

There is hope for me yet.

Monday 10 May 2010

Raquel Welch blames the Pill for decline of marriage

By Simon Caldwell


Miss Welch said the widespread use of oral contraceptives had led to a breakdown in norms of sexual morality and fuelled the growth of rampant promiscuity among the young.

She said that the situation has grown so grave that "these days nobody seems able to keep it in their pants or honour a commitment".

While it carried some benefits, the enduring legacy of the Pill, she argued, has been social anarchy.

Miss Welch found fame in the 1966 movie One Million Years BC and was voted by readers of Playboy magazine as the "most desired female of the 1970s".

But in an article to mark the introduction of the Pill to the US market 50 years ago she has now dramatically distanced herself from the fruits of the Sexual Revolution of which she was apart.

"The growing proliferation of birth control methods has had an awesome effect on both sexes and led to a sea change in moral values," she said in an article for CNN.

"As I've grown older over the past five decades and lived through this revolutionary period in female sexuality, I've seen how it has altered American society for better or worse," she said.

A positive consequence of the Pill was that it had "made it easier for a woman to choose to delay having children until after she established herself in a career", she said.

But a "significant and enduring" effect on women was the idea that they could have sexual intercourse "without any consequences" with the result that fewer today saw marriage as "a viable option".

She said that in spite of her own three failed marriages she still believed that marriage is the "cornerstone of civilisation, an essential institution that stabilises society, provides a sanctuary for children and saves us from anarchy".

Miss Welch, 69, said: "Seriously folks, if an ageing sex symbol like me starts waving the red flag of caution over how low moral standards have plummeted, you know it's gotta be pretty bad."

Article