SIDELINES...

FEET FAIL

Police seeking a fleeing thief in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, found him hiding in a wardrobe with a blanket over his head, but his feet sticking out. Police said, “Big feet gave him away” adding, “If we can find you hiding in the loft, if we’ll run through garden fences to arrest you, are we not going to look in the cupboard? Would we not recognise you hiding under a blanket?” Metro, 6 Oct 2021.

ART MISCHIEF

The New York art collective MSCHF has sold an Andy Warhol sketch valued at $20,000 for only $250, but it has also sold 999 forged versions of the image for the same price. MSCHF mixed up the original with the forgeries and now say even they cannot tell which one is the original. The project, called “Museum of Forgeries” is selling the sketches under the title “Possibly Real Copy Of ‘Fairies’ by Andy Warhol” to satirise the art world’s obsession with provenance and the cult of the artist over the intrinsic æsthetic value of the art itself. boingboing.net, 27 Oct 2021.

MYTH HIT

White stags are fabled creatures: seen in Celtic mythology as messengers from the Otherworld, in Arthurian legend they are uncatchable symbols of the spiritual quest, and in Christian hagiography they play pivotal roles in the stories of St Eustace and St Hubert. Police in Merseyside, however, didn’t get the message. When a white stag strayed into the streets of Bootle it stayed true to mythic form and evaded capture, so they called in a marksman and shot the beast dead, causing considerable local outrage. D.Mail, 28 Sept 2021.

TASTELESS DINNER

A touring event entitled “Dinner and Dissection” promising “an educational experience to teach anatomy and physiology”, which involves a live dissection of a sophisticated replica of Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, accompanied by a meal, has attracted condemnation. Disability campaigner Karen Diamond, who got 9,500 signatures on a petition opposing the event said: “It’s despicable we still think it’s OK to exploit people with disabilities” and said it was “a modern-day freak show.” D.Star, 4 Oct 2021.