Any masterpieces left to interest a Roman in Venice?
Wednesday, 13 June 2007
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* For the Russian super-rich, the Venice Biennale art fair is the ultimate cash and carry. The "World Cup of modern art" has received an unusual number of ex-Soviet visitors this last week, dropping by in their private jets and luxury fleets to pick something nice (and expensive) for the downstairs lav.
A row of megayachts lines the bank of the Giardini - the public gardens hosting the national pavilions pitted against one another. The 282ft vessel closest to the entrance gate bears the legend Ecstasea, and, as any seafarin' fule no, the £68m floating palais belongs to Mr R Abramovich, second right - Russian oligarch, Chelsea Football Club owner and, seemingly, modern art lover. The billionaire's silver helicopter sat on the deck.
"He was being very obvious about it," says my man disconsolately clutching a show catalogue. "He could not have parked any closer. A declaration of intent, we suppose.
"Most of Tracey Emin's stuff had been sold by the time he got there but Isa Genzken in the German pavilion and Sophie Calle in the French are the business. It was tycoon central so we're looking at big money."
Abramovich's spokes-man, John Mann, said he "wouldn't comment on any personal purchase".
Intriguing for the artists, who await a long cheque.
* Duran Duran's ebbing street cred received a shot in the arm last November when it was announced that Justin Timberlake would appear on the band's next album.
The collaboration has clearly been mutually beneficial. After contributing a song called "Night Runner" to the record, he says that he will hook up with singer Simon Le Bon to write another tune.
"We're currently working on a second song which I wrote with Simon," Timberlake told Pandora at the Shrek 3 premiere. "It is called 'Falling Down'.
"It's an honour to be making music with them - these guys were my childhood idols."
This is not the first time that JT, nicknamed "Trousersnake", has come to the assistance of an ageing British popster. He once, charitably, dressed up for a music video for Elton John, portraying a Seventies version of the upholstered musician.
* Sean Bean will march on Parliament today in protest against the relegation of his beloved football team, Sheffield United, from the Premiership. The actor, a director of "the Blades", is aghast that rivals West Ham should have escaped demotion after supposedly fielding an "ineligible" player, the Argentine Carlos Tevez. And he has found himself an unlikely supporter: the former Python Michael Palin.
Palin claims to be an avid Blades fan, and tells me: "I heartily support Sean Bean. I live in London but have maintained my Sheffield roots. I've always followed United, though unlike Sean I don't have the tattoo to prove it."
Sadly Palin won't join Bean today, explaining that he is struggling to meet the deadline on his latest book. He adds: "I will be there in spirit."
* The Labour MP Martyn Jones is involved in legal tangles with the Mail on Sunday after the paper claimed that he directed a foul-mouthed outburst at a Westminster security guard. (The bow-tied, bearded Jones admits only to uttering a mild "shit" at the sentinel, after being challenged to show his security pass, and denies stronger profanities. The MoS stands by its story.)
The Member for Clwyd South has attained the services of the esteemed Ronald Thwaites QC to address the High Court jury. Thwaites argues that the paper blew a "trivial" exchange at Parliament's Portcullis House into a "full-scale international incident".
The altercation will no doubt be something to chew over at the next Thwaites family dinner: his son, George, is editor of the MoS's Review section.
* On 8 June 1972, the Saigon-born photojournalist Huynh Cong Ut - better known as Nick Ut - took a famous Pulitzer Prize-winning image of a crying, naked, burnt Vietnamese girl running towards him, fleeing her blazing village after a South Vietnamese napalm attack.
On Friday, exactly 35 years later, he battled rivals to photograph another tearful female: the hotel heiress and drink-driving convict Paris Hilton, as she sobbed in the backseat of a Los Angeles County Sheriff's cruiser in West Hollywood.
"I was lucky to get the shot [of Paris] I did," says Ut in the New York Daily News. "I focused on her blonde hair when she got out." Global news values in the 21st century...
