HEADLINES from GB

The Times August 14, 2006

You havin' a laugh? The hunt for British humour
By Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent

"I have a cunning plan" : British humour and comedy is the best in the world

ARE Cockneys really funnier than Scousers, and can the Welsh make jokes as well as being the BUTT of them?

The Open University hopes to find the answer with an experiment to discover just what makes us laugh.

From Monty Python to Ricky Gervais, British comedy has gathered devotees around the world. But scientists have yet to break down the components of a national humour that stretches from madcap surrealism to deadpan observation. Do denizens of the West Country laugh at the same gags as Geordies? Are some groups or individuals universally the butt of a funny joke? Do the stories we tell all lead to the same punchline?

With the aid of a travelling joke booth, academics hope to identify the regional nuances, themes and methods of delivery that make up the funniest jokes in Britain.

Exeter’s funny men and women will be the first to impart their favourite joke or story when the booth arrives there this month. Liverpudlians, who often claim to be Britain’s sharpest wits, will have their opportunity, along with shoppers in Gateshead and at the Bluewater Centre in Kent.

Marie Gillespie, senior lecturer in sociology with the Open University, said: “We all tell funny stories and jokes but not all of us get a laugh. We will be analysing the component parts of what it is that makes a story funny and why some jokes are funny and others not.” She added: “Are there themes or jokes that recur? Is there one Big Joke in Britain today? What does the Big Joke tell us about British identities today?”

Stand-up comics may recoil at the prospect of sociologists analysing something as instinctive as humour, but the research will be fed into a BBC One series presented by Lenny Henry, which will explore the British national identity through its sense of humour.

Ms Gillespie said: “We hope this will show how humour functions as a social barometer. We will decipher the social and political climate, the pulse of the nation, to find out what makes us laugh both individually and collectively.” Amateur gag-tellers are invited to enter the joke booth and tell their favourite funny stories and jokes or simply what has made them laugh most recently.

Henry, born in the West Midlands, will investigate the roots of regional humour and test new material on local audiences for Lenny’s Britain, co-produced by the Open University.

The British Association for the Advancement of Science attempted to identify the funniest joke in the world in 2002. The “New Jersey hunters” gag provoked the most laughs from an international panel. The joke provoked key responses, crucial to a killer gag, of “feeling superior, reducing anxiety and surprise,” according to the psychologist behind the project. Researchers said, however, that the winner was at best “ordinary” because it won by appealing to both sexes, all nationalities and all religions.

“The bus baby” was Britain’s funniest gag, but there were marked differences in national responses. The British and Australians prefer word play, Americans like something that makes them feel superior and most European countries prefer the surreal. Germans belied national stereotypes by enjoying every type of joke.

FUNNIEST JOKES IN THE WORLD

World’s best joke
Two New Jersey hunters are in the woods when one falls to the ground. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other calls the emergency services.

He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Just take it easy. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is silence, then a shot is heard. The hunter’s voice comes back on the line. “OK, now what?”

Best British joke
A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The driver says: “That’s the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen. Ugh!” The woman sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!” The man says: “You tell him off, I’ll hold your monkey.”

Top joke in England
Two weasels are sitting at a bar. One starts to insult the other. He screams: “I slept with your mother!” The bar gets quiet as everyone listens for what the other weasel will say. The first again yells: “I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!” The other says: “Go home dad, you’re drunk.”

Source: British Association for the Advancement of Science LaughLab survey

timesonline.co.uk
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BBC comedy Blackadder was voted the 2nd best British comedy of all time (after Only Fools and Horses). Here are some quotes -

"Have you ever been to Wales, Baldrick?"
"No, but I've often thought I'd like to."
"Well don't, it's a ghastly place. Huge gangs of tough sinewy men roam the valleys terrifying people with their close harmony singing. You need half a pint of phlegm in your throat just to pronounce the
placenames. Never ask for directions in Wales, Baldrick. Youll be washing spit out of your hair for a fortnight."

- Edmund Blackadder and his peasant Baldrick
---------------------------------------

"Baldrick, your brain is like the four headed, man-eating haddock fish beast of Aberdeen"
"In what way? "
"It doesn't exist "

- Edmund & Baldrick
-------------------------------

I can't see the point in the theatre. All that sex and violence. I get enough of that at home. Apart from the sex, of course.
- Baldrick
----------------------------

M: Unhappily Blackadder, the Lord High Executioner is dead.
BA: Oh woe ! Murdered of course.
M: No, oddly enough no. They usually are but this one just got careless one night and signed his name on the wrong dotted line. They came for him while he slept.
- Melchett & Blackadder
------------------------------

[Blackadder is writing a letter to Amy, as dictated by the Prince.]

Prince George: Tally ho, my fine, saucy young trollop. Your luck's in. Trip along here with all your cash and some naughty night attire, and you'll be staring at my bedroom ceiling from now till Christmas, you lucky tart. Yours with the deepest respect etc. Signed George. PS Woof, woof!

Blackadder: Ah, yes your highness...if I may change one small aspect?

Prince George: What?

Blackadder: The words?
----------------------------------

Baldrick: I have a cunning plan to solve the problem.

Blackadder: Yes Baldrick. Let us not forget you tried to solve the problem of your mother's low ceiling by cutting off her head.
------------------------------------

Blackadder: Right Baldrick, let's try again. This is called adding. If I have two beans and then I add two more beans, what do I have?

Baldrick: Some beans.

Blackadder: Yes...and no. Let's try again, shall we? I have two beans, then I add two more beans. What does that make?

Baldrick: A very small casserole.

Blackadder: Baldrick, the ape creature of the Indus have mastered this. Now, try again. One, two, three, four! So how many are there?

Baldrick: Three

Blackadder: What?

Baldrick: (Pointing to one) And that one.

Blackadder: (Picking it up) Three and that one. So if I add that one to the three what will I have?

Baldrick: Ah! Some beans.

Blackadder: Yes. To you Baldrick, the Rennaissance was just something that happened to other people, wasn't it?

I'm not annoyed at the content at all. As I pointed out I read the Daily Telegraph all the time, which is how I recognise the stories. The fact that he doesn't respond and doesn't even know this thread has been created makes him a spamming troll. To me that is no different than posting links or advertising Ipods and cell phones.

Yes I do open them up which still takes time and glance through them to see what's going on. That can be 5 pages in less than a few hours. No I stopped reading the game threads, but there are so many others that are moved and deleted that you will never see.

14 August 2006

KAY GAG IS TV'S BEST EVER ONE-LINER

By Nicola Methven, Tv Editor

Bolton funnyman Peter Kay

PETER Kay's "Garlic bread.. it's the future, I've tasted it" has been voted best one-liner in TV comedy history.

The phrase, uttered by wheelchair-bound nightclub owner Brian Potter in Channel 4's Phoenix Nights, beat other memorable favourites from the likes of Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder and Fawlty Towers.

Second place goes to Caroline Aherne's acid-tongued Mrs Merton, who asks Debbie McGee: "So, what first attracted you to millionaire Paul Daniels?"

Also included in the top 10 poll, commissioned by UKTV Gold, is the classic line by Father Ted: "I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do. Whereas priests... more drink?"

UKTV Gold's channel head James Newton said: "The one-liners on this list come from a real mix of characters and are memorable for being sharp and utterly hilarious. It shows lines from recent comedies are as fondly remembered as those from years ago."

The poll of 4,000 people was commissioned to celebrate the channel's Britcom Season.

1 Phoenix Nights

"Garlic bread.. it's the future, I've tasted it"

---------------------------------------
2 The Mrs Merton Show

Mrs Merton to Debbie McGee, who's married to a magician: "So, what first attracted you to millionaire Paul Daniels?"

------------------------------
3 The Office

David Brent: "If you were to ask me to name three geniuses, I probably wouldn't say Einstein, Newton... I'd go Milligan, Cleese, Everett, Sessions..."

-------------------------------
4 Father Ted

Father Ted: "I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do. Whereas priests... more drink?"

----------------------------------
5 Blackadder

Edmund Blackadder: "He's mad! He's mad. He's madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of this year's Mr Madman competition."

--------------------------------------
6 Only Fools And Horses

Trigger (who's a bit dumb) speculates on the name of Del Boy's new baby: "If it's a girl they're gonna name it Sigourney after an actress, and if it's a boy they're gonna name him Rodney after Dave."

---------------------------------
7 Absolutely Fabulous

Patsy: "One more facelift on this one and she'll have a beard."

-----------------------------------
8 Fawlty Towers

Basil Fawlty: (two guests are speaking to Basil in German) "Oh, German. I'm sorry, I thought there was something wrong with you."

----------------------------------------
9 I'm Alan Partridge

Alan Partridge: "I'm going nowhere, Lynn. Quite literally, I'm on the ring road."

--------------------------------------------
10 Vicar Of Dibley

Geraldine Granger arrives in Dibley as the new priest: "You were expecting a bloke with a beard, a Bible and bad breath. You've got a babe with a bob cut and a magnificent bosom."

[email protected]
mirror.co.uk

Chirac's baguette diplomacy

By Jackson Murphy
web posted August 14, 2006

Paris, France - - Britain's real James Bonds at MI5 foiled the biggest terrorist threat since 9/11 last Thursday, causing a day of airline chaos, tough new air travel restrictions, and took the focus of the world's attention away from the Middle East. And yet on Friday in Paris, two of the airport security unions were still going on strike to protest their wages. Only in France could the airport security unions still want to strike after something like this.

That's the kind of thing that sums up a week in French politics. After nearly two weeks, President Jacques Chirac was still looking for his ceasefire and peace agreement. To add further insult to his plans to be the elegant statesman, other news kept preempting him.

French media coverage

Last week it was the photos of 53-year-old Socialist presidential hopeful Segolene Royal in a turquoise bikini. Those photos along with others of Mr. Sarkozy on the beach in what The International Herald Tribune called, "tight-fitting Nike shorts" sparked a national debate on gossip journalism. When the French media start reporting on the private lives of politicians like this, it's a whole new ballgame.

Chirac must be the unluckiest politician this side of Connecticut. And I think we can all agree that nobody wanted to see Sen. Joe Lieberman in tight shorts earlier this month. But this was serious news in France.

On top of that, the peace process is not going quite as smoothly as the fine triple cream Brie he thought it would. In fact the Chirac peace process has more in common with the operationally challenged Piscine Josephine Baker – a new floating $23 million pool debacle on the Seine river, which seems to have trouble keeping its doors open. Likewise, every time this peace plan gets close to working, it falls apart.

At the beginning of the week the U.S.-French draft resolution was met with a tepid response from the Arab world. The two co-sponsors agreed to make some changes in the resolution to satisfy all parties, but by Wednesday Chirac suggested that one way or another, he would get his resolution in front of the U.N. Security Council.

"If we reach an agreement, then so much the better, If we don't, it is obvious that we will have a debate at the Security Council and each of us will clearly set out our positions, including France with its own resolution," said Chirac while still vacationing in Toulon.

On Thursday, Mr. Chirac's Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was predicting a Lebanon resolution at any moment. But on Friday morning, Chirac was still looking for his diplomatic prize. The night before he talked to British Prime Minister Tony Blair who probably had bigger things on his mind even while he was on vacation in Barbados. At any rate Blair ended up sending his Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, who was also holidaying – in France naturally - to New York.

It's clear that Chirac's newfound interest in Middle Eastern affairs is more about Chirac. "The public diplomacy of course has had a political pay-off for the needy Chirac," writes Denis Boyles in the National Review Online. "The French gambit was all done in negotiations that were carefully posed for the convenience of the French media. The papers showed Chirac looking presidential, in that slightly tipsy way of his."

Boyles goes on to speculate that Chirac has no intention of actually putting French troops on the ground at all, "at least not before the hotels are reopened and the beaches are safe for baguettes."

And as the hours ticked by slowly on Friday, Washington's Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, told media that they were again, "very, very close to agreement and our aspiration to have a vote at the end of the afternoon remains." Which means in diplomatic parlance, either a sign that they finally are ready to sign the deal, or that another week of political posturing can continue.

The question of whether of not Jacques Chirac might have to actually do something this weekend, or heaven forbid send troops there remains. Naturally this piece of paper is not the Rosetta Stone for solving the problems between Hezbollah and Israel that Chirac makes it out to be.

By the end of summer, Chirac may wish he had opted for the tight shorts or the bikini. It would have been a lot easier to get press without any of the responsibilities that his ceasefire entails. And with the deal in sight on Friday night, again, Israel was expanding its ground offense anyway, just in case it didn't work.

Colin Powell made famous the concept of "The Pottery Barn rule" – essentially you break it, you own it. Chiracian diplomacy is a more inline with "The Baguette Rule" and designed to please the French media's palate rather than make long-term peace.

www.enterstageright.com . . .

Cakes and jokes at Cafe d'Europe

By Stephen Mulvey

BBC News website EU reporter

The European Union has come up with a new way of selling itself to voters - cake.

The EU's Austrian presidency took over a cafe in each capital to illustrate the continent's culinary richness.

The poster with all 27 cakes, sweets and pastries, representing each EU State (Romania and Bulgaria join the Union on 1st January). Britain is shortbread and the Republic of Ireland is scones.

The slogan: "Sweet Europe, let yourself be seduced..."

Europe has been searching for years for something to inspire a new generation of citizens - a generation unimpressed by 60 years of peace and the ending of the continent's Cold War divisions.

The Austrians began their presidency in January with a gathering in Salzburg exploring whether European culture could be harnessed to unite and enthuse younger Europeans and switch them on to the EU.

Dazzling variety

It coincided with the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth - there were concerts in the cobbled squares, and Salzburg's famous Mozartkugel sweets were handed out free to conference delegates.

All the cake recipes

The new Cafe d'Europe initiative substituted writers for music, debates for concerts and cake for chocolate.

The acceding countries, Bulgaria and Romania, were included, so the full menu ran to 27 cakes and pastries.

As Austria's Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik put it: "The best way to awaken affections for Europe is to discover the emotional and cultural diversity for yourself."

Some of the contributions were predictable, from France madeleines, from Cyprus baklava, from Denmark Danish pastry.

Lithuania's bakers were conjuring up something resembling a hedgehog, called Sakotis, while Malta's were crafting a deep-fried date sandwich made from a dough containing red wine, Imqaret.

No jokes?

At the London event, in Waterstone's bookshop cafe, one speaker lamented the fact that the fall of communism and the pressures of globalisation had driven some Polish national pastries - Krakowskie kremowki (millefeuilles) and W-Zetki (a cousin of tiramisu) - to the edge of extinction.

Timothy Garton Ash had one answer to Gabriele Matzner-Holzer's appeal.

"Tiramisu is now easier to get in Warsaw than W-Zetki," she said. "I wonder why there is no process of sharing the rich diversity on the table with the rest of Europe?"

But the debate did not dwell long on either cooking or culture, and turned at one point - quite surprisingly, for a discussion intended to be about the future of Europe - to jokes.

Austria's ambassador to the UK, Gabriele Matzner-Holzer, asked why there were no jokes about the European Union, and appealed to anyone who knew one to let her know.

Dictatorship

Historian Timothy Garton Ash complied, with the one-liner "If the EU applied to join the EU it would not be admitted" - on the grounds that it does not meet its own standards for democracy.

He said political jokes were more characteristic of dictatorships, so their absence was a good sign - except that being as "boring" as the EU was also a problem.

One EU official later remembered another joke, not so much about the European Union itself, as European stereotypes:

In Heaven: the cooks are French,
the policemen are English,
the mechanics are German,
the lovers are Italian,
and the bankers are Swiss.

In Hell: the cooks are English,
the policemen are German,
the mechanics are French,
the lovers are Swiss
and the bankers are Italian.

Publishable jokes about the European Union, sent in to the BBC website -

Two wealthy businessmans, one from West Europe, the other from East Europe are discussing about how they made their fortunes based on EU funds. The Western takes him to Germany and says: "See this highway? It was funded by EU with 10 milion euros, but the real costs were only 5 milion euros! I let you figure the details." The Eastern takes him to Romania and says: "See this highway?" "I see no highway!" replies the West-European. "It was funded by EU with 5 milion!" the Eastern replies. "I let you figure the details."
Sergiu, Romania

A joint anglo-french-romanian military exercise is taking place. The English commander throws his high-tech watch in a pool full of sharks and orders a soldier to go get it. This one goes and is eaten by sharks. The French commander throws his swiss "montre" and orders Jean-Pierre to go get it, but this one too is killed by the sharks. The Romanian commander, looks with rememberance at his old watch, checks his pocket and finds a small penny, throws it in the pool and asks Ion to go get it. Ion dives, fights with the sharks and brings back the coin, but his commander is displeased: Go get me the watches boy!
Sergiu, Romania

You tell a Brit a joke, he laughs twice, once when you him the joke and then when you explain it to him. You tell the same joke to an Italian, he laughs once; he doesn't get it first but he laughs hard once it's explained to him. The typical very polite German only laughs once, when you tell the joke, but then you can explain it to him 10 times, he still doesn't get it.
Red, Minneapolis, USA

To be truly European is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and listen to an Italian opera on a Dutch CD player!
Andy Boughey, Houston, Texas (ex UK)

A visitor taking a tour of EU headquarters noticed a line painted down the middle of the corridor. "What's that for?" He asked the guide. "Oh, that's to keep the staff coming in late from colliding with the ones who are leaving early."
Mary Sadler, Washington, DC USA

A prize was to be awarded for the first person to discover a horse with black and white stripes like a zebra. A German, a Frenchman, an Englishman and a Spaniard participated hoping to win the prize of 1,000,000 euros. The German decided to spend weeks in the National library researching into horses with black and white stripes. The Englishman went straight to a shop in Piccadilly which specialises in hunting gear, bought all the equipment necessary and set off for Africa in his quest for this strange creature. The Frenchman bought himself a horse and painted it black and white . The Spaniard went to the best restaurant he knew in Madrid, ordered an expensive meal for himself with a fine bottle of wine; after the meal he ordered an expensive Havana cigar and a Napoleon brandy, sat in a luxurious arm-chair in the hotel and began to consider what he would do with the 1,000,000 euros once he had found this remarkable horse with black and whte stripes.
Robert Fromow, Beaconsfield UK

An Italian, an Englishman and a Frenchman are travelling around in a plane. Suddenly the Englishman stands up, sticks his arm out of the porthole and declares, "We're flying over London!". The other two, dazzled, ask him, "But how can you tell?." "I can see the Big Ben!" is the Englishman's reply. After a while, the Frenchman suddenly stands up, sticks his hand arm out of the window and says, "We're flying over Paris!". The others, amazed, ask him, "How possibly can you know?" "Look, there is the Eiffel Tower!" claims he. Finally the Italian stands up, sticks his hand up and declares, "We're flying over Naples!". The other two, amazed reply, "But how can you tell?" and the Italian, retrieving his arm, "Look, they just stole my watch!"
Luca Gilotti, Oxford University, UK

You are what you eat.
Jeremy Mason, Atlanta, USA

Perhaps the EU should form a Jokes Commission that could develop a list of approved, standardized jokes, for use within the EU?
Reuben Barton, Sacramento, California, USA

Look on the bright side: If all those Eurocrats weren't riding the gravy train in Brussels and Strasbourg, just think of the havoc they'd be wreaking in their own countries..!
Jamie, Wendover, UK

Three men were sitting together bragging about how they had given their wives duties. Terry had married a woman from France and bragged that he had told his wife she was going to do all the dishes and house cleaning. He said it took a couple of days but on the third day he came home to a clean house and the dishes were all washed and put away. Jimmy married a woman from England. He ragged that he had given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and cooking. He told them that the first day he did not see any results, but the next day was better. By the third day, his house was clean, the dishes were done, and he had a huge dinner on the table. The third man married an Irish girl. He boasted that he told her that her duties were to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed and hot meals on the table for every meal. He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything, but by the third, the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye.
Dave, USA

More an Anglo/French joke: An Englishman, Irishman and Frenchman find an old lamp and free the genie. So the genie grants each of them a wish. The Irishman says that his country is beautiful, green and lush. His wish is that it will always be so. The Frenchman says his country is suffering from foreign influence and wishes for a wall to keep everthing and everyone out. The Englishman considers this and asks the genie: 'tell me more about this wall'. It's a high wall replies the genie. It surrounds France, nothing can get in or out. Then, says the Englishman, 'fill it with water'.
Stan Thomas, Wrexham, Wales, UK

news.bbc.co.uk

The Times August 15, 2006

Muslims face extra checks in new travel crackdown
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

People who behave suspiciously or have a certain ethinic or religious background - usually it'll be Muslims - will be profiled at airports.

THE Government is discussing with airport operators plans to introduce a screening system that allows security staff to focus on those passengers who pose the greatest risk.

The passenger-profiling technique involves selecting people who are behaving suspiciously, have an unusual travel pattern or, most controversially, have a certain ethnic or religious background.

The system would be much more sophisticated than simply picking out young men of Asian appearance. But it would cause outrage in the Muslim community because its members would be far more likely to be selected for extra checks.

Officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) have discussed the practicalities of introducing such a system with airport operators, including BAA. They believe that it would be more effective at identifying potential terrorists than the existing random searches.

They also say that it would greatly reduce queues at secur-ity gates, which caused lengthy delays at London airports yesterday for the fifth day running. Heathrow and Gatwick were worst affected, cancelling 69 and 27 flights respectively. BAA gave warning yesterday that the disruption would continue for the rest of the week.

Passengers are now allowed to take one small piece of hand luggage on board but security staff are still having to search 50 per cent of travellers. Airports have also been ordered to search twice as many hand luggage items as a week ago.

BAA was criticised yesterday for failing to commit itself to recruiting more security staff and for claiming that its existing 6,000 staff at seven airports would be able to handle the extra searches. Tony Douglas, the chief executive of Heathrow, said that X-ray screening of hand luggage would be much faster under the new rules on size and contents, leaving staff free to carry out more searches.

The new measures, which include a ban on taking any liquids through checkpoints, are expected to remain in place for months. A DfT source said it was difficult to see how the restrictions could be relaxed if terrorists now had the capabil-ity to make liquid bombs.

The DfT has been considering passenger profiling for a year but, until last week, the disadvantages were thought to outweigh the advantages. A senior aviation industry source said: “The DfT is ultra-sensitive about this and won’t say anything publicly because of political concerns about being accused of racial stereotyping.”

Three days before last week’s arrests, the highest-ranking Muslim police officer in Britain gave warning that profiling techniques based on physical appearance were already causing anger and mistrust among young Muslims. Tarique Ghaffur, an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said: “We must think long and hard about the causal factors of anger and resentment.

“There is a very real danger that the counter-terrorism label is also being used by other law-enforcement agencies to the effect that there is a real risk of criminalising minority communities.”

Sir Rod Eddington, former chief executive of British Airways, criticised the random nature of security searches. He said that it was irrational to subject a 75-year-old grandmother to the same checks as a 25-year-old man who had just paid for his ticket with cash.

Philip Baum, an aviation security consultant, said that profiling should focus on ruling out people who obviously posed no risk rather than picking out Asian or Arabs.

A DfT spokesman refused to make any comment or answer any questions on profiling.

AIRPORT UPDATE

British Airways plans to cancel forty short-haul and four long-haul flights from Heathrow today as well as eleven domestic flights from Gatwick. Other airlines expect to operate near-normal schedules.

All airports will allow passengers to carry one small piece of hand luggage, but no liquids are allowed through the security search point other than prescribed medicines and baby food.

thetimesonline.co.uk

Australian-born British artist Ron Mueck makes creepy-looking and realistic human figures.
------------------------------------------------

Ron Mueck: bigger than Monet?
(Filed: 15/08/2006)

The startlingly realistic figures in Ron Mueck's first Scottish exhibition are drawing huge crowds. Serena Davies sizes up an acute observer of modern life

In 2001, the art dealer Anthony d'Offay suddenly closed his hugely successful London gallery. At one swoop he dissolved the most magnificent stable of contemporary artists in Britain - Gilbert and George, Anselm Keifer, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter, to name just a few giants of the art scene. And, from all these, there was a single artist d'Offay chose to continue to represent: Ron Mueck.

Leaving aside d'Offay's artistic acumen, the man is a brilliant businessman. The Royal Scottish Academy building now teems with crowds on the occasion of Scotland's first Ron Mueck exhibition. The show is a great hit. It looks likely to equal the record set by the most popular exhibition in the history of the National Galleries of Scotland, their 2003 Monet exhibition. It has already proved a triumphant vindication of the edgier regime promised by the National Galleries' new director-general, John Leighton. People who don't normally visit modern art are flocking to the Ron Mueck.

Larger than life: Mueck's massive baby

This show is an enlarged version of the one I saw at the Fondation Cartier in Paris last December (where it broke the visitor record). The staggering glass verticals of Jean Nouvel's beautiful Paris building offered a more exciting context than the pleasing but conventional white walls of the Royal Scottish Academy. Because of its transparent sides, the Fondation was able to show Mueck's extraordinary creations against the backdrop of everyday life on a Paris street. The result was that the rest of mankind, made giant or Lilliputian in contrast to Mueck's peculiarly sized people, started looking as strange as his sculptures.

The Australian-born, London-based Mueck makes models of human beings. Some are enormous - twice, three times, 10 times lifesize. He wowed the Venice Biennale in 2001 with Boy, a crouching figure so massive its back nearly brushed the ceiling of the Arsenale. Some are tiny: half lifesize, or even smaller. He made his name with a half-lifesize sculpture of his father called Dead Dad, part of the Saatchi show Sensation! at the Royal Academy in 1998.

All are never less than alarmingly real. Mueck, with skills honed from years spent model-making for TV special-effects laboratories, uses fibreglass and silicone to achieve remarkable verisimilitude.

The 10 sculptures at Edinburgh were all made in the past five years. A few are familiar, including the querulous old man sitting dwarfed in a real rowing boat, first shown at the (London) National Gallery in 2003 when Mueck was associate artist there. For most, however, it is their British debut. There is a fraught Wild Man, three metres high when seated, digging his toes into the ground. There are two witchy mini-grandmothers, deep in suspicious gossip. There's an outsize new-born baby, reclining across an entire room, one sly eye spying on the world.

Spooning Couple: 'the best piece in the exhibition'

Their power is in their existence on the edge of plausibility. So life-like you wait to see them move, their anomalous size becomes something to marvel at. It is as if you have entered a fairy-tale world and encountered sprites and ogres.

They are also, and the new pieces more so, infused with the anguish of modern existence. The captions claim that Mueck's work is about timeless human conditions - birth, adolescence, old age - but the introversion of his models, and the look of existential paranoia on their faces, would seem a specifically Freudian malaise. This is why they resonate so powerfully in the modern context.

Yet something is striking in this, the largest grouping of Muecks yet: the small ones work better than the big ones. Mueck has been accused of grotesquery and vulgarity, and the larger sculptures are most open to this charge. The curious thing about his realism is that he actually works in caricature: his people have features just a bit too big for their faces. They tend to be overshot: upper lips jutting, infant like, over lower. In the bigger sculptures, this element is exaggerated further, and the result can be alienating

There is a huge woman lying in bed in this show, staring out in melancholic reverie, who feels clumsy and "other". Whereas the half-lifesize Spooning Couple, the best piece in the exhibition, is a deeply touching depiction of loneliness-in-intimacy, with a subtlety and delicacy the larger work cannot hope to achieve.

The big question that lingers about Mueck is where next? This show is an unnerving, unforgettable experience; those silicon eyes feel like weird windows into real men's souls. But Anthony d'Offay's protégé now has to demonstrate he can do more than make worried human beings in funny proportions. He needs a new trick up his sleeve: new subject matter, new materials even, to convince posterity he is more than a one-hit wonder, and truly deserving of the same global status of those with whom he once shared a gallery.

In the studio with Ron Mueck -

Ron Mueck begins to sew hair on Wild Man, 2005
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London

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Portraits in clay for Two Women, 2005
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London
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Mueck makes the final adjustments to Two women
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London
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The prototype clay model of, A Girl , 2006
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London
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Making the work
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London
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The full-size head of the baby
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London
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The finished work
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London
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Mueck working on the clay model for In Bed, 2005
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London
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Casting from the mould
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London
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Each hair is sewn by hand
Picture: Gautier Deblonde, courtesy Anthony d'Offay, London
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Why we must pray this man is telling us the truth
by STEPHEN GLOVER

16th August 2006

Ambitious: could Home Secretary John Reid have exaggerated the seriousness of the airport plot?

3 reasons not to trust Home Secretary John Reid

1) He's a Scotsman
2) He's a member of the New Labour Party
3) He's an ex-Communist

Only a fool would deny that this country is threatened by extreme Islamic terrorists. We can argue about the degree to which Britain's role in the invasion of Iraq has exacerbated this threat, but that it exists is surely beyond dispute.

The bombings in London on July 7 last year, and the failed attempt to repeat the carnage two weeks later, provide all the proof we need that a tiny minority of largely home-grown Muslim extremists, sometimes encouraged by wild imams operating in this country, represent a considerable danger to our well-being.

Why, then, can I not suppress misgivings about the latest foiled plot, uncovered by British police last Thursday, which supposedly would have led to the destruction of up to ten aircraft, and the loss of thousands of lives? I am afraid it has a lot to do with the character and demeanour of the Home Secretary, John Reid, who has seized control of the presentation of the Government's case.

Try as I might, I find it impossible to believe everything Dr Reid says. In one sense this is not really his fault. We have been told so many lies by this Government since the 'war on terror' was declared by President George W. Bush nearly five years ago, that it is not unreasonable to treat every new announcement with a pinch of salt.

Bogus

We were misled over Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction', which the Government had good reason to believe did not exist. Then came the bogus scare story involving the deadly poison ricin, and the dispatch of tanks to Heathrow, both of which seemed designed to increase our sense of alarm, and thereby to offer justification for the war against Iraq. More recently, there was the raid in East London, in which two Muslim brothers were wrongly identified as terrorists by the police.

So Dr Reid comes with a great deal of history that has little or nothing to do with him personally — though we shouldn't forget he has been a minister in a Government that has earned its reputation for mendacity. One is entitled to be sceptical even before he opens his mouth. My difficulty is that once he has opened it, my scepticism, far from dwindling, begins to increase for reasons that have everything to do with Dr Reid.

There is something about Dr Reid's very appearance that induces distrust. He partly looks the Communist bruiser he once was. Age has mellowed him a little, so that now he also resembles a Soviet apparatchik presenting the latest Politburo statistics about soaring tractor production, the veracity of which no one has the remotest possibility of confirming.

More important than his rather sinister appearance are his words and actions. Last Thursday, with his almost equally bizarre (and also Scottish) sidekick, Douglas Alexander, sitting next to him, he announced that a plot to cause 'unprecedented' loss of life had been foiled, and 24 people arrested. He did not tell us how close these suspects were to committing their atrocity.

Dr Reid's statement that all the ringleaders had been arrested may have jeopardised the suspects' right to a fair trial. That is, if they come to trial. Continuing police activity may suggest that the police do not have all the evidence they need to bring a case against all the suspects. Indeed, one of them has already been released.

Were these men really on the verge of committing a greater act of terror than the attack on the World Trade Centre, as Dr Reid has said? Only time will tell. Even now there are grounds for wondering whether was really necessary to paralyse the world's aeronautical system, causing distress to tens of thousands of people.

The effect of the chaos, and of the tough new rules affecting air travellers, has inevitably been to increase public alarm.

It may turn out that the Government had no option save to take the drastic action did, but I cannot entirely rid my mind of previous scare stories, such as the bogus ricin plot, which were intended to plunge us into a state of fear.

Plotting

Amid these concerns, which cannot yet be answered one way or the other, there is evidence that Dr Reid has tried use the crisis to further his own political ambitions to succeed Tony Blair. He seized control of the situation by chairing vital security meetings, and effectively supplanting John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, who is supposed to be in charge during Mr Blair's absence on holiday.

Then it emerged that the Home Secretary had originally planned to deliver a speech last Wednesday about immigration. In the event, his spine-chilling address, warning that Muslim fanatics posed the biggest threat to Britain since Hitler, came after he had been alerted by the police and MI5 that a major terrorist attack was imminent. Twelve hours later, his words appeared eerily accurate after police arrested suspects accused of plotting to bring down aircraft bound for America.

This suggests to me that, even if he did not exaggerate the severity of the foiled plot, Dr Reid planned to use the crisis to advance his political career, first by representing himself as a kind of prophet with an instant success rate, and then by shoving aside Mr Prescott, who is reportedly incandescent. Apart from everything else, this is no way to run a country. One also wonders why Mr Blair's assumed heir apparent Gordon Brown (another Scotsman), who is on paternity leave, did not think it right to return to London to restore order.

Perhaps he has taken the view that, far from improving his chances of becoming the next Prime Minister, Dr Reid has, in fact, dramatically reduced them. For the spectacle of this sinister old Marxist seizing control is enough to make most of us feel like taking to the hills. It should also persuade Labour MPs that this rather scary figure is unlikely ever to work his way into the affections of traditionally right-wing Middle England (although will be popular in more left-wing Scotland).

Nor should they, or any of us, ever forget that this same man who has been masterminding the British end of the 'war on terror', and winning plaudits from President Bush, was once investigated by the then Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Elizabeth Filkin, who accused him of 'making threats of a particularly disturbing kind' to a potential witness.

Apocalyptic

In a sense, we must hope that Dr Reid has not exaggerated the seriousness of last week's plot, and that the inconvenience suffered by travellers was entirely justified. I say 'in a sense' because most of us will sleep more happily in our beds if it transpires that the plot was less advanced, and less potentially apocalyptic in its effects, than Dr Reid has suggested.

But in that case this Government's already shaky credibility would be shattered. This might give comfort to its political opponents, but the effect on public opinion of 'crying wolf' yet again would be disastrous. Many people would wrongly draw the conclusion that there really is no terrorist threat to worry about. This would be a very dangerous misconception.

For this reason, we must again hope that this nakedly ambitious ex-Marxist bruiser has been telling us nothing more or less than the complete truth.

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