I was unlucky enough to catch a documentary about Michael Landy this evening on BBC2. He's the 'artist' who destroyed everything he owned over a two week period as an art installation project. You could wander around this old department store and watch all his worldly possessions trundle along on conveyor belts as his 'team' pulled apart every item. We got lots of 'talking heads' speaking about how radical it was as a comment on consumerism and the notion of art as a sellable object. Of course the whole point was that Landis' finished project left nothing of value - all the debris was dumped in a landfill. This in itself was supposed to be a comment on 'our' throwaway modern lifestyle. This whole project cost �150,000. Let me type that again. �150,000. The punchline to all this is that now a year later this idiot has a book out - the inventory of everything he destroyed - turn to page 26 to see a riveting account of "Black Button", "Old Abba CD", "Photo of me smiling like a fucking idiot." I'm sure the book will sell which is another reason why I've quit the job. All of this was shown as part of a showcase of the programmes to be aired on the newly launched BBC4. This is a digital only channel so you have to pay a subscription to pick it up on top of the already dubious license fee. The reasoning behind this is beyond me. Every dumb fucker in the country already pays for 24 hour Murdoch crapola so now they get this arts based programming as well to run along side their 56 sports channels and 556 action movie channels while those of us stuck with terrestrial TV get fucking 'Casualty'. Here's an idea - keep the artsy stuff on BBC2 and put all the populist shit on satellite and cable where it belongs. And don't get me started on bloody Film 4. I need more coffee. Mike is blogging to: Johnny Cash - American III