At home with the Poffcock’s: Artist opens parent’s house to public

Poffcock and parents at home

Artist Stephen Poffcock has opened his parent’s house to the public, part of an ongoing installation piece he’s creating based on ‘the meaninglessness of the middle classes’. As thousands troop through the Poffcock household, the artist is always present, presiding at times horizontally, at others vertically, in a soiled bathrobe.

Q: Is the bathrobe part of the exhibit?

SP: Yes, it’s an indication of what a man of intelligence and sensitivity will be driven to when forced to rely on people tainted by the stench of their own bourgeois background.

Q: Isn’t this just an excuse not to move out?

SP: Of course not. My parents perfectly represent a generation trapped between embracing technology and only dimly understanding it. They’re future relics. My installation is a future time capsule.

Mrs P: More tea? A macaroon?

P: (In a bitter aside) For her, macaroons are a way of locating herself in her brittle societal bubble…

Q: Like a sort of cakey lifeboat bobbing along on an ocean of tea?

P: Just so. (Turning suddenly to his mother) For God’s sake mum, you know I don’t take sugar!

Mrs P: Sorry dear, only there are so many people…

Q: I’ll take another macaroon.

P: (Leaning close, in a menacing whisper) that’s a piece of her soul you’re devouring, I hope you know that.

Mr. P: (looking strained) Oh, all still here? I’ll er…I’ll just pop some Barry Manilow on the stereo then.

SP: It’s not a stereo Dad. It’s a CD PLAYER. You see what he’s been reduced to? A husk of a human being…

Q: Isn’t this all a bit of an imposition?

SP: That’s the point! They’re incapable of expressing their rage! Whereas you or I would tweet or blog about how angry we are, they have no outlet…
(Barry Manilow’s ‘Can’t smile without you’ begins to play in the background) Inside they’re seething with rage…aren’t you mother?

Mrs. P: (With a vacant smile) Yes, dear.

;

The Poffcock’s will be at home indefinitely. All contributions welcome, see Stephen Poffcock. Tea will be provided if Mr. Poffcock has had time to get to the shops.

Formaldehyde Fake revealed: Herring keeps twin in basement

The trapdoor leading to Herring's basement prison.

Dermot Herring, whose groundbreaking pieces involved placing a chartered accountant in formaldehyde, has today been found to be a fake.
The true author of his work was revealed this week to be none other than his twin Colin Herring, whom Dermot apparently, ‘kept chained in a basement for the past 15 years’, the same period over which Herring’s star first began to rise in the arts world.

Pale and traumatised from the experience, Colin stated to police and assembled press that, “Dermot threatened to put me in a formaldehyde bath if I didn’t work for him like a slave.”

Dermot’s (or rather, Colin’s) work with people who donated their bodies to the Herring Trust, has become legendary, reputedly earning Dermot a fortune.

“Sometimes he would torture me by forcing me to watch him writhing naked on a bed of gold bullion,” said Colin, speaking from a police safe house.

“When I first suggested the idea of placing different things in formaldehyde, he scoffed in my face, but we did it for a laugh. Next thing I knew, I was locked in the basement…it wasn’t all bad, he let me have satellite TV.”

Dermot has issued the following statement through his lawyer, Jacob Twist (of Bend, Twist and Pullem):

“While my client does not deny incarcerating his twin, he emphatically denies using threats to get him to work. As far as the gold bullion is concerned, that was a present from Sheik Ali Yuksak (for placing his 3rd wife in formaldehyde) and it has no bearing on this matter.”

It is feared that the Herring ‘masterpieces’ will now seriously decrease in value.
“Who is this Colin?” spat Sheik Ali Yuksak. “Dermot I trusted, and now I hear that this Colin, this nobody, handled my 3rd wife’s delicate parts?! Dermot partied with me and JZ on my yacht, he’s like brother to me. A brother who took my gold bullion and did unspeakable things with it.”

While the case continues, buyers of Herring art are reportedly trying to offload their pieces as fast as possible. An insider at Sotheby’s told us, “People are finding it difficult to sell these pieces. ‘A minor civic servant,’ once valued at £3 million, sold yesterday for £2.50, and the owner was grateful to get that price. After all, it’s hardly as if the local council will take it away with the recycling.”

Art world brought to it’s knees by painting no one has ever seen

What’s behind door 1?

“In that room is one of the most beautiful works of art you will never see.” Thus spoke recently deceased artist Denzel Breesely, earlier this week. “It’s taken me twenty-five years to complete. My wife left me because I worked in strict seclusion for long periods – she was the love of my life and even she hasn’t seen it.”

His new work, ‘Behind Door number 1,’ sparked a media frenzy because of the closely guarded nature of the installation. At the recent event at the Folderol Gallery in Bank, Breesely failed to reveal the alleged masterpiece, which he has concealed behind an unbreachable locked door.

Wearing a brassy shirt and a loud gold key on a chain, Breesely said,“It rivals the Mona Lisa or any number of fabled pieces in its intricacy of design and flawlessness of its conception.” As art critics and journalists muttered into their hors de oeuvres, the artist took questions regarding the mysterious art work.

Q: Why can’t you let us see it then?

DB: The point of this piece is to test the human endurance for inaccessibility. Your curiosity will imbue the work with all the qualities I’ve just named, merely by imagining it.

Q: A bit like the Emperor’s new clothes?

DB: No, nothing like that. In the story to which you refer, the emperor actually wore no clothes. He was naked and deluded. Behind that door is a work of staggering beauty…

Q: Which no-one is allowed to see?

DB: Precisely. The piece has already been bought sight unseen by Gemini Craterback of the Craterback Cracker industry. And before you ask, not even the new owner of the piece will get the key to the door.

Q: Nothing we can say will convince you to give us a little peek?

DB: (Smiles enigmatically) You’d have to pry the key from my cold, dead hands…

It appeared that the artist’s flippant comment was prescient. Breesely’s death yesterday, involving a freak accident in which he was buried beneath an avalanche of Craterback Crackers (a gift from the new owner), has led to speculation that the mystery will never be resolved. Meanwhile, the projected value of the piece has gone up a thousandfold as critics and pundits speculate as to its content.

“Its already being referred to as one of the iconic pieces of our time,” said Hooch Prize board member, Gullabill Wheat. “None of the other artists have bothered entering this year, so we’ve awarded the prize to Breesely posthumously.”

The artists wake will be held at the Little Church of Generic Omnipotence. All are welcome, snacks will be provided by Craterback industries.

The Oscar Speech Meryl Streep never gave

The celebrity audience has mixed reaction to Noni flashing her breasts

In a bizarre Oscars speech, actress Noni Gibberwelt, despite insisting that she is not bitter, cleared the decks of her former life as a cocktail waitress.
Now an Oscar-winning screenwriter and actress, Noni’s acceptance of her award was unusually caustic.

“There was a time when I might have said, “Hah!” All you bad tippers, you late night booty-callers who never answered the phone when I needed you. I’m talking about you Ray Vaudvilke. No, I’ve been brushed with the loofah of success…

(Kisses statuette)

…and I shake you off like flaky skin calluses. I might have said, “Pah!” to you Robbie Blitzkin. Back in high school, I bet you never thought I’d grow into this bod or have such great hair! And you, Falco Ripwheedler, who told me my poems were average and overtly melancholic, so you couldn’t possibly publish them. Do you see the Oscar I’m holding?! No? Oh, right, you’re in your mouldy old bedsit back in Blighty. And what about you, Prof. Junkweilder? If I was still bitter about getting a C- on all of my papers after I wouldn’t let you fondle my breasts …Yup.

(Flashes breasts)

These puppies – savour it. Oh wait, that’s the closest you’ll ever get. To any woman. And then there’s you, Milton Moovil. Ah, Milton. You’re so lucky that I can now afford the best therapy money can buy. I’ve learnt to look past the years of drudgery when I stifled my own talent in order to work three jobs to support your career as an “interpretive dancer.”

By sleeping with that little slut from RADA you set me free to become the (let’s be honest) MASSIVE success that I am now. If I was bitter. But I’m not. So I dedicate this award to all the wankers from my past. Grist, mill, water under the gold-plated bridge.”

Then, as the audience sat in stunned silence, the actress moon-walked off stage.