Airbrushing History

A museum has doctored an image of Winston Churchill to make it more palatable to a contemporary audience. The original image, in which Churchill makes a V for victory sign with his hand while a half-smoked cigar pokes out of the corner of his mouth, has been airbrushed to remove the cigar entirely. The doctored image hangs over the main entrance to The Winston Churchill’s Britain at War Experience in London.

The museum claims “not to have noticed the cigar was missing”. Manager John Welsh declined to reveal who was responsible for creating the artwork for the display. “We’ve got all sorts of images in the museum, some with cigars and some without. We’ve even got wartime adverts for cigarettes, so we wouldn’t have asked for there to be no cigar.”

The Chap is thoroughly opposed to the rewriting of history and the sanitisation of truths regarded as unpalatable regarding heroes of the past. Some may be uncomfortable with the fact that Churchill was a heavy smoker and drinker, but those who were alive when he saved Britain from the Boche probably didn’t mind too much. The worst part of this story is that visitors to the museum probably didn’t care one way or the other; it was simply some goody-two-shoes jobsworth that took the moral decision for them, and decided that Churchill without his cigar was much more in keeping with the times. So prepare for further museums to be adorned with images of Hitler without his moustache, Che Guevara sin Cohiba, and Harold Wilson idly twiddling his thumbs instead of smoking his pipe.

Voltaire said that “History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead”. In this case of revisionism the trick is upon the living. Airbrushing out his cigar is a vulgar act of cowardice perpetrated by those who seek to pander to modern political correctness to create a 'corrected' truth of the past.

George Orwell foresaw this fetish for a sanitized historical truth in his seminal work 1984.

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."

Horsley d'oeuvre

Artist Sebastian Horsley, whose work included undergoing a crucifixion, has been found dead at the age of 47.

Horsley, who also wrote a memoir about his heavy use of drugs and prostitutes, was discovered by his girlfriend at his home in Soho, central London.

A play based on his writings, Dandy In The Underworld, opened at the Soho Theatre just days ago.

The play's director, Tim Fountain, said he was "devastated" and that Horsley was "hard wired for extremes".

"Extreme ways of living bring with them great risks as well as rewards," he added.

Horsley, who was the son of a millionaire, described his upbringing as full of "atheism, alcoholism and insanity".

He modelled himself on writers Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde, and often wore a top hat, velvet coat and red nail varnish.



In 2000, Horsely's attempt to be crucified in the Philippines had to be abandoned after the foot rest of the cross broke and he fell while nailed by his wrists. He was caught before any major physical damage was caused.

The artist, who underwent the procedure in preparation for a series of paintings on the subject, did not take any painkillers.

The artwork and footage of the event were displayed in London in 2002.

Horsley was barred from entering the US in 2008 due to openly admitting drug use, and said: "My one concession to American sensibilities was to remove my nail polish. I thought that would get me through."

Act of God

A giant statue of Jesus outside a church in Ohio in the US has been destroyed by lightning.

The glass fibre and plastic foam sculpture caught fire and burned to the ground in what insurance companies have described as an act of God.

A 62ft (19m) tall statue of Jesus outside a church in the US state of Ohio has burned down after being struck by lightning.

The frame is all that remains of the wood, polystyrene and glass fibre statue, which was hit on Monday night.

It had stood at the non-denominational Solid Rock Church in Monroe since 2004, and had been dubbed the Touchdown Jesus and the Quicksand Jesus.

Firefighters said no-one was injured in the blaze, near a major highway.

The monument - which had reportedly cost $250,000 (£170,000) - showed just the upper body of Jesus, with arms raised.

The fire spread to a nearby amphitheatre which suffered minor damage, fire chief Mark Neu said.

He who is without sin.

Smash and grab raid fails as burglar hit by own rock

He tried once, he tried again, he tried a third time - but each attempt to break the shop window rebounded on him.

The still unidentified burglar was throwing a rock at a shop in Wellington, New Zealand, which sells skateboards and streetwear.

But the rock just kept bouncing back and knocking him on the head until he, and a watching accomplice, gave up.

"We can see from the CCTV images, one of the offenders is seen throwing a rock at the window which then comes down and hits him on the head, at which point they flee the scene."

Monsterbike

Grumpy = Good

An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.

While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.

The University of New South Wales researcher says a grumpy person can cope with more demanding situations than a happy one because of the way the brain "promotes information processing strategies".

He asked volunteers to watch different films and dwell on positive or negative events in their life, designed to put them in either a good or bad mood.

Next he asked them to take part in a series of tasks, including judging the truth of urban myths and providing eyewitness accounts of events.

Those in a bad mood outperformed those who were jolly - they made fewer mistakes and were better communicators.

Professor Forgas said: "Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world."

The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style".

His earlier work shows the weather has a similar impact on us - wet, dreary days sharpened memory, while bright sunny spells make people forgetful.