Bling Bling

Yesterday I decided to visit Damien Hirst's exhibition at the White Cube Gallery. Mr Hirst is a brilliant publicist of his work, but then to be fair so were Picasso and Dali. The highlight of the exhibition for me was not For Love of God, the diamond covered skull, but a dove suspended in one of his tanks - quite brilliant. The visit to the skull (cost £4m, price £50m), is achieved by acquiring free tickets from two delightful ladies and then standing in a queue to be met by four burly security guards. After not too long a wait, you are escorted upstairs by more guards and taken into a darkened room where the skull is in a case of its own for you to admire. You are allowed at least 3 minutes to study it before you are turfed out. I thought it was spectacular, although there is an Eric Gill called St Andrew Casting His Net at Christies at £60,000, in other words, roughly a thousandth of the price, which I confess I would prefer to own.