‘New is not generally a word to use in politics. It is exhausted before it even begins: it generally means that the user of it has no ideas of any depth, and runs out of steam early on.’ I came across this observation in Norman Stone’s wonderfully unorthodox ‘personal history of the cold war’, The Atlantic and its Enemies, published last month. Not that it is in itself a very ‘new’ insight — more a case of ‘What oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed’ (Alexander Pope). I have certainly oft thought — and so I’m sure has nearly everyone else — that our new politicians’ relentless use of the ‘new’ word at every opportunity is one of the more worrying things about them.
I love visiting the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea. Its well-proportioned rooms alone are a pleasure to walk around in, and the ultra-modern art which Charles Saatchi chooses to display in them is always exciting: exciting because of the heady mix of genuinely innovative works and enjoyably awful ones.
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