Visual arts

Ever wondered what goes on in those green sheds you see around London?

You know, those mysterious huts that allow entry only to cab drivers? I used to fancy they were cover for a network of underground bunkers where cackling taxi drivers plotted world domination and new ways to fuck up traffic at the Nag’s Head. One day, I vowed, the truth would be outed. This was how I ended up attending a mass sing-along at the cabbies’ hut in Russell Square. It was part of something called the ‘Cabbies’ Shelter Project’, organised by some very nice people who’d obviously been wondering the same thing. No subterranean tunnels were in evidence. Just a kitchenette, the all-pervasive stench of bacon fat and a cabbie called Mark Bird

How independence will impoverish Scottish culture

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, Tom Holland and Leah McLaren discuss how we can still save the Union” startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer]An explosion of confetti will greet the announcement of Scottish independence. This isn’t another one of Alex Salmond’s fanciful promises, but an installation by a visual artist named Ellie Harrison. She wants Scotland to become a socialist republic. She has placed four confetti cannons in Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Gallery. They will only be fired in the event of a Yes vote. Most artists in Scotland favour independence. Harrison’s installation is typical of the pretentious agitprop they produce. This isn’t a uniquely Scottish problem. ‘Nationalist’ art is by definition functional: it promotes