So Munoz

Went to the Juan Munoz retrospective at Tate Modern yesterday. I am embarassed to say that I had never heard of this bloke, but mrs househusbandnot read a review and fancied it. It was: playful, arch, clever, amusing, and craftsmanlike. But check out what the little booklet you got at the show said we should be looking out for:

• "He was fascinated by the tension between the illusory and the real, using tricks of scale and perspective to choreograph the viewer's experience"
• "In Spain, the balcony is a vantage point to look down on the street"
• "The patterned surface simultaneously invites the viewer into the space and elongates the distance between the spectator and the small bronze figure sitting demurely on a shelf"

And

• "Our movements and our relationship to the object are guided, not to direct our interpretation of the work, but to ensure that we appreciate the illusions without being distracted by the mechanism of the trick"

What absolute cock. Simon Bolitho and Kerryn Greenberg - who wrote this bollox - should be forced to sit in a room and listen to Daniel Day Lewis award acceptance speeches for 24 hours solid, so "they can realise that the viewer is forced into a false sense or irony, before accepting that the motif is not just the motif but the reality as seen through the eyes of the bronze figure sitting demurely in Day Lewis's hand."

mrs hhn and I were forced to hurry home and watch two hours of American Idol to remind ourselves that there is life beyond being a pretentious twat (or twats). During American Idol, mrs hhn admitted a secret crush on Randy Jackson, until she saw him standing next to Simon Cowell, and realised he was smaller than Cowell - which, according to those who have met Simon Cowell which includes mrs hhn, is quite an achievement in man as dwarf stakes.

Great show though. (The Munoz, not American Idol. Although I love American Idol. Did anyone seee the So Paula show about Paula Abdul afterwards? Absolutely shocking. Why would she think that that was ever going to work?)