A Feverish Collection of Links

Christmas is over, although tinsel and festive songs still linger on like a week long hangover. Santa shaped chocolate is discounted in Lidl, and resolutions are postponed by behemoth super-colds. Rolling around in my sick bed, name brand tissues seem like sheer decadence and any complicated thought about art is pretty much hopeless. The most complex thought processes have been reduced to how much I hate dolphins and pandas,  as well as worrying about why I dreamed about marrying Mark Lemarr. 

If you're musically uncouth and uncool ( like me ), you may be wondering what you missed out on last year . The ever pleasantly rock'n'roll John Alison presents a round up of 2008's top albums. 

What visual art not to miss in 2009? Art highlights of 2009? None of it in Manchester, we need to up our game. This city is great, but we can be a bit too bloody smug and complacent. All I have to say is Urbis.... Gah! 

Heatherwick - of the curse of the B of the Bang - strikes again. Another dangerous piece of sculpture with a corporate sensibility, as capitalism ( hopefully ) finally cannibalises itself, it's interested that the most popular, dangerous and boring iconographic pieces - which could easily be a brand logo -  are beginning to be considered eyesores and dangers to life and limb. ( This may be the fever talking....) 

Despite liking Blake from a visual point of view I hate everyone's attitudes to the deluded nincompoop. Recreating his silly 1809 exhibition is pretty pointless, since everyone's intellectual hard-ons - as well as 100 years of chronological distance -  will prevent any useful deductions being made. It's just another chance for silly artists to look smug and touch each others bums. Trust me, they'll use it as yet another excuse to dement themselves into thinking they are modern manifestations of Blake, then inflict more substandard art on us and then crow about being an misunderstood artist when they are presented with the rejection they deserve. 

Did I mention I don't like artists?

P.S. Jonathan Jones says 'Cheer Up'