news & curiosities

A US tank secures a hill again “insurgents”in a training exercise in the district ofHohenfels, southeast Germany. A training area of160 sq km is set up in the area complete with mosques and extras dressed as Iraqi civilians. The lizard, says photographer Toby Binder, is a native ofthe region

©PRUDENCECUMINGASSOCIATESLTD

Damien’s skull:another Blue Arrow?

Generally, writes Ben Lewis, it isn’t possible to make close comparisons between the art market and financial markets. Recently, though, one striking case has emerged: Damien Hirst’s sale of his diamond skull for the asking price of £50m. The skull was sold to a “consortium of investors”( not collectors, in other words) who plan to tour the skull around the world to increase its value. This consortium, it later emerged, included Damien Hirst. So it may be an exaggeration to say that Hirst sold the skull to himself—but not too much of one. Would this kind of thing be possible in the financial markets? Well,

remember the Blue Arrow scandal. At the peak of the market in the 1980s, Natwest orchestrated an £837m share issue in recruitment company Blue Arrow. By the time the shares were to be issued, too few had been sold, so Natwest brokers covertly bought some on their own books. The ruse was uncovered and 14 individuals were prosecuted—ultimately unsuccessfully. As the Hirst skull case suggests, prices in the art market are regularly inflated by market manipulations that could be illegal in the financial or commodities sectors. Does the art market need more stringent regulation?

Warring Hamlets

Who will be the greater Dane? The recent news that Jude Law will play Hamlet as part of the Donmar Warehouse’s forthcoming west end season will have ruffled feathers at the RSC, which has just announced its own production of Shakespeare’s tragedy starring David Tennant in the lead and Patrick Stewart as Claudius. However, both companies can breathe one sigh of relief. A third production was scheduled to precede both of them at the Old Vic, and would have seen Sam Mendes returning to the London stage with Stephen Dillane as the young prince. However, Dillane has withdrawn for personal reasons and the show has been cancelled.

Demos’s French connection

Despite the globalised world we live in, we still know remarkably little about the way they do things even in very similar countries. For example, when Sarkozy swept into office with reform ofthe public sector as one ofhis objectives, it transpired that no one in Paris knew anything about the helter-skelter ofreform that has been going on this side of the channel over the past decade. But a chance encounter between Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, and Catherine Fieschi, head of centre-left think tank Demos (and Prospect writer), has put that right. Fieschi (below), of French-Italian background, has been commissioned to provide the budget ministry with insight into the relevance ofthe British experience for France. Fieschi says: “It’s a sign ofthe times that a centre-right French government is ready to look for advice from a centreleft British think tank.” Fieschi’s coup comes at a time when British think tanks are under fire for being too close to government or corporate interests, and for not coming up with enough bright ideas. But Gordon Brown’s embrace of “citizen’s juries”—a think tank favourite from the early 1990s—shows that some ideas just need time to mature. (Meanwhile, Prospect ’s Think Tank of the Year Awards are on 10th October at King’s College.)

8 Prospect OCTOBER2007