What is Rowling worth? Like most things to do with dough there is what you are told and then there’s the truth. Rumour has it that she earns 100 million quid every eight months. Whatever the actual figure you can take it that a lorryload of fivers is delivered to her door every month. That being the case why didn’t she settle with the family of the late Adrian Jacobs, whose work she stole, when she had the chance, before the whole shamozzle got out of hand? It is said Neil Gaiman who supplied the mere physical attributes of the hero and nothing else was paid a figure of 10 million quid. He denies it of course. Hard to prove one way or another but Rowling and her boys seem to be able to prove anything. How wonderful it must be to be able to lay claim to absolute truth on anything and have nearly everybody believe you too. The pope doesn’t get that! Idiots believe them too which is rather depressing we have to say. Jacobs’ case is “unsubstantiated, unfounded and untrue,” they tell you. We are in the land of heroic couplets with this sort of drivel. Rowling’s lawyers, Blair/Schillings, wrote the script. Bloomsbury came out with exact same cant when they were asked for a comment in the WTW London High Court case. Clever boys?

Adrian Jacobs’ family may even get a hearing if the Home Office doesn’t get in on the act and remind the judge that he is in bat for England as well as the law… and her image abroad… and all that. Students of the Widgery trial, that is now proven to be a sham after the recent apology by England for Bloody Sunday, will know what we mean.  What would the neighbours think if the canonized Rowling had feet of clay after all?

If we take leave to examine these words one by one we can see they amount to so much hot air, and we, The Bogside Artists, have heard them before and from the same source.

“UNSUBSTANTIATED”:  Means “unsupported”, “unverified”, “not factually proven.” (Encarta)
The Willy the Wizard people claim otherwise and have set up the actual writ they served on Scholastic Inc, New York for all to read. You can access it here;

http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/07/harry-potter-willy-wizard.html

Seems to be a lot of substantiation there if you ask us!

“UNFOUNDED”:  Means  “Not supported by evidence”, “not established” (Encarta). More of the same don’t you think? Were it established it would be all over wouldn’t it? It seems clear that the Willy the Wizard people are seeking to establish their claims and will hopefully get their chance to do so in a court of law. This is begging the question isn’t it?  Begging the question means assuming  as already proven what you have set out to prove. People do that… lawyers mostly.

“UNTRUE”: A tricky one this. What is truth asked pilot of its Personification? He got no reply. In law you have to prove something to be true on the basis of evidence. Fair enough, even if many things are true for which there is no evidence and can be no evidence. This is also begging the question since if the claims were proven to be true there would be no ‘claims’ as such since the truth would already have been substantiated, proven and true.

What we are doing here is called thinking for oneself incidentally, a preoccupation much frowned upon by Harry Potter fans and fast becoming as obsolete as harpsichord recitals. Our conclusion? Rowling’s lawyers need a new script, one not designed to convince the gullible they have mastery of words and their usages when it is patently clear they do not. All three words amount to the same thing…  simply “unproven”. Proving is exactly what the WTW are trying to do and what Rowling’s wordsmiths are trying to prevent.

We are also totally convinced that the claims of made by the Willy the Wizard team are verifiably true. That means that Rowling and Little are lying in their teeth and this in turn raises the question… why didn’t they settle much earlier on when they had the chance? Then they would have had only us to deal with. And who is going to listen to us whistling in the dark when the very mountains tremble at the sound of Schillings and Blair? The answer to that is quite simple too. They are arrogant and stupid little people who have a blind faith in their ability to con whoever they want, whenever they want, however they want, as they have been doing for years.

We take this opportunity to make it public that our hat is in the arena with Willy the Wizard and its much sinned-against author Adrian Jacobs because we KNOW beyond any shadow of a doubt these men are telling the truth. We say this because we KNOW the true source of the story. As artists standing for freedom of expression we have no option but to tell the truth as it is known to us.  Not to do so is to lie by omission.

van Meegeren forgery

genuine Hals

In Defense of Copyright in a Thieving World.

Thanks to; http://www.mystudios.com/gallery/han/methods.html

Han van Meegeren (1889 – 1947 ), born Henricus Antonius van Meegeren, was a Dutch painter and portraitist and a failed artist of the realist school.

“With his artistic career fading van Meegeren turned to forgery along with his friend Theo van Wijngaarden. Together they teamed up to create a number of forgeries. Han was a gifted copyist and Theo stumbled upon a way to mix gum in the paint to soften it when the alcohol test was used to test a painting.

They cooked up a painting by  (Frans) Hals, “Laughing Cavalier”. Van Meegeren then picked out de Groot to authenticate the painting because he had painted the forgery in a way that would appeal to him. They had a third party to present the painting and de Groot pronounced it to be a fine Hals. They then knocked off a few more forgeries and the money was rolling in.

‘The Laughing Cavalier’ was just about to be sold at auction for the second time when Dr. Bredius saw it and condemned the painting. He pointed out all the stylistic errors. But de Groot stuck by his opinions. A committee of scholars was gathered to study the painting and they all agreed it was a fake. Poor de Groot quietly bought back the painting and the reasons never became public knowledge. Van Meegeren split ways with his cohort and vowed to never be caught again.

In 1932 disgusted by his treatment by the Dutch art critics, whom he believed to be incapable of appreciating his genius, he left Holland. He wanted to prove that the critics were prejudiced and ignorant. His plan, to paint a single picture that the world would accept as a Vermeer.

A well respected lawyer (G.A. Boon) was hired to present the painting  (‘Supper at Emmaus by Vermeer’) to Dr. Bredius. He was to tell Bredius that he was representing a well known family from Italy who needed the money. As soon as Bredius saw the painting he proclaimed it to be the greatest masterpiece of Vermeer. However….  it was quickly recognized as a fake by a number of French experts. Word never got out because everyone thought it was too ridiculous to mention.”  (emphasis ours ). 

What that last sentence  really means of course is that a lot of people, self-styled art  ’experts’, cultural critics, ‘know-alls’, journalists etc would have got to look real dumb. This is to be avoided at all costs especially in England who prides herself on having educated the rest of the world. We would all be muck savages had it not been for England and India would neve have discovered trains.

Next in line Mr Frans Hals.

Hals perfected his style via much labour and heartache and suffered the ridicule of the ‘experts’ of his day. After a stint in the local insane asylum he died an old man, poor, broken, and surviving on a state pension. His genius was recognized belatedly and inspired many artists subsequently from  Manet to Sargent who acknowledged their debt to the great man because…. they had professional integrity.

Frans Hals (c. 1580 – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter especially famous for portraiture. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_Hals#Painting_technique

Van Meegeren found Hals a snitch to copy as his style was simple, spontaneous and relied on only a few colours. You can hardly tell the difference can you? Many people couldn’t and, as for those who could…..well, as above, “word never got out because everyone thought it was too ridiculous to mention”.  His motive for success at any cost could hardly have been clearer had he been a failed writer in search of a good book to rip off.  And so,  we come to Christopher Little and J.K. Rowling.

If Van Meegeren were alive today and assuming he was not in prison he would be illustrating the covers for the Harry Potter series… in someone else’s style, of course. Like the author herself he would be encouraged to use his own name or, at any rate, a more digestible version of it, and like her, have apologists to argue “precedents”, in defense of his crime. But the truth is always the truth however we dress it up… or wherever we bury it. How long will it be before some intrepid journalist plucks up courage to bring it to light despite the shame that will befall his colleagues and the threats facing his editor from Rowling’s legal ruffians? How long before a disgruntled Rowling ‘loyalist’, paid or unpaid, breaks ranks and confesses all? It is surely only a matter of time as van Meegeren himself realised long before he was nabbed. The sooner the better, say we who have been drawing attention to this issue for years and have well documented our reasons for doing so at http://www.travelswithlipo.com

Will teaching his writing class.

William Kelly – author of Travels with Li Po.

William, one of  the trio of muralists known as The Bogside Artists and their press officer, has always been interested in writing. “I still write,” says he. “But my faith in the publishing industry and their agents is now zero and I see no reason to change my attitude. A Wilde or a Shaw would be an impossibility these days given the power agents have garnered for themselves  from gloabilisation and the mass marketing it affords. These tin gods manage their charges the way a general manages his tanks not with a view to throwing new light on the human condition but to fill their pockets in the service of a world view that would make a suir rat cringe with shame. Basically, it is every man for himself, to use whatever method comes to hand….. and to the winner the spoils. If that is not the main disease of this world outstripping all other contaminants you care to mention I would like to know what is. And what exactly  this socially accepted ego-serving attitude has to do with the fruitage of the human spirit we call  ‘literature’  beats the hell out of me. Wilde and Shaw, if they were alive,  would have been swiftly and mercilessly ruined by  defamation lawyers  -those guardians of the collectively espoused fiction called ‘character’  -  for exercising their creative freedom in criticizing public figures, a service that they rightly considered the singular most important responsibility of their profession.  The theatre of ancient Athens incidentally not only allowed such criticism  but encouraged it. That means that professional ethics and honest reportage have been swept aside and made redundant in the face of the Gadarene rush for profits. Culture, as we know it, is banjaxed you could say. What Marx called the “falsification of consciousness” rules in exactly the same way as aggressively repetitive brainwashing strives to perpetuate  itself as  ’music’. The sacred has disappeared from the fine arts and truth, for want of a better word, from popular creative fiction. There is no money in truth any more than there is money in good health. Society maintains its necessary quota of sick citizens by keeping them hoodwinked, brainwashed and misinformed.  Travels with Li Po was my humble attemtp to bring all this to the intelligence of the young. Many writers these days don’t even write to be read by the average Joe  but specifically by movie executives who are to  juvenile sex-driven plots and gratuitous action-scenes what pigs are to  truffles.  They pilfer and eploit the collective memory, rehashing the same old stuff over and over in ever more devious forms of disguise, with about as much conscience as a fox in a chicken coop. Posterity, at any rate, will find it a whole lot easier to sift the wheat from the chaff because the chaff is everywhere.  My autobiography is about the only literary endeavour that interests me at present. What I have to say about writing, art, philos0phy  and the craziness of the world I was born into, will be expressed there.