Sean McSweeney at the Taylor Gallery

Sean McSweeney's opening in the Taylor last Thursday was a bellwether for the state of the art market. This was a new show by one of our most popular and respected contemporary artists. It was a strong show with a very reasonably priced selection of works on canvas and paper. Up to recently he would always sell out - except for the occasional very large piece. All these works were quite small and very accessible with more colour than is often the case with McSweeney. A total of eight sold on the opening night. Not bad. There was a comparatively poor turnout, certainly compared to Brian Henderson's show there earlier in the month. But Henderson sold only one piece on the opening night - so you could say the market is becoming very discerning.

McSweeney himself was in attendance - a most affable man is our rural Rothko. He went out of his way to greet anyone and everyone. There was no preserving a cool distance from the hoi polloi. We all repaired to Buswell's afterwards for a few pints.

Kingdom Come Again

The All-Ireland Football Final was a sad debacle if you were a Cork man. Actually it was a sad debacle if you weren't a Kerry man. Here's the bottom line: Cork froze, their big names did not perform; Kerry rose to the occasion as experienced teams inevitably do, their big names performed, and they got their tactics dead right (stop Cork playing, swarming defence, even Cooper back). It wasn't pretty. Tadgh Kennelly, feted by our craven sporting press, committed one of the most cynical, dangerous and mean-spirited fouls I've seen in a long time - in a notoriously foul-laden mean-spirited sport. He did it smack dab in front of the referee at the very start of the match and got away with it. And Nicholas Murphy, the recipient of the elbow in the face, was not the same man for the rest of the match. But this incident encapsulated why Cork lost. Kerry were darker, harder, better organised and cooler in the heat of battle. Cork will come back next year, wiser and wider (read cynical and mean-spirited) as they say down there.

William Boyd in Trinity

Went to hear William Boyd speak in Trinity last Saturday - fresh from reading his excellent latest novel - Ordinary Thunderstorms. He seemed the most amiable of coves, devoid of the kind of literary preciousness I detected in Colum McCann recently. He read an extract from his new novel and then answered questions from his meagre audience. It was a glorious sunny afternoon, which probably impacted the numbers. He spoke about his writing process (two years research, one year writing)and wasn't shy about sharing his opinion of certain sacred cows. He's not a fan of Virginia Woolf it seems and he wouldn't take Jeff Koons too seriously. He was very entertaining on the subject of Nate Tate: An American Artist - his hoax biography of an Abstract Expressionist. He enlisted such worthies as Gore Vidal, John Richardson (Picasso's biographer) and David Bowie in his plot and fooled most of the New York art establishment until the British press broke the story.

He also told us that a film was being made of Any Human Heart. I noticed Stephen Rea in the audience so maybe there's a connection.

Shine a Light

What a sad dispiriting movie this was. It basically showed the Rolling Stones cavorting in front of Bill Clinton and a bunch of celebrities for one of Clinton's charities. All well and good but hardly rock and roll. The audience looked like extras from Sex and City: plastic, overdressed, and lifeless - mostly well-groomed women of a certain age. And the music was a pallid echo of its former gutsy self. Jagger looked like a dizzy queen sashaying down the King's Road and Keith Richard was a gurning parody of his former cool self. Only Ron Wood was convincing - especially when he played pedal steel guitar on Faraway Eyes, one of the few bright spots on a dull night. The Stones have turned into an unconvincing tribute band to themselves. And Martin Scorsese, the creator of the wonderful Last Waltz has produced a real turkey, and not a wild one either.

Ordinary Thunderstorms

Just finished Ordinary Thunderstorms, William Boyd's latest novel. What a pleasure it is to read a good uncomplicated story, with an interesting cast of characters, and a fine sense of place. And one free from literary pretension and arty faffing about.

William Boyd can be relied upon for all this of course, we got it with Any Human Heart and Restless also. This story revolves around Adam Kindred's fall from grace through a chance meeting in London. It takes him from the cossetted world of hotels and credit cards and effortless living into a feral underworld of violence, dirt and hunger. Along the way we meet psychopathic hit men, corrupt pharmaceutical executives, and a randy police woman. We are also shown the London of council estates, begging and sleeping rough. It's a cautionary tale about how one slip can throw us back into the gutter. A tale for our times then.