The Braineater Gazette & Clarion

When I glanced through Mr J Jones' review here of Sami artist Máret Ánne Sara’s Turbine Hall installation (spoiler alert: he did not like it), my thought was, there is no point in asking Mr Jones for an opinion on anything which does not feature nekkid laydeez, because I can remember him being snotty about a Barbara Hepworth exhibition. (And we are not that keen on his opinion on the nl's, either.)

Anyway, two correspondents take to the letters column to have a go at him:

completely misses the point. The land the Sámi live in is “quite big”, just as the Turbine Hall is in Jones’s words, but the Sámi do not take over the entirety of their landscape. They live within it. The “fort” is not a place to “hide”. That is a city-boy reading rather than a deeper understanding of the ancient methods that Sámi families use for herding reindeer in the vastness of their lands, combined with the political realities that surround them. Jones is too close to playgrounds and not close enough to the realities of the Sámi and northern political history.
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I was appalled by Jonathan Jones’s review.... There is something incredibly unique and, in the end, pristine about existence in these Nordic villages. Maybe it is the ultimate quiet that falls upon the forests at times. Everyday life is not silent, but the forest silence after a day’s work is peace. Is art not art unless it includes some gore, an exhibit of violence? The artist has captured the ordered existence necessary for survival in harsh conditions and the peace that comes from living with nature rather than against it.

Though even conkers people take seriously apparently: 'King Conker’ cleared of cheating at World Conker Championships (Is nothing sacred?)

However, this sounds like it brings a certain anarchic spirit to the business: ‘Cheating is encouraged’: nut crackers at Peckham’s Conker Championships go for the fun

But apparently the TikTok generation post videos of gently unpeeling them???

The conkers danger is actually a Top Elf'n'Saftee Myff: 10 ridiculous Health and Safety myths debunked.

Am not sure why conkers should be having a moment just now, because they were dropping off the local trees several weeks ago, and are surely now past.

But at least the people playing conkers seem to be having fun: apparently - and counter to all those exhortations to do this thing for the good of your mental health - doing marathons has a downside: One in four endurance runners displays ‘worryingly high’ levels of anxiety and depression.

One wonders how far it's the obsessive dedication as much as any physiological factor that has an adverse effect.