If you, like me, are struggling to find artistic stimulation this week, what with an internationally acclaimed arts festival in town, can I recommend the pages of a British newspaper? Or, more precisely, Youtube...As you may or may not know, I find TBA to be a little too accessible, and not nearly elitist enough. So it's refreshing to see that the Sunday Guard' has done its bit to restore art's natural boundaries between viewer and creator, by collating a "treasure trove of rare and fascinating arts footage" in the form of Youtube videos.

There is, for example, an interview with Eugene Ionesco from 1961. And some Sid and Nancy on Cable TV from 1978. A clip of Holliday singing Strange Fruit, five months before her death, and Oasis' live TV debut from 1994, which is full of nasty, nasty aggression barely masked as pop music, and will make you want to snort coke:

There's Madonna's first ever live performance at the Danceteria in New York, which, I have to say, is fucking electrifying for its sheer awfulness and spawn-a-monster sense of impending fame-doom, James Brown and Pavarotti singing "This is a Man's World," (he sings in Italian...it's bonkers), the Beatles' last rooftop concert from 1970, with "Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down," when of course, they couldn't get back, and they'd already let each other down, multiple times, Nabokov discussing Lolita, Kurt Russell's Star Wars audition, Brando auditioning for Rebel Without A Cause, Francis Bacon interviewed, Jackson Pollock painting, not to mention Karajan conducting Beethoven's Fifth in 1961.

Not impressed, eh? Well, la-de-dah. At least, it should be something to occupy your time before the next "happening." Now. I'm going to watch that Oasis video again. You make me laugh. Doop doop de doop. Give me your autograph...