On the slide

Abusing the freedom of the Easter Recess (and the absence from Westminster of my MP), I got myself down to the Tate Modern before work this morning and had a go on Carsten Holler's slides.

Skillfully employing the talent developed through years of supermarket shopping, I managed to position myself so I evaded the associated groups of overseas students and nabbed the second ticket of the day for the Level 5 slide. The slide was excellent, although the whole experience was over just as I started to enjoy it (....), and it really is a great way to start the day. As Mr Holler himself has said:

They’re also a device for experiencing an emotional state that is a unique condition somewhere between delight and madness. It was described in the fifties by the French writer Roger Caillois as ‘a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind’.

And who am I to disagree.

From a paen to slides to a nation on the slide (see what I did there...). Iain Dale's linked to an article by Tim Montgomerie which helpfully explains why Britain's influence is on the wane. You can read the 10 key factors on Dale's blog but here's the next ten 'key' factors, narrowly missing out on the list, that have contributed to Britain’s vulnerability in 2007:

1. Female suffrage.
2. Indian independence
3. The National Minimum Wage
4. Channel 4
5. The Human Rights Act.
6. Political correctness.
7. The Guardian
8. John Prescott
9. The scrapping of Clause 28.
10. The demise of the old-style Kit Kats with their silver foil and separate red wrapper.

These aren't mine by the way, but I do rue the passing of No.10 (or have these come back now? I get my butler to go to the newsagents these days).

(Pic: Tate Modern, Tate website)