Sizeable task for Tracey

Aside from the bed, some have suggested, Tracey Emin’s entire oeuvre could fit into half a dozen of her own embroidered tents. Within the art world, then, there is some bafflement as to how she is going to fill the vast, echoing space that is the Hayward Gallery.

According to The Art Newspaper, Emin (recently returned from representing Britain at the Venice Biennale) is to be the next art heavyweight to appear at the Hayward, as part of the reinvention drive that began with Antony Gormley in May. His show consisted of a gigantic room with an actual cloud in it ( Blind Light), a whopping great 27-tonne sculpture ( Space Station) and other stonking great artbeasts from his past.

Emin, for all the draw of her famous name, is better known for small watery paintings and stitching confessional blankets about her love life. Whatever will she do?

Serena Williams, the former Wimbledon champion, speaks to New York Magazine about the new breed of female tennis player. “You know everyone now is so young and so good,” she said, apparently with a shrug. And so Russian."

Nice timing. Mark Oaten (the infamously adventurous Liberal Democrat) is to publish his book Coalition (about coalitions) on the eve of the Liberal Democrat conference. With conference likely to be dominated by the possibility of Gordon Brown calling an election the following week, talk will be of little else.

It’s got to hurt when you are accused of being a bad influence by, of all people, Courtney Love. The widow of Kurt Cobain is blaming Steve Coogan, the comedian, for the current woes of Owen Wilson, the film actor who is currently in hospital in the US after a reported drug-fuelled suicide attempt. “I went through it with Steve,” says Love, who had a brief and eyebrow-raising relationship with the comedian in 2005.

Not so surprisingly, Coogan resents her insinuations. “These accusations are unfounded, unhelpful and hurtful to all concerned,” says his spokesman. “We are taking legal advice.”

The many queueing to bask in the reflected glory of Nelson Mandela’s visit to London would do well to remember just who it is who is being cheered. In 1995 the great man made his first visit, which culminated in a triumphant walk across Trafalgar Square to the door of South Africa House. Crash barriers were erected between the mob of cheering spectators, and the great man was escorted by Virginia Bottomley, then John Major’s Heritage Secretary. Initially beaming with the thrill of it all, she walked back. Alone. “But why does everybody hate me?” she apparently asked her civil servants, returning to the office with boos and catcalls now ringing in her ears.

Speaking to Sky News yesterday about the new design of cigarette packets, Alan Johnson let it be known that he stopped smoking so that he could afford to buy Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road.

We fervently believe that some day there will be debate into which the Health Secretary cannot shoehorn a mention that he quite likes pop music. As yet, we cannot imagine what it could be.

Postscript

“Jeremy Paxman has declared the tie useless. Does everything in this world have to have a use? Indeed, what is the use of Mr Paxman?” rages Treyarnon Williams, Country Life reader and, perhaps, new best friend of Paxo’s arch enemy Stephen Frears.

Jodie Foster tells Empire magazine of the ordeals of living in Slough (and filming Bugsy Malone). “I was really the only kid that was a child actor. Every other kid was just a kid on the street. It was scary. I’d walk down the hallways and these really tough dancer girls would be, like, ‘What’s the password?’. And I would be, like, ‘I don’t know’. And they’d shoot me with the fire extinguishers.”

In the current issue of The Spectator, Steven Berkoff writes of visiting a cage fight at Wembley Arena. “The night before,” he writes, “we had been at Glyndebourne. Of course they shout there too. ‘Bwaaaaavoooo! Bwarvooooo!’ Everybody likes a shout.”

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