Today's listening: It ought to be John Cage, but 4'33" is a long time. And as Chris pointed out, which version? So I'm playing Love Minus Zero/No Limit because my love, she speaks like ...

It is somehow appropriate that the Saatchi Gallery should host an exhibition of Soviet and Russian modern art. Set in the imposing space of the Duke of York’s HQ in Chelsea, the gallery established by one of the major beneficiaries of Thatcherism and global capitalism is currently showing two very different but contiguous exhibitions of work from the first three decades of Moscow-based, post-Stalinist modern art.

What is interesting is the paucity of ideas from those who looked to mimic the west, and the accomplishment of those who wished to engage with Stalinist and socialist (they are different) realism in a modern, political and creative manner.

So the highlights for me were the mocking works of the Soks Art movement, which draw on pop art and socialist realism, and the nostalgic socialist realist works of which the Meeting of Two Sculptures above, by Leonid Sokov, is a favourite, as Lenin peers at a faux Giacometti.

In a single piece, we see the clash of cultures, the struggle between what is permitted and what is forbidden, the synthesis of old and new left.

This is art. This, below, is an easy, cheap, advertising idea.

Well, ok. But to quote Lenin legitimately, it is one step forward, two steps back.

One understands why it might have been conceived, even executed. But one fails to understand why the image sits on a wall in a gallery in London. 

It's glib and it's facile, and it is a matter of concern that this kind of western icon has been appropriated by the new Russia and its non-conformist artists. 

It's a mystery why the curators of the Saatchi Gallery believe it worthy of our attention and their very expensive wall space, unless it is to celebrate the ways in which an ex-communist state can so easily be absorbed into our own business of art.

It is from one form of conforming to another.

We spent the morning at the Duke of York's HQ. That evening, we were at the Duke of York's Theatre to see The Judas Kiss, David Hare's play about Wilde.

It was always a good play. But now, in this revival, with Rupert Everett as Wilde and Freddie Fox as Bosie, it is something of a triumph.

In this script, and in this performance, one sees both sides of Wilde: a man who will not compromise his moral integrity, and a man who is hell-bent on self-destructive martyrdom.

In the second half, he is a shrunken figure, but a brave and determined figure, whose wit and intelligence remain despite knowledge of his imminent betrayal.

The theatre is old and cold; the noise of the underground reverberates regularly. But the play is profound and cathartic. I commend it to you.

Today's listening: Miss Sold from the Swaps. We all know that this is a great live band, but they can do it in the studio, too. 

My first blog of the new year, and typed on a different keyboard from each of the previous posts.

It’s true. I have, after all these years, migrated to a Mac.

Sure, I already have an iPhone, an iPod and an iPad. But the huge leap (of faith?) was to put aside the last of a succession of Sony Vaio laptops and embrace this Macbook Pro. My decision has met with a couple of different responses.

Some have expressed amazement that I was not a Mac person all along. After all, I have worked in the ‘creative’ industries since … well, since before computers. And it was us advertising people who first embraced the Mac.

Others have expressed amazement that I have made the change at this stage of my life. They know me well. They know that I was one of the original QDOS (quick and dirty operating system) people.  People like me worked with word processing programs called Lexicom and WordPerfect. We used Control + keystrokes rather than the mouse. We despised the so-called intuitive commands of Windows 95 and the patronizing graphics of the Apple.

And what was all that stuff about style and design? Wasn’t the Sony Vaio equally gorgeous, equally classy, equally functional? Of course it was. And is.

But, as I have discovered over the last few days, there is something unusually satisfying about working on a Mac. It’s not solely the keyboard, which is the best I have ever encountered. And it is not the proprietary software – I am actually using Microsoft Office for Mac. But there is something about this beautiful aluminium (aluminum) machine which makes work a pleasure.

It is a cultural thing, I suspect.

I remember the move from Blackberry to iPhone. It was a recognition that, at my age, I could afford to be less formal, less business-like, less professional. I could justify using a phone which allowed me a little fun, some enjoyment, even (especially?) if it was at the expense of a nano-second’s delay in sending and receiving e-mails.

There is this slightly hippy-ish feel to the Mac, which is opposed to the Big Blue, IBM, business-like Microsoft.

Steve Jobs, famously, was a collector of Dylan bootlegs and something of a Deadhead, walking on stage to announce the iPad to the sound of the Dead’s Friend of the Devil. He was no Jerry, being too authoritarian and dictatorial, but he was perhaps a Captain Beefheart. An anarchist and a control freak.

There have been some books published over the last 12 years that draw these parallels, as well as some weird conclusions.

It would not have been possible to foresee back in the late ‘60s, or in 1972 when I first saw the Dead in the UK, that there would be, now, a book entitled Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead by a couple of guys from Harvard; or that some professor at the School of Business and Entrepreneurship in Florida would have coined the term dynamic synchronicity to describe what the Dead did and what Apple do.

It’s a horrible phrase. I prefer what Jerry said, that “it is not enough to be the best at what one does; one has to be the only one who does it.”

And I think I prefer Apple’s line, Think different.

Of course, I would prefer the adverb. But I’ll settle for it.

And, grammatically incorrect as it is, this exhortation, this instruction, to think different, is my new year resolution. One of them, anyway.

Belated best wishes for 2013 to all my readers.

Today's listening: Janis, from February 1969. One of the first shows without Big Brother and the Holding Company, and it shows. But there's no denying her wondrous voice and charisma.

Lord Patten is one of those people, so common in public life, whose inexorable rise defies the democratic process.

His success dates from the time he was rejected and ejected as an MP by his constituents; at which point his friends in high places gathered round and appointed him, successively, a European commissioner, governor of Hong Kong and, most recently, chairman of the BBC Trust. And yes, remuneration in each case is significantly more than the minimum wage.

Despite his conservatism, Patten has had a pretty easy ride from the left; principally, I suspect, because,  as Dr. Johnson would say, he has not merely read a book, but read it through. He is plausible, a tolerable dinner party companion, and – as one of the Dimblebores characterised him this morning – a “shrewd old bird”.

Clearly, not shrewd enough. His appointment of George Entwhistle, by all accounts a decent man, was a misfortune. His dismissal of George Entwhistle, careless. Literally so.

As so often these days, in the face of a crisis, the cry of the establishment goes up: “deputy heads must roll”.

Which is not to diminish the egregious offence of Newsnight’s allegations against Lord McAlpine. As the subject of a current false and defamatory statement on the internet, I know how much the sheer injustice hurts. I cannot imagine what Lord McAlpine suffered as millions believed for 72 hours that he was a paedophile. Compared with the Newsnight allegations, my problem was petty and trivial and I am humbled by the dignity with which McAlpine bore himself during those initial hours after the broadcast.

The false and damaging statement was made without research or evidence. Disgracefully, he was not even contacted to be given an opportunity to deny the charge, which had spread virally across the internet before being formalised in a Nationwide broadcast. In the fuss about Newsnight, we have ignored the importance of the internet, where more people garner their information than from hundreds of Newsnight broadcasts.

I have recently stumbled across the website of an organisation called CUREE, the Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education. It is based, intriguingly, in Coventry - just down the road from where I am currently sitting. Its mission is to support and promote  “the use of evidence by building bridges between academic research and professional practice”.  

I am impressed by its objectives and its methodologies, and it occurs to me that the team at CUREE might establish similar organisations in other disciplines.

It is clear that Newsnight could do with a Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Journalism. 

We could perhaps introduce a centre for political appointments. 

And maybe there is also a role for a Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in restaurant reviewing. 

Any volunteers?

An edited version of this post appears on Wilde's Things: a restaurateur's blog at www.wildes.uk.com

Today’s listening: Brothers by The Black Keys. Don’t know why this has evaded my radar until now, but I will be making up for lost time.