Racist or Paedophile

Separating (or not) the art from the artist

The woman on the door at soft play upset my best friend (and me) the other day when she insisted we both had to wear sticky paper wristbands to get in. She wanted to actually put them on us. Like it was Glastonbury. Usually, we’re just given the wristbands, and I put them in my pocket. Maybe there’s a big problem at the moment with four-year-olds sneaking their mates into soft play without paying.

Anyway, because my best friend was tired, or ill, or four, or all of those, she was prone to burst into tears at the slightest thing, and she did NOT want to have a stranger put a paper band around her wrist. She cried. Inconsolably. I told the soft play door Nazi I would put the wristband on my best friend (which I didn’t🖕), we went through the gate, and I thought of how I would one day exact my revenge on the woman, who would be better suited to working the door at hard play.

My best friend eventually cheered up enough to go on the trampolines. She likes to take some balls out of the ball pit and chuck them onto the trampoline and dodge the blue ones because they’re lava. I imagine the woman with the wristbands would have something to say about removing balls from their designated pit.

It’s such a joy to watch a toddler bounce on a trampoline. I’m always envious. I’d love to be able to throw myself about in the same way. Lost in the moment, without a care in the world. A bit like how kids run, with no thought or consideration or concern for how far they’re going or the correct pace required, not worrying about conserving enough energy to get where they’re going. No warm-ups or personal bests. I remember hearing someone describe the US sprinter Michael Johnson’s style of running as being like a child’s. Michael Johnson just running as fast as he possibly could, as though he didn’t even know he was in the Olympics.

I watched my best friend trampolining, while loud music played, and because the soft play place is too tight to pay for a no-ads subscription, my best friend and the other trampolining toddlers were regularly encouraged to buy insurance or to check a trade or whatever. And then a Michael Jackson song came on. And two songs later, another one.

The night before, I’d watched the first episode of the latest Channel 4 documentary about the man – which is what he was, not a boy, not Peter Pan, not a child who never grew up, but a man – and regardless of how strongly you feel that the artist can be separated from their art, a soft play centre for the under-eights is probably not the best place to make that stand.

Two days later, I was in a cafe enjoying a coffee and a croissant, something the results of a blood test have just informed me I need to do less, because of cholesterol. To be fair, I have been eating a croissant almost every day for quite a while. I thought my move from almond croissant to plain, plus the long walks I take to the cafes to buy the croissants would level things out for me health-wise. Apparently not.

In the cafe, a playlist of recent-ish indie music was playing. Gorillaz, MGMT, The Flaming Lips, etc. ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ by The Smiths came on, and before the first verse had finished, one of the baristas skipped to the next track – Michael Jackson. Not really. But she did skip The Smiths song. I don’t know whether she couldn’t listen to Morrissey anymore, unable to separate the art from the artist, a bit like Jo in my song ‘Jo’s Got Papercuts’

Or maybe the barista just didn’t like The Smiths.

I’m writing this over a different coffee (no croissant). This time I’m at the Tate (Modern). I’ve just been to see their Theatre Picasso exhibition. My friend Chris said on the latest episode of his Refigure podcast that he would never go to a Picasso exhibition now because of what he’s learned about the artist.

Ep 90: Waiting For The Out + fine art preview 2026

I wasn’t sure what Chris was referring to, but I did feel a vague awareness of some skeleton or other in Picasso’s closet. Even if I didn’t know what it was. I was reminded of a TV gameshow that me and my equally drunk friends once devised. In Racist or Paedophile? contestants would be given the names of famous people they hadn’t heard about for a while, but who they vaguely remembered there had been a bad story about. The contestants would then have to guess whether the person in question was a racist or a paedophile. So far, it hasn’t been commissioned.

The man with his name in orange above the gallery entrance could have been a question on the show. Maybe too easy, as I think it’s common knowledge that Henry Tate was a slave trader. Except he wasn’t. Or at least it’s not that simple

https://www.tate.org.uk/about-us/history-tate/tate-galleries-and-slavery

It’s a cheap parting shot, but it is becoming easier to separate Morrissey from his art, because based on what I’ve heard from his new album so far, these days they’re both equally as bad as each other.