Used tampons, gay kisses for the kiddies … Rembrandt and Dickens, how sadly limited your imaginations were!

With what joy in the future I shall never see will our descendants rediscover the great art of the 21st century!

Can you even begin to picture how many incoherent academic essays will try to unearth the roots of the transcendent genius of Tracey Emin? I see her latest masterpiece features used tampons next to a pregnancy test kit.

Who could possibly comprehend what lightning flash of inspiration led to that? How many years’ diligent training and study could have led to the perfect arrangement of these lovely artefacts?

But culture is of many kinds. There is the high art of Tracy and Gilbert & George, who go in for turds rather than tampons – and there is the sort of stuff that reaches out to the masses.

Just as in the 19^th century serialised novels by Dickens or Thackeray explored great social issues like child labour or the horrors of the legal system, today we have Eastenders and Coronation Street doing the same sort of thing.

Thanks to Coronation Street we are on the verge of witnessing a real creative breakthrough by having a scene with two men kissing before what I have just learned is the “watershed” – when the kids go to bed. For all I know this great cultural breakthrough has already occurred; but alas, the uncultured stand in the way. Philistine churls are calling for a ban.

Why ruin it for the kiddies? The Prime Minister, Mr. Cameron has been called to task by that great actor Antony Cotton for supporting this dreadful ban. “The man doesn’t know what he’s talking about and he’s not in touch with the people” says Cotton.

I hate to agree with Mr. Cameron, but I have a lurking feeling that most of the public are thoroughly fed up with having gay kisses – and for that matter, used tampons – foisted on them as an imitation of art.

P.S. Turning to something almost bizarrely different, a big thank you to those who said they’d come to Bristol for the copy day, so now I’m going to take a larger venue.

The only downside is that I’ll be boring the hell out of the rest of you by lurking in every cranny of the internet muttering “Please, please come to Bristol, it’s great, full of culture, great bars,. cheap booze, good restaurants , music, waterfront setting, etc. etc.”

All true – though I am biassed. A fair few bits of the city are named after my mother’s family, the Colstons.