Wednesday, July 7, 2021

My other life / Sue Townsend

Sue Townsend imagines her other life.
Photograph: Richard Saker

My other life: 

Sue Townsend

Sue Townsend imagines a life as a bon vivant, cello virtuoso and art critic


Sue Townsend
Sunday 15 November 2009

I
n my other life, I do not have diabetes, I have no use for a wheelchair and I have perfect vision. I am nine-and-a-half stone. My capsule wardrobe is by Chanel. I occasionally pilot a light plane from Leicester to St Paul de Vence where I have a permanent room at La Colombe d'Or. I give cello recitals in the Chapelle du Rosaire, Matisse's masterpiece, but I'm mainly employed as an art critic for Modern Painters. I travel the world in my search for great artists. I discovered Norman Grubbe from Wells-Next-the-Sea, Norfolk, whose naive paintings of seafood set the art world ablaze. His painting, Whelk at Rest, sold for £17m recently.

Another of my finds was Stella Fox, who dipped spiders into ink then encouraged them to run across a canvas. The Spider Paintings now hang in Tate Modern and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The RSPCA has called Fox's work "cruel and exploitative". However, since Brian Sewell trod on Fox's principal painter, Harry Hairy-Legs, she now uses slugs. I am suing Sewell for loss of earnings. My winter address is Jasmine House, White Sand Beach, Tobago. There is no phone, email or Twitter.
Sue Townsend's latest book is Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (Michael Joseph)


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