I recently posted the following in a web forum which was questioning whether the picture "Klara and Edda Belly Dancing" was art or not. What follows is my view. I'm reposting it because I would like to see whether any of the readers out there feel any differently. Feel free to leave comments.

There are quite a few ways of looking at this, not all of them palatable to everyone, but all of them having some merit. To figure it out though, we need to ask ourselves a few questions, which can be surprisingly basic while still holding some sophisticated answers.
Lets get the obvious one out of the way first. Is it child porn?
At the very top of wikipedia's definition of child pornography is this paragraph:

I was watching the 6 o'clock news tonight and Look North came on at 25 past, as it is wont to do.

Now I tend not to watch TV news much at the best of times, quite a lot of journalism in this country has unfortunately denigrated itself to the point where it as relevant to real news as an old dead gin whore is relevant to the image of todays London. Look North is no better than many of the shows these days but probably - except for stories similar to the ones I will talk about below - no worse either.

However, since I was busily feeding a four month old baby at the time and had no hands free, I had to sit through it and to no surprise whatsoever, one of Look North's patented sickly sweet emotional appeals appeared on the show.

See above. What in the hell is Russia doing?

First they get grumpy about gas exports and cutting entire countries off, then we have them deciding to resume long range bomber patrols (heading towards the UK at least one time and probably more), then we have the mysterious case of a journalist who was a fierce critic of Putin and his politics, resurfacing a year later.

What are they? Perhaps more importantly, why are they doing it? Is someone threatening them? Is Putin flexing his muscles for a reason? What do they want?

So far all I've seen is Russia rattling sabers, but why are they doing it? The last thing we need at the moment is the beginning of another cold war.

Maybe they have managed to come up with some technological breakthrough which they believe will give them a massive advantage? Maybe they have realised that for the most part, unless the USA has another space shuttle up its sleeve (and I don't think they do) the one they have is the last one and if something should happen to it, the USA will be dependent on Russia for transporting people into and out of space.

Interesting, but difficult and ever so slightly scary.

A fast update to what has been happening with my foray into recovering funds from HSBC and their nefarious penalty charges system.

Two weeks ago tomorrow I posted a letter to HSBC telling them that unless they refunded me the charges they had taken from me since I started banking with them within fourteen days, I would be pursuing legal action to recover the funds.

That time runs out tomorrow and so on Friday (the first time I have available) I will be going into the County Courts at Newcastle Upon Tyne to commence my action.

The amount I am looking for is relatively paltry, only £701, but true to published form, HSBC are deciding to play hardball. I received a letter from them last friday - ten days after I had sent mine - asking me to leave the issue with them and they would get back to me.

I don't think so.

So here we are at the beginning of the various banks profit reporting season. Are we all excited? Trembling with anticipation to hear about the obscene amounts of money the banks are skimming from their customers?

I am.

I like to see businesses making an honest profit. Businesses making a healthy profit generally means that the economy is healthy, that people are contented and that everybody is getting along with each other the way they should be.

Does that sound like the world we live in? Of course not.

Yesterday, Barclays (one of the banks I hold an account with) posted profits of about 7 BILLION pounds sterling for last year. HSBC (the bank I wish I didn't have an account at) is expected to post profits of over TWELVE BILLION pounds sterling next week.

In total, UK banks are expected to announce profits of over 40 billion pounds sterling within the next few weeks.