IN a week when it was announced that a stack of plastic bread crates were to be auctioned at Christie's for up to £6,000 as a piece of modern sculpture and, among more examples of such idiocy, an American artist was asking a similar sum for his display of three yellow detergent bottles and a football, East Lancashire was happily apprised that it does not lag behind in this lunacy.

For we were witness to 20-year-old Padiham student Justin McKeown, covered in nothing but stage make-up and a loin cloth, being hung like a piece of meat on a hook in a Burnley town-centre butcher's shop - in the name of live art and for the sake of his progress on the contemporary performing arts degree course that he his pursuing at the town's college.

He, of course, merits an immediate distinction - as a first-rate clown.

But I would laugh louder at his nonsense if I thought that, as with the case of fools prepared to bid a small fortune for a pile of Sunblest crates, this claptrap 'art' was not costing me anything.

But since this young ham's silly antics were part of a course at a further education college that is being run in association with that celebrated centre of academic excellence, the University of Central Lancashire - both of which places hoover up millions of pounds of hard-working taxpayers' money - I fear the joke is on us, unless someone from either of these institutions can explain what value for money we were getting in this ridiculous instance.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.