Since yesterday’s post about Sally Davies’s Happy Meal Project,  I have to admit to being left dumbfounded by the durability of the McDonald’s hamburger:

It seems these things are pretty much indestructible as a 12 year old one demonstrates

There is even the Bionic Burger museum featuring a 19 year old burger!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyDXH1amic&feature=player_embedded

Bon appetit!

Who do you think I am? The Arts Council?”

I don’t think the above is an exact quote, but it came from The BBC Show Ideal (I think S6E7–The Ear). The point is there are somethings out there which people attempt to pass off as art that are really pushing the envelope. In this case, Sally Davies’s McDonalds Happy Meal Project. Ms. Davies bought a McDonalds Happy Mean back on 10 April 2010. According to Ms. Davies this:

McDonalds Happy Meal. Purchased fresh from McDonalds on April 10, 2010 and have been photographing subsequently ever since. Its sitting on my coffee table with nothing covering. it. No bugs, no mould, no smell, nothing.

I’m not exactly sure what Ms. Davies is trying to demonstrate here, but it is a better argument for going vegetarian than anything PETA will provide you. Salon has mentioned this under the topic of Food technology. It seems that McDonalds’s food is impervious to rot and Ms. Davies is documenting this fact. But it seems Ms. Davies is not the only one to point out the unnatural long life of McDonalds products:

For more on Ms. Davies’s project see:
Why We’re Scared Of Happy Meals
McDonald’s Hamburgers: Almost Entirely Indestructible
The secret to the immortality of McDonald’s food

and you can see pictures of this amazing burger at:
Davies McDonalds Happy Meal Project

I have to admit that my proposal for quantitative easing is to give more money to the arts, but I think we need to be a bit selective about funding and what is considered art. Ms. Davies seems to be engaging in a rather unique science project: not art.

The thing is that Art and culture are super for revitalising the economy, but it has to be something that is approachable: not something that makes you want to puke. In the US, its 100,000 nonprofit arts organizations and their audiences generate $166.2 billion annually in U.S. economic activity. They support 5.7 million jobs and provide nearly $30 billion in government revenue. Arts and culture are central to tourism in the UK: this was worth £86 billion in 2007 – 3.7% of GDP – and directly employed 1.4 million people. Inbound tourism is a vital export earner for the UK economy, worth £16.3 billion to the UK economy in 2008. (Source Why the arts matter).

I’m not really going to get into the politics, economics, and such, but the world is moving from a consumer society to one that needs a more sustainable economic model, which arts and culture can help to provide.