I see that the Arts and Culture Minister has called the candidates for the Turner Prize 'cold, conceptual bullshit' also echoed by The Sun - modern art is a con.  I suppose this view goes back to the idea that things like beans 'n mash, sausage supper, The Sun itself or Constable's 'Haywain' are  are tangible and substantial and offering you something real.  In fact, the photographic realism used by Constable marked a great divide between the previous Italienesque movement, which was as abstract and semi-surreal as Constable was a 'realist'.  I suppose this all goes back to the idea  artifice is essentially de-stabilising, and that artists are enemies of the State, concomitantly, not as a result of their message which may be inherently insipid, but through the formal means they employ.  Yet The Sun comes back to the cliche that they are merely a 'con'.  this is a hilarious misnomer in terms of&! nbsp;The Sun's reputation.  Yet, I think that the real enemy of The Sun is the implicit elitism of The Turner Prize entrys, as against the rabid populism embraced by that horrid rag.  What did the Minister want, the cockles of his heart fairly roasted?  Maybe he should read Dickens or watch Chaplin, there's plenty of corn in there.  Or read The Sun, where, on one page there are banner headlines 'John Leslie - rapist' and on the next the predictable dose of 'tits and bums'.  Is this hypocrisy?