Yikes I have something in common with Grayson Perry

Such creativity enthralls me. Give me a blank canvas and a week later it will be, errr, a blank canvas . I had no idea how he would portay these people and the ideas he came up with were incredible [I didn't even get the 'Essex' bit for a while]. As for Chris Huhne, I kept thinking to myself 'are all politicians so lacking in remorse for anything they do and so self important' ?[kept thinking of Jeffrey Archer and, alas Tony Blair]. But the one that had me in tears [even more so when compared to Chris Huhne] was the sex change lad [Alex]. How brave and eloquent he was; his whole being was beautiful. As for the statue that Grayson made; I was in tears looking at it. Then there was the modern day twist of them all doing 'selfies'; the modern day 'portrait'. My theory is that it's Graysons cross dressing, given that he is such an intelligent person that makes him try to understand himself and then extends it to other people. I always used to say how strange 'masculinity' was in that the most masculine of men were those who, say, played rugby, drank lots of beer, hang round most of the time with other men which, if you look on sexuallity as a circle brings them round to men who were gay [does that make sense?]. You only have to go to a Rocky Horror Show to see how readily a lot of totally straight men will dress up in the most outrageous way given the opportunity. At the same time I do realise that some transvestites are very troubled/dangerous people. I didn't quite get the muslim lady [found her very shallow] I found her brother far more interesting. Then again, watching the repeat of Simon Reeves programme about China, I caught a comment about how the Chinese, as an atheist race are now, having become more affluent are turning more and more to religion as a way of making sense of their lives. My brain hurt so much after watching both these programmes that I had to have a cherry brandy to get myself off to sleep....

jane, when you think about it, it's only in humans that the male of the species is the dowdy one. In 'primitive' cultures men decorate themselves to attract the females

I think that Grayson Perry is fantastic, with such a huge artistic talent that he is willing to share and explain without making me, the audience feel inadequate. He can paint, make pots, do tapestries.....I would settle for being able to do just one of them half as well. He is definitely high on my fantasy dinner party list.

I wonder if men [in general] relate to his work as much as women?

DBH wasn't interested at all until he saw his huge vases. They look so beautiful from a distance and it's only when you get up close that you see the detail in them and what it consists of. So when we saw that the tapestry was on show he was just as keen as I was to see it, and he watched the Loose Women programme with me and said what a lovely and intelligent man he is. So we will both watch the programme on catch-up together.

We were trying to work out why he was called 'the most well-known artist in the UK', wondering why the likes of Damien Hirst and David Hockney had been omitted, but then realised that it is his appeal across all classes that has made him a household name.

Just watched last night's prog and was enthralled.

I shall definitely visit the National Portrait Gallery to view the portraits.