h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Do you like the new exhibit? If so, why? And alternatively - if not, why not?

Actually, yes, I like it. Almost as much as that thing where some woman snoozed in a glass box for X number of days. I liked reading about it each day in the Guardian. How many times she'd snorted, scratched or rolled over, that sort of thing. It's probably some kind of voyeuristic instinct.

But then again I went to see the plinth yesterday and the actual people on display were a bit of a disappointment. A 20 something blonde drinking champagne and talking on her mobile followed by a 20 something blonde not drinking champage but most definitely talking on her mobile.

Sometimes art is much better just described. My favourite art of this kind ever (apart from Big Brother) doesn't actually exist but is in a novel called The Art of Murder by Jose Carlos Somoza.
Which is all about using people as canvases, specially trained to be quiescent and hopped up on mind and body altering drugs. Well, actually, it's all about what happens when canvases by the same artist start being killed, actually, but really I was just in it for the descriptions of the masterpieces.

Are you, anybody you know, planning to be one of the 2,400 people members of the public involved in the exhibition?

I have applied, yes.

If you were going to be a part of the exhibit, how would you use your hour?

Don't know yet. I will try not to spend the entire hour on my mobile though.

What do you think the Fourth Plinth should be used for?

Well, it's not doing too badly now. I mean, the lego thing they had before wasn't my cup of tea and the statue before that was rather boringly worthy, although that fits right in with the other statues on the square, albeit worthy for a different age. But then one of the points of art is to provoke thought, and so arguing about whether whatever is there is appropriate makes the whole concept work for me.

Do you like the idea of a changing exhibition or do you think it should be something more permanent?

See above.

Do you think the other statues in Trafalgar Square should be changed?

Ah, the mortality of imortality. Like ripping up graveyards to make way for places where officeworkers can eat lunch? Sitting on the benches made out of worn out gravestones? Poor old Nelson. Still, somehow we've gotta make room for the latest round of commemorartions of Those Who Must Not Be Forgot. Even Hyde Park doesn't have endless space. Personally, I'd go for a big statue of Jade Goody facing off with Princess Di. Which was probably much the same spirit as the originals were erected in, really. Like I say, worthiness is relative.