There's the future of painting, too, always on the look out for a plausible new herald. And there are issues, principally about race and cultural identity, which Ofili's painting has certainly got something to do with. Except that, as Ms Huston's real fans know, she is capable of far more shades of emotion and drama than the limited palate - of black, dark black, Stygian and noir - suggested by the movies that made her name. Those who saw her in John Huston's heartbreaking version of Joyce's The Dead, or playing Martin Landau's doomed screen mistress in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanours, know how convincingly moving she can be when that majestic body of hers, that spectacular face, are allowed to behave as if attached to a human being rather than a two-dimensional grotesque. There's a general feeling in film critic circles that Hollywood has rather seriously under-used the striking Ms Huston, as if the Louvre Museum had been utilising the Winged Victory of Samothrace to keep the back door wedged open.
True, Ofili's paintings have a lot more than dung hanging on them. There are bets on the Turner Prize, for one thing, for which the artist is probably the most honest favourite there's been for several years. After all, remembering that legendary episode of Blue Peter, it's not the first time the stuff has made its mark on British culture, and the reaction back then was simple hilarity A herbivore's ordure can never be very offensive. His platform presence was modestly self-effacing, yet he seemed to be the cycle's epicentre.
Nobody can have any confidence about the future of the Royal Opera, but these four nights gave ringing testimony to its present musical health.Further performances at Birmingham Symphony Hall (0121-212 3333), tonight, Thursday and SaturdayNICK KIMBERLEY. THE COUNTRY singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt once described the Sparklehorse main man, Mark Linkous, as a "rock'n'roll mechanic". It's a more evocative tag than the "New Country" one Linkous gets lumbered with, and not just because of his tendency to tinker with old motorbikes. Sparklehorse strip American rock down to its bare components, soup it up with an array of peculiarly lo-tech instruments (Casio keyboards, Toys 'R' Us samplers, Sony Walkmans) and fire it off on all cylinders. Fuelled by Linkous's unfettered imagination, they bolted long before anyone tried to lock them in the New Country stable. Their debut album, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, spiked its sweetly sad country hues with angst-ridden guitar barrages such as "Tears on Fresh Fruit" and "Someday I Will Treat You Good" Both of these shred the New Country template. Their second album, Good Morning Spider, sees off the label swiftly with the opening post-Pixies howl of "Pig" (as in "squealing like a stuck one", surely).