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'Matthew Collings' account of the London art world is funny, fragmented and sharp. At various times, Collings has been an artist, art-magazine editor, BBC journalist and teenage kidnappee. He writes in a fat-free, deadpan, Warholian (The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again) style that allows him to tell us, without either being mean or clinically pedantic, everything we need to know about how the current young British art phenomenon got to be the carpetbagging that it is... His craxy-like-a-fox quilt of episodes, sound bites, cameos and critical bullets (don't miss Francis Bacon Cliches, on page 38) is a subtle surgical instrument, and to this recent visitor to London, the guide.'
Bookforum, August, 1997
'A driven man's journey from the 1950s to Britpop. A hip, postmodern, beat anthropologist, Collings takes us from his life in children's homes to the incredulous world-weary critic... Hilarious and horrible, intelligent and frightening, Blimey! is the book the art world deserves.'
The Guardian, London, 23 May, 1997
'One of his great strengths is his insistence that in art things are not either/or but both/and. He is constantly aware that something can be basically flawed, can be pretentious, even a bit phoney, but can still have artistic power. Another of his strengths is his total fearlessness about giving offence: he writes as if he doesn't give a damn whether he ever finds another day's work in the art world. It is tempting to quote from his better anecdotes, but the intervening passages of criticism are equally funny while being exceedingly serious... In its laconic way Blimey! has the moral weight of great criticism.'
The Independent, London, 18 May, 1997
'Collings has the pecking order off pat, ranking the stars and the starfuckers, the galleries, critics and magazines with needle-sharp precision... Accepting the fiction of it all, he is free to roam relatively unhindered. He knows the trick of the trade, the fashions, the recycling that goes on, but has the nous and sensibility to know when it is done well or badly, and sometimes even why.'
Time Out, London, 4 June, 1997
'Well written and eminently readable. His powers of description are fearlessly precise. He comes across as believable, relevant and insightful.'
London Magazine, London, August, 1997
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