No logo, no lolly. Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum has rejected a grant of £80,000 from the Art Fund, which gives wads of cash each year to museums and galleries to buy art. But the “tit-for-tat” deal would have meant the museum showing the fund’s newish, pink-and-black heart-shaped logo beside the funded picture. Its refusal has now lost the museum not only that money, but other funding from the V&A and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. So, the Fitz’s plan to purchase a £175,000 work has collapsed — at least for now.

Its director, Timothy Potts, quoted in the June edition of The Art Newspaper, takes a splendidly purist view that “logos are the currency of marketing, and this introduces a promotional element into the galleries which we regard as an unacceptable distraction”. Hear, hear, particularly as I have found out that the painting is a 1616 work by Bassetti called Dead Christ Supported by the Virgin and Mary Magdalene. A pink-heart logo would look a tad naff next to a pietà.

Over in Oxford, the latest issue of Blueprint, the uni’s staff magazine, has the “triumphant” news that Ruth Padel has been elected Prof of Poetry. Yes, it went to press before she was forced to stand down, following revelations in this newspaper last Sunday about e-mails she sent about Derek Walcott’s past. Even so, the Blueprint story, obviously written after her election, does not even mention the sex-smear row. Dons have clearly kept their heads in the sand. So, who will now go for the post in a new ballot? I’d like to suggest a Cambridge man, Clive James, for the Oxford post. He’s a great communicator, wit and a decent poet. He is also an expert on poetry and cares passionately about the art form.

“It was sex that drove me; now it’s ideas as I approach 50.” Hang on, Tracey, you’re only 45, and looking, I have to say, in great form at the opening of your new exhibition. Emin was happy to chat away unabashedly about sex and masturbation, as the centrepiece of her show at White Cube is an animation of a woman pleasuring herself. Emin was inspired, if that’s the right word, by a box of porn photos her erstwhile boyfriend Mat Collishaw gave her.

Emin also told me she bumped into Dinos Chapman in the gym the other morning. What’s with these artists keeping fit? I thought they were meant to be dissolute. Anyway, the Chapmans have not only made their own version of Tracey’s famous tent, which was destroyed in a warehouse fire five years ago, but have also, of course, reworked their piece called Hell. This has been bought by the French businessman François Pinault, who owns Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Christie’s auction house; it will be unveiled this week at the opening of his museum in Venice.

When in doubt, turn to Maggie. The BBC has recently done well with dramas about the aspiring politician (The Long Walk to Finchley) and the last days of her premiership (Margaret). Now I learn that BBC1 has commissioned Zinnie Harris, whose excellent reworking of A Doll’s House is at the Donmar, to write an eight-parter about the 1980s, the Thatcher era. She will deliver the first episode in July. Glad to see the BBC still has some ambition for big drama series.

Tim Bevan, boss of Working Title, is about to be named as the next chairman of the UK Film Council, following in the steps of Alan Parker and the current incumbent, Stewart Till. Strangely, Bevan’s co-chairman at Working Title is Eric Fellner, who is on the board of the British Film Institute, which gets its money via the Film Council. So, I hope Tim will in future be generous to Eric.

You would think the Tate had enough Turners (more than 20,000, including prints and sketches) not to need any fakes. Yet in the small-ads page of the latest Private Eye I spotted: “Can art forger, who specialises in or can replicate Turner’s work for personal project, please e-mail any examples?” I will spare the blushes of the sender, but it was a Tate employee, using the gallery’s internal e-mail system. The silly man has been ticked off by his employer for placing the ad. Shame. It would have been fun to see what a professional forger such as John Myatt would have done with The Fighting Temeraire.

richard.brooks@sunday-times.co.uk

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