A Kingdom far far away closer than you think.

One day, in a kingdom far, far away a painting contest was held between the official court artist and a lowly beggar, both of whom claimed that they, were the greatest in all the land, both of whom had slaved, tirelessly over endless weeks to paint the most magnificent painting possible, so that they would go down in history as the greatest, or at least the greatest until next years ‘Artist Idol’. And so, upon the day of the contest, both artists were asked to unveil their master works. The official court artist went first, unveiling a magnificent and yet ever so slightly boring picture of a long banquet table with sumptuous meats and fruits of every variety the sort of thing that the king was very used to and very fond of “look at that” said the king “its magnificent, even the cutlery is magnificent, it shines magnificently” at that very moment a magpie in agreement with the kings final statement swooped down in order to take some of the painting for its nest and was immediately set upon by the court guards who failed to catch the bird but none the less completely wrecked the painting much to the collective aghast of all those present, the artist sensing that he needed to find some saving grace in this if he was to save his neck shouted out "but look at that I am such a brilliant artist that I have fooled nature itself" which went down very well indeed at this point the king sensing that he needed to put in an appearance lest his people not notice him and crown the artist in his stead bore down on the beggar and said "right so you think you can do better than that do you" the beggar said nothing "well answer me, unveil you're damn painting or I’ll do it myself" the beggar said nothing nor did anything and so the king grabbed hold of the piece of cloth that covered the painting and ripped it away only to find that their was no cloth only the painting itself, the painting itself being a painting of a piece of cloth covering a painting. And before the crowd or indeed the king or indeed the court artist were able to get over their shock at this the beggar said "right, see here, that artist great as he may be was only able to fool a magpie, were as I am so great that I’ve made the king, himself look like a right twat and make no mistake "

And so at the final tally two paintings were destroyed, conceptual art was born, one magpie died of lead poisoning, and one lowly beggar was hanged for insolence.

The official court artist remains the official court artist.