‘A LOAD of bumbling, scattered trash.’

‘Thank goodness I borrowed a pass and didn’t pay to see all this rubbish.’

‘Even worse than last year.’

So I wasn’t alone. The comments board, inviting visitors to express their views, was the best thing in the room at the art exhibition we had gone to see.

The Turner Prize has always attracted controversy, and seeing this year’s finalists close up in London’s Tate Britain, I can see why. All but one of the exhibits was, in my opinion, either unimaginative or plain ridiculous.

Some consisted of random car boot-type items thrown together. I could have replicated them from stuff in my garage. Even my husband was not impressed.

He and I don’t see eye to eye over art. When we first met he took me to see an exhibition of Mark Rothko paintings. I hadn’t heard of him, and, in pre-internet days, had no idea what to expect.

I couldn’t believe how bad it was. “A child could do this,” I said, and within minutes we were at loggerheads - not ideal on what I think was only our second date.

He wasn’t a huge fan, but could see them as ‘art’, whereas I could not. Well, not art that could command millions of pounds at auction.

More recently, I was aghast by the 43.8 million dollar hammer price of the painting Big, Blue, which is simply two blue rectangles with a strip of light blue in between. Some people really do have more money than sense.

So, crucially, does my opinion count? I’ve always felt that my views on individual works of art, however strong, could not possibly hold sway in the art world. That either liking or disliking a piece is not reason enough to spout your beliefs, and you need to be able to justify them with arty intellectual argument.

“This simplification of metric forms smacks of modern-day Cubism, with overtones of Braque or Picasso,” or some such pretentious drivel.

I heard plenty of drivel like this that day in Tate Britain. I would love to go up to people like this and ask: “Could you translate what you just said, please?”

Art galleries can be intimidating places. I always feel an imposter, a philistine, slightly uncomfortable and ill-at-ease. I never know what to say. My husband makes me feel worse by refusing to walk around with me, as though I will embarrass him by saying something stupid.

I do appreciate and enjoy works of art. It doesn’t have to be an Old Master.

But you have to draw the line somewhere. Tracy Emin’s unmade bed, that ridiculous pile of bricks, and other so-called works of art are not art at all. It’s Emperor’s New Clothes.

In my opinion, the Turner Prize makes a mockery of art. It has become too ludicrous. It accepts anything as art.

Earlier this year a couple of teenagers decided to place a pair of glasses on the floor at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art decided to place a pair of glasses on the floor to see what would happen. It was not too long before visitors were skirting slowly around them and crouching down to take a photograph.

The entry tipped to win this year’s Turner Prize - £20,436 penny coins scattered across the floor to make a statement about poverty - is the only artwork that made me think. It’s not great, but it is the best of a bad lot.

I may enter myself next year. After having building work at our house, we have plenty of scrap wood and rubble left over. It costs a lot to legally tip it, so I might dump it outside whichever gallery is hosting the prize, leave it there and wait for the cheque to arrive.

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