PANDORA FROM THE COURTAULD AND THAT SORT OF NAME

There is the sort of name that the upward settled or the upward aspiring will never give their children. Brian is such a name, and so is Gary and Tracy. There are also names that the lower classes do not give their offsprings: Tobias, Rupert, Randy.

This is in partly because to their parents or grandparents generation Toby is a jug, Rupert is not a Royalist general but a cartoon bear in yellow trousers and Randy is unfulfilled sexual arousal. Arts officers and gallery curators more often these days come from the middle or upper-middle classes and bear such names.

The girls have names which ends in 'a' such as Pandora, Cassandra, Julia, and Lucretia and degrees in subjects which have an intellectual bent and foster the critical faculty. They come to curatorship or the Arts via art history or English Literature faculties of particular universities. Oxford and Cambridge of course is still in the act but so is the Courtauld and Manchester.

This brings problems because they measure by the standards of the concert hall and white cube galleries and not by the street. They also bring with them an attitude to design and promotion that is not telephone led but led by smart publicity and business practice. They have to pursue expensive equal opportunities policies. Advertising for a lowly post in a community organisation in a place like Cudworth, near Barnsley could cost £2,000

At one time this was not the case. Ten years ago many officers came to the arts because they had been arts practitioners. This was a proactive age and they were street wise.