The Bacon meme

I am so late to the internet bacon bandwagon that I didn't get to it before the backlash began. Fortunately I am posting about Francis Bacon the artist instead of bacon the meat. The idea of a Francis Bacon triptych hand-painted onto a necktie is so unlikely that it never entered my mind before I saw one on eBay a few years ago. It even came in its own handmade solid hardwood box, and I do mean solid: it's a chunk of hardwood with a tie-shaped cavity routed out with a drill. How could I pass that up? Even more unlikely is that there is more than one in existence, but such is the case. Andrew McKie writes in the Wall Street Journal about meeting Damien Hirst at one of Hirst's openings in 2009:

I turned up in a tie based on a Bacon triptych, bought from John Pearse, the tailor whose shop stands just across from the Colony Room and Groucho clubs. There, during the 1990s, Mr. Hirst's drink- and drug-fueled exploits became notorious even by Soho's bohemian standards. "Great tie," he says. "John sent me one, too."

For the record, there is a John Pearse label on my tie as well. So there, I have something in common with Damien Hirst.