KLF

On 23 August 1994 Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty burned £1m on the Scottish island of Jura. They never said why they did it, declaring a 23 year moratorium on answering any questions about the stunt. That 23 years expired yesterday and so at 23 seconds past midnight yesterday they drove down Bold Street in an ice cream van before stopping outside News From Nowhere where they would rubber stamp (but not sign) copies of their new book called - yup - 2023.

Yesterday there was a "hearing" in front of an audience at the Black-E where five speakers representing different perspectives – artist Jeremy Deller, art historian Annebella Pollen, Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson, economist Ann Pettifor, and Vice journalist Clive Martin – were to offer their views on the reason why £1m was tuned into ash. The audience would then vote on the version they preferred. Cauty and Drummond did not take part in the discussion. In the event, Annebella Pollen's version was preferred, namely the whole thing was "part of an ancient tradition of subversive weirdness". That is now the official reason why the KLF burned £1m and when told of the result, Drummond apparently shrugged and said "whatever".

I'd missed the book signing because we were away and I didn't have a ticket to the Black-E event, so I'm only going on what I've read and heard elsewhere. But for a certain demographic in the city, these events - part of a larger 3 day kind of happening are exciting and intriguing at the same time. And I'm one of them, even though I'm watching from outside.

So I was pretty pleased to see the ice cream van parked up in the grounds of the Bombed Out Church this afternoon. In a further act of subversion, it looks as though it's distinctive signage is being removed, thereby stripping it of any artistic or even historical value. We're still waiting to see whether the pair simply blow it up anyway.