great glimpse of Gilbert and George on the verge of a big retrospective--

"They expect Tate Modern to be equally swamped: people are mad for art just now - although, personally, he and Gilbert disdain gallery going.

Gilbert: 'We don't look at other artists.'

George: 'We don't socialise with other artists.'

Gilbert: 'We haven't been to a gallery in 30 years.'

George: 'We don't belong to the gallery-going class, you see.'

So they didn't see Velasquez at the National Gallery? George yelps, as if stung. 'Never! Why would I want to join a long line of middle-class twits? We want to see the world as it is, naked. We left the house the other day at 6.25am, and there in the street was a dead, flattened rat, and a crow feasting from it. That's an amazing image, isn't it? I shall remember it forever.' At the memory of this ravenous crow and its macabre breakfast, the pair of them sip their Nescafe contemplatively..."