The Glorious Twelfth: The Project Forty-five years ago, TS Eliot famously said that "cultur" was something that included "all the characteristic activities and interests of a people". For England, this to him meant: "Derby Day, Henley Regatta, Cowes, the twelfth of August, a cup final, the dog races, the pin-table, the dart-board, Wensleydale cheese, boiled cabbage cut into sections, beetroot in vinegar, nineteenth century Gothic churches and the music of Elgar." While English and British identity has changed almost unrecognisably - few would attribute much significance "the twelfth of August", the opening day of the grouse-shooting season, for example - and Eliot's picture of England sounds unbearably nostalgic and ethically unilateral, his overall point still stands. Culture takes into account a cross-historical grab-bag which borrows indifferently from "high and "low", contemporary consumables to age-old traditions, in an ever-shifting, wholly subjective portrait. A culture, rather than formed by a linear accumulation of its constituent parts, is more like a sort of Möbius strip of fluctuating events, names and phenomena, a sort of gaseous ether around an equally volatile core. [Gilda Williams 1997] The twelfth of August (the “glorious twelfth”) has been long established in the UK as the first day of the grouse hunting season (the "open season"). By revisiting this antiquated emblem of all things traditional in a contemporary urban context, Discotheque hoped to critically examine some of our unthinking assumptions about identity, class, and what exactly constitutes modern life in the ephemeral city. The project was a collaborative venture, with the artists involved taking on distinct roles in an urban "hunt". Rather like in the traditional version, the hunt was to progress through a structured series of diverse yet interconnected stages. But there was a crucial difference: our "game" would be of the soft-toy variety. The tasks adopted by the artists involved were as follows: Hunting; the collecting of the soft-toys - in shops, skips, or wherever they might live in the city. Taxidermy; the stuffing and preserving of the animals. Trophy display; the fruits of the hunt as seen hung ostentatiously on the walls of the wealthy. Dispersal; the trophies displayed or hidden in the heart of Deptford. Mapping; once the animals were in place they needed to be pointed out to the spectator. Catalogue; a more or less truthful disclosure of the locations and identities of the trophies. Tour; a series of rambles around the wilds of Southeast London, with a view to spotting some wildlife. With the help of the accompanying catalogue, the hunt took the form of a self-guided tour. Guided tours were also given periodically by the participating artists.