Oh, these artists: one is paid tax-payers' money to drink beer and fall over

In London, a Japanese artist has been paid £5,000 of taxpayers' money to drink 48 bottles of beer and then fall off a wooden beam. The performance, at an arts centre in Cardiff, outraged members of the local council, reports the Times. However, an arts centre spokesman said: "This wasn't just about a woman drinking a lot of beer. This was a powerful piece of art."

Tomoko Takahashi, 39, who performs under the name Anti-Cool, was once nominated for the Turner Prize for her installations of rubbish. She says her performance "comments on the availability and use of mass-produced products".

But she is now being accused of encouraging binge drinking. The three-hour act consisted of Takahashi drinking more and more beer and trying to see how far she could walk across the beam before she fell off.

David Davies, a Conservative member of the Welsh Assembly, said: "If anyone is daft enough to want to see a young woman getting plastered and tottering around in high heels, they can do it in just about every city centre most nights of the week. The worrying thing is that people are making decisions to hand out taxpayers' money like this when they are sober."