Modern art? It's daylight robbery

American artist Joseph Gibbons is currently being held in custody in New York after attempting to hold up a branch of the Chase One bank (Splash News) (Splash News)

Though it’s only open to British artists, and they don’t announce the shortlist until May, they might as well call off this year’s Turner Prize and give an honorary award to an American called Joseph Gibbons.

Gibbons, whose lecturer profile page at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tells us that his work “blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction”, is currently being held in custody in New York after attempting to hold up a branch of the Chase One bank in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve. Apparently, Gibbons walked in and handed over a note to a member of the bank’s staff which read: “This is a robbery. Large bills. No dye packs/No GPS”. Oh, and he then pulled out a camera and explained to the bank teller that he would be filming the heist.

Last November, Gibbons, who is 61, pulled the same stunt when he stole $3,000 from a bank in Rhode Island and has since told his cellmate that the crimes were part of an ongoing art project. Well he did warn us that his work blurred the line between fact and fiction.

Brains versus brawn

A study conducted in China and Germany last year concluded that as human brains have got stronger, so our muscles have got weaker. It was important and serious scientific research but, perhaps, if an argument on a bodybuilding website that emerged last week is to be believed, the opposite is also true.

The heated debate between a user called TheJosh and another called Justin-27 concerned, I kid you not, how many days of the week there were.

It began when TheJosh, a 27-year-old from Arizona, insisted that if you worked out every other day you would be getting four good workouts a week. Justin-27 quickly pointed out that that made no sense as there were not eight days in a week and went on to explain that you count the days of the week from Sunday to Saturday.

“A week,” TheJosh fired back, “is Sunday to Sunday. Sunday to Saturday is only six days. Do you have six-day weeks where you live?” Undeterred, Justin27 replied: “A week is not Sunday to Sunday! It’s Sunday to Saturday, seven days!” To which TheJosh mystifyingly responded: “You don’t start counting on Sunday, it hasn’t been a day yet, you don’t start counting till Monday. You can’t count the day that it is.”

Astonishingly, the exchange continued for a further four pages of the forum with neither side backing down. I’m only telling you this because it might make you feel better about that lapsed gym membership.

It’s not me, it’s you

Last week, I reported that the inaugural Boyfriend/Girlfriend Exchange was about to take place in a former public toilet in London. The idea was that anyone who had recently split up from a partner could come along, give the reason why the last relationship didn’t work out and, hopefully, find someone new along the way.

The Exchange took place last Thursday and, as promised, I can now reveal some of the reasons that people gave for their former relationships not working out. Here are my top five deal-breakers in no particular order:

1. “She never ever ever put the lid on condiments. Even after Condiment Gate.”

2. “He didn’t contact me for weeks and then I found out that he’d been in jail!”

3. “Forgot to tell me that he was expecting a baby and I found out through a photo he put up on Vibr.”

4. “Uses asthma pump before sex. Real moment killer.”

5. “He got caught trying to smuggle 5kg of cocaine out of Peru. And he’s a dick.”

(If you have a similar story to tell, the organisers behind the event, doingsomething.co.uk, are offering 50 per cent off the first month of membership to Independent on Sunday readers who sign up using the code “independent”.)

Love at first sight

There’s an app for most things, but not many can claim to be socially useful. Step forward Be My Eyes, the brainchild of the Danish inventor Hans Jorgen Wiberg.

“It only takes a minute to look at the expiry date on the milk – if you have full vision,” the promotional material reads. “For visually impaired individuals, smaller tasks can often become bigger challenges. Now, through a direct videocall the app gives blind people the opportunity to ask a sighted volunteer for help, and the sighted helper is able to see and describe what the blind person is showing them. By working together, they can solve the problem that the blind person is facing.” Be My Eyes is available free of charge at the iTunes Store. Who knows? It might even wean you off Candy Crush.

No rhyme or reason

Another in a regular series of limericks based on recent events:

There’s a new news a-gender, I fear,

“White wine mixed with women – steer clear!”,

But the sauvignon blanc-ers,

They can’t all be bonkers,

(And what about men after beer?)

Twitter.com/@simmyrichman