The most hilarious story of the day

BBC reports:

A thirsty thief is being blamed for downing a bottle of water, valued at ?42,500, at a literary festival.
The two-litre clear plastic bottle containing melted ice from the Antarctic was devised to highlight global warming by artist Wayne Hill.

But the warm weather is thought to have got the better of someone who snatched it at the Ways with Words festival at Dartington Hall in south Devon.

American-born Mr Hill said the bottle was clearly a work of art.

He said: "It looked like an ordinary bottle of water. But it was on a plinth, labelled, described and in the programme of the whole festival."

The piece, entitled Weapon of Mass Destruction, vanished half way through the festival. Mr Hill fears the bottle was taken and then drunk.

I just love that: it was LABELLED!!! Apparently, it's the only way to distinguish a real piece of art from junk these days. I remind me of something I read long time ago:
"What a nice peace of art! Yeah, look at the colors... sorry guys, I forgot my workcoat said the technician and snatched away what the two art lovers believed was the exhibition's most interesting object" - that's how I remember one of the stories form Marti Larni, a Finnish communist writer widely popular in the former USSR but apparently completely forgotten at home. He liked to make fun of the 'abstract art' and other forms of bourgeios perversion. I'm sure he'd mince no words to castigate those modern 'installations'.

Though the most hilarious part of it comes when the 'artist' spoke of how he had evaluated the piece:

Its value was worked out by the artist from the damage worldwide of the entire ice sheet melting - he estimates between ?6 trillion and ?9 trillion - and the relative amount of damage from two litres of water.

Just love the estimation part: something between 6 and 9 trillion, I hope his wife/partner handles his money for him. Otherwise, he'll be in trouble.