I saw Damien Hirst's flashy skull this week, and can attest that it is a remarkable spectacle, if not necessarily a remarkable object.  Hirst's new show spans two galleries -- the White Cube's Hoxton space in East London and its Mason's Yard space in the West End -- but the skull is not in either of theses spaces. It's kept on a separate floor in its own private room. To get there you must walk out of the Mason's Yard gallery, around to the back of the building to a ticket booth manned by sleekly dressed, young galleristas. They ask for your postal code (the gallery will brag, I'm sure, of the visitors from the UAE or San Tropez) and hand you a free ticket. From the booth you are led into a roped-off line, where you can stand for a half-hour or more.

The whole thing may strike you as a kind of upmarket carnival ride. Long lines, for brief, heavily hyped thrills. The White Cube has even rented out a small gallery space across the street to hawk t-shirts and posters and a book filled with scientific facts about the skull, like the age of the teeth (35 years).

Next to you in line is, perhaps, a physicist from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and his wife. On the other side is a family from Birmingham. None of them are really fans of Hirst, they must admit, but, you know, they'd read about the skull and were in the area and, well, they thought, why not?

Soon you reach ushers draped in black and armed with walkie talkies. They give you some instructions, search your bags, and bring you upstairs in a group (They let in about a dozen viewers at a time). There you are lined up against a wall in a narrow hallway, and told to leave your bags at your feet.

"The room is pitch black," says another chic guard, "and you will be allowed only two minutes to examine the piece."

"Two minutes?" someone vainly objects. In you go.

The skull is shiny, very shiny. It's made of millions of dollars of diamonds, and you can't help thinking about the price tag as everyone crowds around, elbowing for the best spot to marvel at the workmanship. You can't help wondering what makes it so expensive. From your perspective, craning over the shoulders of your fellow gallery-goers, it might as well be covered in cubic zirconium.

"It's got good teeth," someone pipes up in the dark. "Very good teeth," says another, "better than mine."

After closer inspection a teenage girl adds, "There are no fillings."

"You'd expect diamond fillings, wouldn't you?"

"Good bone structure," says an older man. "I bet he was very handsome."

"Is it a girl or a boy?" asks young woman.

"It's a man."

"A man?" says a middle-aged Englishman. "How clever."

Suddenly, time's up. You head out into the bright sun, dazed by the life of the city.

-- AUSTIN KELLEY