The art world was rocked this month by allegations of cheating, as 3D Animators and other computer-toting visual craftsmen felt the flamey wrath of traditional artists who feel under threat from a new breed of software that can do all the painting for you. Applications such as Ableshop and Picktor 3 are at the heart of the fracas, as their users boldly buck twenty years of artistic tradition.

Painters, or ‘canvas junkies,’ often spend hours of their time - not to mention many hundreds of pounds a year - on paint, and practise colour-matching in their spare time. Colour matching is the messy and inaccurate technique whereby a Decor Jockey, or ‘DJ’, will mix and blend a selection of colours to produce a smooth, continuous tone.

But all that could soon come to an end as youngsters ditch public colour-mixing shows and gallery attendance falls to an all time low. Teenagers are heading to the trendier venues in droves; their destination: ‘independent’ shows where highly skilled knitting circles are thrashing out specatular arts-and-crafts tableaux with vibrant knotted strings attached to pieces of wood, often whilst consuming outrageous quantities of alcohol.

Conclusion: software is killing the art of mixing. Remember: you heard it here first.