Love and stuff

I went to the National Gallery and wandered nonchalantly past paintings by Caravaggio, Velasquez and Canaletto whilst dazed tourists meandered around, too stunned to look at the pictures. No doubt they were simply trying to figure out how the hell they had managed to walk into one of the finest art collections on Earth without (a) queuing, (b) military security checks and (c) paying. I looked around the exhibition entitled Love which was lovely. Vermeer, Rossetti, Holman Hunt, Claude and Turner rubbing shoulders with Hockney, Spencer, Emin and Perry - just the way they should. Another exhibition, Radical Light: The Italian Divisionist Painters was also superb, with paintings made up of painstakingly-applied brushstrokes of colour in tiny dots and dashes giving the surface of the pictures a woven effect. The application of scientific colour principles to the artists' palettes resulted in paintings which appeared to be magically lit from behind. At the National Portrait Gallery I learned that I thought I knew more than I did in fact know about the life and times and paintings of Wyndham Lewis. Brew Wharf then beckoned.

I took this photo in Trafalgar Square. By inverting the colours the figures have taken on a phosphoric glow against the grey, stone background. Well, I like it.

Chicken Little

Early this morning Jude the Greyhound caught a chicken. I managed to get her to release it from her jaws before any damage was done, and the chook got away with no more than a few missing feathers and an unanticipated rush of blood to the head.

A couple of weeks ago I went on a tour of the oil tanks deep beneath Tate Modern. These spaces will be integral to the extension ambitiously planned for 2012. This photo didn't come out right, but I like the way the light has streaked and the way figures have a ghostly quality. Dressed in builders' helmets and flourescent jackets we were lead into the various vast, cavernous, brick-lined subterranean spaces and then given an opportunity to ask the tour guide questions. One woman asked, 'Why is there an echo in here?' Let's face it, intelligence is not a prerequisite to becoming a Tate Member.

New Beginnings

For some reason, I have started to think about building myself a website. It was not until I sat down to do this that the realisation dawned on me that I didn't know how or where to begin. Consequently, I've decided to settle for a blogsite until I become IT-literate by osmosis. I was thinking all of this in Greenwich Park, which is a good place for thinking. The squirrels are pretty tasty too. I recommend it.

Up with the lark, Jude (the obscure Greyhound) and I set off along the Thames and through the leaky foot-tunnel to meet up with Tara (the Rottweiler) and Charlie (the Staffordshire terrier with a pinch of Pitbull, and you should never pinch a Pitbull) by the site of the burnt-out, tarpaulin-covered Cutty Sark. A three hour circuit, then back to bed with a mug of tea and What I Loved by Siri Hutsvedt, a book which I have been reading for a number of weeks now which is more an indication of my reading speed and ability than any criticism of the wonderful writing. I must have dozed off, but I was soon awoken by the incredibly irritating sound of stunt planes looping-the-loop and flying upside-down over the Isle of Dogs. In fact, I think they might have been inside our house at one point, whizzing up and down the stairs and around the back of the telly. I think it was part of a display connected with some air show malarkey at the Ex-Cel centre - surely it's not normal to have planes doing stunts over a densely populated area? I'm going to write to my MP. On second thoughts...it's stopped now.

Later on, I watch Becoming Jane. This is the story of how Jane Austen ended up so achingly frustrated after a bit of man trouble early on. Not sure how much I needed to know this, and how fictitious it was anyway. Also, I got the feeling it might just have been a wheeze to wring a little bit more gold out of the Pride and Prejudice formula. Fine for a Sunday night on the sofa.