The living daylights

I was talkin to Chuck in his Genghis Khan suit
And his wizard's hat
He spoke of his movie and how he was makin'
A new sound track

And then we spoke of kids on the coast
And different types of organic soap
And the way suicides don't leave notes
Then we spoke of Lorraine
Always back to Lorraine

That was lodged in my head all day long today. It just played on a loop - not even a blast from Snow Patrol could keep it out. I feel better for having externalised it in this way. By the way, if you have attempted to leave a comment on this blog (telling me where I can stick it) and have failed due to the sheer effort of registering and what-not, that I am the bearer of glad tidings. I checked the setting and realised it had defaulted to the wrong thing. So now leaving a comment should be as easy as falling off a frog.

So, nice day it was - now I've gone all Yoda. Lots of things to do this morning my goodness me yes. Then I was off to the library, tearing around the place trying to track down books and articles for the next two weeks. I've found that working two weeks ahead of the lecture means that you do the the teeniest chance of finding the relevant books - any later and then the out-of-towners who visit the library once a week have snaffled the lot.

This evening saw the last part of our Research Skills course, and the director of the Art History school succeeded in scaring the living daylights out of us by describing what was expected of our research projects and dissertations. Crumbs. Work to do there is much.

His name was Leo

Leonardo da Vinci - Experience, Experiment and Design - today's exhibition - do pay attention class. The culture vultures met at South Kensington for coffee, before studying how Leonardo thought on paper at the V&A. It was all very interesting and enjoyable - but much smaller than I had anticipated - story of my life. Running ahead of schedule, we explored Photography and took a butcher's at the Raphael cartoons - not sure who was expecting Hero Turtles, and some intriguing fashions from the yesteryear.

Barrie chauffeured us with panache to Little Venice where we wandered around the canal and criss-crossed its bridges before a tour of NW8-6 (rich people and celeb-land) and lunch at the Clifton Arms. Two and a half chickens later, and a few of the barman's finest and I was heading back once more to E14 - I know my place. Hide and seek in the dark with Jude, then the Royle Family - laughter and tears.

M25

We zipped around the M25 in the motor and made it in one piece to Stoneleigh and a warm welcome from mes parents. After eating far too much, Jude was treated to a long walk in unfamiliar territory which she found incredibly exciting. After terrorising the local squirrel population, I picked up some polyanthus (or is it polyanthi?) from the nearby nursery and we were soon speeding back around the London orbital in the dark.

Knackered - why so?

House

I decided to take myself off to an exhibition, and in a fairly random manner I selected USA Today, the Saatchi show of Young American Artists at the Royal Academy. This was billed as a show to rival the impact of the Sensation exhibition back in the 90's, but it wasn't all that. Interesting though, and plenty big enough - but a lot of it left me feeling empty and uninvolved. 6/10 perhaps, if I'm feeling generous.

Afterwards I stretched out on the grass in Green Park and ate lunch. A bit of sunshine and the deckchairs come out - and a little man runs around trying to collect £1.50 off the unsuspecting tourists who are hapless enough to sit down upon them. How they protest - and there is much arm movement and general gesticulation. Bloody money-grubbing English. Londoners sit on the grass and look on. I watched the various attempts the ticket-man made to explain to non-English speaking tourists that in London you have to pay to sit down for two minutes, before inevitably they would get up and walk on.

Onwards to the library and a solid four hours of studinglyness. Feeling very swotty, I tottered off to my lecture entitled The Nation comes from the Nursery. We looked at mid-Victorian genre painting and went on to discuss the impact of patronage and then the relevance of Rachel Whiteread's sculpture, House. I remember this when it actually stood off the Mile End road and I used to pass it on the bus on the way to the barbers in Bethnal Green. I recall the artist on the local TV news on the day the sculpture was demolished, calmly attempting to explain to smug media hacks and misguided local residents that it was never intended to be permanent, and the destruction was symbolic of the nature of the work. Mmm.

Lust for life

This morning was a struggle. I had to return to my bed after walking Jude, but then I felt much better. After lunch I packed my bags and set off for the library. I found a quiet desk on the third floor and four hours went by so quickly I was almost late for this evening's lecture on painting and cinema.We discussed the way in which film alters the art object, and how the comparatively elitist nature of art has been disseminated through the popular medium of cinema. We watched clips from Le Mystere Picasso and Lust for Life with Kirk Douglas done up as Van Gogh. Afterwards the SU Bar beckoned and so the discussion continued as the beer flowed cheaply.

Over and out

My last day at work and the Jubilee Line is up the swanee. The day's highlights included:

A delicious roast dinner (and pudding) in the café, a moving leaving speech (not by me I hasten to add), very generous gifts, and a few beers down the pub (an exceedingly busy pub - which was mysterious).

They think it's all over - it is now. Thank you and goodnight.

Right...better start thinking about this MA then...

Penultimate

Workday. What can I say? Several meetings and a lot of email deletings. I was given two very nice leaving presents and bag crammed full with bottles of Stella! I cycled home gingerly with two over-stuffed and very heavy panniers and extremely light steering.

Mint sauce

It must have been something I drank, but I was a little slow to get started today - although a my zombie-like status is not permitted to stand between Jude and her 6.30am walkies. Domestic duties included washing, general paperwork (how little money haven't I got?) and a whizz around Asda sniffing-out dented-tin bargains - Waitrose just a sepia-tinted memory now. At four I set off for Birkbeck Library and browsed amongst the art sections before walking in the rain to Senate House for a tour of that library. What an extraordinary place. One of the librarians had gone to the considerable trouble of putting together a small exhibition of some seriously interesting and rare art books - 19th Century first editions with engravings by such luminaries as William Blake. Afterwards we were taken up cramped stairways to the lofty library rooms with the largest collection of art books I've ever seen and lots of nooks and crannies with reading desks.

Library tour over, I marched back to Holborn and took the Central Line to Shepherd's Bush. A swift pint of O'Neills (lovely pub...not) and then to the Shepherd's Bush Empire for Lambchop. I had only ever stood on the main floor at this venue, so it was an experience to be elevated to the seated section - which is appropriate for this band believe me. When we took our seats there was a heck of a racket coming from the stage - all a bit experimental - and we hoped it was the support act - but no, just the opening passage before the arrival of Kurt and we were soon back on familiar territory. I think it is true to say that a Lambchop gig attracts a certain crowd which it would be improper to describe as trendy. There was much beard-stroking and enthusiastic applauding - also much toilet visiting which gives an indication of the 'certain-age' of your regular Lambchop fan. Karen's verdict: lush. I agree.

Cheers

It's a fair old trek to Northfields on the tube, but that's where we went for lunch. Great company, fantastic roast beef - superb - and a never-ending supply of wine. Hick. Quite a day - the journey home being slightly less memorable. Or was it? I forget.

Reviewing the situation

To Millbank, and Tate Britain. I met Mr Matthews upon the stair, and we sallied forth to view some fine paintings and drawings by that supreme court painter from Germany, Hans Holbein the Younger. Holbein lived in Britain for 12 years until carried off by the plague in 1543, and painted a few blinders in the meantime. A whacking great 8 out of 10 for this show.

Scoring slightly lower (ahem) there is the Turner Prize exhibition. Mark Titchner's playing about with belief systems, Rebecca Warren's come up with some unfired, lumpen clay scuptures, Tomma Abts' put out some fine, small abstracts (the highlight) and Phil Collins' bores you to death with his endless video installation of interviewer and interviewee. Don't make a detour to visit - 4/10.

We walked from Millbank to Waterloo, along the the south bank and past the thronging tourists packed beneath the Millennium wheel and darkening skies. Not much luck in finding a decent pub - we ended up in a dodgy Irish boozer, air heavy with smoke and stale beer. Back home to exercise Lady Grey-hound and then Oliver! All in the name of study - altogether - Oliver, Oliver, never before has a boy asked for more...

No sliding today

Is it really still this week. God, it's gone on a bit. Took off to Tate Modern to meet Di by the slides. I had queued up for a ticket - but even at mid-day, the first available whizz down from floor 5 was not until 4.30pm. We sat through Christian Marclay's video installation titled Video Quartet twice, it is so good. Then off for a tour of the Fischli & Weiss exhibition, which is good in parts. A 6/10.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in Birkbeck Library, swotting up for this evening's seminar on the Palace of Westminster. It kind of paid off, although I have been asked to summarise this evening's discussion at the beginning of next week's seminar - doh! Why me?

More?

So in a few weeks time I have to give this seminar on the portrayal of 'the Victorians' in the various film adaptations of Dickens' Oliver Twist. This gives me a totally legitimate reason to spend the morning watching David Lean's 1946 version - all wind, rain, shadows and gloom. Not bad special effects in the nose department either - Fagin could have your eye out with that thing. Next up is Carol Reed's musical version - wey-hey! Food glorious food, cheese, cabbage and custard...

Afterwards I headed to Greenwich to collect some meds for Jude. The specialist has examined the x-rays of her shoulders and front legs and diagnosed that the cause of her intermittent lameness is an old 'chronic tendon injury' and associated arthritic changes. He gave me some magic beans - one month's supply just £100 to you sir. Thank heavens for insurance. I trundled back into town and to the library at Bloomsbury. Joined Senate House library, got an NUS card, applied for Community Charge immunity (oh yes) and proved I had a degree at the Registry Office. I then read up on today's lecture in the library before heading to Gordon Square.

Tonight we discussed the photographs of Lady Hawarden, and the various theoretical approaches that have been used in assessing them. All fascinating stuff, rounded off with a few drinks in the Student Union bar with my fellow post-grad students.

Give me an inch and I'll take you a mile

I completely forgot to mention that yesterday lunchtime myself and young John waltzed along to Tate Modern to partake in the spectatorship of Carsten Holler's slides. It was most amusing to watch people popping out of the end of these curly tubes, doing their best to maintain their dignity but generally bumping their heads in the process. On Friday I intend to slide. Now there's a build-up for you.

Yeah - work again today, but not as we know it, for I was fortunate enough to be taken out for lunch by my most esteemed colleagues to a tapas bar on Borough High Street. We grazed on the most delicious dried hams, smoked fish, cheeses and other tasty bits and bobs washed down by a generous helping of Spanish rosé. A swift half in The Globe and back to work. For some reason, my cycle ride home was a little slower than usual.

Back to the study books...oh my goodness...so much to do.

The Hall that is City

Back to work. One down, three to go...how good does that make me feel?

Monday mood

The 6.30am Jude walk was not exactly what the doctor had ordered. Last night's shenanigans left me feeling positively negative this morning and I mooched about feeling generally...knackered. Thank goodness I didn't have to go to work though. I curled up with an art theory book and went through the motions.

After lunch I pointed myself in the direction of Bloomsbury. I started off in the British Museum and the small Tagore exhibition there, which was just about as much as I could handle today. Beautiful artwork - of the type displayed here for your visual pleasure. Most educational. I wandered through the museum, pausing to examine some drawings by Degas, Courbet and Seurat. What a wealth of brilliant...stuff. I made my way out, passing the Egyptian mummies on the way - they looked how I felt.

In the library I searched listlessly for books and got all crabby when I couldn't find what I needed. I headed to the slide library in another building to try and track down some research information, but what I needed wasn't there either. In the meantime I broke out into a cold sweat and ended up sitting on a park bench until I felt better. The evening class was a tour of the slide library - a fascinating resource containing literally tens of thousands of slides all in little wooden drawers with index cards. Afterwards I returned to the library determined to find the articles I needed - and what do you know - I did. After the ecstasy of this success, I trundled home with sleep on my mind.

Crawling to Crawley

After running a marathon with Jude, and bringing half of the supermarket home on my back, I settled down with a book of photographs by Lady Hawarden - for that is the subject of my next lecture. Fascinating stuff. You see Clemintina, Viscountess Hawarden (1822-1865) was one of the pioneering women of British photography. Her subject? Sensual photographs of her daughters in theatrical poses taken in the isolation of their London home. Say no more.

This evening we ran the gauntlet of travelling by train to Crawley to surprise our friends Michael & Andre who were staying overnight at the airport hotel there en route to Las Vegas, all arranged via our co-conspirators Bob & Jacqui. Here we all are having some toast.

A great evening. The only fly in the ointment was having to rely on the vagaries of the great British rail network to get home. Needless to say it was a late one.

Thumbsucker

Well, I took a day off from the swotting - I think that's healthy. After Jude-walking duties, we went off in the car to the giant pet store (yes that's right - pets for giants) to get bargain price food for the canine lodger. Spent ages staring at the tropical fish and budgies - why do they keep them in the same tank? Stopped off at Majestic Wine on the way home and stocked up on a mixed case of vino - some things one just can't go without. Then I started pottering about in the tiny plot of land I call the garden: pruned the rose, cut back the fuscia, tidied up the honeysuckle and trimmed my bush round the front. And sunshine too - who'd've thought it?

Watched the film 'Thumbsucker' - which got the thumbs up. A 7/10 methinks.

Now what has that Antony been up to? He's a little tinker, getting me into all sorts of trouble in somebody else's dream. This was sent to me this morning, and made me laugh so hard branflakes came down my nose.

"So, there I am, living in this huuuumungus gothic house in the country somewhere, all dark and gloomy and stuffed with old ornate furniture and weird distorting mirrors, and I'm sharing the house with Antony from Antony and the Johnsons. It turns out he's got some kind of unspecified disability and I have to have the whole house converted for his wheelchair and a horrible grey concrete ramp laid over the grand steps that lead up to the front entrance. In the dream, I am most upset because my house is ruined and I know he is faking, but he insists that I am his only friend in the world and that I must help him or he will die. It's all a bit melodramatic and quite frankly my patience is wearing thin. Then one day I find an address book in his jacket pocket with one name in it - yours [guess who - only your blogging author!] There is a telephone number so I ring and you [that's me] answer. I tell you the whole story and you agree to come and try and persuade him to give up his pretence and leave my house. You arrive and I rush to answer the door and see my saviour, the person who is going to make all the nightmares disappear...I opened the door and there you were, with a seriously concerned expression and sporting a fantastic Wendy Craig/Purdey style haircut, nicely topped off by a stripy knitted beret, a fur trimmed gilet, a pair of magnificent purple velvet loons, white pointy boots and a string of plastic beads. Anyway, you told him to pull himself together and that the Doctor was going to be very very angry with him for messing up the nice lady's house. He was a bit miffed he'd been rumbled and charged out of the house into your waiting car, and you drove off. I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do with all the surgical aids dotted around the house and wondering how he'd got there in the first place, when I woke up."

Go figure!

The Hours

What I find strangely humbling is sitting in a room within a row of houses which were once home to Clive and Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf, and discussing the notions upheld by the Bloomsbury set. I'm looking out of their windows at the same view of Gordon Square that they would've gazed out at, discussing extracts from diaries written in those very rooms and debating the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments and philosophies. A presence in the room whispers "You are not worthy!" But we ignore it. Bloody Virginia shuffling around in her slippers and dressing gown with stones in the pockets, sucking on those filthy roll-ups. And if she thinks that prosthetic nose makes her look anything like Nicole Kidman she's got another think coming.

What a day. Jude walking and then discussing the pros and cons of stand-up comedians with Anna - our good friend, cleaner and dog-walker - and general saviour at times of emergency. In a heated debate over coffee Anna upheld the merits of Roy 'Chubby' Brown whilst I batted for Ricky Gervais' team. We agreed on Eddie Izzard and Peter Kaye, but agreed to differ on Lee Evans. I stuffed several hefty tomes into my rucksack (the Thompson Local and last spring's Ikea catalogue) and headed off into town.

The library was reassuringly quiet and I piled up a stack of books on a desk and started to plough through. I always get a strange sensation when I'm looking up at the highest shelf that the whole cabinet is toppling towards me. Crushed by books - what a way to go.

The theme of this evening's lecture was the Bloomsbury Set (well, enough about them already) and the changing attitudes towards Victorian art of the type shown at the top of this entry. That's Frith's The Derby Day by the way. The everyday Victorian middle-classes loved them (we spit on the everyday Victorian middle-classes), the Bloomsbury set loathed their sugary sentimental narratives, later historians didn't have anything nice to say about them either until the 1960's and 70's that is, when they began to be reexamined in terms of their cultural relevance as opposed to aesthetic quality. By the way, we're not talking about the Pre-Raphelites here, they were coming from another place altogether. ("Another place!" Thank you.) The lecturer then raised the issue of semen - which I thought was uncalled for quite frankly. Apparently Lytton Strachey had pointed to a stain on Virginia's pinafore dress and said, "Semen?" That incident had kick-started those worthy intellectuals into discussing such risque subjects as sex thirteen to the dozen in a context that was to pave the way for things to come as it were, which brings us neatly back to the semen stains. We all put in our two-penneth worth, then shuffled home for our tea.

Jade Goody on Jonathan Ross again! Pur-leeeze! It was funny the first time, but now the joke's worn a bit thin. I switched off and wrote a letter of disgust to Anne Robinson. She likes them - allegedly.

Mannerism..is is and isn't isn't?

After chasing foxes with Jude I spent the morning reading up on High Renaissance and Mannerism in readiness for tonight's lecture. I made the fortunate discovery that several of the heavy art books I've collected over the years are actually quite relevant. What are the chances? Before I knew it, it was eleven of the clock and I had planned to be in the library at ten. Oh. Grabbed a coffee and fled to the DLR which delivered me into town with aplomb, but no panache.

I walked through Russell Square, which was a mistake as I gave in to the temptation to sit on a bench in the sun. A good place to have a read, eat a sandwich, watch a squirrel, take a bite out of my book, read a sandwich and eat a squirrel. Sarah Waters is relevant to my Victorian module, but it seems like too much of a good read to be true. Nothing like a good old Victorian lesbian romp to get you in the mood.

Finally, I made it to the library and waded through some seriously academic articles which had my head lolling about like a bladder on a stick. But I stayed with it and made it through to the other side. A shedload of Vasari, and other odds and sods...and five hours later its lecture time. And what a rollicking rollercoaster of a lecture it was. I really enjoyed it - the time flew by. This is a good thing. I dropped my ton of books back at the library and headed home with a lightness of step, thinking about Mannerism and lasagne.

Bosch, El Greco, Wensleydale...

Another day in the office. Oh and how it rained. Outside mainly though, thank goodness.

Tomato soup

Work day. I was woken by the news headline on the radio: 'City Hall is falling apart'. When that seeps into you semi-conscious dreaming state you don't know what to think. It's always useful to hear on the news what's going on at your work before you get there. This resulted in the opening stages of the morning being a tad on the frantic side of calm. Not to fear, we soldier on, even if it is just to Borough Market to buy big fat tomatoes to make soup for tea. Or tea for soup. So where's the moral? Or where are the morrels, as you would say in the market...but now I'm wandering aimlessly. Is that a daffodil, or are you just pleased to see me.

This evening I came over all unnecessary while examining an engraving by Durer. This was followed by a Grunewald moment. Suddenly, the germ of a seed of an idea for my dissertation begins to take form. I'll have to have a jolly good think.

Sssh!

Went for an eye test this morning. They do it cheap down Asda, round the back of the frozen meals section. I didn't like the bit when they blow air into your eye - I jumped back so violently I almost tipped the chair over backwards. After much fumbling about with comedy David Hockney glasses I was pronounced clear of sight, even if not of mind. My old glasses were given a service and I was free to leave.

Birkbeck Library wasn't quite the haven of peace today that I have become accustomed to on previous visits. There was a bloke sitting near me with a cough on a 30-second loop, which was echoed by somebody else on the other side of the room every time. Mobile phone ringtones and noise of builders on the floor above. After three hours of this I'd had enough - although I had read half of Vasari's Lives of the Artists and a wodge of very wordy articles in the meantime - and not a Guardian crossword in sight I hasten to add.

This evening's course was in researching on-line bibliographies. Now this is living. I expect the drunken man on the tracks of the Docklands Light Railway who delayed my journey home was thinking along similar lines.

Bike

I love these autumnal mornings. Jude and I accompanied a pack of braying hounds of various shapes and sizes as we hunted for fox, squirrel, cat and other bush meat. A cooked breakfast, supermarket sweep (my arms were a good two inches longer by the time I'd struggled home with my load) and then the Observer - and relax. No, too much relaxing. This won't get the baby bathed. So I hop on my bike with Ken Livingstone's cycle-route map sticking jauntily out of my pocket.

Cycling through the City on a Sunday is a most pleasing experience. I felt quite exhilarated as I whizzed over Holborn viaduct, before cutting up to Russell Square and finally Malet Street and Birkbeck Library. The atmosphere was studious, and wonderfully silent. I found articles and books galore (who'd've thought it) and settled down to an afternoon's beard stroking. Cycling home was less successful as I found it was impossible to retrace my route due to multifarious one-way systems which had me heading off in all sorts of undesirable directions. I made it home in time to slam a casserole in the oven and crack open a charming bottle of Gigondas.

Stepping out

After skipping across fields, hurdling stiles and leaping over streams with Jude, there was housework to be done. Oh lord. When do I get to sing 'My Way'? And books to be read, which goes without saying. The piles of art history books around the house seem to be mysteriously growing in a vertical fashion.

I set off for Piccadilly after lunch and spent a lot of time and absolutely no money in the huge multi-floor Waterstones there. I like. Then the Criterion Theatre for 'The 39 Steps'. A man from the BBC asked for an interview - don't know what for - which we declined. The play was 'A joyous version of the Hitchcock classic' and was 'very funny' and 'enormously enjoyable...a wonderful triumph of theatre' in fact. 'Hugely entertaining' and 'Hilarious'. Go see. 'Tis most chucklesome.

This was followed by far too many pints of gassy lager at Rupert Street, with some fine company. The West End was packed - streets thronging with peoploids. Somebody asked me, 'Is this the way to Tiger Tiger?' I said, 'Yes' although I don't have the faintest idea. I got home somehow.

Victoriana

It was with a feeling of trepidation that I set off to Gordon Square this evening. After getting utterly lost in the rabbit warren of corridors and stairwells I finally found the lecture room, which was clearly once a drawing room. It has a superb view over the leafy square. This is 46 Gordon Square, once home to Maynard Keynes et al. There were nine of us in total, plus our course director. She has written a shelf-full of formidably titled books and looked incredibly clever - and so did everybody else for that matter. As my fellow-students introduced themselves and described the various degrees and research projects they were and are involved in, I slid down in my chair. "Hello, I'm Geoff and I did a degree in Hotel and Catering Management at Portsmouth Poly in 1991." Silence. Any confidence I did have quickly put on its coat on and left the room. The course director outlined the schedule and gave us handout after handout of reading lists, allocated us to seminars and essays and scared the living hell out of me. I sat there behind I growing mound of papers, fear and panic rising inside me. I've got to present a 20 minute seminar on the role of film in creating popular and iconic images of the Victorian period, focusing on versions of Oliver Twist from Lean to Polanski via Reed. Oh brother!

I've also got to attend a study day at The Women's Library on sexuality and feminism in Victorian London including talks on 'Contaminated/contaminating Male Bodies'. If anybody fancies a day out they're more than welcome to join me for that.

I sat on the Central Line in a daze. Back home I opened a bottle of Bordeaux, put on some music, curled up next to Jude and began reading...

Rising damp

After watching the sunrise over the Mudchute (that's really what it's called) with Jude, I spent the morning reading my Gombrich before setting off to Knightsbridge. Hyde Park in the rain - deserted, grey, beautiful. Last time I was there is was hideous - tourists and bawling kids. Today, just me, a smattering of geese and a couple of OAPs sheltering under the awnings of the Lido Cafe sipping tea and puffing on roll-ups. The geese smoked Gauloise. I wanted to have a good look at the Albert Memorial, as it is a key part of my module 'Inventing the Victorians' which begins tomorrow. I stood there beneath my umbrella gazing up at this highly decorated edifice as a damp school party with soggy clipboards trudged miserably along. Unfortunately it's not possible to get close enough to look at the stone reliefs, with tours scheduled for the first Sunday of the month (doh!) I might as well wait until November.

Next stop, the Serpentine Gallery to see the current exhibition there entitled: 'Uncertain States of America'. I watched a film of an extraordinarily fat woman prodding some dough down through a hole to another woman with preternaturally long fingers who processes it into little packs. The fat woman appears to have an allergy to the gerberas she is also tending and that her tears, along with the sweat of her colleague, have become part of the factory process. Mmm. Besides the hyper-real human statue, which I was loathe to approach just in case it was real human statue (that's the joke - it isn't) there was just one other piece I liked which involved a ghostly shadowplay of images on the floor, described as "tangled telegraph wires upon which crows brood, clocks, phones and cars surging upwards as if in some apocalyptic storm. Tiny human figures occasionally appear, falling through these worldly things as if from grace or the Twin Towers."

Back into the rain and a detour on the way back to Knightsbridge Underground for a look at the Diana Memorial Fountain. I had never seen it before - it's rather wonderful. Maybe it was just because I was there alone and could enjoy it without distraction, but I found it tranquil and unexpectedly, quite moving. Why has it been so badmouthed? Because kiddywinks can't play in it I guess. It's a memorial for heavens sakes.

Birkbeck Library once more - and I'm in time for the tour. All very impressive and daunting. A quick dash over to Gordon Square and I fumble around trying to find which room I should be in for the introduction to the History of Art MA. Joy of joys it's in Clive Bell's drawing room and there's a shed-load of wine! We are given a long, sobering talking to by the Master of the course which scares the willies out of us, then a bit of awkward socialising and wine-glugging. I ask the Master about the Clive Bell connection, and he tells me his office is one-half of Virginia Woolf's bedroom. How appropriate! Back to the SU Bar - not for cheap beer but to try and get my Student Card, but they were all several sheets to the wind so I decided to come back another time. Home in time for Extras. Ronnie Corbett is a superstar.

It's not all just work work work

It was today. I've reached the High Renaissance and I ain't ever gonna come down.

The usual pseudo-intellectual garbage

An explanation, should you require one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMMJbzQ02cI

Today was a work day, for I have not quite kicked the habit. Not much to say. That's going to happen now and then until the end of October I guess. So watch the video clip instead. Sadly, I remember when this was on the telly.

The vet

First job of the day was to take dear old Jude the greyhound off to the vet to have her front paws x-rayed. She's been hobbling about like Mrs Overall for the last couple of months and it's time we got to the bottom of it. We took her to the vet in Greenwich on Saturday, who quote us a cool £560 to take a the snaps. So, off we trotted through the foot tunnel and then a beautiful walk in Greenwich Park - just to lull Jude into a false sense of security.

So, Jude safely deposited with said vetinary surgeon, I trundled off to St Johns Wood to see the Simeon Solomon exhibition at the Ben Uri gallery. Doh! Jewish New Year - gallery closed! What are the chances?

Back on the Jubilee line to the Royal Academy for an eyeful of Rodin. This is a strange old exhibition. First of all you're confronted with the Gates Of Hell (see below) which is hardly the warmest of welcomes, and then all manner of rather distressing sculptures. Big hands, big feet, lumpy, bumpy, swollen and bulging...but that's enough about me. The sculptures which work for me are so powerful and captivating. They draw you in completely. Much didn't, but those that do make this exhibition well worth visiting. I'm going to give it a 6/10.

And so to Birkbeck University, where I settled into a comfy chair in the library and considered my new habitat, before an hour and half with a colouful chap called Aubrey who explained how to search for books and articles in the library. Well it's all come on a bit since I was at Poly.

Jude's back from the vet - all sad and lethargic. Will she ever forgive me?

A Sparks show tonight

Sense of doubt

Good heavens I'm in a sparky mood. This may have something to do with the fact that last night I saw Sparks at the Forum - which is always an uplifting experience and one that I can thoroughly recommend. But it's not just that. I'm all buoyed up (quiet at the back) because tomorrow I start Uni! Never thought I'd say that again. Yes, it's true. After years of whinging and moaning and getting myself and everybody around me down, I've taken the plunge, bitten the bullet and swallowed the begonia. I've jacked in the job, thrown caution to the wind and jumped in at the deep end. I've swallowed my pride and puckered my lips, I've...I've...oh my God what have I done? Have I taken leave of my senses? I'll never pull it off! What on earth do I think I'm doing? Flipping heck and heavens to Betsy all in a sesame seed bun.

I'm going to do an MA in History of Art, fulltime, in the space of one year. It is my very sincere intention to keep track of my various trials and tribulations upon the very pages of this blogsite, where you will be able to monitor my downfall from the comfort of your swivel chairs. So, here we go 2-3-4.