Velasquez and the invasion of the blue-rinse brigade

I had booked myself a ticket for the Velasquez exhibition at the National Gallery - only £6 with student concession - and here's a tip - they didn't ask for any student ID! Anyway, timed ticket so I get there for 10.30am, thinking that would be a good time - you know - weekday morning and all that. Well what do you know. Walking into the exhibition gallery was like stepping into an oversubscribed daycentre for the over-seventies. Totally white, middleclass crusties all over the shop, all testily punching the buttons on their MP3 gallery guides, headphones at various weird angles, back-to-front and upside-down, and all blaring at full volume creating a background rattle-and-hum which I found most distracting. As the geriatrics pushed and shoved their way around, often walking backwards to admire a picture without looking behind them, or using their walking frames in the manner of a bull-bar to clear the way ahead, I attempted to view the pictures without getting battered and bruised. And they have to announce every thought they have to each other in a loud voice. For example, in front of a portrait of Philip IV of Spain:

"I say Marge, I don't like the look of that chap much do you? He looks a bit like Bruce Forsyth doesn't he!"
"Looks like who dear?"
"You know, that Bruce Forsyth fellow off of the television. Silly chap. Song and dance man. Tries to be funny. Come Dancing and all that silliness. Big chin."
"Oh. I don't think I know him. Which side is he on?"

or...

"Look at this youngster riding his fat little horse. He looks like he's having a lovely time doesn't he? [No response] He looks like he's having fun doesn't he Fanny?"
"Oh, yes."
"I love riding. I always rode as a child. Of course my grandsons all ride. They go to a private riding school just outside of Brussels you know, it's dreadfully run-down, all full of puddles and wot-not, but they have an awfully fun time. Have you ever ridden Fanny?"

Velasquez - you can't really get much better than this - although I have to admit I prefer his unadulterated early painting of genre scenes to all the portraits produced at the Spanish court. 8/10. I also popped along to the Cezanne exhibition which is equally enjoyable.

I sat in a very damp Trafalgar Square and ate lunch. The pigeons are back in force I see - another success story for...nope, not going there. I wandered along in the drizzle to Bloomsbury and Birkbeck and settled down for an afternoon of studying before the evening seminar.

The first half was all about astral bodies - visual technologies and the atronomical imagination c.1900, followed by spaceflight and simulation and reality in the exploration of space. This possibly explains why I needed to go for a beer afterwards in the very reasonably priced union bar.