Not the Royal Wedding

No this is not going to start with a Republican rant. At the outset I must profess to being pro monarchy and anti-Republican, I have no truck with those killjoys who hate the idea of people enjoying a good party. In particular, that little group of Scots (about 100) who gathered to shout anti-monarchist slogans at  Holyrood, or about a 100 who had a republican street part in the East End. The difference is a million people went out into Central London and will remember the day for the rest of their lives. While those little groups will go home with just their bitter resentment to keep them warm. Off with their heads I say.

And I have a strong constitutional reason for being pro-monarchy. If we were a republic we would need a head of state to do all the ceremonial stuff and that wouldn't be enough. So we would be in the business of finding them things to do. And the great thing about  the monarchy is they don't do anything, bar being a bit glam. So no to some elected head of state and divisive contest among the great and the good for a sinecure. And thanks be to our first family as a nice contrast to the first families around the world in North Korea and Libya. Nominally not monarchies but of course places where power is indeed passed down through the family. Ruthlessly. So hooray for our royal family. Bless 'em all.

But just don't expect me to watch. Sorry, but weddings bore me silly. Fine when they are friends but I have never even made the acquaintance of the Royal couple. Indeed only by seeing the highlights (well I wanted to see who won) did I realise how beautiful Kate was. Previously I can honestly say I didn't even know what she looked like. My eyes glaze over whenever Royal gossip appears. I similarly have no idea who is on Eastenders or Corrie. Wouldn't recognise any of them (which is why I have similar difficulties with these celebrity contests - I don't have a clue who these people are.) And of course they are all really variations of a soap opera.

So for me it was a day at the V & A and the chance to limp around the Cult of Beauty exhibition in relative isolation on a Saturday. I successfully tunnelled my way under the hullabaloo in central London (courtesy of the Tube) and popped up the other side in South Kensington. Quite a nice exhibition too on the aesthetic movement, that rather louche bunch of artists of the late Victorian era, Rosetti, Burne-Jones, Wilde, Beardsley, Godwin, Whistler, Moore, Alma-Tadema, Crane and Dresser amongst others. Quite a disparate movement really, not all to my taste, but I do rather like the neo-classical wing of it, especially the languidly reclining women of Moore, Leighton and Alma-Tadema and the muscular but graceful statutory of Alfred Gilbert (famously the Sluggard and Eros, the latter you can actually see properly in the aluminium cast in the exhibition which can't quite be appreciated in Piccadilly Circus). Plus the excessive use of peacocks.

Unfortunately you can't take photos in the exhibition, so I have added a few here of other parts of this eclectic collection.