Somerset House

Of course one can say how expensive London is. Indeed I have always taken a perverse pleasure from the knowledge that pretty much wherever I go on holiday it will always be cheaper than where I live. But then again, there is so much one can do for free, and that's not just limited to the big museums. You just have to get out there and look.

I took advantage of the sunny Sunday to potter around the West End, but with particular focus on Somerset House as it had a couple of exhibitions on which I wanted to see.

Now in the first place this is a lovely building, with its huge central courtyard, which in winter is turned over to an ice-rink.

But even apart from the permanent collection, there are always interesting exhibitions. And interesting spaces. As well as the huge terrace at the front with views over the Thames.

And the Stamp staircase.

First up was the exhibition of photographs from Dazed & Confused magazine. This was all done in a suitably cool and zany way, as you would expect from a magazine that basically prizes itself on being too cool for skool. A fine example is the text accompanying a photo of a youth looking in a mirror, and I paraphrase here, "I am cool because I am skinny. If I wasn't skinny I would be hot. I like looking at myself, but I am way too cool to look at you. And you are too pathetic not to look at me." (And I felt all the cooler going round it by listening to Ritual by White Lies on my mp3 player at a decent volume. Doesn't work so well at, say, a Pre-Raphaelite show.)

It is all style over substance, but it all works on how immediately arresting the image is. Take for example, this boy, dressed as punk and then preppy juxtaposed. Well I think its striking.

A second exhibition, all substance over style this time, but also free was down in the warren of little rooms and lanes underneath the House. It s called Forgotten Spaces and is a series of projects for uses for waste spaces around London. A few are a little bizarre or over worthy, but some are just inspired, like the urban climbing and potholing facility suggested for a disused section of underground beneath Clapham high Street. Or a project involving drying out derelict St Saviours Dock, turning it into a beach with a bank to one side and covering it over with a translucent sheet, onto which in the evenings films could be projected which you could lie back and watch. A really interesting series of exhibits and a true example of innovative thinking.

And thirdly there was the Venice in Peril exhibition in Embankment Galleries. This is just a great exhibition space. One could almost go just to look at the space. But the various photos of the city, and varied is the watchword, were well worth the fiver admission money.

And below that is a little permanent exhibition with one of the old barges that used to be able to come up to the Palace in the days when access by the River was better than road.

On top of that I just pottered around to take snaps of some of the lesser known sites of London, like Waldorf Hotel, Bush House, the RSA, the courtyard of the RA, with its temporary constructivist tower and Burlington Arcade. All free, although I did buy half a dozen dance cds while pretending to go xmas shopping. And a sandwich from Tescos. But all pretty good value.

The Last of the Duchess, the Chevin, the Pigeon Detectives and lunch

I confess I have pretty eclectic tastes and I guess this week tested that out. Having done the Victorian art exhibition (see last entry) I followed up with a theatre trip and a hot and sweaty gig.

To start with the play; well an inauspicious start as my companion announced he couldn't make it having double-booked himself, but with little more than an hour to kick off my search for a replacement was unsuccessful. The obvious choice of my friends in Hampstead (since I was going to the Hampstead theatre) was thwarted by husband being in Leeds and mother being stuck at home with youngest child. (But there was an upside as I got eldest son along to the gig 2 days later - third time lucky!)

But the play was genuinely excellent. The Last of the Duchess is sort of about Wallis Simpson. A journalist is trying to get an interview with the elderly Duchess, but can't get past her elderly French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, who guards her. So the play is about the relationship between journalist and this crabby lawyer (played beautifully by Sheila Hancock). What is so clever is that one's sympathies turn from the journalist trying to get past the lawyer who seems to be feathering her own nest at the expense of the old lady, to the French lawyer, who actually seems just to be preventing the world seeing the pitiful effects of senility on a woman she prefers to remember as beautiful and vivacious. Along the way we see plenty of evidence of human frailty of all sorts, vanity, drink, stubbornness. And some excellent witty lines. Like the lawyer insisting that the late Duke of Windsor was renowned for his kindness. "How did this manifest itself?", asks the journalist. "He would often open doors...for people of no worth."

I was rather taken with the thought that, since the play was about the awful effects of senility, the audience was terribly old. I guess an average age of 70 was a fair estimate. Rather the opposite 2 days later at the Pigeon Detectives gig, where I was possibly the oldest there.

The gig was at the splendidly-named Electric Ballroom in Camden. Its a pretty good venue, and very easy to get to, but the title doesn't really conjure up the reality. Its a big cellar really, subterranean, windowless, not in the slightest like a ballroom, although I guess one can fairly say it is connected to the electric grid.

Now the Pigeon Detectives, for those not aficionados, are a Leeds band whose strong point is their energy. Thirty years ago they would have been described as a New Wave band. I was asked by a colleague if they were going to be the next big thing. Actually the opposite, if anything their time has passed. Now on a third album, they really aren't likely to rise any further than they are now. Which is a pity as I like their punky anthems and engaging stage antics. Their lead singer, Matt Bowman, is a master at microphone juggling. You have to be there. Fun.

But as to next big thing, well maybe one could look to the support act, also from Leeds, The Chevin. One of the best support acts I have seen in 30 years of going to gigs. The lead singer's voice, and indeed their songs are rather reminiscent of Keane, although the lead singer is less cherubic than Tom Chaplin (and hopefully, for his sake, less dependent on cocaine).

And while middle-aged lawyers may not be their target market, they went down just as well with my young friend. Who is only 21. Which makes me feel very old as I remember him as a baby. But kids grow up. Which may cause pangs for the parents, but great for me as he is now old enough to buy me a drink. A good night as we met up at Worlds End and then went back to it after the gig. For those not familiar with it, this is a landmark pub in Camden, a quite cavernous place with both a lower and upper level as well as the saloon bar in the middle. Big enough, on our return to be hosting an Irish folk band in a corner, and still to be able to escape them for a chat and a pint. And nice to chat to someone out of my professional circle. I want to say a really nice kid, but of course at 21, a man now.

And a couple of lunches of note, with a couple of my ex-trainees. First I was taken out for lunch by my last trainee who wanted to tell me why she had decided not to stay with my Firm on qualifying as a  lawyer. I do hope her business venture works out. A lovely girl (sorry, young lady, as she is married, but at my age" boy" and "girl" have an extended meanings!) who would have been a very able lawyer. Still I hope to add her to the list of ex-trainees who have converted into long term friends.

Which takes me to Sunday lunch and the opportunity to entertain another of my ex-trainees, now a successful lawyer at another law firm, and his fiancee, who I had only really met once before. So great to get to know her a bit more before going out to their wedding next Spring in Hungary. Can't pretend not to feel just a twinge of envy at discussing their plans for life, honeymoon, travel, homes and family. A lovely couple to spend an afternoon with. A lucky girl to have found such a nice guy, that rare combination of a young man  who is really mature and sensible without the unfortunate associated characteristic of being dull. Just hope their life together is as good as it sounds like it will be. Yeah, just a twinge of envy.

And finally, it has turned into autumn, although still mild. So Sunday, as well as cooking lunch, I popped out with my camera on a dewy, misty morning...

Apocalypse

No, don't worry not a particularly bad week, just the exhibition I went to see to round it off - the exhibition of the Victorian painter John Martin at Tate Britain. He painted the equivalent of literary potboilers. Huge fantasy canvases of the end of the world, or the destruction of Pompeii, or the fall of Babylon. Wonderful large detailed landscapes. And while imaginary he was also proud of his archaeological correctness, handing out leaflets to show how he had placed buildings correctly. Really very enjoyable stuff, even if his figure painting leaves something to be desired. Most humans seem to be keeling over as if leaning against driving wind. But seeing his paintings was a Victorian precursor to being able to go to the movies. Vast numbers of people would crowd to gaze on his works with dramatic lighting. Unfortunately I felt the exhibition was padded out a bit with his mezzotints, fine if different to the paintings, but why does one want to see small monochrome versions of huge colour paintings one has seen in the previous room?

I doubled up by seeing the other exhibition on at the Tate of Barry Flanagan.Now this is a modern artist I knew only from his bronzes of hares. This was entitled "His early works" and they include a lot of the sort of stuff that one takes the piss out of modern art for. Photography not allowed in the temporary exhibitions so I cannot illustrate my point, but if I say "Lights on sacks" was a pile of sacks leaning up against a corner with a light shining on them, well at least it wasn't a breach of the Trades Descriptions Act. But still very disappointing that it was exactly  what it said on the label. Two piles of hessian rugs even more so. Of course it comes with daft meaningless waffle such as "He explores his own response to materials, which he considered the the fundamental constituent of sculpture...A cloth sack is a two-dimensional piece of fabric that acts as a three-dimensional mould for the sand." (Or its a sandbag for non-pretentious wankers.)

The bronze hares are ok though.

Inspired by John Martin, whose fantasy landscapes were said to have inspired The likes of Ray Harryhausen in his backdrops to films such as Clash of the Titans, I went to see the film The Immortals. A truly awful film, strictly for those who like flashy bits of armour and muscular chaps wielding swords against classical backdrops. It takes the sort of big battle scenes that were done so well in the Lords of the Rings films and combines them with the weakest plot imaginable and negligible dialogue. There is only so much belief you can suspend, even in a fantasy.

But back at Tate Britain, always nice to potter round it for its breadth of art, and nice to see modern and traditional art all in one gallery rather than the tendency to have separate galleries for each. And it isa quite spectacular building. Will be interesting to see it when current refitting work is complete.

And there are some nice modern sculptures outside too.

 As well as the Chelsea school of Art next door, itself in quite an impressive set of buildings.

Other than that been a quiet week after return from Portugal. Sunday lunch with friends in Stratford, drinks after work Thursday and Friday with some of my younger mates (always a great pleasure) and I went to see Sarah Millican at the Apollo. Now one advantage of going to such things on my own is that you can just be lucky and get an odd perfect seat. And so I had for Ms Millican, 10 rows back (so avoiding being picked-on) but dead centre. It is often said that female comics are just not as funny as men. Well I had heard quite a lot of Sarah Millican on the radio so had high hopes of dispelling that theory. But dashed. Really rather weak material across the evening. And much of her charm just relies on that high-pitched Geordie accent. Best bit I recall was a reference to her mum offering sex education. "Just remember pet, you don't need to have anything in your mouth that you don't want to. But then she made me eat my broccoli. That's just double standards in my book."