Bridget Riley retropsective at the Hayward

As this exhibition was closing at the end of the week I thought I would make a dash for it. Lovely weather too so wanted to get out of the house. I stared out in Leicester Square as I wanted to buy some cds, and then walked over Waterloo Bridge. Great cloud effect!

 Now just one point I feel obliged to make.  The South Bank centre is rubbish. I know people will say its architecture is wonderful, but really it isn't. It is just what arty people will say to make themselves feel superior, and that they have better taste than the mere plebs. This is bollocks. It is grey and ugly, even on the most beautiful of days and in the best of light. It is also thoroughly confusing to navigate.around and absolutely packed with steps to make mobility hard as possible (although I know the disabled were not thought worthy of consideration in the Fifties).

And the Hayward Gallery is the ugliest, most soulless part of the complex.

Now I have always quite liked Op Art. This is not great art, but it is something. It doesn't do wonders for the interllect, but it is worth looking at. And genuinely this is something you need to see in the flesh - photos do not work. You have to be there and see the effect of shimmering stripes and undulating curves that seem flat on a photo.

 The exhibition also shows some of her earlier figurative work, which reveals her to be a competent but in no way exceptional figurative artist.  Put simply she could draw better than the average person, but she wouldn't have been worth putting in a gallery really. It was only getting into abstraction that made her famous.

On the way out there was of course the National Theatre next door. Not quite as awful as the Hayward, but definitely another ugly sister.

 But Waterloo Bridge again afforded splendid views.

I pottered back through Covent Garden. I rarely venture here as it is so overrun by tourists, which is a pity as if it was stripped of its over commercialism it would be a very attractive spot.

This is the place where Boswell met Johnson.