Andalusia

I was in Andalusia. The tapas were a bit ordinary, but I liked the sherry, and I quite liked the chocolate con churros. I also liked the street art.

Here's my favourite Andalusian street message.

As far as I can tell, it reads "Freedom is wriggling in the guts of time".

This little chap was all over the place, but this was the only example I saw with a caption. I would translate it "Sieze the street, sieze the square, sieze your life!".

(Not 'take' because I think that would be a really bad translation of the last part - the normal meaning of 'take your life' would be 'commit suicide' and I don't think that sense exists in the Spanish, as far as I know. It wouldn't make a lot of sense in context, anyway.)

I think this is my second favourite. The entire wall of a building, where its neighbour had been knocked down, was painted in this bright ochre. This was just one corner.

The wall, door-frame and door of an art school are painted like this:

Nearby is a puzzled little cloud, the only cloud I saw during my stay, apart from a few wisps of cirrus.

Go Gladys!

This is Gladys Tejeda, who was born to a family of subsistence farmers, two and a half miles above sea level in the Andes of Peru. Today she completed the Olympic Marathon.

Gladys Tejeda with the Museum of London in the background

She finished in 43rd place, in a personal best time of 2:32:07, nine minutes behind the winner and totally unnoticed by the cameras. I was standing at 33.7km when I took this picture. I wanted to know what would happen to her when I saw her carrying the flag in the opening ceremony.

The crowd all around me cheered every single runner. If they couldn't pronounce her name and didn't know the name of her country, they just shouted "Go Oooonn!! Keep Goinnnng!". And quite a lot of them, including me, stayed to cheer on the runner in 107th and last place, making as much noise for her as we could. The men in the clear-up van applauded us right back.

Chinese bus mystery answers!

Awesome comments today! The Chinese bus, pictured again below, is explained.

Iain gives the following two links:

Joanna Scarratt UA Brands: Chinese Happy Backpacker

"With a bit of digging, I discovered that Ogilvy’s Beijing arm created a campaign earlier this year for Yili, the leading Chinese dairy brand and official sponsor of the Olympic Chinese Sports Delegation. It’s called “Let’s Olympic Together,” and aims to uncover ordinary Chinese people’s extraordinary stories. There are outdoor print ads, short films, TV commercials and digital engagement initiatives inspiring viewers to realise their own “Olympic” dreams by embracing a healthy lifestyle"

At ChinaSMACK, Yili lauches new campaign to coincide with Olympic hysteria includes a video of the runner shown on the bus, which is also here. He is apparently Li, a 62 year old marathon runner.

Louis independently gives the pinyin and a rough translation which agrees with the above:

"ping(2) fan(2) zhong(1) guo(2) ren(2), bu(4) ping(2) fan(2) de gu(4) shi(4). A bit rusty with my pinyin so I wasn't sure of the correct way of indicating the tone. A rough translation is: An ordinary (or common?) Chinese, an extradordinary story."

Thanks guys! It doesn't entirely explain why the ad is on a London bus outside the umbrella shop. My best guess is that it's directed mainly at a TV audience back home, via a carefully-planned campaign to get the ads on TV and talked about, partly by that very oddity. Worked on me!

O London Bus, thou art translated ...

Today, for the first time, I saw a London bus advertisement (apparently for drinking milk, or something) written entirely in a language I cannot read at all, let alone translate.

Don't misunderstand me - advertisements in languages other than English without a translation are very common in London and not at all remarkable, but they're usually small in scale, the largest being shop names saying obvious things like "POLISH FOODS" in Polish. As far as I remember, this is the first time I've seen a foreign-language ad on a bus.

O London Bus, thou art translated! Click to embiggen.

Although the shapes of the characters are of course vaguely familiar, the only one that means anything specific to me is the fifth one which I know as "rèn", a human being. Now, there are numerous languages written in Chinese characters, and I have no reliable way of knowing even which one this is, although under the circumstances Modern Standard Mandarin seems the most likely candidate, with Cantonese perhaps second favourite.

I am curious to know if the man in running shirt and glasses is 'just a man,' or someone the target audience would recognise.

I can't use Google Translate for this because I don't know how to write the characters on my computer. Can any of my readers (a) confirm the language, (b) make a pinyin transcription (c) translate the text? [Edit: Answers here]

The location, incidentally, is the corner of New Oxford Street, where the umbrella shop is.

The Vocal Orchestra

They were GREAT just now. It's electric, go and see them. (The show moves up to Edinburgh after its London run).



And very young.  I loved Shlomo's compositions and arrangements and choreography (I wasn't so crazy about the time machine part, except for the actual whooshing of the machine - I'd have liked that bit more if there'd been bigger changes of style, but that'll evolve).

Tenor 1 looks like he's just left King's College Choir, which made me see the whole thing as a perfect new direction for an ancient English tradition of vocal music. When people sang Fair Phyllis and Thule the Period of Cosmography to entertain themselves and their audience, and it was new, they were really out-cooling each other in just the same way.

Names to conjure with

Here are some pictures that I wanted to post soon after I took them, but never got round to. I wonder if anyone can guess where they're from? Shouldn't be a problem for my friend V ...

Bellona, a Roman personification of war, with a feathered helmet and magnificent blue eyes. In painted wood, some European hardwood, I would guess oak.

Bellona, a Roman personification of war

A superb sculpture of Hercules, the skin of the Nemean Lion clearly visible over his shoulder.

Hercules

Another Hercules, opposite. The fact that they made two of these - almost, but not quite, mirroring each other - may give you a clue about what they were for.

A second Hercules

This man, in bronze, is one of the most famous in the history of Europe, and might be recognisable from portraits. He is rather often portrayed in fiction - in French, Spanish, English, and probably other languages.

Name to conjour with

Answers to who he is and where I was in the comments, please.

Update: Maya named the bust, and Tangocommuter got the location. Answers, and a bit more, in white ink below, which may not work in the RSS feed, so close your eyes now! (Select with your mouse to read it, obviously.)

The bust is Armand-Jean du Plessis, cardinal, duc de Richelieu, arguably one of the most important people in the history of Europe, and also the 'veritable fondateur' (true founder), according to his caption, of the French Navy. The location is the Musée Maritime in Toulon, where I was last May for Les Cigales. Bellone is a figurehead, this one actually a complete standing figure. The two Hercules figures would have gone on either side of the stern of a ship. The wooden figures were made there in Toulon, at the atelier de sculpture,  Bellone by the master Hubac, 1775-1830.

Old Oaks

A few weeks ago I did a little tourist thing with some relations, and visited Greensted Church. Its walls were built out of oaks, cut in half vertically and roughly finished with adzes on the flat side, either some time in the 900's or somewhere in the 1000's - no one is exactly sure. So these shining silver walls are either just barely under, or comfortably over 1000 years old.

You can see from the smaller picture, below,  that in other lights, the oak looks black. The brickwork at the bottom is Victorian; the walls were rotting at the bottom and they decided to cut off the lower part and replace it with brickwork, keeping the rest. On the inside they look deep black, and you can see and touch the adze marks.

If you go inside, you will find at the western end a  large table laden with the most delicious honey; a pale, waxy honey made locally that tastes of flowers and an indefinable spiciness, convinces you it will cure your cold, and is irresistible eaten straight out of the jar with a teaspoon, unspoilt even by toast. Put £3.60 (plus any extra donation for upkeep of the church) into the marked tin, and take home a little pot of heaven.

Big smile

I had a wonderful time at Les Cigales, I came back with a big smile on my face. Being on the Cote D'Azur in May had a lot to do with it, although the dancing was the main thing. I also took the cable-car up Mount Faron to look at the view and just sat there alone for an hour or two: it was marvellous and reminded me how happy I can be just by myself, as did my visit to the Musée Maritime.

I looked down on the naval base and thought of its founder, Henri IV, who besides his enthusiasm for women and disdain for soap, is affectionately remembered for his concern with infrastructure and the prosperity of the French peasant. And who is also reputed to have said four of the wisest words in European history, "Paris vaut une Messe", "Paris is worth a Mass".

I'll write it up in the usual format (necessarily a summary as it goes on for four days) but that could take a while.

Butterfly House

I was on holiday this week and got to do fun things like go to the butterfly house that's at the front of the Natural History Museum. It's hot in there.

This is a Lime Butterfly or Swallowtail, Papilio demoleus.



This one was too fast for me.


I didn't get its name but in my mind it's the Strobe Butterfly.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Sex and Suits

Yesterday my sister took me to see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (the musical), because she had some tix and knows that I like Very Silly Things. We enjoyed it a lot. She thought the script was clichéd, I thought it was brilliant. She's the one with the degree in English Literature.

I hadn't seen the film, so all I knew about it was that it was about drag queens on a bus in the Australian desert. I won't trouble you with the plot, which was rather touching.

But I was fascinated by the three main characters, or at least, by their choice of clothes, which is what it's all about. They all wear women's clothes at least some of the time, but in very distinct, individual ways. I found myself thinking about what function the clothes performed for each of them. Not why each of them wanted that job done - motivations are unknowable, and and I don't think it really makes sense to try to explain them - but what job the clothes were doing. And how their decisions when they put on women's clothing might be similar to, or different from, my decisions when, being a woman, I simply get dressed.

None of this stuff is explained in the musical, and I don't suppose for a moment it is in the movie. It's three characters doing what they do. This is just what turned up in my head while I was watching it.

Transsexual Bernadette wears women's clothes all the time, and very elegant clothes, too. Perhaps rather formal and old-fashioned; and always specifically, positively, unambiguously female. Whether she actually "is" a woman seems like a question too big, or perhaps too trivial, to answer. It seemed to me that the function of the clothes was to give other people the cue to treat and perceive her as female, and my instinctive reaction to the character is to respect that wish, at least to the extent of using female pronouns.

Wearing clothes as Bernadette does, with close attention to both their social meaning and their visual unity, is how you get elegance. I can only do this by keeping it very simple, because I don't spend enough time or money on it or treat it as a high enough priority to do anything complex. I try, now and then, but I'd never do it all the time like she does.

Bisexual (or maybe just straight) Tick wears women's clothes as an artistic medium. He's a drag artist, and that's it. When he's not on stage, he mostly dresses like a fashionable man; he doesn't wear women's clothes to walk down the street. Nor does he look much like a woman when he wears them on stage. The job being done seems to be artistic. I wondered if in, say, 1708, when everyone's clothes included more elaboration, the same artistic ambition could have been fulfilled without cross-dressing at all. But I'm not sure about this.

Wearing clothes for their artistic effect is something I do from time to time, just not very well, because I haven't got the trained visual sense. Again, success at it requires effort and time and genuine interest. It really is an artistic endeavour beyond just going for what feels right. I can see that cross-dressing is a fascinating artistic thing to do, if that's what inspires you, and of course fashion designers, and women putting together their own outfits, borrow masculine details all the time for visual effect. I have a very smart coat with a masculine cut and militaresque epaulettes; it looks great on me.

The third character, indifferently called Adam or Felicia, was more of a puzzle to me. He's a homosexual man and has no interest in women at all, not even artistically that I could see. He dresses, more or less, like a glamour model; a female one when on stage, or when up to what he considers mischief, and a male one off. My strongest impression was of artificiality, some sort of doubleness I couldn't see the shape of. His stage clothes have all sorts of female accoutrements but don't actually look in any way female; as can happen with haute couture. He doesn't wish, aspire, or pretend for a moment to be anything but male. That, I was sure, was not what the clothes were doing.

So I wasn't sure what they actually were doing. Maybe nothing more than appealing to someone whose taste I don't share. But a detail that struck me was that when, in dressing for a night out, he wishes to be a little naughtier than usual, he expresses that by putting on a bra. I've occasionally expressed the same feeling by leaving off the bra. The bra is a physical necessity for neither of us: I am about equally comfortable with or without. Therefore, both of us must be wearing one, or not, for its social meaning and visual effect, not for any physical job it performs; essentially for the same reason, but with opposite starting points and opposite conclusions.

I think it was that bit that really fried my brain for the evening.

What is it that makes clothes male or female?

If I were to take a large piece of cloth, fasten it at each shoulder, and tie a girdle round the middle, I would be wearing something that would be regarded as female clothing anywhere in western Europe at any time in the last thousand years. I wouldn't necessarily be well, or fully, dressed; but I would not be cross-dressing - certainly not if I took another piece and wrapped it around head and shoulders as a shawl.

If I were a man and wrapped myself in the same two pieces of cloth in the same way, the same would not be true, or at least not clearly, unless we went back at least another five hundred years. I would be not just eccentrically dressed, but additionally disguised as a woman.

Why?

What would a Martian make of all this?

Luckily, Anne Hollander has written a rather good book about that very subject - at least the history of the why, if not the Martian - called Sex and Suits. She argues from the history of European art and dress that men's clothing is creative, dynamic, and modern, whereas women's clothing is extremely conservative and has only approached modernity in very recent years. Along the way she gives us the exceedingly interesting history of the male suit, which I now see in a new light and with far more appreciative eyes. I think I'll have to read it again. She also curated Fabric of Vision - dress and drapery in painting, which was fascinating but sadly is no longer on the National Gallery's website. I wish she would do a lecture or something about Priscilla and put it on the web.

Anyway, I came home with the feeling that there were great mysteries in everyday things, and that the contents of my wardrobe and drawers were suddenly written in Linear A. I have no idea what they mean any more. The force of habit should tide me over until my illusions come back.

Tango Fire @ Peacock Theatre

I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected. It's an hour and a half of live tango music, with a singer, eight dancers, some pretty costumes and a simple set. It doesn't insult your intelligence with anything like a story or plot, and the second half is a bit like watching ice dance championships in a warm room with better music and no commentary or waiting around for points.

It started very well with a funny scene of a domino effect from a flying heel that any London dancer could instantly relate to (I half-wish that what happened, would really happen here, but I don't think there's room). And the first half reminded me that tango, like other forms of dance, really can express other things besides itself, like character, story, and so on. I'm not saying it always succeeded in doing that, but it certainly could and did sometimes. In the second half, the clock-hand legs, ice-dancing throws, and feet flickering on every note pleased the audience in general even if they soon lost my attention. Although I actually kind of liked the headbanging Britney Spears in half (the right-hand half, I think, I could be wrong) of a purple shellsuit, all very fragmented and Postmodern to Piazzolla's Zum. There was also Gallo Ciego, which somehow brought to mind the scene in So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish where they fly upwards out of her flat and astonish a lady in an aeroplane. I'm not sure why that in particular rather than some other random sex scene. But somehow.

By this point, I had noticed that on the platform at the back of the stage were four guys playing great music, so I mostly just watched them. I couldn't see the pianist, but a bandoneón is fascinating to watch being played because of the peculiar way it has to breathe. I'm curious to see inside one. I also learned how some of the puzzling noises that turn up on tango recordings are made; apparently with a double bass, the bow, and a process I can only describe as slap-and-tickle. For some of the second half all the dancers went off and let the musicians do Piazzolla all by themselves; according to my programme the instrumental pieces were Otono Porteno, Fuga y Misterio, and Adiós Nonino. They were called Quatrotango. There was also a singer, Pablo Lago, who was sometimes on stage with the dancers and sometimes just with the band.

As for the dancers, I'm very happy to say that all the women in the cast had, as far as I could tell, eschewed The Plastic; and I think whoever chose them should get a round of applause just for that. Yanina Fajar, who was also the choreographer, is extremely watchable and held my eye all the time when she was on stage. As for the men, they were nice to watch, they reminded me of several people who were exactly the people you'd expect (minus twenty-five years in some cases) and they must have done a good job because generally speaking you mostly saw the women, which is how it should be if it's going to be recognisably tango.

Peacock Theatre, until 11th April. I bought my ticket at 7pm on the day, all prices were available.



[Edit - jazzed it up with some publicity stills from the website.]

Vintage Fashion

This poster for a musical has been catching my eye on the Tube. (Sorry the pic is so small, it's the only one I could find of this poster, but the poster looks better from a distance, anyway). I'm not really very interested in who this man-boy is or why he is holding a microphone, but I can't help saluting the genius who put him in knee breeches. It says the 1945 vintage look is over — and 1905 just doesn't do the job. This season, to look both radical and right, you have to go back to Trafalgar year*. I quite like the Enlightenment angle, and of course the hobbit hairstyle is just right.

Actually, it's not true at all. The shops are full of ghastly eighties tat. A pity. Although some of the drapey dresses are a little bit 1805, when I think about it. I tried one on today and it was all right, but hadn't been done with any conviction, and was just too boring from the back. Generally the high street was a rather unsuccessful mess.

Clothes are powerful works, full of meaning. This costume made me think of the Nelson and Napoleon exhibition which I saw at the British Maritme Museum in 2005. The two artefacts that stuck in my mind — both of a kind so rarely preserved — were Nelson's last-worn uniform, with bullet holes, and Napoleon's burnous. They were both rather small, slight men. The burnous — scarlet and magnificently worked, brilliantly displayed in a dark-lined, glass-fronted cupboard on a featureless figure, as though being worn — would have been a little short for me.

*1805, for my foreign readers and those who don't read Patrick O'Brian.

Art

This art exhibit (in Seattle, at an event called Beatwalk) included a big piece of paper, some pens, and an invitation. Here are three youngsters, drawing. One of them is my friend's son, but it's only my phone's little video camera, so probably only his parents can tell. I don't know the other two.

The music in the background is a band, who were behind me. I didn't understand the lyrics at the time, but now I think he's singing "Yes we can, make it happen". And I really like it with these pictures.

I'm back

Hello again!

I had a lovely time in Seattle. It's such a pretty place, all dark green hills and blue bay and a sudden spikeyness of skyscrapers under a vast wash of lavender cloud. And the continual astonishments, to my British eyes, of all the streets being at right angles, and all the houses being different from each other. And it was sunny nearly all the time and I was staying with people I love and who love me back. They fed me and housed me and drove me around with their usual generosity and joy, and I sat with my dear friend and knitted. The thing in the picture is called the Space Needle.

I got one dance in, which I will relate in more-or-less my usual format, as far as memory serves, later in the week. Elizabeth was there, with husband and friends, and just spectacularly kind and hospitable. But not now because half my brain is asleep, I have no idea what day or time it is, and I need to eat something, and it's back to work tomorrow.

Argentina in the UK

On Thursday I was at a very curious event. I was there as the guest of a friend who organises a milonga. We'd been invited to the Argentine Residence, for a book launch. It turned out when we got there that it was also a small leaving party because the Ambassador is going to retire. It looked as though they'd invited more or less everyone they could think of, and were slightly startled at how many had turned up.

The Residence is a house on the corner of Belgrave square, so of course a fine house, of a kind very different from what any of us would normally enter, with marble reliefs in the octagonal entrance hall, squared columns, gilt details, chaises longues, and beautiful windows and balconies where, of course, people hide to smoke. It's also (apart from the gilt) painted entirely magnolia.

The book seems to have been the Ambassador's idea. He gave a little speech which was exactly what I'd expect from a retiring diplomat; graceful, neither too long nor too short, thanking the sponsors and volunteers, expressing his surprise at getting money from the Ministry, sketching the inevitable last-minute panic, referring to the book as his child, and telling us we would all be presented with copies on our way out. We were then served canapés, empañadas, which I find are a miniature Cornish Pasty with crunchy pastry, and a very soft, likeable red wine.

It's really more of a brochure than a book. It's written in an elegant, slightly erroneous English, and reminds me of the kind of thing big international companies give to all the new employees when they take over a smaller one. It has just the same vulnerable crispness, the identical freshly-printed smell of ammonia, and the same solemn, careful willingness to please. The cover is pale blue, and the title and back-cover blurb are in reflective silver; allusive and patriotic, but rather hard to read. There are pages and headings where they couldn't refrain from printing in white on a sky-blue background, but most of it is kinder to your eyes.

It starts with a historical chapter, interesting and new to me. I had noticed the blue plaque of José de San Martín on a house near Regent's park, but I had never heard of Don Juan Manuel de Rosas, who it seems was largely responsible for the existence of Argentina, and who lived the last twenty years of his eighty-three on a farm near Southampton, always wearing a poncho and silver spurs, planting espinillos in his garden (what are they? a cactus?), and personally lassooing his horse. He died in 1877, admired by all.

As though he could be topped, they now turn to double-page portraits - a page of photo, a page of text - of interesting Argentinians now or recently living here. Aside from"notorious" not being the word they wanted, this works very well. In case you're interested, the 'characters' to look out for are:

César Milstein - Nobel Prize winner (for finding a way of making monoclonal antibodies)
Mario Blejer - economist (advisor to the Governer of the Bank of England)
Agustín Blanco-Bazàn - international lawyer (also contributes to the book with an interesting two-page spread about the war)
Carlos Brebbia - engineer (founded the Wessex Institute of Technology and edits some engineering journals)
Dame Julia Polak - professor of medicine (much cited on tissue engineering)
Bautista Heguy - polo player
Marcelo Loffreda - rugby coach (oh yes we've heard of him, now at Leicester Tigers)
Diego Jacquet - head chef at the Zetter hotel (never heard of him or it, but I'm no foodie, I'll ask my sister)
Elena Roger - singer, actress (previously Evita, Edith Piaf next)
Marianela Núñez - principal ballerina at the Royal Ballet
Marcelo Álvarez - tenor (I may have heard of him but it's not quite clear why he's in this as I don't think he's based here)
Gabriela Salgado - curator of Public Programs at Tate Modern

Next is a a cultural chapter with a picture of Miguel Angel Zotto hiding underneath some chiaroscuro and a hat, and discourses on arts, films, football, and shopping; nothing on rugby, which is a pity, as I think it's got promotional potential. They've certainly been my second team ever since the World Cup. They really were the best thing in it. Unless you're France.

After Blanco-Bazàn's two pages about the war, honoured with bright yellow paper, there follows an illustrated product guide, telling us where to get Argentine beef, dulce de leche, mate, Quichua arts and crafts, saddlery and polo accoutrements, agricultural machinery, and wine. My favourite bit of this is the rather beautiful technical drawing of the 'pneumatic monograin system', which I think is for planting seeds.

It concludes with some pages of charts about trade since 1900, which tell you a good deal more about the strange history of Argentina's economy than they do about this relationship in particular. Curiously, the charts for 'now' only cover merchandise. Maybe services and remittances - dancing teachers, rugby coaches, footballers and whatnot - are difficult to measure, or negligible in size. Or it could be that they don't show up because so many of them have Italian passports, with the automatic right to work here. But it doesn't seem to say so, and I wondered.

In the back are some pages of links, including ten milongas, one my friend's.

All in all, it's a funny thing, and destined no doubt for utter obscurity, but I just had to tell you about it because it's so clearly a labour of love. If you wanted a copy you could probably ask them, here.

I was told that the government of Argentina, which is a bit busy, hasn't yet got round to providing a new Ambassador. This means that the young gentlemen and ladies who work at the Residence will be partly left to their own devices for some months, and one who I have danced with once or twice has some ideas. Will he ever get away with it? Dunno.

18th-Century Bluestockings

Last week I went to "Brilliant Women - 18th Century Bluestockings" at the National Portrait Gallery. There aren't many works of great artistic merit in the main part of the exhibition itself, but it tells an interesting story with some fascinating supplementary materials.

It includes a photographic work commissioned specially for the exhibition, depicting notable women in various professions. That's worth some time. From the nearby rooms, not part of this show, I took away the puzzling question of how many Judi Denches one gallery needs.

What really made my day was the possibly-Japanese young lady working in the cloakroom who had passed some quiet time turning used tickets into tiny, tiny, teeny little origami cranes.

Another Drawer of Curiosities

I had to go into town early today, so I took the opportunity to go back to the British Museum. [Edit: here's a picture of the Great Court, which I took a couple of summers ago].

I started with the Colossal statue of a winged human-headed bull from the North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, and its companion. Walk between them, and there is a corridor of bas-reliefs glorifying the king and showing other guardian spirits, including eagle-headed ones which remind me strongly of C. S. Lewis's Tash. It's interesting to compare these with the angels generally depicted in Christian art. I suspect the colossal statues are what seraphs ought to look like.

I walked around a few corners, and spent some time in the Early Greek rooms, taking a route I hadn't taken before. I saw some Geometric Period vases, which were new to me. A lot of the things in that room would be very interesting to any artist; I particularly noticed the horses on a very early vase, and what they had in common, in different directions, with cave-paintings (the awareness of musculature), the Parthenon sculptures (the arrangement of legs) and Picasso (the way the heads and eyes were represented). I can't find a picture of that specific vase, but this one is displayed nearby and is in the same style.

Then I wandered upstairs to the Egyptian mummies. The Burial Group of the Priest Hornedjitef and his rather alarming sarcophagus asked to be remembered to Tangobaby, as did Soter and family.

The gallery of mummies was more or less impassable with French schoolchildren, so I went back a bit and encountered the Royal Graves of Ur, including the Great Death Pit, which I hadn't known about before.

Then as I usually do, I ended up in the room where the Nereid Monument is. Most of it is at one end of the room but I think the best bit is at the other - three statues of astonishing workmanship, with benches thoughtfully placed so you can just sit and stare.

I draw your attention to the Nereid on the right. This picture is not from my favourite angle - I would have moved to the left and had the lighting more from above.

What no photo can tell you is this: you can see the bottom of her ribcage, and the fat of her belly. You can see the aureolas of her breasts, and the way the wet fabric clings to everything. Sit on the bench in front of this for ten minutes, look at it properly, and see if you can convince yourself it's stone.

Here's a picture of all three of the Nereids together.

The Cabinet of Curiosities

I went to the British Museum on Friday, and I might go again tomorrow.

They've done up the King's Library recently, also known as Room 1, and it's really beautiful. They have a replica of the Rosetta Stone displayed as it originally was, so you can touch it (the real one is on the other side of the court, in a glass case), and the room is devoted to a magnificent exhibition on the Age of Enlightenment. If you want to see the Rondanini Faun, the jawbone of a Mastodon, lots of greek vases, and a bust of Sir Joseph Banks, this is the place to go.

There's also a new room where they put anything particularly interesting that has to be moved while they're refitting a gallery. It's always different. On Friday it was full of completely lunatic clocks (that one is more than five feet tall) and watches, ticking away, including one in the shape of a nef, beside a half-million-year-old handaxe, a fourteenth century English ewer that had been found in the tomb of an African king, and the Lewis Chessmen.

It's free. You can just walk in and look at all this stuff and have it explained to you, because the great collectors like Sir Hans Sloane and Richard Payne Knight, Charles Townley and Sir William Hamilton (the same one who was famous for his wife) collected all these things and tried the best they could to understand them. And then they gave the results to the nation, and ever since, it's just gone on.

You will spend money in the shop, though, and the bookshop, and the café.

Frillseekers

I've just been to Frillseekers. I think I must have got their flyer at iknitlondon, although it's been stuck on my door and I was somehow convinced I must have got it at a dancing night. Anyway, Fran and Caroline are very nice and they sell vintage clothing.

I bought a dark-silver seventies blouse with diamante trim which I may even wear out dancing tonight. It's sexy and suits me. I tried on a fifties dress which fitted beautifully and looked sort of stunning, but I would never actually have worn because it's just not really my style. They have some really interesting coats, hats, and handbags, and some vintage knitting patterns, too.

I explained what I needed for dancing, so they will be looking out for it. It has to be reasonably sleek - not too long - not too restrictive - not too loose - nothing that can catch on a man's clothing and cause embarrassment - and ideally, it should look interesting from behind. Washability is a big bonus, and my new blouse should be fine washed by hand.

Not Your Prawn Sandwiches

I went to a football match on Saturday. At the Arsenal. And I was in the Directors Box! As an official member of the Prawn Sandwich Brigade.

My Dad plus one had been invited by one of the directors who has done a lot of work with him. They get on well and respect each other, and it's complicated work, so I suppose that's why we were there. They have various lists and can invite whoever they like. Mr Director was rightfully proud of his lovely new stadium and took us outside to point out the design and details. It was delivered on time and under budget, project management at its best. Not like Wembley; but at Arsenal, you can get a sensible, definite decision about anything important by asking at most three people. I don't see how that could happen at the FA. And I know from experience that not having the senior people really in charge is what kills serious project management completely.

It seats 60,000 which I think is a good size. They can sell out every match and have another twenty-odd thousand in the season ticket queue. On the outside is the sponsor's name in huge letters - EMIRATES STADIUM - and their rather pretty logo in Arabic script, a pleasant sign of the peace of nations when everybody has the chance to get their heads down and concentrate on money. Inside, it feels big but not cavernous. There is an elegant curving roof with an uneven hemline designed to let the air circulate and dry the pitch. And I'm sure that works because in my seat, I noticed the smell of mown grass. Most of the roof is translucent to let in the light - good for the pitch (a very brilliant green, under pale grey sky) and nicer for the people.

The sound system is always audible, but never deafening. The big screens are of astonishing quality, but not at all distracting or intrusive. The noise of the crowd is beautifully focussed and intense; a very important point for a football ground, and the architects seem to have known what they were doing there, too. The floodlights are a very pure white. I noticed some nice and thoughtful details, like the silhouettes of trophies round the middle tier with dates, and the little perspex fences at the bottom of each stairway so that if you trip over on the stairs, you can't fall off the edge.

Around the pitch itself is a narrow strip of the latest LED advertising. Mr Director said that in some European stadia they have ads where a car or something zooms right round the pitch, but they tried it and the players hated it so much they banned that sort of thing. I can see why - if you go to all that effort training your body and brain to pay attention to things that move fast along the ground, it must be horribly distracting. It would be like being a greyhound with rabbits going in all directions. So it just shows ads that move in place.

It's all done with taste. There's nothing pretending to be what it's not. Concrete is concrete and wood is wood and glass (or perspex) is glass (or perspex) and it's all there for a reason. We asked who the architects were, Hok Sport.

The directors' box seats 98 people at tables laid out rather like a nice restaurant, without feeling like a restaurant in the least. At one end is a bar in very nice striated stone, and when you come in they serve you a proper drink; I had a gin and tonic which was stronger than I expected. A nice lady takes your coat and points out where it's going before it magically disappears into the wall of hidden cupboards along the back. It's a remarkably well-designed, classy and comfortable room. The other long wall is glass, and glass doors, leading outside to the seats where you watch the match. They're padded red leather with the Arsenal crest and of course they have a magnificent view.

Another little detail; in the Ladies loos there is not only a bit of sofa where two or three women could sit down and deal with a problem, but also a long mirror with a shelf and some bar stools so you can fix your hair and makeup without getting your handbag wet or being in the way of people trying to use the sinks. It's cleverly worked in at one end, a top quality use of space - full marks to the architects there.

At the opposite end from the bar in the box is the food. You go up and collect a course then take your seat and eat at leisure. I started with some very nice little pieces of sushi, an oyster in its shell, and bacon and whatnot from the cold table, then I had the pink roast beef and two little Yorkshire puddings with carrot puree and crunchy green beans and a really delicious glass of wine. There were banoffee things in glasses like liqueurs to finish, but I just had fruit; fine strawberries (in November), raspberries and two kinds of melon, all full of their own flavours, the best of everything. Not your prawn sandwiches, I can tell you. I wouldn't expect anything less because this should be one of the finest stadia in the world and it's in a city where the best is available on demand, but just the same I was impressed - it's an extremely professional operation. And it finished off with a nice cup of coffee.

Mr Wenger appeared very briefly before the match and I shook his hand. My Dad hadn't expected to see him because of course he's busy with the players, but presumably he wanted a word with some of the directors about something; they're all thoroughly at work on a match day. He just shook hands and said Hello, pleased to meet you; he has a nice voice.

At half time they served up scones, cakes, coffee and tea. The tea was strong and hot and the scones and cakes were delicious.

I won't tell you much about the match because my opinion's of no value and if you want to know you can read the reports elsewhere. The crowd did its stuff but Arsenal were missing Fabregas and peppered the target end in the first half without really getting any shots on target. They left it late to score two goals and Theo Walcott was stretchered off. He's very good, but small for the English game. I wonder if the Premiership will just kick him to bits, like Ossie Ardiles. Perhaps he'll fill out, he's very young.

Afterwards Mr Director chatted to us again for a while and took us upstairs to show off the Diamond Club lounge. I don't know whether the name has anything to do with one of the major shareholders' connections to the London-Antwerp diamond trade or whether they just thought it sounded good, or both. But this is where you eat and watch if you pay fifty thousand pounds for your pair of seats in your first season, and twenty-five thousand per season thereafter. The food and staff are under the supervision of Raymond Blanc and there's an air of quiet busyness and luxury. It's marble and red leather and wood of various shades, with beautiful inscriptions and inlay work in stone and wood. There's a bronze head of Arsene Wenger, and a bronze head of someone else. In the wooden wall of the stairwell on the way up is a lovely inlay of diamond-shaped pieces in a golden wood like a a shower of rain, or a portrait background by Klimt; a thing of remarkable elegance and beauty.

The whole place seems slightly Art Deco, which Highbury was, without being retro; perfectly modern, luxurious, and comfortable. Everything of the best, but nothing vulgar, silly, or ostentatious, and no noise. Just the roar of the crowd, like a giant lion curled up in a giant basket.

And what do you know, there was Mick Jagger surrounded by numerous grandchildren in Arsenal shirts eating their tea. I thought he only did cricket, but there you are.

Anyway, the whole afternoon was an extra special treat. I was super-lucky and I don't s'pose I'll get the chance again. That's what it was like.