Why This Is Hell

[Although Thursday may already be ruined by a pain in the butt. Never read emails last thing at night.]


A splendid trip into the Big Smoke - make time for a trip to the National for the Picasso exhibition, but buy the catalogue first. You need a good two hours. I paid half price but I'd say it's worth £12.

Then we snatched lunch and wandered via bead shop, Fopp (resisted temptation) to Aldgate East and the refurbished Whitechapel Gallery, which is $FREE$: interesting East End Jewish artist exhibition, a great British Council purchases selection - even if some of it is literally shit - the very moving selection of stuff based around the Guernica tapestry - which hangs in the UN unless Colin Powell is justifying the attack on Iraq - and the frankly silly work of Isa Genzken. I suspect we missed a couple of rooms, the bookshop is excellent, and the coffee bar promising.

Oh, and we ran into John Humphreys on the way back to Charlie Stoss. And didn't kill him for being constantly smug about his lack of knowledge of science.

[a quick shout to Jack Cardiff, cinematographer from A Matter of Life and Death to, er, Rambo: First Blood Part II. R.I.P.]

[Off to bed to fume about the pain some more]