This may be my last post about Ai Weiwei, because, after a very full-on couple of days, the exhibition is now open to Friends for a few days before opening to the public on Saturday. It has been fascinating watching someone of such international celebrity remain so calm and unexpectedly low key, pleased mainly to be free and with his son. I finally succumbed to the universal urge to photograph him when he met Edmund de Waal. There was an encounter between two people with a particular interest in the craft of making:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
It is a most remarkable exhibition, extraordinary in so many ways: 90 tons of steel rods straightened out to precision over four years, next to two vast boards of names of children lost in the Sichuan earthquake – just one example. Last evening we also saw Magna Flora, culmination of Salisbury Cathedral’s celebration of Magna Carta. Wonderful juxtaposition in time of two entirely contrasting treatments of human rights.
Glad you’ve now seen the exhibition ! Charles
Such an arresting exhibition. Thank you RA. But slightly marred by so frequently having to duck or delay while mobiles flashed and multitasked as cameras. What is the etiquette going to be both for those who want to record and flash out on Instagram etc that they were there, and for the rest of us who want to wander round forming our own thoughts with as little disturbance as possible?