I read this account of the historic significance of the Bevis Marks Synagogue and felt it conveyed very clearly not just its significance as a building per se, but also the way that it symbolises the role of Jewry in the life of the City and the country as whole:-

https://theconversation.com/bevis-marks-britains-oldest-synagogue-is-central-to-londons-history-heres-why-it-needs-protecting-170326?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton&s=09

I have been mildly castigated for being rude about Owen Paterson, who suffered the suicide of his wife. But at the moment, it seems that everywhere one looks the government is tearing up the rule book. I’m afraid that I find one of the more repugnant is Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House, taking loans from his own company – a mere £6 million – without bothering to declare them. I find this particularly offensive because a) he is the Leader of the House. If anyone should be setting standards, he surely should. He is not some backbench rascal, trying to top up his income. b) he presents himself as a parody of Victorian probity and this is now revealed to be a total sham. He’s a crook, dressed up to look like a gentleman.

I missed the attached review of the Garden Museum Café (https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/garden-museum-cafe-lambeth-restaurant-review-b1919120.html). I am posting it because it says everything I think and feel about the café – the quality of the food and of the surrounding environment, which is so therapeutic post-COVI when you don’t necessarily want to eat hugger mugger. And you can talk.

I should have pointed out that there is a very full description of Orchard House in the recently published volume of the Survey of London (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/sites/bartlett/files/sol_oxfordst_chapter11.pdf). It would be entirely characteristic that a building should be demolished just at the moment when its history is properly appreciated.

I have been following with interest the debates round the plans to demolish the Marks and Spencer building on Oxford Street and replace it by a very standardised and totally undistinguished building by Pilbrow and Partners (who ?), instead of refurbishing it. The case is well put by Nicholas Boys Smith in the article below. The current building is not especially important, but representative of thoughtful, somewhat classical design of the 1920s, which has not been much studied or esteemed, but is not without historical interest; and isn’t it better and more interesting than the planned replacement ? I don’t think it’s Euston Arch, but Westminster should be doing more to promote refurbishment than needless and environmentally damaging demolition. And so too should Marks and Spencer.

https://thecritic.co.uk/why-dont-we-care-about-twentieth-century-traditional-buildings/

I am sometimes inordinately grateful to Google. At the moment, my news feed intersperses bad news with occasional repostings of reviews of my museums book. Most I have seen before, but it is still (normally) a treat to read them at leisure. Today, they selected one I had nor seen ny someone who bought the book by mistake. All the greater was my pleasure to discover how much she had enjoyed it and how thoughtfully she summarises its themes and issues, including a quotation I had forgotten from Renzo Piano: ‘There’s no such thing as neutral space. Neutral architecture is pointless architecture, like soup that tastes like nothing, or a boring novel. But it’s equally clear that a museum should let the work of art take centre stage’.

https://connectwith.art/art/books/book-review-the-art-museum-in-modern-times/

Now that I have survived my second day COVID testing, and passed, I feel I should say, which I am sure lots of people have discovered, that it is a small nightmare. I had booked my test with Randox, because one of the unlucky consequences of Owen Paterson being paid £100,000 a year is that it sticks in the mind that Randox are providing the tests instead of the easy and straightforward NHS test provided by Tower Hamlets, which has no currency under the Johnson government because it does not involve shovelling vast sums of money into the private bank accounts of government ministers and their friends (they say Johnsonism isn’t a philosophy: I agree, it’s just a way of a small number of people getting rich quick).

Anyway, the Randox test requires one to download an app, which I managed surprisingly straightforwardly. Then, you have to enter your test kit number. Of course, there are lots of numbers – the order number, the number on the box. None of them work. So, I couldn’t register. Eventually, I figured out which number it is supposed to be. It’s the number without the prefix RANDX, which you have to enter for your Public Health Passenger Locator Form to work. I have a feeling that these forms are cleverly designed to drive people mad, as well as make politicians rich. I’m sure Mr. Paterson is rubbing his hands with glee at the amount of all this COVID activity, thanks to the meetings he had which most unfortunately were, unusually, not minuted and of which the emails, which have now been released, have been almost totally redacted.

It’s funny how this government has an infinity capacity to lose all documentation of any significance, and then redacts those which accidentally survive. I suppose this is what they meant by Sovereignty. The ability to do exactly what they wanted without reference to any rules or laws, getting fat and complacent like stoats.

I have been reading Matt Gibberd’s A Modern Way to Live: 5 Design Principles from the Modern House. It’s a primer about how to think about the design of houses, based on his experience running the agency The Modern House and, even more, from a very obvious passionate knowledge and expertise about all aspects of house design. I have just been reading about the difference between arakabe (Japanese) and tadelakt (Moroccan). I like the way that the book is a mixture of the mystic and highly practical and feel that it should be compulsory reading in all architecture schools to get architects to be sensitive to the mood and character of space, light and materials in interiors:-

Because I was staying near the Frari, I decided to explore the Sestiere S. Polo, an area that I know much less well than the more touristy parts of Venice east of the Grand Canal.

I started at the Frari, where I admired the Bellini in a chapel by the cloister:-

Then I went to S. Rocco, next door to the Scuola:-

The rest is the result of idle wandering:-