Well, I made it through security, a bit like Gatwick except that people were wearing morning dress, suits or national costume – a lot of the latter. Big Ben struck eight o’clock as I entered Westminster Abbey. A lot of military, and people from all over the country, as well as New Zealand. Good. You may not get any further posts.

It is quite a long time since I have been to 18, Folgate Street, Dennis Severs’s magical, make-believe house, which re-invents the eighteenth-century interior with much more theatrical invention than any National Trust house – intelligently creative and atmospheric:-

Many years ago – it was on 5 December 1991 – we went to an exhibition in a studio in Gun Street in Spitalfields:-

We were very impressed by the work of a young potter called Simon Pettet who did work in a style which was a free interpretation of Delftware with touches of humour as well as vivid observation. We bought a mug which we gave to the people we were having dinner with that evening.

Now Pettet, who died two years later, is having an exhibition of his ceramics at Dennis Severs’s house in Folgate Street, where he lived for ten years. The ceramics are part of the mise-en-scène:-

I have kindly been asked to do a version of my talk on the Castle Howard mausoleum at the Warburg Institute on June 1st (Director’s Seminar – ‘The Castle Howard Mausoleum Revisited’ | The Warburg Institute (sas.ac.uk)). For those who heard my lecture to the Monuments and Mausolea Trust, this will be a slightly different version, focussing more on Vanbrugh than Hawksmoor. Do please come if you can.

I recently went to the excellent small display at the Paul Mellon Centre about Gavin Stamp, who was one of the people who taught me at Cambridge.  I wrote about him for my monthly column in The Critic and very much look forward to his magnum opus due for posthumous publication.

The exhibition closes on Friday !

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2023/stamp-collection/

We travelled to Cardiff to see objects which Romilly is showing in an exhibition titled Uncommon Beauty. They are indeed. Recent work, some of which was shown in her exhibition at Make Hauser & Worth in 2020:-

We went to see the Spanish bluebells in the local Novo Cemetery – quite a display:

About five years ago my blog was automatically connected to Twitter, such that everything I wrote was instantly broadcast in a much wider medium. As a result, I gradually began to follow Twitter myself – with mixed feelings. I have learned a huge amount from it. I like seeing pictures of Beaumaris posted by Jon Savage and of Lochaline by Hugh Raven. Is it worth the time it takes to follow it ? Yes and no. I sometimes think it is an electronic addiction, destroying the ability to concentrate more systematically.

Well, this morning, I received a message from WordPress telling me that from today what I say on my blog can no longer be connected to Twitter. Please disconnect. I’ve found the button. Do I mind ? Not especially. I have always regarded my blog as a niche interest, mainly for friends, and I sometimes forget that anyone reads it.

I haven’t followed all the changes that Elon Musk has made to Twitter and hitherto haven’t noticed any great changes to it. Actually, I’m secretly rather relieved by this change as it will maybe help cure my addiction. So, farewell Twitter. It will give me time to read more books.

A benefit of going to a concert at St. Giles Cripplegate was that we were in an unfamiliar part of the Barbican as the sun was going down making one look at it in literally a new light:-