I went on quite an amazing tour of St. Bride’s Foundation Institute, just by St. Bride’s Church, organised by the Victorian Society.  We started on the top floor with examples from the obviously very rich collections of books, print and printed ephemera and then went downstairs for a demonstration of type-founding and print technology.

There was a film about the production of the Daily Express in circa. 1976 showing the technical skills involved in type-setting and print production. 

I had no idea of the complexities of newspaper production, all swept away in the early 1980s before computerisation:-

I have been looking at V&A East for so long while bicycling across Olympic Park that I have got used to it as an empty shell.  But this morning I was able to get a preview and was impressed.  The interior spaces are bigger and more generous than I was expecting, the public spaces likewise generous, the view from the terrace on the top floor superb.  Annoyingly, I didn’t have time to try the café, nor was I able to get a very good sense of the Museum displays, other than the fact that they are deliberately eclectic and mostly contemporary. 

I am looking forward to going back.

The obituary I wrote of Tom Phillips for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has just appeared online (https://www-oxforddnb-com.lonlib.idm.oclc.org/display/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-90000383127?rskey=OUb2iP&result=4).

Unfortunately, you can only access it through a library – for me, it is one of the many wonderful things about being a member of the London Library.

As sometimes happens, since writing the obit., I had forgotten about the incredible range of Tom’s career – artist, musician, writer, reviewer, trustee of the British Museum.

I’m only sad that there isn’t a picture, so am posting a good one taken for an article in the Guardian:-

I am also posting a link to the lovely article about his house written by Richard Ovenden for The World of Interiors (https://www.worldofinteriors.com/story/tom-phillips-peckham-home).

I have just spotted that I am on the Jools Holland programme this coming Saturday (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002v1qx).

It turns out that he is a fantastic Vanbrugh enthusiast and very knowledgeable about him, even to the extent of having built a model of Goose-Pie House.

I really enjoyed discussing all things Vanbrugh with him and choosing music which Vanbrugh might have heard, although the choice is totally hypothetical.

We finally made it to the William Nicholson exhibition at Pallant House – a beautiful exhibition, larger and more comprehensive than I was expecting, showing the full range of his work, including his luscious and beautifully observed still lives which, along with his portraits, are what one remembers.

I was intrigued that he never became an RA. The answer is, not surprisingly, that he was asked in 1926, but turned it down on the grounds that ‘the idea of a label of any sort scares me away from all desire to paint’. Maybe he was a bit less conformist than he appears.

We went to see St. Twrog’s, a recent acquisition of the Friends of Friendless Churches, after Christmas, but it was shut.  Today it was open and well worth a visit: a completely unspoilt, late Georgian interior – box pews, pulpit and reading desk and two wall monuments with beautiful, simple lettering:-

I’m very sad to hear news of the death of Alec Cobbe, quite a remarkable figure: a man of taste; trained as a conservator at the Tate; then worked at Birmingham and the Hamilton Kerr; took over Hatchlands as a tenant of the National Trust to show his collection of musical instruments.

I went to Hatchlands in September to see his Titian exhibition.  No photographs.

But most impressive is his rehang at Castle Howard, including the display of casts in the visitors’ entrance in the West Wing:-