I'd like to say that I like looking at Hockney's paintings, which in the main are very large and very bright and often of the same landscapes. But if the test of an artwork is whether you could live with it, then I only counted four paintings (out of maybe a hundred) to which I would have given houseroom. With the hordes of people milling around, the vast interest this exhibition has attracted and the hushed tones in which people speak of Hockney, I couldn't personally help feeling that there was an element of the Emperor's New Clothes about this display. But still, as a phenomenon, it was interesting. And, for someone like me who knew very little of Hockney before, educational. I was grateful and glad we had gone.
The following morning posed less of an assault on the visual senses: we went to Henry VIII's Royal Palace of Hampton Court to which I had never been and where I would have been happy to stay the whole day if not the whole week. (I am sure an enterprising down and outer could manage to hide away somewhere in the warren that is the Palace and live perpetually in some royal cupboard, perhaps posing as someone or other, practically in perpetuity). The spring sun shone, there weren't too many crowds and buildings and gardens did really look very beautiful. Tudor lords and ladies occasionally dropped in too so that for me it even felt a little bit like coming home as I did once play Cardinal Wolsey on stage. This wasn't however enough to get me in for free.
So back then to a (very) late lunch for family and grandchildren. Our friends' daughters are just a little younger than our own and grandchildren don't change very much wherever you go. A most pleasant walk along the Thames followed, we watching the rowers and scullers and the passenger boats that ply a trade along the river.
Needing a rest in the evening we all set off to see a film: 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' which I can thoroughly recommend to anyone who likes a heart-warming, life-affirming story, being the one selected. It made me cry and laugh in equal measure and as the cast includes Maggie, Smith, Judy Dench, Bill Nighy and a host of other stars all acting naturally and not trying to be edgy or violent, watching them provided an acting masterclass. It is a superb film, though, naturally, panned by the critics.
On Sunday we all drove over to Dulwich to see more old friends who had tickets for an exhibition of Van Dyck's paintings at the Dulwich Gallery. At the same time the gallery was hosting a second exhibition of 'Ragas' - little Indian paintings about the size of an iPad - made three or four hundred years ago to accompany pieces of music and song - an early form of music video, I suppose, though these paintings didn't move.
Having had by then our daily shot of culture we adjourned to lunch or rather to a glass of champagne in the garden sunshine before sitting down, eight of us, to a splendid piece of roast beef. After which our host, who is a bit of a wine buff, decided we should have a tasting of dessert wine to accompany the cheese and pudding. For each of us he produced six glasses into which he poured six dessert wines which we then had to link with a grape variety and a wine growing country or region. We all did very badly, I am sad to say, but I appeared to have done slightly less badly than the others and so was awarded a history of Pol Roger as a prize for my efforts.
Then back round the South Circular to Surbiton and, after tea, back again down the M4 (we avoided the M3 this time) to Wales, noting that the Bridge tolls have increased again. Anyway a most interesting and productive weekend.
The picture is of Hampton Court Bridge from Hampton Court Palace. In the foreground of the picture to the right, there is (though you probably can't see it) a pigeon that had waded out into the river and was giving itself a bath like a duck. It was actually swimming but it wouldn't have taken more than a passing ripple to have lifted it off the bottom.
