But I was alone.

London Time to write about what happened in London when I wasn’t on the plinth. Readers who yawned at my interminable Stratford-Upon-Avon story will be pleased to know that I’ve decided that on this occasion brevity is the soul of wit and to deliberately give the following short shrift. This is just the tip of a massive ice-cube but I enjoyed myself so much that on this occasion I don’t want to spoil things by over analysing. Not everything in life means something. Some things. Some things which happened on this trip in fact, but not everything. For the interested, if I learnt anything in those three days, it’s that London can be a beautiful, exciting, kinetic, energetic place but which I can imagine can also be a dark, scary, lonely isolating condition if you’re not careful, and don’t have the kind of personality which can fight against it.

The J W Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts has been greeted with some rather sniffy one star reviews from the (as it turns out) unpopular press and it has to be said, as I passed between rooms, between bursts of the audio tour, I did hear some so-called art experts deconstructing the works, casting about for as many synonyms for ‘kitsh’ as they could find. Of course, even though I appreciate this stuff isn’t to everyone’s taste, they’re wrong. Apart from the skill in Waterhouse’s execution in producing these scenes, his ability to create drama and surrealism is astounding. Take St Eulalia (1885) in which the martyr lies slain on the snow covered floor as the populace look on in horror, her naked form both sensuous and horrible at the same time. That’s a pattern repeated throughout the exhibition in which your male gaze is focused where you’d expect and then suddenly you find yourself blinking when as you realise what the painting is really about.

If there’s one repeated feature of my visits to museums and art galleries in the North West, it’s that the designated Waterhouse in a given collection is always on loan and the retrospective is one of the reasons. Sure enough, in amongst the pieces borrowed from the Tate, the Royal Collection and Tim Rice, there was (amongst others) Psyche Opening the Door into Cupid’s Garden from the Harris Museum in Preston and Destiny from Towneley Hall in Burnley. Also on show were a couple of pieces from National Museums Liverpool so familiar it was like greeting an old friend in unusual surroundings (not the only time that happened during the trip) as well as Hylas and the Nymphs in which Hercules’s companion is seduced by seven identical young ladies which I had a poster on my wall during my teenage years. Yes, indeed. But keep in mind I also had Kylie and Debbie Gibson up there too. I was post-pubescently conflicted.

Also presently at the Royal Academy is the Summer Exhibition, a show so volumous that you could easily spend a day looking around. I allotted myself about half an hour (first day, tight schedule), hardly enough time to absorb much of anything. At one point I found myself staring at a dyptic of canvases, primary colours and wavy lines. There was something very curious, very impressive, very interactive about it, despite it simply being a two dimension object. I wanted to tell somebody. But I was alone. After a while, two rather elegantly dressed women stood just behind my shoulder. One of them looked familiar but I didn’t think much of it then. I heard them trying to interpret what they were seeing. Of course I immediately thought of this classic scene from Doctor Who:



After a bit I turned to them:

“Would you like to know how this works?” I said.
”Pardon?”
”Would you like to know how this works?”
“How do you know?”
”I just know.” I tried to create a twinkle in my eye. I didn’t, but then I’m not David Tennant.
“How does it work?”
“If you stare at the wavy lines for long enough the image is imprinted in your eyes, then if you look right new colours emerge…” They really did.
“Ooooh.” They said in unison, “Thank you we’ll try that…”

I strolled away. Then I thought about whether it is a good idea to bother fellow patrons in art galleries like that and who the lady reminded me of. Moments later I realised. It was Eleanor Bron. The Eleanor Bron who made the cameo with John Cleese in Doctor Who all those years ago. I've checked my memory against the internet, and found this photograph. It was definitely her. Blimey.