Picasso Exhibition

The original painting Las Meninas by Velasquez at the Prado and Picasso's version

The Picasso Exhibition at the National Gallery attempts to show Picasso in the context of his radical reworkings of the great paintings of the past. It's interesting and comes with an exemplary iPod accompaniment which includes photos of the paintings from which he was drawing his inspiration, but compared to the quality and tranquillity and of Christie's exhibition of St Laurent and Berge's collection, which included some stunning and less contrived Picassos, some of these pictures seemed rather tiresome.

Red Mansion Exhibition

The Red Mansion Foundation promotes artistic exchange between the UK and China, and its director is Nicolette Kwok. She held an exhibition at the Foundation's gallery at 46 Portland Place to show some new work, incuding some stunning video creations. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to show them, but a few photos are available if you click the heading

From The Study Window

There's a lot going on here....the squirrel has taken the bait of hazelnuts and has been pushing the cage about with his nose to get the last ones; but hasn't yet ventured in. A few minutes later he did and snap! He's now joined his brothers and sisters on Wandsworth Common and the roof is taking a rest. You can also see a very early daffodil and a morning cobweb on my study window, and behind the bush some snowdrops brought up from the Wettons' garden in Wiltshire

The Eden Project

I am amazed at the energy and enthusiasm which has created the huge Eden Project in an exhausted china clay quarry near St. Austell, Cornwall. The website says: "While restoring the Lost Gardens of Heligan in the early 90s, Tim Smit became fascinated with stories that connected plants to people and brought them alive. He enlisted the help of Philip McMillan Browse (former Director of RHS Wisley and Horticultural Director of the Lost Gardens of Heligan) and Peter Thoday (former President of the Institute of Horticulture), to put together a team of expert horticulturalists with a touch of green guerrilla in them".

Click the heading for more photos from the project - although it's practically impossible to take photos in the tropical zone as one's camera lens mists up as one enters.

Barbara Hepworth Studio Exhibition

St Ives is blessed with both the Tate and Barbara Hepworth's studio, the latter left intact with a number of works on show as a permanent exhibition. Click the heading for some more photos.

Hotels and B&Bs

As with restaurants and pubs, where I have come usually to prefer the latter, a good B&B is generally much to be preferred to an hotel for holiday breaks. There are some superb B&Bs to be found in Alastair Sawday's excellent guides, offering a style of country house life that is becoming a rarity, with charming hosts, dogs and gardens, sumptuous breakfasts and free wi-fi - all for about £70 a night.

Ben Nicholson at the Tate St Ives

An impressive exhibition of Ben Nicholson's work at the Tate St Ives. Unlike the Saatchi, the gallery for some reason doesn't allow photographs, so the photos come mainly from other sources. Click the heading for more photos - and here for some excellent work by Luke Frost as well.

Saatchi Gallery - New Art From the Middle East

A fascinating exhibition of new Middle Eastern art at the Saatchi Gallery. The Saatchi Gallery, newly renovated from the old Duke of York's barracks at the end of the King's Road, is worth visiting for itself. Click the heading for some more photos of the works of art

America Empire of Liberty

David Reynolds is Professor of History at Cambridge





David Reynolds's daily talks on BBC 4 on the making of the United States are riveting. Fortunately, if one misses them, you can catch up here

Edward Gorey

I have always loved the work of Edward Gorey, ever since being amused by 'The Beastly Baby' many years ago. This is in the same tradition: the dark deaths of (in these cases) 26 apparently undeserving children.

Note: This piece used to have a link to The Beastly Baby but sadly it's no longer possible to find it on line.