Thursday - Dienstag, I think - in Berlin

No, it's Donnerstag. A stunning spring day in beautiful downtown Berlin. I’m happy to say that enough of my high-school German has come back for me to flounder through, when I accost those few people who don’t speak English. "Ich kann ein bischen Deutsch sprechen." Ja!

One thing that amazes me here, in general, is the orderliness of the crowds, who stand at red lights even when there’s no traffic. The guards in the museums are very stern and strict. Even though on the streets, there’s a vitality even more anarchic than London’s, if possible, the backbone of German politeness and good behaviour pokes through.

And then there’s the haunting that I spoke of yesterday. On my way this morning to the art gallery, first I went through Potsdamer Platz, where again there are actual segments of the wall, photographs of it, and memorials to the hundreds of Germans who died trying to get over.

Then a bit later, there was a notice-board on the sidewalk with pictures, beside it a plaque on the ground. On this spot, it said, were the headquarters of AKTION T4, the Nazi program for the mass murder – “massenmord” - of disabled people and the mentally ill, which was the start of the Nazi programs to “annihilate worthless life” that soon focussed specifically on Jews. There were 6 killing centres, we are informed, where more than 200,000 people “unfit to live” – including social misfits, delinquents and homosexuals – were gassed to death. They show a picture of the Dean of a Berlin cathedral, arrested for protesting these murders, who died on his way to Dachau. And a picture of the man who ran a number of the Aktion T4 programs before moving on, like most of his peers, to continue his work in the camps. His name, ironically, was Christian Wirth.

And then you just move along to see some lovely art. The city is hallucinogenic in that way. You keep encountering traces of lunacy, criminal lunacy of the vilest kind, register it, and move right along. That’s all you can do.

The Gemaldegalerie, the gallery of European art from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, is vast, as these museums are, and very confusing, with little rooms leading to and from big ones, so that you end up turning in circles to be sure you’ve seen everything. For once, I did get the headset, because there were no explanations beside the paintings as there are in London. A big collection, no surprise, of German and Dutch masters, Holbein, Durer, Cranach – a wonderful 1546 canvas of “The Fountain of Youth,” which shows droopy hairless old hags arriving at a swimming pool, frolicking naked and emerging the other side as bouncy young things about to go to lunch. Bosch showed the horror of the world, Breughel also, complicated busy scenes with horrible human beings, devils and fools. Rubens, Van Dyck, Frans Hals, lots of beautiful Rembrandts, and here – Bruce! To Berlin immediately – two Vermeers, a young cavalier tempting a young woman with a glass of wine, and a young woman in the ubiquitous yellow top, holding a pearl necklace to her perfect neck.

An English room, a Spanish room, some Poussins and Lorrains, yes Bruce! – and then to the heavenly Italians. 5 Madonnas by Raphael, Bronzino, Tintoretto, Titian, a few stunning Bellinis including Jesus with a six-pack, Fra Angelico and Fra Lippo Lippe. And we leave through a room of Botticellis. How light, how fantastical the Italian scenes seem by then, with their stunning Marys, clouds of angels and golden haloes.

After that lengthy journey through western art, and a picnic lunch of a piece of cheese stolen from breakfast with a crusty bun, I decided to see the famous shopping and strolling street, Kurfurstendamm, which took an hour-long walk to get to, beside the Tiergarten, an enormous and gorgeously wild city park. Wished I’d rented a bicycle. This is a great bicycle city, flat and very spread out. I have been lusting after the bicycles, beautifully designed and sturdy with high wide handlebars. And also the shoes – the Germans make marvellous shoes. I was glad mine were comfortable today – lots of walking. The street was wide and impressive, the Champs-Elysees of Berlin, people sitting in sidewalk cafes, and the usual high-end shops as anywhere. Wandered more happily in the side streets – gracious tall old dwellings painted many different colours and in many different styles, unlike New York or London or Paris.

Bravely took the S-Bahn back, the elevated railway – Berliners all day were great, helping me figure things out. The railway glides over the city. Went as far as Alexanderplatz, one of the youth centres of the city, and walked back. Arrived at 5 p.m. after an entire day, from 9.30, on my feet.

Now I’m stretched out on my bed, drinking a glass of German wine, eating an apple, writing to you. I went to the Philharmonic building after the gallery and found out that tomorrow, Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" is playing, Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. The woman at the hotel called for me; it's sold out, but there are standing room tickets. I may do a lot of standing tomorrow. Because just as this country symbolizes the worst of human nature, it also produced the most sublime - Johann Sebastian Bach. Not to mention Franz and Georg Freidrich and Ludwig and and all their colleagues.

Berlin

And now for something completely different ... the republic of Deutschland. I remember driving over the border from France with my parents on our camping trip in 1964, and seeing their faces when they started hearing German spoken for the first time since the war. But now, it is 65 years later, and even the hideous Wall has fallen. I took a bus tour of this enormous city earlier, and saw one of the small portions of the wall that remains. Grotesque.

Once I was settled in this very nice, simple hotel which turns out to be in a very good location, walking distance to almost everything, I set out in the sun, headed for Under den Linden, the wide avenue, to the Brandenburg Gate - and everywhere, echoes of the Nazi past, didn't hundreds of thousands stand here screaming for Hitler? The Reichstag nearby, the seat of government, didn't he speak from the steps? This lively, sophisticated city is haunted.

And then I went a few blocks more to see the true haunting - the Holocaust memorial. The city finally appropriated a very large chunk of space and has made a powerful sculptural tribute to the six million dead. It's a series of more than two thousand concrete slabs, all irregular, lined in rows. Children were playing, running about merrily through the labyrinthine lanes, jumping from one to the other. Others were just walking silently back and forth through the rows. I sat near a young man explaining the memorial to a group of American highschool students. The slabs are all irregular and tilted, perhaps like headstones in a Jewish cemetary, he said, or like people standing in rows in the concentration camps, as they had to for hours a day. How did it make you feel to be inside there? Lonely, answered one. Yes, lonely, he said. The stones are all different, and yet they are all the same.

It's moving, and at the same time - rather cold. This, rightly or wrongly, is what I associate with Germany, even now. And - cliche though it is - some of my best friends, growing up, were the German family who gave us our dachshund puppy. The father had been in the Luftwaffe and had bombed near where my Jewish father was stationed with his U.S. Army unit. The two men became close friends. The past is the past. Just as long as we don't forget.

There's a museum underground, that makes sure we don't forget. I went through in tears, of course. One million Soviet Jews were killed by the end of the war, some of them my relatives. They trace a few specific families, to show what happened to them, and a man called Mordechai Kaplan was sent from Minsk, where my grandfather's family came from, to Auschwitz. The pictures, the narratives are unbearable.

Enough. I emerged into the sunshine and got onto the nearest tourist bus, just to get some air and see the city. Nearly froze on the top of the double-decker, but did get a sense of the vastness of this complicated city, how new most of the architecture is, because what wasn't destroyed by the war was destroyed by the wall. Now, all unified under a woman president. A fascinating place with a terrible past that they have looked at, straight on. They have acknowledged the horror that began here.

last day in London, quiet Tuesday in Barnes

Knowing that later in the day I was decamping from Carnaby Street, my top choices for Easter Monday morning were to go to the Tate Modern to see a retrospective of the work of Arshile Gorky and other treasures, or to the Victoria and Albert Museum to visit my friend William Morris. It was cold but not actually raining.

Instead, I sat upstairs in a double-decker bus with a group of excitable Italians – when we went down Sloane Street, a centre for high-end fashion, they began to shout out the shop names: “Gucci! Pucci! Armani! Fendi! Prada!” For some reason, this Easter, London is full of Italians. When we rolled down King’s Road, I got out. When I lived here in 1971, King’s Road, all of Chelsea, was the epicentre of hip, with interesting, funky shops and inhabitants dressed in the latest. A male London friend wore 3-piece suits with Converse sneakers and another the first pair of platform boots I’d ever seen. So groovy.

But now, it turns out, King’s Road is just another Yuppie shopping street, with the same old Banana Republic-type shops, including the height of non-coolness, a Marks and Spencer. Of course, these days, those adorable tiny multicoloured Chelsea houses cost millions of pounds, so it's no wonder artists and kids are no longer there. Further up the street, I came upon the Saatchi Gallery, which is very cool, showing modern Indian art. There were some marvellous things - a group of people made of twisted electrical bits, neon strips and lightbulbs - and some very odd – a taxidermied camel folded up into a suitcase – but all vibrant, original, powerful. The Chinese and Korean photographers at the Prince William-sponsored exhibit I saw a few days ago were among the strongest works on display. It’s not only with their leaping economies that these emerging world powers will dazzle us.

A double-decker ride back along Oxford Street, the shops and streets overflowing with bargain-hunters. I found myself a corner in the chaos of the Mac store and did my emailing and posting, and then prepared to leave the heart of London. Wouldn’t you know, as I rolled my bag towards Piccadilly Circus to get the tube, the sun was strong and the day was growing hot. Hot. Briefly.

My English friend Christina (not to be confused with the Spanish Christina from the Carnaby Street place) lives in Barnes, a beautiful little town just on the southern outskirts of London. Barnes is a little further into spring than London, colour everywhere, all the blossom trees, forsythia, daffodils. And like before, bathing in Barnes pond are a gaggle of Canadian geese.

I felt like a missionary for a minute – Christina and her brother here have a minor medical condition, and I’d brought from their Toronto sister four boxes of a Canadian product which helps it. Remembering last year's Suitcase from Hell, Christina was about to mock the size of my current suitcase – I’d intended to travel light but somehow that did not happen, did I tell you? The bag weighs 11 kilos, not nearly as bad as last year's but not a feather, let me tell you – but when she saw all those boxes, which would not have fitted into a small suitcase, she held her fire.

I’d arrived a bit earlier than planned because I wanted to watch a docudrama about Vincent Van Gogh on BBC 1, linked to the show Penny and I’d seen. It answered a few questions we’d had: Vincent would definitely have been diagnosed these days as bi-polar; his preacher father considered him "eccentric" and wanted to have him committed as early as 1880. Vincent drew an exact copy of Millet's "The Sower" five times, over and over, to get it exactly right. And Theo died of syphilis. But mostly, the show showed again how tragically lonely and tormented Vincent was. I felt differently about his suicide – perhaps he would not have lived much longer in any case, without Theo.

Incidentally, Vincent was played by a great young actor called Cumberpatch. My great-grandmother's best friend was named Hattie Cumberpatch; I wear Hattie's ring always on my right hand. So I feel another link, however tenuous, with Vincent. And one more thing I learned ... Rembrandt painted over 90 self-portraits. Nobody told him to stop being such a self-centred egotist. I think his work is the equivalent of today's memoirists. Rembrandt was painting the memoir of his own face.

Christina had made a great dinner and then we watched the "University Challenge," in which students from Oxbridge battled each other - amazingly clever and knowledgeable, that bunch - and then the last Inspector Frost drama on telly. I hadn’t seen any of the others, but the last one was good. Christina's place is a haven this time, as it was last - a quiet place to stop for a minute. Though the coffee bar where I've just paid a fortune for the internet is anything but quiet - full of the noisiest British children. I think this country is changing. Its children are.

The sun is out, with a biting wind. Time for a walk. Off tomorrow to Berlin. Am I really here?

ecstasy of the arts on Saturday

I'm in the Mac store on Regents Street using the free wifi and listening to Jimmy Cliff with four thousand other people - Easter Monday is like Boxing Day here, it seems, the entire world is out for a bit of a shop. I'll fill in today later - here's Saturday and Sunday.

And - I know you're wondering - it's not raining. Cold, very cold, but not raining. That's all that matters.

Saturday. Penny arrived at the flat, and we set off for the Academy of Art, to join the very long queue waiting to see the Van Gogh. After an hour outside in the chill wind but luckily not the rain, Penny had the terrific, generous idea of joining the Academy. She paid a lot of pounds but considers supporting the arts one of the things she likes to do with her money. So suddenly, instead of waiting at least another half hour or hour, we walked in – to the most moving and beautiful exhibit.

“The real Van Gogh – an artist and his letters” is a vast presentation of Van Gogh’s letters, shown with the paintings he references. We see that Vincent was a thoughtful, avid reader and patient craftsman who devoted a great deal of time and energy to mastering his trade. He writes to others, but mostly to his brother Theo, about his efforts, how he is learning and practicing perspective, colour, watercolour, human figures. The letters show how he studied and copied other artists, and how influenced he was especially by Japanese woodblock art. He muses about being an artist and about the books he’s reading, in Dutch, English, French and German – Victor Hugo, Dickens, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, George Eliot, Bunyan, Shakespeare and especially Zola, his favourite author. “Books and reality and art are the same thing to me,” he writes. After reading a biography of his artist hero Millet, he writes, “He paints life as we feel it ourselves and thus satisfies that need which we have, that people tell us the truth.

“In all of nature, in trees for instance, I see expression and a soul.”

He writes to the faithful Theo, always including a detailed sketch or two, about the kind of paper and canvas he’s using, the pens and brushes, the colours in his new work … “the house and its surroundings under a sulphur sun, under a pure cobalt sky …” he writes. Yet we learn he didn’t even decide to be an artist until he was 24 or discover the power of colour until more than ten years later, in 1886 after his move to France. The last rooms are unspeakably sad. How could a soul radiating such breathtaking beauty, painting one magnificent canvas after another – he produced more than 70 paintings in his last 70 days – choose death? He shot himself in 1890, at the age of 37.

I learned two vital things from this exhibition. One is that any artist, no matter how much genius is innate in his or her soul, needs to learn the craft, and that is done with repetition as painstaking as that of any journeyman carpenter. And second, that making money has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with great art. Vincent was so unable to support himself, he moved back in with his parents for a while at the age of 30. The hero of this exhibition, besides Vincent himself, is Theo, whose only child, a son, was named Vincent-Willem. “Many thanks for your letter,” the painter writes in many of his letters, “and for the 50 franc note you included.” If it weren’t for the faithful support of his brother, we would have no “Sunflowers,” no “Starry Night,” no other canvases by the supremely unsuccessful Vincent Van Gogh. If Theo hadn’t saved all his brothers’ correspondence, on top of his other loyalties, we wouldn’t have this stunning exhibition.

Vincent died with Theo by his side; there’s a possibility that concern over Theo’s future finances might have pushed his fragile soul over the edge. Theo himself died in England only six months later. His wife managed to bring his body to France, and the brothers are buried together in the small town where Vincent died. There’s a photograph of their simple headstones, side by side. Inutterably moving.

Penny and I spent over 2 hours going through this exhibition in the greatest bliss, and were happy and relieved to be able to go to the classy Member’s Lounge afterwards to rest our weary feet and have a bite. Another extraordinary coincidence, in a friendship studded with them – in the Member’s Lounge was an exhibit of the work of a British artist called Barbara Rae. As longtime blog readers will know, it was the friendship and early death of my childhood pen pal Barbara Rea that led me to her sister Penny. Barbara loved to draw and paint; Penny mused about what kind of artist she might have become.

The sun – yes, the sun – was shining, so we walked through St. James Park through which I’d marched quickly yesterday in the rain, and came back to the flat for another delicious microwaved Marks and Spencer meal and wine, before leaving again for the theatre. And once again, without apologies, I’m going to submerge you in superlatives. The show, “Jerusalem,” is one of the best ever, and the performance of its star, Mark Rylance, I think the single most powerful performance I’ve ever seen on a stage. For a minute there, I thought, this after Vincent is more great art than I can stand in one day. But only for a minute.

I thank the “New York Times,” which ran a brief article on London theatre mentioning this play; I mentioned it to Penny who immediately booked us seats, and good thing to, as it was packed. It’s simply amazing. “Enron” was very good, but this was magnificent – though I do not think this has a future in New York, it’s just too English. It’s the story of Johnny “Rooster” Byron, a ferocious, charming, silver-tongued ne’er-do-well with Romany blood who lives in a trailer on public land in a small country town and plays a storytelling Pied Piper to a bunch of disaffected kids, who smoke and snort his drugs, drink his booze and hang about. He’s not a hero, he’s complex and flawed, as powerfully written a role – by Jez Butterworth - as I’ve ever seen, and Rylance is utterly brilliant. I can’t believe that there are matinees of this show, because surely he cannot do something this emotionally, vocally and physically demanding twice a day.

Rooster’s way of life is threatened by the pettiness of local politics, but the play is about something much deeper – about the loss of the great pagan British gods like Woden, god of the slain, who still claims his day of the week, Woden’s day or Wednesday; about the loss of belief in country traditions and values, ancient legends, myths and folk tales, faeries and demons. It ends with Rooster, almost beaten to death, pounding on a drum and screaming out the names of his Byron ancestors and of the ancient giants and gods he’s calling to his aid. Mesmerising. Absolutely stunning.

One last treat – home through the jam-packed late night streets to sit and jabber over a cup of tea about theatre and gods and performances and direction and what-did-this-mean? While the rain, which we just missed, poured down outside.

Today, Easter Sunday, Penny has gone and I’m feeling a little bit overdosed after the banquet of yesterday. But still, here I am in the heart of London, can’t sit about, especially as it has stopped raining. I was going to go to a chocolate festival on the south bank – be still my beating heart – and to the Tate Modern, but didn’t want to go that far afield on such a bitterly cold morning. Walked down instead to the National Gallery – how I love these free British galleries and museums, so spacious, airy and open. Visited some of my favourites again – the wonderful Botticelli young man I’ve loved since 1971, and this time, I made sure to see not the Vermeers or the Poussins, sorry, Bruce, but the Van Goghs, knowing, this time, what the dates meant – this was a happier time in Provence, this from the outpouring just before his death. As I walked through one gallery, I saw a big canvas at the end of another and thought, that must be Holbein. Sure enough, it was. And later, that must be Gainsborough, that must be Constable. It’s like meeting old friends on a busy street and stopping to say hello.

Back home for lunch (M and S, of course) and to the noisy café with wifi around the corner that I used during my stay last year. This time I knew how to enjoy my time there – I brought earplugs. And then off again to the British Museum, to see an exhibit on ancient West African art. It was wonderful to see African families, including one couple in complete regalia made of gorgeous cloth, the woman in a fine big headdress, looking for once at the stunning work of their own ancestors – the father with a thick African accent, the young son sounding like a Cockney.

Here was fine, detailed, sophisticated work from around 1300, from Ife near Nigeria and Benin in Africa – mostly bronze and copper heads, very beautiful and noble. Some were made in tribute to the gods, and I thought of the play last night – no problem remembering their gods here.

Last time I came to this overwhelming museum I turned left, so this time, after Africa, I turned right, to find a “cabinet of wonders” room full of interesting things. As ever, I was thrilled to find Native Canadian treasures like a Salish spoon. I fell most in love with a statue made in Egypt in 1370 B.C. She’s Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of healing, and she has fine pussycat ears and very big feet.

Once more, an ambitious plan went awry – I was going to go on to the British Library, and I actually set out - but lost heart as it was in the wrong direction and now late afternoon. Instead I meandered through Bloomsbury Square and very slowly towards home in the sun, yes, the sun. I stopped in Golden Square, a pretty park nearby, to sit in the rare bit of warmth and read the latest, just bought “New Yorker.

And then back here to put my feet up, watch telly and recover from the usual London overload.

Paris to London

Friends, I'm alive, but have no internet where I'm staying and have been busy. Here in London at an internet cafe near Carnaby Street, briefly, before setting off for the British Museum and Library again, this Easter Sunday. Happy whatever you celebrate to you all. Here's an account of Thursday and Friday, my journey from Paris to London and my first day here. I'll catch you up with the rest tomorrow or later. All is well; equilibrium and internet restored, and I'm in the thick of the joy of it all.

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Thursday, an easy ride on the Eurostar from Paris to London eating as usual the entire time – sandwiches bought the day before on the rue Mouffetard, when of course the Gare du Nord, a French train station, is full of delicious food for the journey. Sat next to a charming young woman from Bournemouth who has lived in Paris for 10 years, loves France but will eventually move back to Britain. I noticed that French ways have not affected her – she ate an entire packet of Lu butter biscuits en route.

The sun was actually shining when I got out at St. Pancras, so I decided not to take the tube but to walk to Carnaby Street. I felt that immediate hit of London, just like last year – a youthful, scrambling, chaotic creative energy. Got Christopher’s keys and into his apartment to dump my bag, immediately went out to wander about before the inevitable rain. Had a look at Kate Moss’s TopShop and other Oxford Street shops. TopShop seems to have doubled in size since last year, overflowing with teens buying handbags. Handbags everywhere. What is that strange new leather-like substance?

Back to the Mac store with my computer, where a wonderful young man sorted out my internet and I learned that you can use the Net there for free. Picked up my emails, sent a few, headed home. Trouble. The key did not work in Christopher’s door. Tried and tried, could not get in the door. When I’d picked it up, the security man had said, “It’s been tested and it’s pretty sure to work,” so I thought – there has been a problem with the key before and here it is again. Luckily my hosts were coming home at some point that evening.

I hid my computer and set off to the Noel Coward theatre to see a matinee of “Bedroom Farce.” Got the best seat in the house at the last minute at a third the price – 20 pounds – and thought, how can I go wrong with Peter Hall and Alan Ayckbourn? Well – let’s say that when I leave a theatre, I like to feel that I’m bigger after seeing that play, or heavier or lighter or better, something. Couldn’t say any of those. It was a very competent British farce with some wonderful moments – but I thought it dated and trivial. The elderly gent next to me had a marvellous time. God, he was like my grandfather – vest, neatly combed white hair, pale shiny tight skin. But Percy would never have gone to something called "Bedroom Farce."

I just felt – Sir Peter Hall, one of the greatest of British theatre artists – is this what you are doing now?

Home in a thunderstorm so fierce I sheltered in a poker club on the way. Back hoping that Christina would be home – no, tried the key again, sat on the landing reading “Time Out London” plotting my trip, wandered some more - Liberty’s, absurdly expensive –and then at last Christina came home, showed me that the key has to be turned hard. Christopher came home very late and I took my hosts out for curry. The noise from the streets below their apartment incredible – Carnaby pubs jammed, everyone standing outside to smoke in the bitter cold. My hosts were up at 4.15 a.m., out to Scotland in the freezing rain, I moved to their bed. Hooray.

Friday

Back to the friendly Mac store full of my brethren, to check email. Penny, who's coming in tomorrow to spend the day with me, wants me to try to get tickets for us to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the Academy of Art so I dress in my usual seven layers, today including two pairs of socks, and set out to do so, only to find out that you cannot buy tickets in advance. What will we have to do? Right – we will have to QUEUE.

Then – wandering in the increasingly strong rain, with no set plan. Fortnum and Mason – luxurious excess in fancy boxes and tins. Down a side street, I stop in front of a museum disguised as a store. Above is written “William Evans, Gun and Rifle maker, est. 1883,” and in the window is Rule Britannia: sturdy wellies, shooting bags, tweed suits for both sexes, sturdy raincoats, Liberty scarves, Viyella shirts, Fair Isle cardies, tweed caps. Does this kind of life even exist any more, or is it a movie by Merchant and Ivory? The real Britannia now, it seems to me, is buying pleather in TopShop.

On to St. James Palace – when I ask a policeman what it is, he says, “It’s a minor palace, ma'm,” and that nearby is another minor palace where Prince Charles and his sister Anne live. I continue to a major palace – Buck House. Nearby, in lovely Green Park, is the Canada Memorial – a kind of fountain with water sluicing over granite engraved with maple leaves, and on the steps around, garbage left after picnics. But the sound of running water took me back to the real woods - truly Canadian. The rain much stronger now – people walking through beautiful St. James Park pretending it’s fine, a group of Italians walking quickly and shivering under “I heart London” umbrellas, obviously just bought. My own umbrella turns inside out in the bitter wind. I am on the Princess Di Memorial Walk, and it’s a lovely place, thousands of daffodils, many kinds of pink and white blossom, and exotic ducks and geese. There's a very lonely ice cream vendor.

And there – the Institute of Contemporary Art, just the thing to escape the rain, I don’t care what they’re showing. But of course, it turns out to be a terrific show of a man called Billy Childish, a crazy poet, musician, artist – his paintings, his poems, and videos of his films and music. One of his books is entitled, “This is my shit and it smells good to me,” which perhaps gives you the idea. He’s a Van Goghy character, even to look at, lean with jutting brows and sharp cheekbones, and his paintings have great sweeping smears of paint and angry brush strokes.

A coffee, and back out into the rain, now wearing both my hat and the hood of my coat. Great, down the road another nice place – Somerset House, an 18^th Century mansion which is housing a photography exhibit – photographers or their estates have donated pictures to be auctioned off for a charity for the homeless sponsored by Prince William. And good work it is too, including Canadians Burtynsky, Robert Polidori and, believe it or not, Bryan Adams. I saw a photograph I recognised as by Willy Ronis, whose work I saw last year at the photography exhibition in Arles. That made me feel cosmopolitan.

Set off to find the John Soane Museum but gave up, too cold, wet and tired. Went to get a cheap theatre ticket instead, and to buy groceries at Marks and Spencer. Home to heat up a delicious microwave dinner and have a glass of wine before setting off again to see “Enron,” an extraordinary show detailing, in drama, music and movement, exactly how that financial disaster happened. The first act is brilliant, the second is much too long and preachy, but the whole thing made me feel that my trip had been worth it, just for that. It’s what theatre is all about, the best – angry, fascinating, instructive, controversial, combative, entertaining, funny, tragic. It’s done simply with projections at the back, neon lights moving up and down, and simple props like boxes moved by the actors. I talked to an American woman at the intermission. “When do you think they’ll take it to New York?” I asked her. “Maybe they won’t,” she said. But I have read since that it will open soon in NYC. It’s a devastating portrait not only of the Enron greed, but of all the parties connected to them, their law firm, their accountants (Lehman Brothers portrayed as Mutt and Jeff idiots in one big coat.) Perhaps not something New Yorkers will rush to see?

And then home, walking along the Chinatown on Gerrard Street. At home I have often walked through our Chinatown on Gerrard Street, but here, there were thousands of people, including young British men in shirtsleeves and young dollies in little dresses and high heeled shoes, and I in my seven layers still with puffy fleece, hat and gloves. But it wasn’t raining. That’s all that matters.

Stay tuned for Saturday with Penny, stunning art and theatre, and Easter Sunday - a quiet day in the heart of this spectacular place. Over and out, for now.