Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon Portugal When I was in Portugal the other week for a poetry workshop, I had a free Sunday and decided to spend it at the impressive Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. This dramatic Modernist…
It all started last summer when I booked a two week holiday in Venice but let my finger slip on the British Airways website only to find that when I went for my return flight I had mistakenly bought a…
Le musée Paul Valéry, Sète One of my greatest pleasures in travelling is visiting different towns and exploring their art galleries. It was no different on my recent trip to Sète in the south of France and I soon found…
Looking at Vladimir Putin’s chilly expression, I felt cold too this morning. I had just been looking at the appalling images coming from the destroyed and corpse-filled Donetsk Airport and despaired of the situation in Ukraine which is running…
The Prophet Muhammad enthroned, Iran, early 14th century. Freer/Sackler Museum Of Asian Art/Smithsonian Institution. I don’t want to trespass in ignorance as my knowledge of Islam is minimal but it was only recently that I learnt that images of…
Charlotte Harwood and Christopher Harper in Slipping I was in Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre this weekend to see Slipping, a new play by the young writer Claudine Toutoungi – directed by my son Henry Bell. Henry Bell in Scarborough…
I have been obsessing on the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882) as I reported in yesterday’s blog. Sorry about this but Rossetti’s poem The Blessed Damozel (1850), new to me until this week, has continued to…
The Blessed Damozel (1875 – 1878) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti I have written before on this site about my enthusiasm for the so-called Pre-Raphaelite artists, my favourites being Edward Burne-Jones (1833 – 1898) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882) but…
Henry Bell Yesterday I related the sorry tale of my dilemma – which of my sons’ new creative ventures should I visit. In the last blog I revealed that I decided to go North to Scarborough Yorkshire, for my…
At the end of these two weeks of blogs about Venice, it is time to add that it wasn’t just me who had a great time – my trusty Panama hat enjoyed itself too. …