Bradford man goes mad with i-pad....

Before I fell into the payroll saga, I was lucky enough to enjoy a little R&R in the Big City. I was going to blog about it then, but I was too busy, so I thought I’d do it now.

Getting to London from Nowhere-on-Thames is usually easy, as we have a railway station at the end of the road. Getting to London on a Sunday, however, is an expedition of epic proportions, as they like to do engineering works every Sunday of the year, or so it seems.  I decided not to get caught out, and went to Slough instead. Slough has been much-maligned since John Betjamin made maligning Slough into a national pastime, but it does have the benefit of a fast train service to London. My carefully-laid plans were, however, scuppered on arrival at Paddington, because the engineering work epidemic had been extended to take in the Bakerloo line of the Underground, which, as is normal when my luck is involved, was the one I wanted.

I decided that, for once in my life, I would splash out and take a cab. This, reader, was a mistake I will not make again anytime soon. Yes, it was a comfortable and speedy ride that took me directly to my destination: The Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly. The downside was that, for the pleasure of being whisked there in comfort in the least possible time, I was charged a mammoth 12 (yes TWELVE) of our English pounds. And that was without a tip, which made it even more expensive. If anyone wants any ironing doing, I might have to start offering my services….

On the plus side, I was met by son#1, who whisked me past the queue, which looked like this:

And into the David Hockney exhibition, which looked like… well, it looked like one of the best things I’ve seen for a VERY long time. (You’ll have to take my word for this, as no photography is allowed in the RA).  I’ve long been a fan of Hockney’s work, although I did go off him a bit when he started sticking Polaroids together to make a picture, but this was wonderful. Really, really wonderful. Give a 73-year-old man an i-pad under normal circumstances, and I imagine that he would probably use it as a drinks coaster. Give Mr Hockney an i-pad, and he will record a Yorkshire woodland scene DAILY for several months, in the most wonderful colour and depth you could imagine. It was breathtakingly good. The only negative aspect was the sheer number of people in the exhibition, and more particularly the number of people (seemingly with cataracts, judging by their apparent need to stand as close as possible to every painting) plugged in to audio guides, cluttering up the place for ages and blocking the view for everyone else. In the end, I thanked them, though, because viewing most of the pictures from an angle and a distance made me appreciate just how well Hockney captures the depth and perspective of his scenes.

DH got a lot of press coverage when this exhibition opened, not least because it’s shortly going to be going head-to-head with a Damien Hirst show elsewhere in the capital. Hockney’s publicity for his show features a comment that “all the works in this exhibition were made by the artist” – a dig at Hirst, most of whose works are made by an army of technicians. Most of Hockney’s work for this show has been painted in the last couple of years, and it’s a testament to his talent that none of it looks any less impressive for that.

I was so impressed that I bought my very own Hockney. OK, it’s a print, and much reduced in size from the original, but it is of one of my favourite pictures in the exhibition, and looking at it makes me smile. I’m not sure that makes me a proper art lover, but it’s a good start!

I got the tube back to Paddington, by the way.