Capitol dispatch

Reporting live from the Smoke on our 2nd day celebrating the girl's birthday. Yesterday we visited the Saatchi Gallery for the first time; not bad, some good German artists on display, showing that a Teutonic sense of artistic humour does exist. Then we popped round to Sandoe's book shop, almost next door and one of the best in London, where she picked up some Zola short stories, while I chose Kipling's "Plain Tales from the Hills".

In the evening, in heavy snow, we made our way to the Nat Gal to view the Leonardo exhibition: nine paintings (quite a collection, considering he only ever completed 15in his whole life) and 90-odd drawings. The pictures were of course magical, even though the Louvre, having graciously loaned their (first) version of the Madonna of the Rocks", to compare against the (2nd) version held in the Nat Gal itself, could not bring themselves to send over their most precious exhibit, the Mona Lisa, perhaps understandably. The drawings, however, many kindly lent by HMQ, were disappointing. Many were so small you had to get within 6 inches to see the detail, not an easy feat when hundreds of other people were trying to do the same thing.

This morning we went to the Museum of London, another first, checking out the nearby medieval bastion, part of London Wall.

This arvo it was "Shrek: The Musical". Not a concert of baroque classics? I hear you ask. But no. What the girl wants, the girl gets, and I approved of her choice wholeheartedly. In order to engage in modern culture one should see a West End show every once in a while. And I'm told that as far as this sort of thing goes, nobody does it better than London, as Broadway knows only too well: half the shows there on any given night are British imports...

On the whole, a very pleasant, if a bit snowy (then slushy) weekend.