(Re)learning French.

Another unpredictable and thoughtful exhibition at Wellcome Collection: slavery, prostitution, cleaning and other unsung work. Reminds me of when I worked at Hungry Jacks (Aus equivalent of Burger King, etc) on the broiler-steamer at the age of about 9.5.

I’m in Venice. In a monastery. At least there is little in the way of hotel « art ».

Venice in a time of tourism (part 1)

Venice in a time of tourism (part 2)

It’s about time.

At the airport. ‘The diabetes is on us.’

Ryanair palimpsest

Venice is drowning – in tourists. It’s the first city in the world to introduce an entry ticket to control numbers, but what do embattled locals make of the measure? Very glad that my latest BBC From Our Own Correspondent piece has aired: bbc.com/audio/play/p0l… BBCFooC

Just finished the 12-day Fisherman’s Trail in Portugal, along the stirringly beautiful Atlantic coast. Now about to get on a bus and have to leave behind the staff I’d adopted (as is my wont) on the path. Became – literally – attached to it and hope someone else does, too.

Portugal, land of well tended (if sometimes rather odd) roundabouts

Last came to the Lisbon district of Alfama 20 years ago, when it was all cats on strings, old ladies in black grilling shoals of sardines and holes in the wall serving delicious three course feasts for about 10 euros. I wasn’t the only one to discover the place.

Boarding Ryanair flight and, looking at the attendants, am reminded of that line from Severance: «Why are you *a child*?»

Doorknockers in recent days, as I wfh: - someone selling «fresh» fish (a peculiarly recurrent offering, given lack of evident streams, oceans etc nearby) - a youth asking for money to keep him «off drugs and crime» - a pair offering Bible study classes What next?

Crossed off another on the short list of London museums I’m yet to visit. This one unsurprisingly has a cat section.

In the Galician city of Pontevedra on a Sunday, and the silence is … striking: it’s as if consumerism never existed or went for a very long lunch.

My latest From Our Own Correspondent piece for the BBC, on wandering Basque poets with their own giggling teenage fan clubs (sort of): bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

Art warning. Saw Richard Wilson’s ‘20:50’ again for the first time in years.

Constable (lots of rural child labour) and Turner (see reproduced cat paw prints found on the back of a canvas in his studio) tate britain