Saturday, April 21. A rather disturbed night, what with the tainted gherkin. Came to me that reaction to the great paintings bears some similarity to thoughts I had about Hamlet - viz that from the point of view of narrative the audience is the hero. Not clear how this applies to looking at a painting, but the idea seems fruitful. Sunshine on waking, but still cold. To meet A and A2 - A1 and A2 I should call them, like the bananas, and A2's mother Kerry for brunch, so after many embraces walked through squares and streets to Lantana, a cafe in Fitzrovia currently highly regarded and run by Australians. A long queue outside, but A1 magic worked as usual, and we were seated straight away. Fortunately the weather held, as we were on the footpath, though a brief sprinkle brought out the shopkeepers who unwound awnings, and then wound them back in again just as quickly when the sun came out. Afterwards to National Gallery where female contingent went to see Turner exhibition while A1 and I made for permanent collection. Turned out we have the same strategy for gallery viewing, though A1, being right-handed, walks around the right-hand wall whereas I make for the left. As it turned out, we saw more Turners than the other party, though we didn't look at them, because they were on the wrong wall. Unlimited stuff, and we only saw a fraction, a single exception to our viewing policy being when A1 spotted Holbein's Ambassadors through glass doors a long way away, and we went for a closer look. Was impressed with how dead flat the impasto is, and how ultimately unnaturalistic this makes the two figures. Came out to find it was much warmer and dined at home on pork and egg pie and salad. Heavy dose of garlic made me feel a bit better.