Week 43 - 6000 miles apart

Battersea Park in South London is approximately 6000 miles from The Convention Centre in Hong Kong. Cunningly, I have arranged to be in both places at once. There is a shocking counterpoint. At Fine Art Asia, the arts fair which begins next week in Hong Kong, Masterpiece is mounting a selling exhibition of European arts, taking a timeline of creativity from the very ancient to the near contemporary (a Cycladic white marble figure to bronzes by Henry Moore and Alberto and Diego Giacometti). The sweep of the many centuries are nodded to as we canter across 2500 years in 70 square metres, with 18 objects in 5 days. Each piece is a real master work, by a master artist.

I spent the week discussing prices with the various dealers. It is one thing to embrace the marked price as a sort of elegant concept. The dark reality is engaging with what they would actually accept as a final sale price, given aggression and determination from a buyer. The range goes from several million to low six figure sums, and in each case there is a scale; a happiness point, an acceptance, a grudging agreement and a 'get lost'!

In Battersea, Sungoose is showing over the same few days a squint at neo-classical design from mainly the 20th century, and nothing over £7,500. A slight contrast, to say the least. My assistant and Mrs Sungoose are running the stand. For all my professional life, I have been buying with a view that others will do the selling. At Mallett Antiques, the team was such that it was quite a rarity to even have a chance to sell something I had actually bought. Now, of course, things have changed beyond measure. It is down to me, and I won't be there! If Sungoose sells, well then it is, obviously, "hurrahs" all round, but if business does not happen, then do I blame them? Or blame myself? Or life, or the slack nature of the trade? I am mentally preparing.

I went in to the fair this morning to finish the stand and already there are the now-familiar barks of the dogs. Small, fluffy intensely pampered hounds sprinkle the fair like audible confetti. I sometimes wonder whether there is an inner connoisseur in each of these canine brains. I doubt it, but they give the appearance of examining both the new and the familiar with a turn of the head and a sort of tolerant patience which belies their numbskull natures. I am now familiar with my space. Francesca has painted it beautifully and Orlando, our calm, fair-haired porter, delivers everything efficiently and swiftly. Francesca has a great boyfriend who has helped paint and he also has a buddy helping him. I am six foot tall but so is Francesca, and her boyfriend Chris and his sidekick are much taller. I feel like a shrimp looking up at their chins. They are young and healthy, with a wonderful youthful glow to all three of them. The world is potential and adventure for them and it is quite inspiring and enthusing as we engage in the opening skirmish of this fair. The pieces they like, I find I like more. It is as if another generation has endorsed them.

On Friday night I went to dinner with an amazing couple, Marcus and Monica. They are furniture designers, but not in a traditional sense. They are nomads nominally based in New York. They look at all we see and use and redefine it using history and ergonomics, but filtered through a lens of technology and modern materials. I have rarely been around two people who I thought could generate a world of game-changing design. Marcus drills down into a subject so deeply that you think he would have got lost down the metaphorical rabbit hole. But he pops up, in an unanticipated spot and has ideas sparking out of his head like an effulgent Roman candle. We ate at The Punchbowl by Farm Street. This friendly, dark London pub had been owned by the film director Guy Ritchie for some time, but I think he recently sold it. The food is nothing and nor are the wines, but it has the strange aura of a crucible. You sit close, and conversation is encouraged. I am sure many an idea was germinated here and many a plot hatched. We left on that wonderful high inspired by nothing more than minds and ideas.

By contrast, but locally, the LAPADA fair opened this week. It is in a great location and they get a great crowd. However, despite the trees and the flush of impending autumn, the fair feels dark and claustrophobic. Too much black and too narrow corridors. There are treasures on display and many of my friends have stands, but the energy is not there. I spend an hour wandering and get lost a few times. It is very hard to pin down exactly where to go and how to manage the traffic. On Sunday the fair will end, and PAD will begin their build, to coincide with Frieze. It is amazing to think of these two very different fairs which share the same structure. The challenge for us all who sell history is to make it relevant and though the fair looks smart, it does not seem to have that contemporary engagement we all seek.

The thrill of the week was a jump over to Milan to meet a spectre. There is a glass worker, designer and dealer based there who for many years has been a silent participant in many dealers' lives. He is now in his seventies and was born into the apogee of 20th-century design in glass, represented by Carlo Mollino, Gio Ponti and Ettore Sotsass. Almost every piece of glass we look at today which isn't Scandinavian is either these guys' work, or a version of it. Everything! And my friend was part of it. Like the Woody Allen 'Zelig' character, he is ubiquitous but unnoticed. He has fashioned and manipulated glass for over 50 years, and his current output seems not the oeuvre of an old man but a youngster, an enfant terrible, trying to make his name. He looks at the books and new materials and comes up with truly insane ideas in coloured and polished glass. His workshop sits alongside one of the canals or 'navigli' which surprise visitors in Milan. It is sadly not the case, but the Milanese love to tell you that they were designed by Leonardo da Vinci for the Sforza family to facilitate the building of Milan cathedral. The truth is that Milan is blessed with a network of magnificent canals which are gradually being saved and restored. The story is better than the more complex and multi-century reality.

To reinforce the point, it is peculiarly inspiring to step along the canal and sit in a cafe drinking an exquisite, intense, minute espresso, flanked by contemporary glass and 15th-Century architecture.

I have commissioned a pair of square red glass mirrors which have ridged sides that reflect in disconcerting and baffling ways. They distort the images, twisting the light and confusing one's sense of the dimensions. I hope they will amaze and delight others as they do me.

Week 42 - The Wish Tree

I am lucky enough to travel frequently to Paris and I am used to the tube to St Pancras followed by the journey on the Eurostar. However I very rarely step outside that comfort zone of familiarity. This Monday, having slipped back to London for a meeting I crossed Paris on the elegantly quiet rubber wheeled metro and found myself at the Gare de Lyon. This station is dedicated to warm summer locations and the painted murals that adorn the walls celebrate in schematic but atmospheric ways the many destinations that await the eager traveller. They are so evocative of the turn of the 1900's. The crowning glory of the station is 'Le Train Bleu' one of the most glamorous restaurants in the world. Shining with brass and glass, with leather and velvet softening the sound, the painted walls and cavorting stucco encourage and endorse the excitement of train travel. The restaurant is more like an opera house or a room in a chateau. I did not have time to eat but I pushed past the rather worrying presence of guard at the door who was sporting a short black machine gun, and had a quick wander around and a swift cup of coffee.

The train arrived in Montpellier and my new best friend, the taxi driver Olivier, was waiting for me. A few years ago he moved his family from Paris and now lives in the small village of Lauret where he controls the taxi market. From the hurly burly and anonymity of Paris he is now like a ministering vicar bustling around running errands and whistling passengers around the neighbourhood. He is a modestly sized man, of medium everything and exudes an aura of cheerful bonhomie. He chatters away, regaling me with tales of dishes he has cooked. There is a local farmer who leaves the occasional chunk of beef by his back door, or another neighbour who deposits chickens from time to time. There is a local barter system for which his contribution is a ride to the city. He is very keen on having a fig sauce with all the meat he cooks, partly because it is delicious but partly because he has a glut from his garden fig tree. He spoke for a full five minutes about buying and eating the perfect peach, waxing effulgently on each aspect of its colour, texture and juice and even price. Underlying each anecdote is the assertion of how much better everything is in Montpellier than Paris. Indeed, it is hard not to succumb to the charms of the south. London and Paris were rainy and cold with a sharp autumnal bite to the air. In the south the sun is bright and the air just about still holds summer in its grip.

Back at the hotel, the Auberge de Cedre, I sit in the now empty dining room and drink a glass of wine with some cheese. This lovely hotel has the atmosphere of a rambling farm house, guest rooms are all over the place in a sort of scatter shot way, the public rooms meander into each other like the tributaries of a lazy river. The floors are cracked tiles for which being level is a distant memory. But below this ramshackle superfice there is a beautifully run hotel. Francoise does front of house and the engine of the kitchen is run by her husband Lutz. The food is simple but well constructed and sourced and feels like the best of proficient but not fancy home cooking. The wine here is the thing and they have a long list of local wine producers and their output, with a lean towards the organic. We drank a Muscat sec which was a lovely rich honey colour and was dry but with an echo of fruit and sweetness. A creamy soft goat's cheese spread onto rough sourdough. It was an exquisite end to a long but lazy day.

At 8 am I return to the Brocante trenches. Montpellier 'parc des expositions' opens its gates and we all flood in. The next morning Avignon does the same. The days pass in parallel. I punctuate the day by heaving objects and pieces of furniture over to the shippers. I have given all my stuff to Alan Franklin who carefully pack and note down each crumbling treasure that is brought before them. A dog sits quietly and patiently beside them like an old retainer that has seen and done it all many times. Walking out on the second day I am haunted by a Louis xv giltwood console table I saw earlier. It was too much money and I have spent all the money that I took. It is a cash only economy at these fairs. I am with a couple of friends and we are all heading off for lunch. I pat my pockets disconsolately and realise that I really want that table. My pals sweetly open their wallets and I rush back in with our combined funds. The table is still there and I open negotiations. 10 minutes later I am back with Alan Franklin with the table. It cost exactly all the money I had. I sat back in my car with exactly zero Euros left. Now I have to wait a fortnight for the table to arrive. I hope I still like its carving and proportions. We have a celebratory lunch in on the way to the airport and I impressed by one thing. The toilet has a piano in it! A first for me.

On Sunday I went with museum friends to Sussex to visit Uppark and Petworth. They are both National trust properties and conveniently only a half hour apart. My pal is giving a talk in NY about the relationship between English Regency sculptors and the Baroque. Whilst many English artists at the time went to Italy to study antiquity they seem to have been simultaneously infected by a love of Bernini and his contemporaries, and why not? Especially because the artists they admired were following the same educational route as themselves. I joined up to the Trust as it seemed both sensible, as I was visiting two houses, and a good deal. The contents of both houses are famously remarkable. The sweep of rooms and their contents dazzle and amaze. Petworth in particular has treasure after treasure. We spent a great deal of time in the sculpture gallery admiring both the antiquities and the works by Flaxman, Westmacott, Cardew and Rossi. Especially the magnificent boxer, Rossi's "Athleta Britannicus" He typifies the way artists were able to be totally contemporary but reference both ancient and baroque themes. This powerful work exudes British confidence as much as anything else. Implying in its manner and effect that England can take on the world. All these wonders installed by the 3rd lord Egremont when he built the gallery in 1827. But, and this is a big but, we were shocked by the terrible lack of information; both houses don't have guide books available. We noticed at Uppark in particular where everyone talks in every room about the fire. (Which was terrible but the house speaks itself eloquently about its architecture and contents). Many of the pictures and pieces of furniture don't have any labels. One guide, when asked about a pair of chairs, knew nothing (no room notes even) advised us aggressively to go and buy a guide! And then was unrepentant when informed that there wasn't one available. In fairness and counterpoint, we did encounter a wonderful volunteer beside a curious hybrid of an 18th century bed, who could not have been more helpful, obliging and informative, through her we engaged in a close examination of some seemingly unique embroidered damask.

As you leave Uppark there is a 'wish tree'. We were all sorely tempted to put up a wish for scholarship rather than 'amusing' tea towels and branded chocolate.

Week 41 - Avignon and the fairs in the south of France

I am on the bridge at Avignon but I am not dancing. Curiously it turns out that the famous nursery rhyme relates to bacchanalian shenanigans that took place 'sous' le pont d'Avignon rather than 'sur'. Allegedly, an uproarious tavern was known to shake the foundations of decency in this temporary home of the popes for a number of decades during the 14th century.

The idea of wild dancing counterpointing with papal morality is of great interest to me, especially the thought that the dance has passed into nursery time lore whilst the papal occupation in France has become a bit of a footnote. The bridge is a wonderful fragment poking out from near the Papal palace in an expectant rather than broken way. I have always known and sung of being here with only one thing to do; now I am looking and reading, but not dancing: too shy to fulfil my destiny.

I have been in Avignon for a few days in advance of that five times annually triple Brocantes at Beziers, Montpellier, and Avignon. In addition you have the permanent Brocantes at Isle sur la Sorgue, which kindly and generously lends a purpose to the off day between fairs. Each fair begins at 8 am which means even the most diehard enthusiast has to head off to lunch by 12, or at a push 1 pm. That fevered rush, the manic careering from one stand to another inevitably gives way to coffee in a flimsy plastic cup and a scarily garlicky sausage: coated in sweet but vinegary mustard, in a rough-hewn slab of baguette. Hands are shaken, grunts and pleasantries exchanged. At midday the regulars are now holding packages and downing rosé champagne from local vigneronnes with the gusto of the condemned. The afternoon ushers in the sybaritic pleasures of Provence cuisine and wine. Yes, like champing hounds the dealers hover and slaver by the gates at 8 am. They then finish and have to wait until the next narcotic hit. Before this 'volte face' no friends are made. I ran into a dealer from Norfolk who pointed out as he passed that he was "overtaking you on the inside!" What can you do? Everyone is eager to share the observation of an egregious fake but they remain silent about a killer purchase that will change their month (or even their year) - unless of course they think they might sell it to you! Thus the phrase, "Meissen Elephants, those are rather your sort of thing aren't they, I might have a pair to offer you." So the scene shifts to the myriad restaurants and bars and the conversations continue well into the wee small hours.

However, I have been here for nearly a week and the twin appeals of the Roman age and the medieval vie for my attention. This area of the south has a profusion of large and ancient buildings in a remarkable state of conservation. The secret to their survival seems counter intuitively to have been pretty much in constant use. Those structures that fell into disuse were pillaged as a free stone supply and disappeared into the cityscapes only to survive as random blocks to be spotted by enthusiasts. The concomitant of survival seems to be that all the structures have been covered in tattoos.

The most prolifically graffitied thing I have ever witnessed is the Pont Du Gard, a massive and nearly perfect Roman aqueduct. Rather brilliantly, the guide notes give the construction dates about 40 to 60 AD and the cost of building: 30 Million sesterces. I assume this is a lot. The water flowed at an astonishing rate into the city of Nimes for almost 500 years but was then blocked due to poor maintenance. However it has remained as a strategic route and over the centuries warlords charged travellers for safe passage. Waiting was often lengthy and the walls are bedecked with names from across the centuries. In the end tourism arrived and brought even more enthusiastic graffiti. The earliest inscription I spotted was from the late 18th century, but naughty visitors have added their names to the bridge for nearly two millennia.

We then have the charming city of Orange that has both an amphitheatre and a triumphal arch - the show offs! In the Amphitheatre Augustus looks down, full figure from above with his arm raised; there is no doubting who paid the bills here! On to Nimes to enjoy the complete surviving colosseum and a perfect crisp white temple, which looks like it made from cut sugar. The temple is called, rather unromantically, 'the square house', "la maison caree'.

In the first century BCE the Romans clearly sunk a lot of cash into the south of France. It must have been pretty rebellious to have warranted such splendid and lavish civic expense. The weather is bright and blue, the wind is zephyrous, and as we sit in the amphitheatre watching the German, Greek, and Spanish tour groups pass we try to imagine bawdy comedy, profound tragedy and the hubbub of the toga wearing crowd. With such an amazingly preserved setting the leap of faith required is far from taxing.

When staying in a hotel food takes on a disproportionate importance. There is nothing else to do. So I browse through Trip Advisor and the Michelin guide, and calculate where we should eat. Ironically there is one restaurant in Avignon that has managed to divide these two advisors. It is an art nouveau restaurant on the first floor in the main street. Michelin raves about it, they write at length about the historic setting and the traditional Provencal cuisine that is both an essay on, and a reinvention of all that the area stands for. By contrast Trip Advisor loathes the place for its surly service and trenchantly unobliging staff. The food for them is stuffy, boring and takes too long to arrive. This apparent contradiction finds resolution in that there is really no conflict between the two interpretations. It is the difference between being supremely French and appealing to a more international audience. I chicken out, however, intimidated by the fear of a rough waitress. Instead we go to a restaurant called L'Essentiel. We dine in a stone courtyard and immerse ourselves in the warmth of the night, and the intensity of local flavours. An intense beginning with poached egg, wild mushrooms and shaves of truffle nestling in a bed of Brandade, accompanied by an aromatic Champagne that had a rich colour, full body and a fresh tingle of minerality, Mayot-Lagoguey. A dish I will remember for a while. This was followed by duck breast with smashed black olives and a bouquet of tarragon. To round off the meal: an extravaganza of three different sorts of chocolate pudding - a crispy crunchy one, a smooth creamy one and one oozing raspberry liqueur. A decadent catalogue of delights.

I do adore food and I particularly adore unusual but happy combinations of ingredients. Each mouthful should delight, and educate in equal measure. Alongside great food comes great service. At Masterpiece the Caprice group provide in our pop up spaces a lesson in service. The visitors are always stressed and in a rush, but we get only compliments for the way they are looked after.

We went to the Isle sur la Sorgue to search for an elusive treasure. We walked up and down slightly disconsolately as nothing emerged that tempted us. I had never been before and the town is a waterside treat of bright colours, pretty shops and restaurants. The atmosphere bodes well but we found nothing. We had been recommended to lunch at the Jardin du Quai and as we entered that oasis, inauspiciously just by the major road artery into the town and the railway station, we were struck by the cunningly and artfully arranged garden. Beautiful staff ushered us to a shady arbour where we were looked after with a consummate professionalism that was a great comfort. Our every need was attended to with speed, grace and a smile. The food was good too, but my abiding memory is of the perfection of service. We left on a cloud of content, so mellow were we that we wandered into a shop we had not seen before, promptly made a few small purchases, which even when we got back to the hotel we did not regret. A perfect end to a perfect meal.

Tomorrow we have the big fair at Montpellier followed by Avignon itself.

Week 40 - Love

Love is great, especially to look at or watch. Being involved yourself can be a bit stressful, but to observe, it is awesome. I am having lunch with an art dealer I have known since we were at university. Medium height, fair hair and a slightly nervous demeanour, he exudes love. I won't say his name because he is a very private person, always has been. When I talk about stuff, I tend to be focussed on the opportunity, or to be more blunt the money. He is different, with the artists he manages and the art he trades, he is connected, in a way I can simply only aspire to. We are lunching at Little House, a restaurant in Mayfair, talking about a possible project for Masterpiece, his business partner is at the table too. The last time we met was by chance over breakfast during Art Basel. Whilst we ate muesli a dead cow floated upside down past the window. A memorable breakfast. His partner is one of those women who are so beautiful that it is impossible to maintain eye contact. I become like a wax model in a furnace, I disappear! It becomes a sort of challenge to see how long I can look for. I think I managed at most 2 or 3 seconds. She is rapier sharp too; when an idea is mooted you can almost hear a crackle of energy as she thinks it through. They are very exciting pair to be around. He has found a new artist to work on and develop, but it is not the financial maths of the equation that appeals to him. He has a quasi spiritual connection, this is the love thing. He has to care and care a lot for him to engage. Many people talk to me about the quality and number of the visitors to Masterpiece. They want an analysis of the demographic, how much money they have and where they come from. Not him, he wants to know if we get the kind of people who will come prepared for the emotional adventure of encountering his artist. I don't mean that ironically, it is really true. For him it is like introducing your new lover to your friends and family, they have to like them too. We talk and eat. They order chicken. It is called flatiron chicken. A sort of squished grilled chicken breast. They are both skinny and beautiful, so they don't eat carb's. I order fish and chips. The way people both eat and remain skinny can take two paths at the table. One path is to eat some and leave some. The other is to murder the food, make a terrible mess of what is on your plate to give the impression of activity. My two diners take a path each. Obviously no wine, no pudding, starter, bread or coffee. It is the cheapest lunch I have had in ages. As I sip my coffee following their departure and flip through the book of the artist we were discussing I cannot help but feel inspired. The energy and passion these two have for what they do is amazing. If anyone says the contemporary art world is cold blooded commerce then they should spend time talking to this team.

I went to see the Sou Fujimoto pavilion at the serpentine gallery. Fortnum's have taken over the café and we sat beneath the white lattice structure eating colourful macaroons. How this sweet almond biscuit sandwich has taken over the world is a total wonder and mystery, they seem to be ubiquitous It all seemed strangely symbolic. The grass was green and the sky was an extraordinary blue. The coffee was pale brown with a thick and aromatic crema. The pavilion has been up for a while and comes down in October. Whenever I wear anything white I can guarantee to get a stain on it almost before I leave the house, probably tomato, or something with an equally strong colour. This is sadly true as well for the pavilion. The clear plastic disks that punctuate the space have become a dirty brown and scuffs and stains render the structure more reminiscent of an aged children's climbing frame rather than an exploration of space. Maybe it is meant to?

There are lots of other permanent sculptures around and the massive Henry Moore arch looks amazing standing like a colossus amid scrub, looking up from the river to the gallery. The patchy grass and weeds enhance rather than diminish its stature. I then went over to remind myself of the Norwegian boulder. A massive block of Cambrian granite, it was shipped over and installed in 1978. It is a thank you to the British for their support during the Second World War.

It is both magnificent and slightly comic as I imagine the ceremony and grandeur of the rock installation and simultaneously recall that the 70's were the decade of the 'pet rock'. This memorial thereby anthropomorphises in my mind and speaks with an ancient Norwegian accent. I wonder how many visit this stone? It is definitely worth the detour next time you visit the Serpentine. We walk back past the soon to open Zaha Hadid designed Sackler Serpentine extension in and beside the old "Magazine". It is a typical fluid organic structure and a fascinating juxtaposition to the severe symmetry and classicism of The Magazine which was built in 1805, in the style of a Palladian villa, as a gunpowder depot for the army in the event of (and I quote) "foreign invasion or popular uprising" . This was the time of Napoleon and he was planning the first Channel tunnel. Albert Mathieu, a French railway engineer drew and presented plans in 1802. This munitions store was still in use, apparently, up to the 1950's. The work looks almost completed; I can't wait to look round inside.

Back to Love, we ended the week at a friends' civil partnership ceremony. We gathered on the newly constructed portico outside the long room at the Oval cricket ground. We have been friends for an astonishing twenty years and we have seen his relationships wax and wane. But a couple of years ago he found old fashioned proper romance and love. He is a lovely guy, simple, hardworking and fond of a quiet pint in the pub with his mates. Somehow here in this room, which in a small way represents the acme of traditional England, our friend in a small, unassuming way became a pioneer- a beacon of the new modern age. Two men declaring their affection and commitment forever, not hidden away but under the lights and eyes of cricketing ancestors in their whites. I felt we were in a better world. He said himself with tears in his eyes and his partner holding his hand; "I never thought that when I was at school I would be able to declare my love in public with you all today." we all cheered and toasted their union. A great end to the week.

Week 39 - the end of Summer and the beginning of work

The week is a week of transition. The summer is concluding, and we cling on to its last embers, enjoying the sun and the occasional shower. This is England after all. We know that the real graft begins again next week. The Masterpiece London office is still pretty quiet, but the buzz is beginning. Many more calls are received each day to enquire about stands next year. Details of museums and fairs that we need to visit are crystallising. The mood is one of building up rather than unwinding.

I begin the week getting aboard the Flybe flight to Jersey. Our Chairman Philip has a house there, and we needed to gather before our first board meeting of the season to plan our Museum strategy and our needs for the vetting next year. We are continually looking for ways to enhance and improve the range and diversity of the skills and the nationalities we draw in to Masterpiece. Masterpiece is quintessentially a London event, but the drive has always been, and continues to be, to avoid any hint of parochiality. Jersey is a surprisingly beautiful and hilly island. I did not know what to expect, but it was much, much more theatrical to fly over than I anticipated. Having flown through blue skies, we managed to find a cloud of fog to land in. Two minutes outside the fog-bound airport, we were back in blue skies.

Philip has a beautiful house with lush surrounding gardens. We drink coffee and talk the talk. It is unexpectedly exciting making plans. Chicago, San Francisco, Austin, the names all carry a frisson of thrill. The museums that reside in these fair cities coupled with the local cultures and architecture lend a sense of delight and expectation to the prospects ahead. Before long we are heading off to St Helier; our twenty-minute drive is apparently an epic by Jersey standards. The Green Island Restaurant looks out to sea. The tide is huge and goes out while we lunch, revealing jagged rocks between sweeping pinky grey fields of sand. It is very striking and impressive, and a massive draw for local surfers, but a nightmare for people who want to sail. The restaurant sits in the corner of the beach car park in a small, walled terrace of white plastic tables and chairs. The host is congenial and relaxed, and though there is a menu he asks us what we would like to eat. It is more like being at someone's home than a public place. I choose fish cakes with a Thai chilli sauce, and follow it with lobster that has just been boiled. Philip has scallops with chorizo and squid, followed by lobster as well. The sun shines and the Pouilly Fume is light, crisp and flavoursome. The fish cakes are a delight, small aromatic and flecked with fresh coriander. They are followed by a culinary masterpiece. The lobster was perfect- ridiculously fresh and juicy. It was milky white and had the texture of prawn, a delicate rewarding bite that gave the flesh that slight pause in the mouth that was rewarded with an essence of the sea. There was salad and chips as well, but they were, frankly, irrelevant. I got the meat out of the claws without breaking it, which is always both satisfying and feels like a good augur. The last mouthful was accompanied, cunningly, by the last sip of wine. The Green Island Restaurant is not the only good seafood restaurant on Jersey, but I would challenge anyone to find a better one. Though completely basic, it was that most perfect of combinations great food, wine and service. I hope Philip asks me back.

In a possibly unhealthy and obsessive way, I love my telephone. My Iphone issues have been legion over the last few weeks, Danube swimming and all that followed! However, my love is undimmed. Having recovered my drowned phone and it springing Lazarus-like back to life, it went on to crush my hopes. It could do everything a smart phone can do, except make and receive calls- something of a frustration. However, a few days later, I find myself sitting on the sofa at home answering emails when, beside me, my limping Iphone crackles and, with a burst of noise, returns to life. It is like something out of a film as I swear I see a blue flash, before it makes its first call in many weeks. I feel like my phone has been in a coma and has returned to the community unscathed. A minor triumph for my patience.

My phone is teaching me Spanish. In idle moments, in transit or when there is not enough time to read, I fill the time with a language learning app called Duolingo. In a few weeks I have acquired some understanding of the language. In addition, I have been having chats with our cleaner who speaks Spanish and not much English. I have been able to find out about her family in Colombia and her 18 month-old son, Christian. I know it is lame of me not to know all this stuff anyway, but she has fun laughing at my stumbling, and I am learning. Trying to fathom the minds of the people who wrote the programme is, however, another challenge. It is American, and the pronunciation is all geared towards saying 's's' like 's's' and not like 'th's', which is what I recall from school. There are some sentences which I find both intriguing and amusing- "setenta hombres comen pollo" ('seventy men eat chicken'), for example. Or the even more fascinating "es un doble agente" ('he is a double agent'). When do they think these phrases might inform or enlighten? Perhaps in conversations with Cuban spies infiltrating Miami and eating a lot of chicken, in large all-male gatherings? Baffling, I am sure you'll agree.

I got two telephone calls this week that resulted in two pieces of furniture now residing in my sitting room. Furniture should be both functional and beautiful, as William Morris said, but it also has to be something you can engage with. I have spent some hours looking and stroking these pieces. One is walnut, the other mahogany. You need to feel, smell and touch wood to get a true sense of its age, history and calibre. When I bought for Mallett often pieces would come and go before I had time to truly absorb them. Now I can really engage and I find the intensity so much more rewarding. One piece is almost certainly from the Chippendale workshops, and is quintessentially English. The cabinetry, the timber and the proportions all speak of excellence and attention to detail. No screw, no joint, no veneer is unconsidered. The other piece is in the manner of Linnell, and carries an English sense of French furniture. This one is all curves and carving, but concluding with a sense of balance, symmetry and harmony. Both pieces are very English but they speak in different ways, and they are a joy to explore. Next week they may go, but I learn something each time I come into the room, and that is very rewarding.

Week 38 - Norfolk

Ben is quite a character. 6 ft 6 and weighing virtually nothing, he bears his thinning swept back hair and his bold beaky nose as if he were a supermodel. Which indeed he was back in the day, flying off to Japan to strut the cat walk bedecked in Yamamoto and surrounded by equally skinny girls. He is now the foremost exponent in the UK and possibly the world of fine lapidary work, having passed through zoology at Oxford and a business importing rock crystal and ebony from Madagascar. He is truly a one off. Having returned from foreign parts he joins me in my kitchen to prepare me for the onslaught ahead. I have rashly offered to advise him over the negotiations for a new railway arch workshop, on his current street in Brixton. We drink coffee, he is nervous, I am tired. The coffee is warm and mid brown and comes from Caravan in Exmouth market. It is smooth and aromatic and leaves the mouth with a slight hint of herbs and spices. It is the last cup and I am sorry to see it go. We plan and then head off in his heroically residual Nissan Prairie. It is pale blue with a dusting of rust, almost like a subsidiary finish. All the joins are now taped over with duck tape. The passenger window is sheet plastic with a hole gashed into it. It is best to hold the door when travelling as it is inclined to open at random, as if trying to escape itself. We arrive and meet the agent, who attends with a body guard. Poor man has turned grey with all the stress and violence of his few months with Network Rail. The banter between him and the 'muscle' is friendly but wary. We all discuss the arch's merits and then move on. The dilemma is how to extract crime and malicious damage from a street where no one else wants to be. The struggle is real and yet the solution requires an entrepreneurship that a mere cog in a bigger machine is not able to bring to bear. Poor Ben has many further months of inertia ahead.

The big thrill of the week is that I am heading up to Norfolk on Friday to see my nieces and sister. A Bank holiday weekend of beach, crab and sleep beckons. But not before a celebratory lunch with Fabian from Marie Curie. Their party at Masterpiece raised a staggering £840,000. Although my role in that was merely introductory and supportive, he sweetly wanted to thank me. We headed off to Brunswick House in Vauxhall. This magnificent 18th century building now sits like an ageing aunt among the young, nestled as it is to the side and at the feet of the vast St George's Wharf apartment blocks. In principle it is a reclamation yard slash antique shop. However, that side of business seems rather sluggish whilst the bar and restaurant side goes from strength to strength. We chatted amiably and he conveyed very eloquently his passion for Marie Curie care and how he came to be in charge of fund raising. He is slight, blonde and full of febrile energy. He sails and climbs mountains while caring for his wife, children and charity. He told me of a cycle race he is about to undertake from London to Oxford. I am slightly jealous, but only slightly. When you have had the success they did at the fair, it is daunting but challenging to repeat it. We shall see in the next month or so what they propose. The amazing thing now is how many charitable organisations are keen to take on the task of holding a drinks party for 1500 people! The food is robust British with a nod to offal. I have delicious sweet breads but I thought his grilled trout was small and overcooked a grim experience which becomes bone management rather than a culinary exercise. The 'mains' were unmemorable, the only other highlight being the very pale rose, which we quaffed with sobriety but delight.

Off to Norfolk, and we discover that our dear friend Luke is over from the USA and is down visiting friends in Kings Lynn. He comes over for tea and reveals that he has just been to Houghton Revisited, and that despite the hype it is possible to simply roll up and buy tickets.

The next morning we arrive at the house as the gates open. Having got there a fraction early and driven round the perimeter of the estate. Thereby enjoying the fabulous pigs in their seemingly wartime mizzen hut homes and equally admired the staggering view of the facade from the tree lined 'drive'.

The house is miraculous and always is, retaining so much of its original furnishings. The grounds now have superb modern monumental sculpture which reminded me of Masterpiece and spurred me to aspire to better next year. The walled garden is a joy of wild and tame planting with wit and clever architecture woven into its fabric of wooden follies. But the hanging of the pictures sold to Catherine the Great is one of the great cultural triumphs of our age. One is genuinely transported back to the first period of the house. A superb fusion of early 18th design and architecture with mid 17th century romantic pictures arranged with harmony, but not tediously so. We wandered around for quite some time revelling and marvelling in the lush generosity of it all. I have to admit that I was, as always primarily informed and drawn to the furnishings. But, the paintings brought the rooms to life in a way they never had before. The beds (of which there are three) each tell their own stories. A majestic chinoiserie piece, an intimate Chinese one and an incredible lush green velvet example, backed with an enormous voluptuous shell, that shrieks of love and passion surrounded as it is by images of romance. I suddenly have an image of the hedonist first prime minister, Walpole partying late into the night at his palace in Norfolk.

Norfolk however crammed with Stately homes it may be is also the home of the finest crab in Britain (open to debate perhaps, but it is good). My lovely sister cooked up a small poem of a pasta dish. Using crab from her own shop, the Walsingham Farms shop, she prepared the spicy crab with linguine from the river cafe cook book. Parsley, red chilli, lavish quantities of crab, olive oil and the secret ingredient lemon juice. It is not really a secret but the trick is to be both brave in quantity and not drown it. It requires both courage and sensitivity. She totally pulled it off. Washed down with Pinot Grigio blushed with cassis, the day ended in a fully rounded way with all my senses being pampered. Thank you Norfolk.

Week 37 - A wedding in Hungary

Exiting Budapest airport from terminal 2b the wrong way down a one-way street was not a good start to the weekend. However amid the blare of angry and surprised motorists the car backed up and we sped off in the right direction feeling the heavy weight of embarrassment on our shoulders. Two brisk hours later and with the Sat Nav completely foxed by the new motorway we were heading south from Budapest and arrived in Villany where the prenuptial dinner of Stefanie and Peter was to be held at the winery. Reflecting on the months leading up to this point, and the intervening ten days since I swam with my phone and we dressed the house at Zebergeny,I remember the months of shopping, shipping, restoring and more shipping which have at last come to a crunch moment. The wedding and all the inherent brouhaha are upon us.

We pull in and park. The buildings are modern and sleek, built of stone in the traditional manner. We are immediately greeted with wine and the ultimate snack; grilled white sourdough bread, sour cream and a lavish coating of truffle shavings. The pale brown leaves looking for all the world like the debris from sharpening a pencil. But the taste is far from woody. The oil on the bread converses elegantly with the sourness and freshness of the cream and the whole pays copious homage to its noble leader and purpose the truffle. As I sit on the terrace looking out at the bright sunshine which rolls across hills of neat vine rows, I cannot think of anything to complain about. A glass or two later and we are swept off up the hill by Laci (Lazlo) who runs the vineyard. He is a graduate, some (but not many) years back, of the oenology course in Budapest. But in truth he is the scion of a local wine maker. But not a grand one, his father never bottled wine. He grew vines, made wine and sold it in his own two bars. Barrels mounted on shelves, glasses and robust bread, fat and salami. That was his father's life through the communist era. He lived, worked and flourished away from the rules and regulations of totalitarian life. He had recently retired and spends his days mainly sailing on Lake Balaton. His life continues to be simple and unadorned. Laci is full of respect and admiration for his father and yet he is also ambitious to achieve something extraordinary with the wines he is making. He is young, academic but hugely physical and enthusiastic. His clothes are a testament to his energy being covered in bits and pieces of grapes, vines and soil. He is an intense dark haired Hungarian who speaks with frustration, annoyance but deep love of the local terroir and the issues of taming and making wine from the local trouble maker grape Kadarka. The grape ripens erratically, has thin skin and irregular quantities of juice. But when handled judiciously it creates an intense dark wine which reminds me of the black volcanic wines of southern Italy. He moves on and we admire the friendly merlot. It is a regular, well behaved, reliable grape. He claims to greatly prefer it. I am not sure. His sensible side obviously drives him to avoid the Kadarka, but it is in his soul, part of his DNA.

An amazing supper follows, sublimely transcended by a pre supper snack of roughly chopped roast chicken doused in a light gravy fashioned from a reduction of over 30kg of chicken bones, and then enriched with salty butter and white wine. This light snack is then further embellished with more truffle shavings. We eat, we talk, we drink and a reverent calm falls over the company. We all know we are beginning a minor marathon and this is but the appetiser.

The following morning disappears as we spend a long time looking for my wife's telephone. She is convinced we left it on the plane. We cancel the sim, we tell the insurance company, we ring the airline. Having achieved all this, she finds it in a pair of trousers. We repeat the whole previous exercise in reverse. So much for the morning.

We head off to Zebergeny. The drive is beautiful and calm. Wide open fields gradually give way to low hills and finally after Budapest we get into woods and proper high landscapes. We arrive to greet a military operation of tents, waiters and gardeners and everyone is in a high state of anxiety. The brides dress is hanging in her room. A vision in white supplied by Vivienne Westwood that the bride and Mrs Sungoose have been working on over several rushed visits to London. Szolnay pottery has been unpacked and is being placed around the house. I wander around, not really doing much but, answering questions and making decisions that no one else is prepared to. It all seems to be rolling into place. The family retire and we install ourselves into the local hotel. Dedicated, it seems to the heroic efforts by the owners to making wild boar and deer extinct locally. I have never seen so many trophies adorning the walls of anywhere. They are set against a vivid orange that won't take second place.

The day arrives and we are all ready. The troops gather at the charming village 1900s painted Catholic Church. It is full full full, the aisles charged with the standing guests. The bride arrives, the service takes place. They are married. They weave through the crowds and ride back to the house in a horse and carriage. Then we have the blessing. They are married again in English this time to cater for the other half of the party. At this point the mayhem properly starts as a band from New York who play southern Dixie style music burst the solemnity with a passion. The bassist playing an instrument fashioned from string, a white bucket and a sawn off broom handle. He plays it with a ragged black leather driving glove. This serenade is counterpointed by the Hungarian gypsy band, who are wonderful. However, our friend Ernst quietly goes up and slips them a ridiculously large tip. Despite being an average age of at least 60, they proceed to go nuts. They play insanely well and though taking the occasional break they delight us all until about 2am.

To talk of wine, tears, food, dancing and speeches is to diminish an evening/ night of some of its splendour. But candid, intense and tireless is the Hungarian way. No prisoners are taken. And though we bailed at 3 there were still folk partying hard and occasionally in the pool until way, way past dawn. The particular detail of a Hungarian wedding is the bride changes her dress after midnight from white to red. No metaphor there! And she then must dance with every man at the party. This is quite an effort for a bride who has been married twice that day and has been partying already for 8 hours. But Stefanie did it and we all applauded and shouted as mightily as we could.

We head back to London the next day, back to reality, and plans for the Masterpiece show of European Treasures at Fine Art Asia. Hong Kong has never felt so far away.

Follow Thomas Woodham Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twoodhamsmith

Week 36 - August workers

There is a strange unnerving sense of inertia in the air. Everyone seems to be anticipating a holiday or is away on one. Those that remain at work appear rather forlorn and left out. At school for sports we were always lined up, captains would be chosen then they would choose their teams. As each person got the nod you stood there silently squirming, hoping neither to be last nor forced into an unwilling group. August workers are a bit like this, a strange unhappy residue.

It was really hard going to the office on Tuesday. I dragged myself to Hatfields, the restoration experts, in the morning to usher in the latest purchases and encourage their restoration. There, the boss Anna is away, on a stay-cation, the foreman is away, so is one of the polishers and two of the cabinet makers. It feels like the 'Marie-Celeste". The wind whistles along the corridors as voices echo in the silence. Lights are out all over the building. Sarah, who we all call the Princess of Nebraska, is in charge and though she is the picture of efficiency there is no one left to instruct. I cycle up west to the Masterpiece offices, the roads are quiet and yet the pavements are full. The crowds are out in force to see the changing of the guard march down the Mall. Heads bob and all that can be seen is a strange forest of novelty flags above the heads of the crowd carried by various tour guides. London is a strange place devoid of inhabitants and charged with visitors who block my cycle path. The office is similarly empty. I make a few calls and then head out to lunch with Red Finer at Little House. He is one of two brothers who are the loyal sons and team for Peter who runs the world's leading arms and armour business. He is a rather dashing figure, both he and his brother favour flowing swept back locks. I picture them as young knights earning their spurs for the King, their father. They both display a stirring blend of filial and professional loyalty. He, Peter, is a lucky father to have such boys. Red tells me he is off shortly to California on a restaurant tour; he is going to eat his way up route 1 from LA to San Francisco via Big Sur. I am green with envy. He has managed to secure chefs kitchen stops in iconic eateries all the way. We order Gavi wine, and it rewards as ever with scent and crispness. He has the Dover sole and naturally eats it on the bone not wanting to miss all the curious corners of meat that so reward the forager. In a sort of school dinner's manner I order the pasta. From Hungary I have been missing plain pasta and it is delicious and comforting in equal measure. Conversation flows and we cover a lot of ground analysing and replaying some of the highs and lows of this year's Masterpiece. He shares his hopes for next year and some broader ideas. His views are sound and interesting; he is a true trader having been in the business approaching 20 years. We part, and I head back to the now empty office. I am not twiddling my thumbs but it is strange to be surrounded by silence.

The next morning I make a brief appearance at the office and fill in a few forms for Hong Kong. Make some calls to dealers encouraging them to participate. But this is as nothing in comparison to "The trial of the week". Last week I took my phone for a swim in the Danube. It turns out iphones cannot swim. The poor creature died in my damp hands and then I left it somewhere drying out and that was the last I saw of it. It must have been sent to the great mobile hunting grounds in the sky. On my return I contacted the insurance company and had to decide whether to claim for losing my phone or killing it. I plump for loss. Several calls later I am promised a claim form, however the end of the week is approaching and nothing has arrived. In tandem I am trying to get a new SIM card out of Vodafone. Visits to stores offer up SIM cards like confetti but they have to be activated. "'data protection' don't you realise Mr Woodham-smith, I am doing this for your benefit!" or so says the operator at Vodafone. Luckily I still have my trusty IPod touch and with the joy that is wifi I am still connected, though intermittently.

I am off down to Rye to meet with Nazy and Oscar, from Apollo Magazine. Nazy has given up a few hours of her holiday to plan the latest offering of the Masterpiece London magazine. The train is empty and sparklingly clean, a quick change at Ashford and we are in the medieval market town of Rye. A short walk to The George and a terrace table in the English sun welcomes us. I have more pasta, this time in a slightly unsatisfactory watery sauce. It looks great but flatters to deceive. The worst part is that I keep thinking I am going to flick sauce over my fellow eaters and of course myself. Each mouthful is perilous as the dangling tails of the pasta threaten to bespatter all around. I nervously finish and then tackle a reassuringly dry chocolate foam of a cake with ice cream. Sadly, though clean, this is disappointing too, as it sits in a rather unfortunate brown smear, which allows far too much of my imagination to engage. Lunch and discussion over, we speed back to London. Oscar is off on holiday and I head back to the office, for more telephone chasing and insurance aggravation.

The week ends with a visit to the theatre. We precede the performance with an early evening supper at Harbour city in Gerrard St. our favourite Chinese restaurant in Soho. The joy of Chinese cuisine before the theatre is the speed - it all comes together and you eat as if food is going out of fashion. The dishes are particularly good though. It is not just a case of convenience. The soft shell crab in chilli and garlic is a dish to make the heart sing and it is followed swiftly by exquisite deep fried tofu filled with crab meat. We heave ourselves up from our chairs giddy and laden with food and stagger off to "the book of the Mormon". The whole family are South Park fans and we anticipate unparalleled iconoclasm. The show is fun and the art deco Prince of Wales theatre has been beautifully restored. The actors jump about and sing with passion and enthusiasm and there are some delightfully shocking thoughts and words. However, the overall whole is charming rather than shocking and no one could take offence. I really enjoyed it but for unexpected reasons.

Week 35 - Hungry in Hungary

When you meet a Hungarian the first thing they will tell you is that they like to eat and drink. That is certainly true, but also only half the story. Generosity is a by-word. Having struggled manfully through our first few meals on our Hungary trip, we were surprised to learn that if you eat everything you have presented before you, the perception is that your host has not provided enough. It is considered polite to leave a generous helping behind, thereby complimenting your host on their copious provision. The same is true of the offering of wine. If you finish the bottle another will be provided, ad infinitum. It is a scary country for those in need of moderation!

I have been in Zebergeny, a village on the Danube about an hour outside Budapest, for a week. I am here with the whole family and two of their friends. We did the ghastly Ryanair and then a huge hire car, because we are six in all, plus luggage. In scalding heat we headed into the city in order to buy delicacies in the fabulous late 19th Century Central Market Hall (in Hungarian, Nagycsarnok) with its striking green and yellow Zsolnay tiled roofs. It is the hottest day in Budapest for a hundred years. Everyone is wilting and lack lustre. The idea of buying Mangalitsa (the wonderful cuddly looking hairy indigenous pig) salami and slices of deep fried fat (a local snack delicacy) and various other embellishments, seems a terrible trial. After the desultory purchase of some local honey, we head off to the country. Our party has now increased in number, with the addition of an old friend, her daughter and her friend. After sight of a road accident where we see an upturned car, a damaged truck and several bemused looking occupants meandering about, we arrive at the house a group of nine, only to discover there are only three bedrooms. Such worries are put to one side as we pour into the pool - sanity and calm return as our bodies recover their temperature balance.

This is a busman's holiday as with only 10 days to go before our client's daughter's wedding, the house we are decorating needs to be finished. In addition, I am gathering the last few exhibits for the Masterpiece "European Treasures" show at Fine Art Asia in Hong Kong this autumn. Everything has to go to the printers and the plans need to be finalised before the end of July. I am ringing various dealers around the world and am discussing stand designs with Stabilo in Eindhoven - whilst here in Hungary we have furniture movers, painters, carpenters and electricians buzzing about.

In Zebergeny we have one incredible asset - Ildiko, or Ildy as she is known. My friend Lucinda, who is here for only four days, manages to create a new version of what seems to me to be a very simple name every time she speaks to her. I was, almost, impressed by her vocal versatility. The only variant of the necessary letters she never employed was her actual name. So it goes! Ildy lives nearby and is our intermediary and our whip cracker. She explains and cajoles, she bullies and encourages. Ever smiling and even offering the occasional wink, she gets the men into gear and achieves, with a recalcitrant workforce, wonders of delivery. She is dark haired, brown eyed and has a honied suntan from the local weather, and has endless energy. She runs a local hostel where the Hungarian overweight come to receive motivational training. They arrive beaten by their size and leave positive and encouraged to lose weight. She juggles her new arrivals along with keeping the men busy here at the house. Her asset, ex-partner and father of their charming nine year son Bence (needless to say Lucinda could only manage Ben), is Gyozo, pronounced Yerza. He is an astonishing cook. He has produced for us a short resume of the best in Hungarian cuisine. We have had Mangalitsa steaks, fried with the garnish of a cut wheel of fat, deep fried trout on a bed of herb rich potatoes, goulash (of course), barbecued spatchcock chicken on a bed of paprika-doused roast vegetables, and finally the most fabulous fried foie gras folded into a fluffy bed of shredded deep fried onions, accompanied by small hillocks of herb rice. Each meal is presented with delightful, charming solemnity. The food is prepared and fashioned with total commitment and though far from minimal it still achieves a startling sense of freshness. But that is not all. Breakfast can be a feast too - we had scrambled eggs with thick salty slivers of bacon topped with a sprinkle of paprika, and wonderful platters of cut fruit. Even the toast is a treat - it is fashioned from dark rye and nut bread, warmed and spread with salty butter and the local, slightly sour, jams.

Everything is washed down with copious cups of deep, dark, black coffee. But here, of all places, wine rules. From dawn until way past dusk everyone, and I mean everyone, has a glass of wine on the go. The Sauska wineries in Tokaj and Villanyi produce a wine for every taste and every hour - sparking whites and reds, light wines, rosé, a fleet of whites and reds, some to be drunk cool, some freezing cold, others warm. Any nuance of mood can generate the taste for a wine that suits. Finally there is the Hungarian Palinka, a sort of eau de vie that comes in plum, apricot and pear flavours. The tradition is to have some before a meal as it is said to 'line' the stomach. Line it with alcohol, as I see it.

Zebergeny is a community and a small one at that. Everyone knows everyone and the centre of life is the Mokus (squirrel) bar by the town square, one tourist shop, a church, a Co-op supermarket and the wooden kiosk selling cylindrical doughnuts in a myriad of flavours. By an amazing coincidence our gardener in London is Hungarian and his favourite bar in the whole of Hungary is Mokus. Sitting upstairs under a canopy we nibble on nuts whilst some drink the distinctive fruit flavoured, low-alcohol beer, Arany Aszok. In the distance we can hear the band playing in the square. We have fortuitously found ourselves in Zebergeny at the time of the annual festival. The crowds are thronging to hear traditional brass band music followed by a folk band.

As we wander towards the music, I realise that we could be anywhere and equally this is very local indeed. The summer fete in an English village is not so different, and yet here we are in the Hungarian countryside where the experience is so much harsher. With the current pan-European economic crisis coupled with the struggle to rebuild technological infrastructure after 60-odd years of communism, it is tough for the people. But there is no sense of anything other than an enthusiasm and energy to grow and progress. Despite the sense that this is a developing country we must not forget that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the most sophisticated and complex socio-economic societies the planet has ever known. Though these villages may seem to have been left behind, they are not strangers to being at the cutting edge of all things progressive.

Follow Thomas Woodham Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twoodhamsmith

Week 34 - Work review and a visit to Spain

On Tuesday morning I had my first ever job review. I am quite antique and it was rather a strange moment. Once, some years ago, I had my bank account reviewed. I was called into my branch and a young man at least half my age riffled through pages and pages of my bank statements. I sat there in silence waiting for him to speak, eventually he did so. In his view I ate out too often and was wasting too much money. I should be saving more and putting money away in various investments all of which he could help with, for a fee. Gratefully I declined his services. I left the bank fuming at the arrogance and impertinence of his all too sensible advice. As far as reviews go that was it, up until now.

I sat in the arts club in Dover Street pondering my failures and achievements over the past year. When I was young we met the bosses at Christmas, we were summoned to the office library where we were given our pay rises and an occasional bonus for the year. As a garnish there were a few comments of a chiding or encouraging nature and that was it. You were expected to say thank you and accept your offering with deference and respect. Times changed and when I was in charge of Mallett Bourdon House, still many years ago now, we did have reviews but I was never being reviewed myself. This felt very different. It was quite new and refreshing, sort of like writing your own end of term report. "Little Thomas has done well this term but he could work harder on his French" that sort of thing. The review ended and I had to acknowledge that the process was rather therapeutic.

The following day I made an almighty mess up and have bought a client a clock in Spain but not the right one, same maker wrong clock! I flew out to Madrid to try and remedy the situation. The usual early morning rise, the usual tube etc and I am in Madrid. It is really hot there, nearly 40 c. but the city is high up and the air is dry. These two factors combine to make the heat more than bearable, it is delightful. The city is dazzlingly bright and the heat is intense but it feels clean and crisp, a pleasure to be in. I meet my friend and he is on great form too. The clock I should have bought is in fact hugely more expensive so a swap is out. I quickly discover that there is nothing else in the shop to buy so we head off to look at other things. Just off the Gran Via there is a group of dealers and one in particular always has lovely things. They run their business from a stack of apartments. As you ascend the building via the staircase you are ushered into a number of flats, each one has a name on the door outside and is a complete apartment on the inside, however everything is for sale. The building starts with antiques on the ground floor and in a variant of logic you end up on the top floor with contemporary design. Having toured the entire building we are both exhausted and decide that we should have an early lunch. It is now 3pm, so only early for Spain.

Following a brisk walk we find that our favourite basement dive 'el puchero' is shut for the summer so we stand on a corner and cogitate. With a flash of imagination that is almost palpable Antonio has his eureka moment and suddenly I am chasing after him as he surges forward. A swirl of corners and streets later we pass through a glass door into a serene and cool environment. We are in La Manduca de Azagra in the Calle de Sagasta. With brick lined walls and subtle but not dim lighting; this is a superb place, a real discovery. Family run, this place hums with activity. They find us a table and bring cool water over in a way which is both normal and yet seems particularly caring or solicitous. Menus come and I discover that this place, though not vegetarian, is fascinated with vegetables. Spanish cuisine is famously meaty and so it is rare to find a place that focuses so intently on the growing, preparation and flavour of their produce. Everything they serve, they grow and the freshness is palpable. In a wholly good way you can taste the soil, it is almost akin to the concept of terroir in wine, I don't mean with gritty bits of earth grinding your teeth. I began with gazpacho. This is such a staple of Spanish cuisine, almost a cliche, you would normally not bother to order it but this was a dream of freshness, bursting with intense tomato flavour and enhanced by a generous dollop of sour cream mixed with salt cod. Every mouthful brought fresh pleasure. We ordered beans and celery and they came steamed with oil and salt. Boring, you might say, but not so, these were an essay in subtle but fulfilling flavour. We were also brought fried skinny green chillies that were mild but had a piquancy and bite that had you running back for more. I had, oddly, as a main course a red pepper dish that was peeled red peppers with paprika and chilli. It was again delightfully simple but irresistible. I don't know why this meal was so compelling. Maybe it was because we were hot and bothered; maybe because we were hungry, but maybe, and I prefer this reason, we were presented with passionately prepared traditional Spanish food with a genuinely imaginative and innovative twist.

Sadly the rest of the day passed without me resolving the clock crisis. I will just have to confess to my mistake and write off the loss. After my lunch the failure seems all the more bearable.

On Thursday we went to help my friend Louisa. She had sold her house in Primrose Hill and we were saying goodbye to the house. I have been going there since I was a baby, my mother and Louisa were best friends at university. She has been in the house since childhood and therefore every doorway and each step is suffused with memories. It is very hard and painful for her to leave. She is the patron of a fabulous charity that pays for further education for women in parts of the world where women are discouraged from doing so. So, it is classically Louisa to leave her house by hosting a 'bring and buy' sale for the charity. The garden is full of generous people and we raise enough money to educate a girl for two years. It is a fitting and optimistic farewell.

Week 33 - Latitude

Having just completed the epic that was Masterpiece London 2013 which consisted of 8 days of control and order, coupled with excellence and elegance, there has to be a ying to the yang, the balance should be restored. And mine was the Latitude festival in Suffolk. Three days of music and much, much more. In fact you could go and simply skip the music completely and indulge in poetry, literature, comedy, film and theatre. They all have their own pavilions. And there are daily charming and sometimes even troubling pop up events (for example a scantily clad girl hula hooping with a knot of blonde hair on the top of her head, or discount tattoo parlours) All are drawn together in the sprawling, rolling grounds of Henham park by a myriad of small kiosks offering up a panoply of delights, from Ostrich and crocodile burgers to juggling lessons through vintage clothing and back to espresso and your basic plain vanilla fish'n'chips.

As behoves tradition we all gather on Thursday night. My friends and greater family have fashioned a corral out of tents and we link in obediently. Despite being amongst so-called 'like-minded people' we endeavour to carve out as much privacy as we can. Our friend Justin is particularly defence minded and he has two traditional ploys. One; he puts up a barrier of spurious police tape around our self-styled plot and two; he leaves objects and bits and pieces strategically around gaps between tents to put off walk through passers-by. I need to stress that none of this ever works and people walk through all the time and often engage in fun, charming and enlightening conversation.

This is our only full team supper on this night as there is barely anything on in the arena and our crew arrive in dribs and drabs. From here on it is only breakfast that we have as a group. By 9 pm we have all arrived and our evening begins with Kir Royale, olives and that underrated snack from heaven the Twiglet. Barbecued marinated pork loin, potato salad garnished with fresh coriander, tomato salad and finally cheese and fruit. Coffee, of course, from freshly ground beans from the Algerian coffee house in Soho, courtesy of our pal Conrad. Justin has brought some exceptional rum from Cuba and we do our best to dent the bottle's contents. I am pleased to report success in that area. One of the oddities of our experience is that everything has to come in plastic. So all the lovely bottles and their labels are missing, instead everything is poured from recycled plastic mineral water bottles. It is not very appealing but once you get over the initial lack of glamour it becomes commonplace, normal even.

The first morning sets the pattern for the three days following. Rising early because of bright light, and the searing heat, nowhere inhabited is hotter than a sealed tent with no breeze on a bright sunny morning. In fact, one of the most unfortunate aspects of tent life is the transition at about 4 or 5 in the morning of the temperature. It is quite usual for it to mutate from freezing to boiling in a few snores. We sleep in the tent under a duvet with proper sheets and pillows, no sleeping bags for us! The accompanying truth is that one second you are snug as a bug and the next you feel like a boil in the bag meal, throwing off the covers to try to steal some more sleep despite being roasted at high temperature. Emerging into the day the debris is depressing, even on day 1; no matter how hard you try to keep the camp tidy the mess always prevails. So you meander around bleary eyed and tidy up, put on the kettle and await other risers. Breakfast happens with a massive fry up of sundry pork products garnished with mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans. The masses crowd - we are about 20 people, and everyone greedily tucks in to the herculean platter. At this point, bellies satisfied, we open the Sea Breeze bottles. I have made two litres and frozen it. Thus, as a morning bracer it is in immaculate condition. We sit basking in morning sun with a vodka, cranberry and grapefruit juice glow warming our souls.

Off into the arena. I think I am the only one who looks at the tent and pavilion construction. I cannot help but compare and contrast internally wondering how our exhibitors would react to the blue and yellow circus tent that forms the cover to the number 2 stage. There are bright stripy swags that adorn the inside to cheer up the decor. During one set, despite there being no rain, a massive flush of water cascades down on a section of the crowd. It remains today a mystery where that water came from. There are three main stages of descending size as well as the same number of small ones. So, at any given moment between 12 and 11pm there are at least 6 bands playing. After 11pm there are small performances and DJ sets which wind up at about 3 am and then dancing until about 6 (I never made it that late to find out, a wimp I know) The sets performed are rarely longer than an hour and usually only 45 minutes, this means that each day you get to see and hear at least 10 things. You quickly get into a rhythm of flitting from one thing to another. You can become manic and end up almost missing everything by being too mobile. Some people just like to tick bands off their list, rather than actually listen to a whole set. This year I decided to only listen to whole sets, on the basis that each group applies some balance or structure to the shape of their set and only by listening to the whole lot would I be able to judge them fairly. We listen to many bands we know and love, but the best fun is getting the input from the rest of the crew. My children like the younger, new bands. My friend Tim likes listening to classic R & B, preferably headed up by the last survivor of some famous band from yesteryear. Others like electro dance, others prefer proper instruments. My niece loves comedy, literature and cabaret with the occasional foray into world music. Thankfully all tastes are catered for.

There is no way we can act as a herd, we are all a mixture of cat and control freak, by which I mean everyone is independent but also wants everyone else to like and love what they do. We spend our days criss-crossing the ground, meeting, eating, drinking discussing and parting again. We look like some experiment in random movement. We retire to the campsite after the last big bands finish at 11pm and regroup over bladders of red wine. Salami and goats cheese accompanied by oat cakes and the occasional chocolate refresh us. Then either to bed, back into the arena for further frivolity or extending verbal soul searching and more wine. Each night follows the same structure but with varied participants.

The weekend ends on Monday morning with slow, sad clearing up and parting of ways. Each one of us tired but already excited and in waiting for next year.

Week 32 - The Party is Over, The end of Masterpiece

The party is over, the music has stopped and the band is packing up their instruments. Outside, dawn captures the last merrymakers as they wend their weary and uneven paths home. Actually, Masterpiece is not a party, it just feels like it.

Monday arrived and the Masterpiece team and exhibitors gathered around the piano in Le Caprice for the annual exhibitor meeting. The ritual of 'the exhibitors meeting' always feels a little like an employee's appraisal. The room fills with representatives of all the dealers and I stand up and give a sort of 'end of term' speech. I balance my words with praise for the exhibitors, information about the fair, proactive feedback and plans for the next few days but we are always learning and looking for recommendations. I try to pre-empt as many questions or complaints that might be heading my way. There is fragility to my voice as I have been talking for over a week to press, exhibitors and the many visitors that attended this year. My frog croakiness, I hope, will not dilute the enthusiasm and excitement centred on this year's fair and exhibitors. The truth, which you don't often hear from fair organisers, is that the fair has gone pretty smoothly, visitor numbers are significantly up and sales across the fair have been unexpectedly robust, both institutionally and from international private buyers. Record numbers of collectors have passed under the white neo classical arch and into the vastness of the fair; Exhibitors are happy. I finish and address the floor to ask questions. A dealer stands up and rebukes us for pouring too much champagne on preview day, but I am not sure their clients would agree. Another dealer comments that he thinks the fair is a little long but as this is his first Masterpiece I suggested that he waits until Wednesday and close before he registers his suggestion. The meeting closes shortly after, the whole 'appraisal' taking less than half an hour. I am in shock, I had been prepped for a bit of sweat (as you always do with appraisals) but nothing occurred. We went back to preparing for the days ahead.

Tuesday night was the night of the Midsummer Party for Marie Curie. I had hardly been involved and I was nervous because in previous years the dealers had not felt that the party sufficiently involved them. However, Heather Kerzner is a consummate professional and I need not have worried. Over 1,000 guests arrived, chatted, drank, gave and departed. A smaller gathering went into dinner where Simon de Pury, coaxed with charm and cheek, further generosity out of the pack. An astonishing £840,000 was raised and everyone basked in the glow of the success.

One of the more remarkable things about Masterpiece London is the way the fair gets busier towards the end of the day. With every other fair I have ever exhibited at, or attended, the last hour is quiet and the dealers use it as a wind down before dinner. At Masterpiece London the crowd builds from 5pm to closing time. At 9pm when the bar closes, and everyone is ushered out, the fair is often full. On our last day this anomalous effect was redoubled. The hall was packed. Our central bar is branded as Scott's but in previous years it has been Harry's Bar. One of our big hits, as a summer cocktail, has been the Bellini, a Harry's Bar signature drink which, we continue to offer. The refreshing mix of pink peach pulp and Prosecco is consumed in heroic quantities. The only challenge at the bar is the Rosé from Ruinart which is so sensational that it can compete with anything. The fair ended with record numbers of visitors and the last day was our largest increase, up over 30%.

Hands were enthusiastically shook, with hugs and kisses exchanged. Cards and email addresses criss-crossed the aisles. Even a few tears roll down a few embarrassed faces as the end arrives and the great clear out begins. The Masterpiece team stand like hosts by the doors and see the exhibitors out of the building. It may mark the beginning of the end but there is no time to relax. The team speed off to a celebratory drink but it is a short one as the clear up must be done with control and speed.

I go in on Thursday morning and it is a shock to see how quickly the stands have all disappeared. It is nearing lunchtime and most of the dealers have already cleared their stands. It is very peculiar to think back a few hours. I pass by one stand that I had thought to be rather over furnished, I was mentally preparing myself for talking to the dealer about thinning out his display next year, but the stand is empty, thinned out to nothing. A squashed empty water bottle and some random scraps of tissue are all that remain. In many ways the jewellery dealers are the most shocking. They make an enormous effort and their stands glitter with precious metals and stones, now they are forlorn, broken, discarded. There is sadness but it is a glorious one. The debris speaks of a battle fought and won.

Life goes on. We now have to start planning for next year. In the autumn we are taking a project to Hong Kong and the Fine Art Asia fair. This has to be organised in a hurry and there is no time to waste.

In London the sun is finally shining and Wimbledon dominates the sports news. I go out, in my ebay bought soft top Saab, and look for low end tables. I drive around covering all corners of the antique dealing metropolis. I find what I am looking for in a junk shop, up by Golborne road. The two men who run the shop are wearing tea shirts, have shaved heads and are unfeasibly muscly. It is with some sense of annoyance that I force them out of their deck chairs to help me with prices. I make a purchase and their irritation passes. They have nothing to do with Masterpiece London, they probably have never heard of it. It is with sadness and, surprising relief to leave this unique world.

Week 31 - More about Masterpiece

On Monday morning the vetters arrived. 126 people divided into 26 committees gather to spend the day poring over every nuance of each piece on show in order to pass on their own special imprimatur. It is a long day, charged with intensity and emotion. Debates abound, within committees and between dealers, yet it is never angry, just heated academic discussions, and the fair is all the healthier for it.

In Le Caprice Paul and Gina hold sway. They are calm and elegant. Paul is over 6ft tall and has a neat head of red hair. But the hair colour does not indicate a fiery temper, quite the reverse - he is an elegant and controlled manifestation of good service, he is based normally at J Sheekeys off St Martins Lane. He has a slow swagger to his walk and he never seems rushed, he treats the restaurant as a sort of catwalk of which he is totally in charge. Gina is at the front desk and wears a well-cut green tweed jacket and black thick-framed glasses. She is of medium height and moves with a very distinctive and individual gait. Both of them hustle and bustle, always positive, always smiling and Le Caprice, though only a temporary pop up, runs like a well-oiled machine. Even on this, our vetting day, control and efficiency are by words.

On Tuesday we had our Curators Evening and the fair Patrons and museum curators and directors arrive at 6pm for their exclusive early view. Selven, our head of security, is at the door. I think he must have some sort of magical power because he is everywhere at once. If there is a problem Selven is there. I don't know how old he is but he has an inner calm and a friendly 'solve the problem' attitude which seems to come from ancient wisdom. Outwardly he appears a young man. Throughout the show all the security guards concentrate on smiling rather than giving the visitors grief. It is amazing, and actually unsurprising, that a friendly, helpful, smiling attitude diffuses issues. It is not a hard lesson but one that I encounter surprisingly rarely. The Curators Evening passes off well with the community gathering and heading off to Daphnes, after deep discussion and the occasional purchase. There I am seated next to Helen from the Sir John Soane Museum. She has given her professional life to the museum and is not unsurprisingly passionate about it. She is suffused with the excitement that is building as they undertake to bring back into circulation the current offices. I have been there myself to access the Robert Adam archive and the rooms are magnificent. It is and will be a herculean task but one that I know the public will greatly appreciate. Daphnes is part of the Caprice group and is delightfully cosy with rusticated plaster walls and soft curtains. Our Chairman Philip has ordered Gavi de Gavi, a Piedmontese wine which has lovely colour, freshness and is full of fruit. It goes down well. The conversations flow and we all move between tables chatting to Cleveland, New York, Boston as well as London and the counties. Everyone is buzzing with what they have seen and are looking forward to a return visit.

Wednesday is the big Preview day. By the end of the day over 6000 have passed through the doors. Steve, the pillar of calm who keeps our show in order logistically, comes up to me on Thursday to say we need to change the glass skip. We usually change it after the weekend but it is already full after 2 days. The Ruinart champagne is going down only too well. The aisles are heaving as I wander round at 8pm, and we are a few hundred people away from having hold the queue back until there are some leavers. The dealers are happy, business is being done, crowds are thronging. Helen on guard duty is feeling the pressure as visitors are keen to get in and they don't like being held up by a bag search. Six hours into the day she is still calm and controlled. Though born in the USA she spent most of her young life in Portugal. She speaks many languages and has a fantastic accent that I challenge anyone to place. But it is fabulous to see faces change as they are politely but firmly spoken to in their own tongue. Disarmed is not nearly strong enough.

Sunday morning and I am sitting in the Spitfire Cafe, the crew catering outside the fair. The air conditioning guy James, a good looking rangy guy with a harassed appearance, sits having a cup of tea. The tent site is bigger than two football pitches and as the weather changes from hot to cold on a sixpence and we have had periods of both burning sunshine and tropical downpours, his job is both thankless and impossible. I am sitting with Mike, a genial bearded man who is responsible for CCTV and the passes. He is suggesting we could have a live web stream of the fair to our website. Next to me is Emma who works for Steve the continuity guru. She is pocket sized and has a broad smile, she has named her quad bike Herbie, but woe betide you if you cross her. I have seen huge tattooed truckers quake in their boots if they try and bully her. The cafe itself is run by Dave and Tracy, they heap masses onto their client's plates, and I can honestly assert that the pigs have not died in vain who sacrificed their lives for our breakfasts. They are served with love and we all share this energetic, active and creative forum.

The weekend brings a different tone to the fair. Visitors who came in suits and ties during the week return in jeans and shorts. Families tuck in to burgers and fish goujons at Le Caprice and a garden party air pervades. But these are not tourists - serious business continues and conversations about objects and artworks continue as children pull on arms to drag their parents away. I wander along the aisles chatting to exhibitors and greeting friends. The mood is good and I am not being too berated about the vagaries of the internal temperature. Scotts, positioned in the middle of the fair, are selling seafood and the chefs are flat out all day cracking shells, slicing salmon and shucking oysters. I could watch it for hours.

The fair still has three days to run and we are sure to have many adventures before it closes on Wednesday.

Follow Thomas Woodham Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twoodhamsmith

week 30 - Masterpiece

Okay, this is it!. All the waiting is over. The rain has held off, the structure has risen from the ground. The stands are built and the dealers are flooding in.

It is hard to sum up or characterise the team's feelings at this stage. If you can imagine a palpable sense of both exhaustion and anticipation you will get something of a sense of it. As they packed on Friday for the move from the office to the site there was a tingle, a buzz, a frisson, and every word like that, was somehow or somewhere in the air. It is a very exciting time to be here anyway. Christie's and Sotheby's have had and will have sales over the next few weeks, not to mention other auction houses. Furniture, sculpture, silver, Chinese art, every era of fine art - it is all out and on show in London both in the auction rooms and in gallery shows. This is the moment for London; this is the fortnight of intense activity. Even my annual incipient hay-fever seems strangely timely or portentous.

The Stabilo team has been working hard. Janneke and Marianne sit behind their black operations desk fielding exhibitors' changes and additional work. They are both fair-haired. One has frizzy hair whilst the other's is straight. They are an amazing double act. They have brought me and Nicola an orange towel. A Stabilo gift, emblematic of Holland and of the company. We steal them away so that the other exhibitors don't get jealous. The girls are positive, jokey, bubbly even, but they are also ruthlessly efficient and everything gets done and is properly documented. Behind the scenes Dennis, Hans and the other Hans build and perfect the infrastructure and details of the background of the fair. As the Dutch say 'many Hans make light work', or at least they should say that.

In the background trucks rumble through the site and there is a strange sense of calm as everyone gets on with their work. The songs on the Dutch playlist are not quite annoying yet and as Friday arrived the build was well ahead.

At the front my son Inigo and some of his friends are processing and handing out the passes. This is a real-world expression of the time-honoured impression that the young are good with computers. These four boys (men?) are happily taking photographs, even photo-shopping the images to suit the tastes of the incoming exhibitors. It is impressive to watch and not only because it is my precious scion at work.

But the dealers are the real stars. 160 of them all beaver away in the booths to create individual and expressive spaces. Without exception everyone is making an effort. What strikes me as I walk around is how much variation there is and how imaginative people are. It is sort of like a sonnet with its strict 14 lines, no more, no less. Here we have boxes 6-metres deep, with an open front and walls to left and right. Despite this 'plain vanilla' basis no two stands look the same. The fair is the diametrical opposite of the ubiquitous white walls we are so used to from international art fairs. Here we have unalloyed imagination and creativity. Leila Heller from New York has a wonderful terrracotta colour for her walls. It is striking how good contemporary art looks against a strong but well-chosen colour. Elsewhere, Hamiltons has created a brick warehouse and Sperone Westwater from New York has brought fabulous period pieces to place alongside the rigour of his cutting-edge contemporary offering.

I had a typical experience at the fair just now. I was looking at a pair of vases and the dealer was wondering what I thought of them. An hour later and following a walk round the fair we had shown them to half a dozen experts. We had a full picture of what they were and where comparable examples could be examined. I imagine that we plugged into around 150 years of knowledge and visited four countries in our perambulation around the fair. This is the great joy of fairs and the confluence of knowledge and objects that they inspire.

On top of everything else at this stage in the fair everyone is positive and full of optimism. The petty annoyances of setting up their stands pale into insignificance as they dust, buff and fill their stands with light and labels, all the while moving objects, furniture and pictures from one wall to another. Each move is better than the last and each one full of expectation. During the fair most will have some success, some will sell out and perhaps a few will walk away unlucky. In other words, a week from today there will be a mixture of emotions on parade, but today, before the vetting and the preview, the entire structure surges with excitement and positive thoughts. The dealers wander around and admire or discuss each other's goods. Perhaps a few even eye things up for purchase. But the buzz is rising.

The fair is increasingly international and the languages on offer are a global melting pot. All these different voices share discussions of hotel rooms, noisy parties, restaurants discovered or returned to and travel arrangements. We are, for a few brief days, a community. There is no partisanship, no barriers driven by national borders, there is only the wholesome competition of who has the best things and whose taste will most capture the imagination of the forthcoming clients.

We are a group of nearly 1000, including all the sales teams, their carriers and all the support staff. We are together unified in a single purpose: to make Masterpiece a success for one and all. A small army, we have dug in, we have prepared. But this is not warfare, this is love. Everyone here is looking for appreciation, if they achieve that then there is the hope of love and ultimately the perfect end to the romance - the raising of an invoice!

Follow Thomas Woodham Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twoodhamsmith

Week 30 - From the Rhine to the Danube - Basel Art Fair

I know don't what comes over me but there is a certain kamikaze spirit that drives one to oblivion. I knew that I had an early flight on Thursday morning and Wednesday night is a weird night anyway. It nestles in the middle of the week. With the best will in the world it is not yet suggestive of the weekend - it should be work work work. However Wednesday does have a strange festive quality. It offers a reward for surviving Monday and Tuesday along with an encouragement to be brave and take on Thursday and Friday. So, oblivion found its outlet through cocktails and nourishment at Soho House. Emma, in the Masterpiece office, was celebrating her birthday. We have three Masterpiece birthdays. This one just before the show and Bess and Elizabeth during. The team tried a Martini Royale which was universally acknowledged to be filthy. A dastardly corruption of a martini with ice, soda and mint. It was the proverbial mouthwash. Luckily things picked up with Gavi de Gavi and grilled meat. Not, you say, traditional - white wine with meat? But the scented rich Gavi merged all too successfully. I cycled home, scraping in just past midnight.

5.30am and we are off to Stansted and Ryanair hell. In the way of these things, despite my throbbing head, habit kills pain. The seven pointless queues between ground and plane are mere nothings to me now. My crushed knees and folded spine are almost comfortable. Even the cursed self-congratulatory fanfare played upon landing seems mildly humorous. All is fine. Habit is the cure. I guess it is the way people become accustomed to prison, or worse, physical abuse. Admittedly international travel should not be akin to abuse in prison. But that is the way of the people who run Ryanair. In the end I do buy the tickets. Nobody pays to go to prison.

As our taxi rumbles to Zebergeny where we are attending a party for American business graduates I reflect upon the preceding days. On Sunday I had gone to Basel to vet the design fair. I travelled with Simon Andrews from Christie's. We have done this trip for a few years now and it is great fun. He is an astonishing encyclopaedia of knowledge. For 20th-century design he is Mr. Memory. He could stand on stage and field design questions and he would never be caught out. He is cool too; bald, medium height and superficially scruffy, he has gathered from markets and thrift stores a panoply of design classics. Each accessory or garment is chosen. Nothing he has is haphazard. I would wager there is no one else like him in the world.

As we sit together over breakfast we are shocked to see a vast, bloated, brown and white dead cow float past the window. We both wonder whether this is life or an Art Basel event! I am staying until Tuesday night and the vetting work is done, so I can look forward for the first time to properly viewing Art Basel. The design show has fewer than 50 dealers. The main show plus the Unlimited section has over 300, maybe even more. Our Masterpiece CEO is out too. We have the Unlimited opening on Monday and then the main show starts on Tuesday. This is really Nazy's element, her home turf. She knows everybody. We make slow progress as cards and kisses are exchanged hither and thither. I follow, trying to give the impression that I am not completely ignorant of all that I survey. We take a breather and drive up to the Beyeler Foundation. There is a world-beating Max Ernst show there as well as an appropriately surreal contemporary installation of five stuffed, headless horses by the artist Maurizio Cattelan. My triumph is achieved whilst trying to help a guard move a floating silver balloon. I burst it. Nazy looks away, deeply embarrassed by her art vandal companion.

The Unlimited section and the show itself make a stupendous festival of art. There are some old pieces too and so there is a sense of context and history. But the primary emotion here is surprise, everyone wants the 'new' or if that fails the 'discovered'. It is an intense couple of days and I head for the airport fully aware that I actually missed more than I saw.

Back to Hungary, we arrive at the house in bright sunshine. The first I've seen in ages. The Danube is huge, fat and smug-looking, having caused so much trouble along its banks over the last few days. We were having some pieces shipped over and they had to be loaded onto a special army truck with high wheels to make it through. But it made it. We set to work with the help of a cheery team of local labourers. The leader, whose name sadly I could never pronounce, was always laughing. Hugely fat, in a magnificent Falstaffian way, his face ruddy from beer and being outside. His green overalls matching his flowing but thinning blonde locks, he worked and worked. Several hours and buckets of sweat later the house was in order. The rooms went quiet and Mrs. Sungoose and I sat down to enjoy an epic sunset with some superb local Prosecco, a small piece of Camembert and some spicy Mangalitsa salami - peace and heaven. We dined in a local restaurant and hotel that opened just for us. Our companion over dinner was a small dog, he barked once when we arrived and then was happy to sit at our feet and have his tummy tickled. Our host brought us menus and then cunningly said that he would suggest what we ate. I cannot say or repeat what he said but I was impressed by the hospitality and the firm direction toward what we suspected was the only thing he had! Sweet sparkling wine and deep fried packet food was not a culinary delight, but it was most welcome and we ate everything with appreciation and gusto.

Friday, party day, began with staff bustling and no food in the house for breakfast. But our host arrived at 10am and the champagne began to flow. The American students arrived at 12 and there was wonderful traditional food aplenty. There were long speeches about personal and business development and more drinking and toasting. Then the senior people drifted off leaving the young to party. Clothes pared down to swimming costumes. The swimming pool full of young drunken bodies accompanied by loud dance music. I repaired to a quiet corner of the Jacuzzi and ate goulash and drank wine for more hours than I can comfortably remember, observing this tribal group slowly pass from exuberance to passivity and finally sleep and the coach home. The next day, as we headed to the airport, the debris and occasional forgotten sleeper were impressive.

Follow Thomas Woodham Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twoodhamsmith

Week 29 - A new Beginning.

Friday will begin at 7am with an auspicious event that I am not even attending. Nicola has a taxi booked for 6am. Otherwise impeccably attired, she will appear in a high-viz jacket, a garish, ill-fitting hard hat and comedic clown boots with steel toes. She is at the Bull Ring Gate on the Embankment of the Royal Hospital. There she is met by Andy Hickling, from whom she will take possession of the site and commence the Masterpiece tenancy. Eleven months of work have led up to this moment. I imagine a few jokes about the earliness of the hour. I imagine trucks from Neptunus who build the structure, backing up round various corners. The throb of their engines and the hum of Dutch language radio and banter in the distance. All this I can see in my mind from the comfort of my bed in Stockwell. I don't know how much is real and how much is my fantasy but I do know that our tenancy will begin at 7am on Friday morning.

Whilst the actual appearance of Nicola on Friday is something I can only conjure, her presence on Thursday was something I did observe. Founder's Day at the Royal Hospital is a wonderful, touching and magnificent affair. It is partly their 'end of term' and partly a celebration of their history. Founded by Charles II in 1682, and developed and enhanced by James II and William and Mary. The day bears a weight of memory and history. The in-pensioners, of which there are 300, have an average age of over 80. Their serried ranks of red coats and tricorne hats look stately and sober. A member of the Royal Family always attends, inspects the troops and gives a speech. This time it was the Duchess of Cornwall. She spoke well and shone in a coat of green-blue. There is a certain sort of managed clothing that is distinctive of the Royals. Only they can have matching shoes and handbag, a matching coat and hat with the dress underneath only a tonal shade different. The end result of a flash of silk and a broad-rimmed hat is something bizarrely calm and also surreal. It almost looks like 'fancy dress'. The governor then speaks, he thanks everyone and makes amusing remarks. His tone is very much that of a headmaster. I cannot see him from where I am sitting but his voice has a warm, benign tone, very reassuring. It bears a very British sense of confidence. You feel that with voices like these nothing bad could ever happen. The sun glitters off the brass of the band and everything seems in order and harmony.

However, the real stars of this show are the soldiers. As they stand there full of dignity, the heat increases and yet they still stand solid and stable despite their years. Kindly, matronly nurses skitter about with cups of water. Your eyes scan the ranks. Some have effulgent beards, some carry a stick. There are tall ones, short ones, fat and thin. Nowadays there are even women amongst them. They march, they stand, they are reviewed by the officers and the Royals. The binding reality here is that they have made a commitment to the service of their nation. They have, each one, made a sacrifice of individuality for the greater good. As I watch them stand from my seat in the stands I cannot help but feel a debt of gratitude. In the programme there is a whole page dedicated to listing the medals and citations the assembled have been awarded. This is an astonishing catalogue of courage. The names are not noted, I think this is rather beautiful. The message here is that the list represents an accumulation of heroism, the men and women here share their pasts, presents and futures. At the end of their lives these people have pooled all their experience and offer it up for us. One of the most touching parts of the march is the parade of electric wheelchairs. They have cunningly only ordered red ones, in line with the red coats. They try their hardest to drive along with the same dignity and gravitas as the soldiers who can still walk. They manage it beautifully and with great charm.

The British military tradition is rich with eccentricity and I don't believe there is any country in the world where 3000 people can sit with perfect seriousness as each person is bedecked in branches, sprigs and leaves of oak. Charles II, the founder, was sheltered by hiding in an oak tree after his defeat at the battle of Worcester in 1652. The oak leaf has since become the symbol of both the founder and thereby the Hospital. I also love the Bearskin, the magnificently absurd so-called 'cap' the British army guards and grenadiers wear in memory of defeating Napoleon at Waterloo. To top that, on view are miles of gold frogging, beautifully cut suits and quite a few swords. The final effect is not comic; it is awe inspiring and resplendent. This is because it is done with total seriousness and it has the weight of centuries of history behind it.

After the parade we have a pause and then we walk into the refectory where we dine at the time-honoured oak tables. Above our heads are flags captured in battle and we are surrounded by portraits of the great and the good. The food and the wine are not the point, the opportunity here is to celebrate and enjoy the contribution that the supporters of the Hospital have made. Everyone here is positive and enthusiastic and the conversation is easy. The assembled company is as one in mood and character. As we leave, our feet crunching on the gravel, wending our way back towards the underground station at Sloane Square we all feel as if we are leaving one world and entering another. At the station I see my first advertisement for Masterpiece and it brings me back to reality with a jolt. We have a lot of work to do in a very short space of time.

Week 28 - A tragic loss

Sitting round our dining room table we are enjoying a bottle of Volpetto and some chicken roast by my wife in honey, mustard and lemon. It has given the skin an intense black glaze, sort of burnt, but in a good way. Strong sweet and tangy flavour alongside succulent meat, A very successful dish. I look around the table. Both my sons are discretely keeping an eye on their mobile phones. I am too. My 'ever loving' has a rule 'no toys at the table' we abide but secretly disobey. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a message. The conversation up to this point has been random, mainly complaints by me about how little the boys help with the day to day tidiness. You know, the usual boring crotchety dad stuff, no one is listening anyway. I pick up my phone and read. Sallie Brady has died. It was such an extraordinary mental gear shift to even take this news in. Immediately I could see her lush golden hair and her broad smile and slightly nervous hesitant tone. Gone. It is so peculiar. She was only 47. I learnt later that there had been a fire at her home in New Jersey. She had suffered the loss of her husband not long ago and the grief had been hard to handle. So, a double tragedy. Her absence will be sorely felt. She was a sort of talisman for Masterpiece. She had spoken on our first promotional video and was always trumpeting our success and aspiration wherever she went or wrote. She was almost an ambassador for us. But it was not just for Masterpiece. She was one of life's enthusiasts. Always positive, always smiling, always delighted to see you and speak. Journalism has changed since the economic downturn. Writers are expected to work harder, for less and with little security of further work. Those that manage to retain their composure and charm are few. She was categorically one of those. She was also a sort of symbol of love too. Her marriage must have been very special. I never met her husband, in truth I did not know Sallie that well. But the bond they had that was broken was devastating to her. I wonder how many other marriages could claim a similar reaction. For me Sallie and Masterpiece are inextricably joined and this year we will all celebrate and miss her during the fair.

Pre-Tasting the food for the various events during Masterpiece is one of the treats of the fair. At the Caprice practice kitchen in North London we sat round guided by Lucy and studiously munched through the vetting breakfast, the curators evening and the preview day. We sipped wines for each event and diluted the pleasure with a non-alcoholic cocktail, a sort of elderflower mojito. The surreal nature of this experience is hard to capture as we all learnedly weigh up the sourness of a goats cheese or the potential crumbliness of a pastry. We pretend to be old or frail or simply drunk, or a greedy dealer wanting to get value for money out of his stand price. We create many an odd scenario over a couple of hours. In the end we conclude with as many delicious things as we can. The aspiration is to deliver a worthy accompaniment for the exceptional items that are coming. This all has to be a background to the excellence and scholarship available, and it has to be complimentary and supportive, not distracting.

Friday early morning we are off to Paris. Giles (from Mallett) and I are off to the sales and a visit to the rive gauche for the 'carrement audacieux' a very amusing pun in French which I had to have explained to me. It is so amusing I will leave you to work it out. The route in Paris is so familiar to me now that I could almost do it in my sleep. Down on foot to the Drouot. Then Metro to the Faubourg St Honoré. Then Metro to rue du Bac. Lunch, looking, shopping, cocktails at Le Pré aux Clercs, supper at Lipp, digestif at les Deux Magots. Bed. Breakfast at the Voltaire with a tartine and their homemade jams. Off for a day of exploring. Now most of that did happen. But. Radically we took a taxi from the Faubourg St Honoré to the rue de L'Universite. It felt weird, spoilt and even lazy. Giles and I both commented that in other cities we don't think twice about taking a taxi. Even in our own fair city, London. But habit is insistent. Somehow over the decades we have got used to this orbit around public transport. It feels right, it feels normal. Anything else carries with it a sense of transgression or naughtiness. The taxi driver was great and we duly found ourselves back on track visiting shops and having lunch at La Fregate with Sylvain. The food here is not really memorable or even sufficiently traditional to be worthy of comment. We only eat here because Sylvain fell out with his culinary alma mater the Voltaire, 50 yards away. They let him down appallingly on the opening night of his new shop. He had booked half the restaurant and when he arrived with 30 guests they had given away his tables. Even though he had eaten there at least twice a week for nearly twenty years. They were unapologetic. He has never darkened their doors again. Moreover the pain is still there. He will repeat the story at the drop of a hat. Lunch therefore was fine but it was, as usual, more about where we weren't eating than where we were.

A few object purchases later and after a few entertaining chats to exhibitors we found ourselves meeting up with my ex assistant Ruth. She is an American, a pocket dynamo, as they say. She worked for me for a while then she moved to Christies. She is now covering for someone in Paris for a couple of months. She speaks great French and though work obviously has its annoyances she seems to be thoroughly embracing the experience, ahead of an ultimate return to, and career in, the USA. It is a terrible admission but though Giles and I get on really well and there is never a shortage of things to discuss an 'extra' at the table is always hugely welcome. I persuade them both to have the chicken and mashed potato. It does not disappoint. The day ends in the traditional manner at les deux Magots and I sleep well knowing I have a fun day at the puces in Clignancourt ahead.

week 27 - Books, Books, Books

Books books books, my house is awash with books. Every dusty corner has a bookshelf. Some rooms have several. By my bed, behind the door, is a vertiginous tower of books. It precariously teeters towards the ceiling, on the very top sits a much loved teddy bear. He is ancient and appears to be suffering from an advanced case of alopecia. His once effulgent fur is but a distant memory. He sits like a nervous Greek philosopher atop his hermit's tower. He has a mournful but patient air. Other rooms are equally clogged. I felt the urge to crash through, to liberate myself from the thraldom of all these oppressive pages. Since the creation of the kindle i have found myself increasing wondering why the novel still creeps and skulks around my home. Finally my wife has agreed. But from the beginning of deciding to purge ourselves of the cheaply produced novel we found ourselves contemplating a deeper, profounder task. We were going to tackle our university books!! Astonishing to realise that shelves are still squatted by yellowing copies of Hamlet, that I scribbled telling comments in, supposedly to help me write essays. These are numerous in quantity. Poor cursed editions of Yeats poetry defaced and flaking, lurking there reminding me of the fact that I barely scraped a second. Suffice to say their moment has come. Boxes have been procured and the bank holiday weekend has been sacrificed to a book clearance.

Every shelf has a reference book. Bought or given as a guide to knowledge or self improvement. My particular weakness is gardening. There is here a mixture of ignorance and indolence. I hate gardening but I have a really charming small sun trap at the front of the house and at the back a patch of scraggy grass flanked by overgrown beds of weeds. I have a lot of gardening books that aspire to drag me out and dig. Their purpose is to drive me to learn the names of plants in Latin. I am over 50 and it is still not working. Those books have to go.

Earlier this week my wife and I were invited to the house of the Royal Hospital Quartermaster Andy. (I have mentioned him before when we introduced the Hospital team to our CEO Nazy) He and his wife host each year a party which allows his guests to roam around the Chelsea Flower show after the official closing time. It is a wonderful treat. They ran the event with a perfect mixture of charm and military efficiency. They both have dedicated their lives to the service of others both at a local and at a national level. We are privileged to know them, especially as they are both such fun. Wandering around the flower show I could not escape the visual echoes and massive differences to Masterpiece which is only a month away!! The flower show is huge and sprawls right through Ranelagh gardens as well as all the way round to the flats on Embankment Gardens. I found it inspiring trying to come up with ideas that would enhance and expand our Masterpiece project. I could already, in my mind's eye, see the Sculpture Walk that we are launching this year enriching the area around the entrance to the fair. The show gardens are impressive as are the big flower displays in the main tent but my wife led me into a side tent dedicated to flower arranging. There was a delightfully bonkers and old school character to this. The arrangements were in many cases dazzling and original. But you could not escape memories of village fêtes and Mr Burroughs unfeasibly large vegetables that the local vicar has always awarded a rosette to. It was charming and nostalgic. But I know now that the gardening books can go.

I have an extraordinary number of books on art and interior design. They have now come before my executioner's eye. I realise that an interior illustrated without names and locations is quite frustrating and annoying. Especially when I don't look at them from one year to the next. Now, there are lots and lots of design books that pass the survival criteria but there is a small mountain that don't. Many many casually and recklessly acquired at boot fairs and charity shops for pennies and almost never perused after their purchase. But disposing of them is quite an emotional and intellectual wrench. I think of my exhibitors and I wonder whether I should distribute book largesse amongst them, in as appropriate a way as possible? Then I remember last week when I went to the opening of our exhibitors Bruno and Ricardo. The Brancolini Grimaldi gallery in Albemarle Street have a show of contemporary art merging with the renaissance pieces of Bacarelli and Botticelli. The names alone are poetry but I doubt they would like a deposit of art book cast offs? They had a good party and there was a healthy smattering of the right crowd of enthusiasts and collectors. We went to dinner afterwards at HIX in Browns hotel. They looked after us well, with rather too much attention to filling the glasses. I cycled home slightly unsteadily. I think the art books will have to go to a charity shop.

When you look at books you don't see the shelves. I am suddenly confronted by the hideous selection of rubbishy flat pack shelves that adorn, if that is the word, my house. On Monday the landlords of Masterpiece, Mallett had a party for an exhibition of very grand English furniture. They have put the show out with everything on a plinth and it looks very special and museum like. We chatted and quaffed and admired the walnut. My bookshelves look even poorer by comparison. Perhaps I should put everything back and look at the smelly paperbacks rather than the smelly shelves. But I have started so i will finish. The literary enema must take its course.

The real worry is that nature abhors a vacuum. In addition I have a self made cliché about myself. I say I love minimalism, but I love lots of it. Something will creep in. In fact I know what it is. It is "objects". I am an obsessive and compulsive buyer of stuff. This habit has been catered for by decades of buying for Mallett and others but now the outlets are drying up and the urge is still intense. Yesterday before the book thing began I went to Portobello to pay for and collect a wonderful tortoiseshell triptych dressing mirror I had bought from people at the Battersea fair. Of course, I bought some other things too. Over a decadent full English at the refurbished Electric house I reviewed my acquisitions. I had to reflect that I had no one to sell them too. I had bought them simply because they were charming and well made, and the right price.

Those empty shelves will soon be full and I won't have to notice the shelves.

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week 26 - Rooster soup - Budapest

You know you are in a foreign country when you bite down and enjoy your first rooster testicle soup. Okay the rest of the rooster is in the soup too. But my host generously, having gobbled up ( pun intended ) the first one passes the second to me. Gasping, I hope not too obviously, I popped it into my mouth and chewed. It was soft and delicious; Reminiscent of kidney but without the bitterness or chewiness. A true delicacy, the rest of the soup was fabulous too. Chicken broth can be a bit bland but this was meaty flavour. With this clear but oily broth came slabs of dark brown rooster meat accompanied by soft vegetables cut in disks with a crinkle cutting machine. Enhanced by a scattering of salt this was the perfect restoring soup. There is a Jewish concept that chicken soup is the the ultimate cure all. But this Hungarian dish would bring you back from the dead. After our lunch we walked around feeling as if we had been to a spa.

I was making a day trip to Hungary. Starting with the Ryanair beasts; no bags, nothing to hold me back, the day began well. Even London transport failed to skewer my day, completely randomly I had checked the transport For London website for travel hiccups the night before. I have done this trip many times and my habit is to trudge off to the tube without so much as backward glance. Fortuitously I looked and found that I had to take a completely different route. At 5.30 am it is sometimes hard to be mentally flexible and make the necessary gear shifts to change route, but i managed it. Sitting on the tube to Seven Sisters I thought about Tuesday evening. Heather Kerzner had orchestrated for Marie Curie a photography event at the Bulgari hotel, in Kensington. It was a great drinks party and charity auction to benefit the charity. Young up and coming photographers had all taken the pseudonym David Bailey and the great man himself had donated a few large prints. The evening went well with Simon Philips, one of the founders of Masterpiece, loyally supporting many of the lots and, perhaps, unluckily not buying any. I put my hand up once and also failed to buy. Harry Dalmeny of Sotheby's was at the rostrum stirring everyone up and making risqué jokes

The evening raised money and Heather put huge energy into encouraging and praising those who had bid. It augers well for the midsummer party at Masterpiece.

From Seven Sisters i changed and headed to Stansted on a proper train. It was gleaming and brand new. The train I normally use has an incredible disconcerting habit of producing very large bangs every 5 to 10 minutes, due to some contact shift in the overhead electrical connection, but this was silky smooth. On Wednesday Nazy (CEO of Masterpiece London) and I went to the Syngenta award for photography relating to the wilderness or nature under threat. They seem to be a moral company, they employ over 27,000 in a myriad of countries and have corporate responsibility at their core, rather the pure lust for profit. This is quite a rarity for an agri-business. The show was held in the back rooms of Somerset house. The challenge to bring these threatened areas into public focus is huge but immensely worth it, the exhibition will only be up for a week but it is well worth seeing. We then rushed off to Pimlico road for the opening of Rose Uniacke's shop. She is a new exhibitor at Masterpiece and will be bringing 20th century design but she has a completely eclectic eye and could bring anything. All the Pimlico road were there, the dealers and a few clients, it made a fascinating counterpoint to the art crowd at Somerset house to the decorative arts mob in the Pimlico road.

I arrive at Stansted and go through the scanning process. I'm such a weirdo, I take a strange sort of pride in getting my ipad out the bag, putting my jacket in the right place, making sure I have no metal in my pockets. Perfection, I usually sail through in less time than its some chump to pull his belt out of its loops. I never wear a belt or lace up shoes for flying. Anyway I got it completely wrong. I left a half bottle of water in my bag, I had to line up with the idiots to be ticked off and humiliated by the guards who obviously live and breathe for such triumphs as handing my half bottle of water and making me walk off to the bin to dispose of it.

Onto the plane and two and half hours of sleep catch up before I will have to listen to the idiotic Ryanair fanfare. It allowed me the reflection of how Thursday was a day of dealing. I started at Hatfields and picked up two pieces of furniture, a Pembroke table and a Canterbury. I put them in the car and headed off to the west end. I was going to 'run' them. It is strange to admit that in all my years in the business this is the first time I have ever done this. You drive up, press the door bell, raise the boot of your car and off you go. It is a humiliating business, sale or no sale it is like showing someone your underpants. It is very personal. I will need to toughen up if the future holds much more of this. Rejection followed, for good reasons but it followed nonetheless. In the afternoon I headed off in another direction and this time I did make a sale but it was the same underpant revealing exposure.

Finally in Budapest my taxi driver speeds me off to the house, not before regaling me with anecdotes of Hungarian drinking bouts on a recent driving job he had in Cuba ferrying round a Venezuelan business man. Strange but true. The House is coming on well and we discussed the forthcoming wedding of his daughter and stood looking at the Danube as the sun beat down. A calm fell on the scene and we could smell the spring and the warmth reflecting off the water. Then back to work and Rooster soup.

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week 25 - New York, New York - Frieze opens in NY

New York is not London. As soon as you queue up at immigration you know you are not in London. It smells distinctive, it looks distinctive. It acts in every way distinctive. The dread of a massive line, the TV broadcasting news, the size of everyone and everything, it all compounds to render the scene both awe inspiring and slightly intimidating. Despite the obvious language false familiarity it seems as if you need to talk your way in. Travel in Europe does not require you to 'blag' your way in. But to enter the United States you have to chat up the bored and aggressive gun carrying officer. I must reassure him of my good intentions, one of which is that I will, in due course, leave.

Once through, New York beckons and is thrilling to arrive in. The clouds are grey and the night has fallen by the time I arrive at my hotel. But the taxi ride is worth every penny. The traffic, the terrible roads that make the car bounce and shake in a bone jangling fashion, then the bridge and a view of the ultimate shining high rise city. Anybody who is not elated by their arrival into Manhattan is missing a piece of soul. The Soho Grand Hotel is superficially quite cool. The stairs are made of iron and have glass inclusions that make the walk up from the ground floor to the lobby on the first floor quite twinkly. There is a dash of showbiz. However that is where the pleasure ends. I have a theory that they draw their staff from Ryanair rejects. With a grin and a cocky comment they manage to delay your checking-in as much as is humanly possible. Once in, you go to your room where your card "key" does not work. Back down to reception and the card is recharged, or whatever, and you gain access to your room. Then you wait for your luggage that you weren't allowed to take yourself by the doormen at the front door. A flash of service disguises the desire to torture the recent arrival.

I escape to meet my friend Nicko for a drink and a plate of food. Not before i run into the Dutch contingent. Stabilo are here in the incarnation of Marianne and Janneke. They have come to support the exhibitors and we have two days of meetings ahead. Every aspect of stand building will be discussed and Nicola and I will make sure that everyone knows all the plans we have for the fair and all the events that are scheduled. The girls have come with their husbands and have added a couple of days for their trip to turn it into a bit of a holiday. We greet in the bar and the torturers/ staff kick in. There is no wine I want by the glass only by the bottle. So I decide to have a cocktail and they don't have the ingredients. A Black Russian is not a really obscure drink with an arcane list of ingredients. It is just vodka and Kahlua. I have never known it to be unavailable anywhere in the world. I feel like a snack so i order a chicken club sandwich and a portion of chips. These take over an hour to come and they come twenty minutes apart. I realise I am sounding quite spoilt at this point, but I think staying at a hotel is such a treat and when it isn't it is sad, that's all. The Dutch are on great form. They have walked all over the city and have embraced the native culture of beer and pizza. Janneke is up for an adventure so she asks me to recommend a cocktail. I suggest that NY classic a Negroni. They bring it, amazingly. She loves the colour but the bitterness is a shock. She looks at me with a sad and accusatory face like i had played a trick on her.

Nicko arrives and we separate off to reminisce and catch up. He used to work for me at Mallett at Bourdon House. He then moved to the NY shop, fell in love with a local girl and stayed on. He is married now and recently has set up on his own as mid century furniture dealer. He seems to be doing well. He has amazing knowledge coupled with great charm. He will be fine. We gossiped for a while but then I hit the jet lag wall and had to bale. Back in my room my telephone had a red light blinking. I had a message. I rang down to the desk, listened to the message. The red light was still on, blinking at me. I looked at the phone, I couldn't see any way of switching off the flashing light. I rang down again. The desk said that they sorted out the blinking from the main switchboard. Suffice to say the phone blinked all week. I covered it each night with a pillow. I got used to it, it became like an annoying friend.

On Wednesday we had the decorator and dealer preview party for Masterpiece. Our host was the New York decorating legend Ellie and her husband Ed Cullman who sweetly allowed us to invite many of our supporters in the city. The apartment was elegant and the staff attentive, Philip gave a very confident speech which said it all about the forthcoming fair. Copies of Architectural digest were handed out and a general mood of elegant civilisation pervaded.

The next day was the opening of Frieze NY. We took the ferry from 34th st. The city looks superb from the water and my colleague Francesca sat on the top deck oohing and aahing to her heart's content. The massive serpentine tent was enriched at the front by a huge inflatable balloon dog by Paul McCarthy. It is supposedly an ironic reference to Jeff Koons. But it was huge and red and it looked eager at the entrance as if waiting for its owner to come out and play. Maybe he or she did before the end of the fair. Hours passed and the fair became a bit of a blur. Certain galleries stood out, as did certain works but in the end I think I liked them simply because they were shiny.

We headed back into town in order to visit Sebastian and Barquet. They had put on a show of modern sculptures from the historic Talavera pottery in Mexico, and the presentation of Johnny Swings latest designs and catalogue. We arrived late but we luckily got to meet Johnny and admire the Mexican pottery. We will see the Swing piece at Masterpiece.

The next days are packed with the amazing shows that fill NY this week. Hauser and Wirth have a Paul McCarthy show of monumental wooden sculptures that are both eerie and über kitsch. They have a café installation alongside which is truly amazing and strikingly disturbing as it is both weird and familiar. Then on to David Zwirner and his Jeff Koons show of heroic plasters of masterpieces from antiquity coupled with trashy garden ornament, the common link being the dazzling blue gazing ball, which is the exhibition title. Both Christies and Sotheby's had massive sales which by the time you read this you will see many auction records have been broken. Unusually at Christies, up on the 20th floor they had taken over a space to show the work of Ruth Asawa, a Japanese American artist based in San Francisco. Beautiful, floating and delicate, work that is reminiscent of baskets and yet is very powerful. It was a straight selling show, not an auction at all. This seems to be the future.