Week - 83 - Masterpiece to Milan

The temptation to live for a week in a world where Ruinart Champagne flows like water (or Coca Cola) whilst eating every meal in Le Caprice was one that I failed to resist. This was my last Masterpiece fair and I thought that as my involvement, other than as a shareholder, was coming to an end, the dealers and the press would have had enough of me. But this seemed not the case, and every day I ate a delicious lunch in excellent company looking out over the terrace and through the trees towards the permanent Wren buildings whilst sitting in a pop-up version. Taxi drivers still drop people off at the entrance baffled by the sudden appearance from nowhere of a vast 17th century building.

The flow of the week began with the patrons and curators' evening on Tuesday night. 700-odd visitors from around the world have the freedom to roam gently and quietly around the fair before having supper as the sun set over the Royal Hospital. It was a lovely start to the fair and my first glass of Ruinart was a joy. This champagne is so crisp, bright and full of minerals that it is like a tonic. Of course the alcohol content helps, but it is such a delightful cold bubbly essence of Spring. Many more followed. Supper of crispy duck with watermelon, and then the signature Caprice burger. Brown fluffy chips accompanied the pink grilled flesh in a sublime demonstration of why burgers are served with chips.

Wednesday was the formal preview day and 6500 people passed through the fair over 10 hours. They all seemed to stay and stay and the aisles become hard to navigate as the fever to consume intensified. The poor waiters flew around trying to get to corners of the fair where a drink and a canapé had not been seen for a while, but business was done, the red dots marking the sold items began to proliferate, and the dealers generally looked pleased, if a little weary.

fter this, the days followed in a steady pattern, beginning with a flurry of visitors and getting busier and busier as the hours passed. It is a strange truth that Masterpiece is the only fair in the world which is at its fullest in the last hour. Traditionally and internationally the final hour of a fair is quiet and the dealers pass the time gossiping and drinking. But not here. Around Scott's bar, which is at the centre of the fair, the crowds accumulated and a festive celebratory air dominated. This continued right up until the last minute of the last day. But it is not all about food and drink, the serious buyers come from all round the world as do those new to the market. Some visit simply to learn and enjoy the collegiate collaborative spirit of the dealers. 35,000 over 8 days.

The fair finished on Wednesday and as soon as the last visitor left, the clearing and packing begins. This process is as extraordinary as the build. Within minutes the fantasy of perfection which is Masterpiece begins to fade. The bar is dismantled as the jewellery dealers pack to leave. By midnight the fair is a ghost of itself and by lunchtime the next day everyone has packed up and left, leaving the walls to be dismantled and parcelled up for their next stop on the seemingly endless conveyor belt of art fairs.

I say goodbye to as many people as I can, and head off home. Sitting in my kitchen, the whole fleeting experience of Masterpiece passes through my mind and I try to order and remember how the days have passed. It is both a 100 metre dash and a marathon rolled into one. Once again it is over in a trice having taken a year to create. One slow blink and it is gone.

On Friday I make for Milan. I have always wanted to go to the opera at La Scala and that ambition was about to be achieved. Tickets were hard to buy but I was saved by Mattia and his staff at Robertaebasta, who queued up and bought them for us. Their help didn't stop there, as during the fair I frequently called by their stand asking about restaurants; in the end they booked places for each of our three nights. Milan is well represented at Masterpiece: We have Bottegantica with 19th-century pictures, Carlo Eleuteri with jewels and silver, Giorgio Gallo for furniture and Roberto Caiati with Old Master pictures, not forgetting our friends at Robertaebasta, of course, who sell the best of 20th-century Italian design. So each representative was visited during the fair for culinary or cultural advice.

Our tickets for La Scala were for Saturday night so we had the pleasure of spending a day wandering around Milan. We ticked one box by visiting the Brera art gallery, filled with treasures both familiar and new. But the unexpected joy was discovering a thread woven through many of our visits by the Art Deco Milanese architect Piero Portaluppi. We began by touring his gem of a house built for the Necchi Campiglio families. Light, airy and open; designed with a sense of fun and a luxurious attention to detail, the library alone was worth the visit with the balance of comfortable spaces, books and precious objects brilliantly achieved. It was followed by a visit to the Poldi Pezzoli house which houses, amongst innumerable treasures, Portaluppi's collection of over 2000 sundials, which gave us an insight into his obsession with the action of light, together with his cunning use of historic references and antiques in his interiors. Fortuitously one of the restaurants we were sent to turned out to be located in one his most famous buildings overlooking the Duomo and opposite the Galleria. It seemed as if everywhere we went there was a reference to or an echo of his life and work.

Dressed up in our finery we proceeded to La Scala. The opera house is a magnificent flourish of white and gold, wit, at its centre a mad gilt chandelier which has at its core tiers of glass and gold as you would expect, but swirling around are octopus-like arms sweeping out in all directions with what seem like glass cereal bowls as terminals. The Opera house was 'rebuilt' in 1946 after being bombed in the war - I expect it was created then. The stalls are surrounded by tiers of boxes, each having two front seats with standing room behind. You feel immediately transported back to the 19th century and the early days of the opera house: one imagines people popping in and out, visiting and chatting and the music/performance becoming a subsidiary event to the social opera taking place all around. But we are well behaved and we stay quietly in our seats, with two enthusiasts standing behind us getting as close as they could - rather than being annoying, they added to the historic atmosphere. The interval brought us Prosecco in the high-ceilinged, colonnaded, ballroom-like bar, the Ridotto Arturo Toscanini. No bell, but the lights dim to send you back to your box. Cosi Fan Tutte was in modern dress and the dark side of the story came out strongly as the manipulation of the young lovers was made prominent. The music seemed to echo the lack of a wholehearted loving reconciliation. We left to have a late supper and a debate about the production.

All the meals we ate were perfect, beginning at Risacca 6 where we tasted warm delicate soft shredded calamari and a risotto di mare which was dark and salty with a hint of celery adding interest to the shellfish hidden within the perfect al dente nest of rice. At the Osteria Di Brera we were plied with wonderful deep -fried puffy pillows of parmesan. And at the extraordinary restaurant in the Portaluppi building, Giacomo Arengario, which overlooks the newly cleaned gleaming white gothic fantasy Duomo, we tasted guazetta in a spicy tomato sauce. We finished this culinary adventure by spending our last two hours before flying home at the Fioraio Bianchi (a restaurant disguised as a flower shop) eating a robust intense pasta of sardines and dried cod's roe, and involtini of swordfish wrapped in a herb-rich breadcrumb crust. A last glass of icy prosecco and we were on our way to the airport and back to reality.

Week - 82 - Build to Bang

 

Arriving on site in high viz with my steel-toe-capped boots, there is a frenetic energy crackling in the atmosphere. The exhibitors' own contractors arrive on Wednesday to join the already numerous Stabilo staff, they have two days to prepare before the gates are opened on Saturday morning for the exhibitors themselves who arrive en masse and under pressure. By Sunday night everything has to be ready for the vetting committees to begin their adjudication on Monday morning. So from Tuesday morning, when I get back from Basel, until Sunday night it is a race against the clock. 160 dealers, each one feeling important and each with a vision of their stand as the picture of perfection rushes and presses to get the attention of the various contractors. Electricians, wall-paperers, joiners and carpet-layers run around like creatures possessed, working as swiftly as they can and fending off the many who hover hoping to be their next job. The fair is built by the Dutch firm Stabilo, and as an extra nuance to the general fever there is a certain buzz about the progress of the Netherlands football team in the World Cup in far-off Brazil. Beginning the competition as outsiders they are having an excitingly good run. I see one guy with a noisy buzzing jigsaw sending up a cloud of sawdust as he cuts out a board from a massive slab of plywood to support a giant photograph of the World Cup. Stabilo cannot work when a match is on so we encounter a couple of unanticipated and significant delays.

Out in Ranelagh Gardens, to the east of our giant tent, they are trucking in and laying out the exhibition of monumental sculpture by Philip King, curated and fashioned by the Thomas Dane gallery. Bright and bold colours sit unexpectedly comfortably amongst the trees and bushes of the gardens. Dynamic yet serene, lyrical yet muscular, the works are duly buffed up and labelled in anticipation of next week's crowds. I have a minor palpitation when I hear over the walkie talkies that one of the delivery people has dropped one of the sculptures. It turns out that this is simply an in-house way of saying that it has been successfully placed - so no harm done, except to my nerves. I see Philip in the gardens enjoying the feel of the grass under his feet, his paint-daubed crocs have been kicked off and he is emotionally connecting with his pieces which in a few works span his entire career, thus far.

The office is frantic too: the team move on site on Friday. Computers have to be packed up and files sorted. Though it is an annual move, it is never easy and there are always countless things to be both remembered and stowed. I try to stay out of everyone's way but it is impossible not to be sucked into the gathering excitement and swept onwards by the sense of hurry and rush.

Back on site the vast kitchens are being installed. Enormous shiny metal ovens and grills are slowly placed alongside cavernous fridges and massive food-preparation tables. It is hard to take in the scale of the display - and this is just back of house, behind the scenes. Other areas take shape, with decking laid on the terrace and carpets throughout the interior.

Saturday morning bright and early and in floods the art itself. Like insects swarming over a newly killed animal so do brightly-coloured t-shirts cover the double football pitch that is Masterpiece and astonishingly quickly packing cases are broached and delectable pieces from the dawn of art to the present day emerge blinking and sometimes twinkling into the sunlight. I meet Tony Fell from Holt in Norfolk, whose romantic swept back hair and flowery shirt give him the air of someone on holiday rather than a person preparing for a week of intense conversations and selling. He unpacks a white-painted George III console table, a fresh piece of stock which takes pride of place on his stand. He steps back to admire its position with a mixture of hope, excitement and nervousness. Down the hall, the Franklin brothers, silver dealers, have taken the brave move of displaying their treasures on stands rather than in display cases. As a result they have employed a guard to watch over their stylish black stand, smiling and quietly menacing. They are eagerly buffing and putting in place their cherished works of art. They punctuate their set-up with regular escapes to the terrace where they hoover up cigarettes nervously with other exhibitors. Two charming Italians from Milan, Roberto Caiati and Georgio Gallo, are exhibiting for the first time, showing old master paintings and works of art. As with many of the exhibitors, English is not their first language but they speak it well, and they are excited about being at the fair. Masterpiece exhibitors come from all over the world. As I walk round, each corner brings an opportunity for practising my French and Italian, which are rusty but nonetheless vitally useful. At the end of one aisle I admire the stand of Charlie Wallrock who has a collection of dressing cases - each one is exceptional and he has nearly 30. He is English and I find myself semi-translating our conversation in my head, as if English is now a foreign language. I quickly re-set but it is a strange feeling.

Saturday night and we all repair to the Orange in Pimlico Road. In this friendly, wood-panelled public house with its airy additional dining room the traditional pub, the Italian bistro, and the London restaurant seem to be combined. There is steak and kidney pie or pizza, and there is also deep-fried squid in black pepper with chilli sauce. You can drink champagne or you can have a pint of ale. The Orange is full of exhausted and hot exhibitors - it has been a long day, the sun has been blazing and everyone has worked hard. Beer and champagne are heartily despatched as talk of the great event to come and anecdotes of other fairs fill the air. The mood is positive as it always is in advance: hope and expectation are the dominant emotions and we all depart slightly wobbly but happy and full of good fellowship.

Week - 81 - 36 Hours in Basel

 

For the last 5 years I have been to Basel to help vet the Design Fair. I join with Simon Andrews from Christie's and a small group of exhibitors and we slowly and methodically look at and assess every piece at the fair. It requires an early morning flight on Sunday and it feels quite naughty sneaking away for a night from the build-up to Masterpiece. But the Design Fair is a very exciting adjunct to the main Basel art event and it is a delight to be able to pore over the treasures at will and with total licence. My co-Englishman Simon has been the design guru for Christie's for many a moon and there is nothing he doesn't know about design from around 1900 to the present day. He looks superficially quite disheveled but each item he wears is carefully chosen and turns out to be either by someone or from somewhere interesting or curious. The end result is that he is a walking visual and intellectual encyclopaedia of 20th century design. My role is to cast a skeptical eye with regard to condition and labelling, as well as to look at and confirm the legitimacy of items which are from the age of antiques, which a few dealers exhibit or have an example of, although the fair is committed to Simon's area.

Our flight arrives and are swept into town in a smart BMW limousine. We both feel slightly underdressed for the car which smells both lush and very new. There are a myriad individual seat and temperature settings - like a child with a new toy I want to push all the buttons and fiddle with all the gauges. Much to the relief of the driver we arrive at the hotel before I have time to fully explore all the possibilities. After a brief pit stop we are delivered to the exhibition hall which is directly opposite the one in which Art Basel is being held. On our way we pass a lighting installation which is a confection of inverted cones of transparent plastic each element has a coating labelled 'Perspex'. I guessed it was sponsored but by the time we return, all the labels have gone and it is pure light. At the cafe dining area we gather for our pre-vetting lunch. We are the guinea pigs for the menu and each dish which comes out is duly tasted and evaluated. To begin with, the members of the assembled company are cool and professional and decline a glass of wine - except me. A beautifully chilled glass of Swiss white wine is brought out and I rave about how delicious it is. A short time later, several of the group break ranks and more glasses arrive. Lunch becomes a very chatty event and we all debate the fraught question of restoration with 20th-century pieces - particularly with reference to the life spans of resins and plastics. The conservator from the Vitra museum is with us and her general advice is to keep everything in the dark and in a vacuum. Back in the real world we embrace our task of vetting with appropriate gusto and soon we are all lying on the floor peering at table frames and pointing torches at joints. Five hours later we stagger out shell-shocked and exhausted but thrilled by having seen some truly magnificent treasures.

A short and fatigued walk is followed by champagne and snacks at the Volkshaus. We gather in the wonderful courtyard which played host to the Basel Design fair party before. Last year it rained in a truly biblical fashion and we all took shelter on the balconies and on staircases. This year it was sunny and balmy and we all gossiped enthusiastically. Eccentric snacks appeared, including a foamy meat mousse with a spray cream on top - most people thought it was made of strawberries so the bitter liver taste was quite a shock, This was followed by risotto, then soup - neither what you might describe as finger food. I got into conversation with the Sebastian and Barquet team. On their stand they are showing pieces by American masters of design George Nakashima and Paul Evans. They had a stand at Masterpiece last year but sadly could not do both shows this year. I did not know Tara and her husband but the gallery assistant Olivia used to work for Mallett, so it was nice to catch up. We ended up eating pasta at a restaurant that smelt slightly of drains down by the river and discussed in detail the benefits of eating M&M s as a healthy breakfast. Olivia was convinced of the benefits; I remain impressed but unconvinced.

The next morning I took a tram to the Beyeler Foundation, it is set in a bucolic suburban setting. They have mounted a large and impressive retrospective show of the work of Gerhard Richter, an astonishingly varied artist who seems to embrace a multiplicity of styles and media, producing twisted photo-realist oils and digitally produced abstract work and almost everything in between. The building itself is a work of art being a light and airy jewel by Renzo Piano. I spent a hugely enjoyable couple of hours watching the art groupies prowl around talking loudly to one another as I admired and immersed myself in the work. Art Basel itself starts tomorrow and I will not have time to see it, but the art crowd are already in town and they are killing time en masse before the fandango that starts with a VIP breakfast at 8.30 am.

Returning to the centre of town, I have enough time before my flight home to visit a project called 14 Rooms. In a pavilion designed by Herzog & de Meuron, white walls with mirrored doors offer a surreal opportunity of the Alice in Wonderland variety. The space is scary and claustrophobic. It is intimidating and nerve-racking to open the doors and step into the rooms. Each one is a separate art work, if they were shown in an open traditional gallery space there would be the opportunity to keep a sense of detachment. But here there is a nightmarish quality to the intensity taking place behind each door in these quite small rooms. The sense of being in a cross between a nightclub and a sanatorium is overwhelming. If you look up 14 Rooms on the internet there is a very good and expressive website where each room is fully described. For me, the experience was not one of art appreciation, however, but was more experiential, and I will remember my fear, shock and timidity for quite some time. As we drove towards the airport I mentally celebrated the fact that art still has the power to both shock and educate.

Week - 80 - Progress and Protest

 

As the Masterpiece tents rise from the glistening flat floors laid out across the grounds at the Royal Hospital, the sun is shining. My visits to the site to observe the progress and watch the installation of the Philip King exhibition in Ranelagh Gardens are bathed in sunshine and the occasional, but thankfully brief, shower. After our Masterpiece board meeting, I find myself standing by one of the metal grille fences wearing my high viz jacket with the owner of Stabilo and the fair's contractor and architect, Harry van der Hoorn. We are trying to get into the site and whilst we wait for passes, Harry, the Ghanaian security guard and I discuss the forthcoming World Cup. The security guard was a trifle cold and tough at first but, engaging in football chat, he warmed and by the time we parted all agreed that none of our favoured countries stood a chance and that this was definitely the best position to be in.

Watching England play football is an extraordinarily masochistic exercise. It is like waiting to be punched - the question is not whether or not you will be punched, the only question is when. As Harry and I roam over the site, he banters with his crew in Dutch, swapping manly hugs, jokes and the occasional kiss. He bounces up and down on the floor and shakes the rising walls, each gesture eagerly followed by his foreman who takes notes and looks calm but concerned. No one will notice a steady floor or a rigid wall, they will only notice when the former is wobbly and the latter flimsy. Failure is obvious; success is invisible.

I cycle over to see the trucks coming in with the bold painted metal geometric and figurative shapes that are distinctive of Philip King's work. The works exude the power and gutsiness of their production - we seem to be in sight of a shipyard or equivalent. The machines that move the work echo those that held it when Philip was cutting and welding it. The result is that the visceral, incredibly physica, nature of his work is beautifully brought out during installation. Once placed, the lyrical shapes and bold colours happily combine with the grass and the perky, optimistic daisies that have burgeoned during the few days between the end of the flower show and now.

Cycling up west to the Masterpiece offices, I am delighted to find myself in heavy traffic. On a bicycle it is a pleasure to sail through clogged roads whilst drivers curse their delay. The police have closed off the entrance to Piccadilly from Hyde Park corner to cars. They look pained and frustrated to see the flow of bicycles passing their smart cones labelled 'Police'. Weaving through I find the road jammed with taxis. There is a festive air. They have all stopped, opened their doors and are mingling, chatting and either eating or drinking. I hear helicopters buzzing above me. I could not think why these drivers were so relaxed. The London cabbie with a passenger on board is always thrilled to sit endlessly in traffic, but an empty cab is an impatient cab, and all these are empty. As I progress towards Dover Street, the scene continues and there is no sign of the cause at all. Finally reaching the offices I learn that this was not a delay but a protest. No wonder the cabbies all looked so cheerful. A website called Uber is the cause of their ire, their jobs are thought to be under threat from the web app which, as well as booking and tracking the cars, will work out the cost of a journey, acting as a meter, which only black cabs are entitled to use. For me the joy of a London cab is the unique fact that they have done 'The Knowledge' - a lengthy and arduous training, which leads to an encyclopaedic understanding of how to navigate London; and a winning advantage if participating in all fact-based game shows. Sadly the advent of GPS devices means that this skill is becoming superfluous. I cherish our London black cabs, and the city needs a good taxi service; but this is what is called progress - not an improvement, but something that cannot be halted.

In the evening I attended a dinner to celebrate the birthday of Philip King and a year of exhibitions. It was at the house of the art dealer Ivor Braka. A show has just opened at the Thomas Dane Gallery, to be followed by Masterpiece, and then the Tate at the end of the year. Ivor's home is teeming with wonderful, striking modern and contemporary work and furnished with Arts and Crafts. Everywhere the eye fell there was a treat and a delight. I ran into Henry Wyndham from Sotheby's. I have known Henry for more than 20 years and he persists in being unexpectedly tall. He was his usual charming self and we had a jolly discussion about collecting the work of Christopher Dresser. The debate was whether silver should be cleaned or not. We both concluded that clean was best and that defined us as being old school bourgeois. The cool thing to do was to let it tarnish and be seen alongside contemporary work where the ravages of time and discolouration are part of the acquisition of patina and thereby value. Food followed and whilst plates were piled high, the platters kept on being discreetly replenished. There was an understated sense of opulence and generosity and, when Nick Serota made a speech in praise of the genius of Philip, we all clapped enthusiastically, happy and replete.

Cycling up Piccadilly again the next day I passed a small protest involving Stuart the dog and Stuart the owner. Stuart the dog was wearing banners inscribed 'No Nuke's' (I struggle with punctuation myself but I think the apostrophe is wrong) and seemed very cheerful. He sniffed around and generally looked very content in the sunshine. I was delighted to meet this veteran of protest and his master allowed me to take a snapshot. Stuart the owner has been campaigning against all things nuclear for over 30 years and has managed to be photographed and recorded at many a political conference. Today he was protesting about the damage done by the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. He would like to see an end to all nuclear power. His finest hour, by his own admission, was being beaten up by a political blogger in Brighton during the Labour party conference last year. It is all on YouTube, of course. Stuart the dog did a bit of biting in the fracas but otherwise his views are not known.

King Lear at the National Theatre. The area has recently changed markedly. Instead of the stark, uncompromising display of brutalist architecture, now it has the feel of a massive market. Food stall holders are at every turn and every aisle; food is everywhere. In days of yore the only option was a dried up sandwich or the National Film Theatre outdoor cafe under Waterloo Bridge. The experience would be accompanied by the crash and bang of youths skateboarding. Today the walk from the tube is a hurly burly of global gastronomic delights. As I made it to the doors of the Olivier theatre to see Simon Russell Beale as King Lear in the Sam Mendes production, I was almost exhausted by having run the gamut of all these hawkers of pies. The play is for me a flawless masterpiece, and even under the deadening influence of studying it at school, I found the pitiless misery of the play deeply affecting. It was a huge pleasure to hear again so many familiar lines, it made me quite overlook the fact that Papa Smurf seemed to playing Lear and noble Edgar was being portrayed as a charming but clueless provincial arts student. This very bare and symbolic play offers itself up to endless reinvention and unusual period dating but this interpretation seemed to me forced and uncomfortable. King Lear is in itself a challenging and difficult play and though I loved seeing it, I found this production particularly challenging and difficult.

Week - 79 - Founder's Day and Full Possession

 

It's all Masterpiece now. My life is on hold until the last contractor packs up his tools and vacates the site. Masterpiece is just beginning to enter the birthing chamber.

However, the week began at Home House, where I was invited to be part of a panel discussion about Luxury. Now a private club, but for me forever enshrined in my memory as the erstwhile home of the Courtauld Institute. The host of the event was Walpole British Luxury, founded in 1990 in order (as they say on their website) "to provide a community for the exchange of best practice ideas to drive business development in both the UK and export market". I sat on a bar stool alongside James Basmajian the creative director of Gieves and Hawkes and Margaret Johnson the CEO of Leagas Delaney (an advertising and communications company). We were like a singing trio perched expectantly about to perform. My partners were elegant, smart, quick-witted and perceptive in their comments. James in particular was as sharp as a tack. He is clearly a networking dynamo, swapping cards and sharing pithy comments with all around: a lesson in how to work these sorts of events. I did my normal thing of making inappropriate and provocative remarks. I suggested the Luxury world needed to be wary of the word 'luxury' which has been appropriated by estate agents and the makers of ready meals. As this was a Walpole Luxury event, that was a trifle gauche. But everyone was kind and friendly and I escaped more or less unscathed clutching a bag of goodies and magnum of Laurent Perrier champagne. Cycling home seemed like a good idea at the time and I made it very nearly home but sadly rounding the Oval I hit a pothole, the bag bounced and my lovely champagne burst through the bottom of the bag and exploded like a small bomb. The noise was impressive - as I passed, several lurching drinkers looked up and possibly had a fleeting moment of clarity. I completed my journey disconsolately, comforting myself that I still had my Football World Cup guide and a box of fancy chocolates. I Instagrammed my tragedy and the Walpole organisation replaced my bottle. I love them!!

On Thursday the Masterpiece team attended en masse the Royal Hospital Founder's Day. This celebration merges charmingly a school end-of-term with a memorial of the founder Charles II. The in-pensioners march, synchronise-drive on smart red electric buggies, or sit patiently waiting. They are a remarkable group: just less than 300 of them, they range in ages from mid 60s to over 100. They look magnificent in scarlet coats and gold-bedecked hats. Each year a member of the royal family steps up, inspects the troops and makes a speech. This year it was the Duke of Kent. Following his words, we get the end-of-term stuff, with reports on activities from the past year and anticipation of the year ahead. To conclude, the staff who are leaving are all thanked roundly for their hard work, commitment, etc. and bade farewell. This year a crucial departure was noted.

Masterpiece would never have happened had it not been for the enthusiasm and entrepreneurial courage of the Lieutenant Governor, Peter Currie. He is designated by this rank, but in the business world, he would be titled the CEO. I remember sitting in his office with the Quartermaster, Andy Hickling, weaving a dream tapestry for them, and Peter was immediately encouraging. Countless battles later, including an unforgettable moment when in a planning meeting at Kensington Town Hall, Peter appeared ashen-faced, coughing, wheezing and snuffling from a terrible cold; he performed magnificently and permission was granted. So much support and guidance followed and 5 years later here we are listening to the appreciation of his work and acknowledging his imminent departure - saying farewell. The sun shone on the gold statue of Charles II wreathed in oak leaves, the stirring military brass band struck up and a melancholy moment was acknowledged.

Racing from the Hospital back to Mallett, I was thrilled to be offered a lift by my ex-colleague Felicity. She is the dynamo of Mallett; grumpy, critical and often bad-tempered she charms all and sundry. Her husband used to say that she lost friends faster than he could make them! But it is simply not true; everyone adores her and she is a quite spectacular saleswoman. She had offered me a lift to the Olympia International Art and Antiques fair which was opening that day, hence the rush. Her car is one of those new Volkswagen Golfs that seems to both drive itself and reprimand the driver. I have never sat in such a bossy car. Felicity is slightly intimidated by it and I imagine the occasional apology from her to the car.

Olympia welcomes us with bright sunshine and the majestic iron and glass roof throwing everything below it into diminutive perspective. There are lots of friends here and some Masterpiece exhibitors. In my Mallett days, we often exhibited here and had a wonderful time enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and the buzz of business. In those days there were around 300 stands. When I arrived, my colleagues and I would split up so as to miss as few purchases as possible. I remember taking a taxi back from the fair once with colleagues from Mallett Bond St and Mallett Bourdon House. I confessed to having spent £250,000 and the Bond St guys riposted by saying they had spent over £1m. It was a very exciting time. Today, Felicity and I toured round together chatting and reminiscing with stand holders, and sadly I bought nothing.

Friday morning started early. I rose at 5am and cycled off to greet the team for the beginning of our Masterpiece tenancy by the Bull Ring gate of the Royal Hospital. On my way, I passed George Somlo, our wristwatch specialist at the fair. He was running around Battersea Park. He is in his early 60s and he told me he was preparing for a triathlon this weekend. He subsequently reported that he came second in his age class. Amazing! Well done. I arrived at 6am to discover that the handover was actually scheduled to be at 7. Bleary-eyed and downcast at having punished myself with an unnecessarily early start, I considered going home, but that seemed to me to be giving up so I went for a cycle ride around Chelsea.

The houses south of the Kings Road and north of Cheyne Walk between Oakley St and Lower Sloane Street turn out to be extraordinarily varied in style and period. There are wonderful stately early 18th century ones with tall windows and richly carved porticos in Cheyne Row. I cycled past Thomas Carlyle's House and the house where the potter William de Morgan lived and created much of his distinctive and wild lustreware pieces. There were also 20th-century design treats on my ride from the listed Fire Station on the King's Road to Chelsea Old Church by Battersea Bridge, parachute-bombed to virtual destruction in the Second World War. Originally fashioned in stone, it was rebuilt in brick in the 1950s and whilst it may not win any prizes for innovative architectural creativity, it is a fine, strong structure. It was at one point the private chapel of Sir Thomas More, who sits outside patiently in sculptural form. Back at the gates by the Bull Ring, there was a very different atmosphere to the one an hour earlier. Trucks were lining up and the security, logistics and stand-building teams were all in attendance. Andy Hickling and the groundsman appeared at the far side of the South Lawns and we all eagerly watched their slow stately march towards us as we peered through the railings. Andy arrived, a splendid key turned in the lock and we were in - like a flock of birds taking flight, everything started happening immediately, at once and in all directions. The build was underway.

Week - 78 - an Atrocity in Brussels

 

I am sad, very sad. For the last few days I have been haunted by the news of the man who pulled up outside the Jewish museum in Brussels, and shot and killed two visitors and a member of staff. There are photographs on the internet of him firing through the door. It is true that there are horrors all round the world every day of the week. If you look at the news websites or simply scan the headlines, abuse and murder are ubiquitous and continuous. But this little local anti-Semitic horror has hurt me in a way I cannot fathom or explain. It is not because I am partial or biased towards the plight of the Jewish people. I am sure equivalent evil has been enacted by every religion against every other religion, at times, and this atrocity does not stand out. It is just that I know and adore this little museum and its staff.

To put my affection for the city into context, I should explain that for many years Brussels - in particular the area around Les Sablons - has been a regular destination for me. I came first in 1990 with my boss, a man called David Nickerson. He taught me all I know. He was overweight, his hair was slightly greasy and swept to one side. He smoked cigarettes as if each puff was going to be his last. His desk at Mallett was legendarily embellished with cigarette burns and every vase in the shop was full of ash and cigarette butts. I once drove his car to deliver a piece to a client and was taken aback by the nicotine crystals pendant from the roof above the steering wheel. In addition to all this he was charismatic, charming and generous to a fault; he was my mentor and guide. He taught me how to look through furniture and objects rather than look at them. He told me to engage with a piece for its line, movement and potential not for its immediate superficial appearance. He embraced life as if each moment would be his last, and that gave both work and fun a vital intense quality that I strive to keep going. On this occasion, we arrived in Brussels and went to the antique fair which was held at the time in the museum, just beside Les Sablons. We walked round and finding nothing to buy, disconsolately repaired to a nearby restaurant. Three hours later and feeling thoroughly restored, we re-entered the fair... and proceeded to buy some of the most exciting things we had seen in a long time. It felt almost magical wafting from booth to booth buying in Belgian francs without really understanding the exchange rate. It all seemed very reasonably priced and in most cases it was.

Since then, the city has been an integral part of my working year, with my annual pilgrimage to TEFAF allowing a stop off on the way, a diversion during, and a break on the way home. Dealers still congregate around the square: as in all cities they have moved away from the expensive rentals and inhabit the lesser, peripheral streets. These provide good spaces and there are still enough dealers with exciting things to act as a draw to the visitor. The shops and the restaurants around them are welcoming and full of curiosity and interest. Since the creation of Masterpiece, I have come to the city even more frequently, to visit our exhibitors, Patrick Mestagh, Galerie Mermoz and Anne Autegarden. Furthermore, the two city fairs each year provide a vital opportunity to both buy and talk to current and potential exhibitors. Particularly BRAFA, each January, has become an important cog in the global fair-going machine.

At some point on each visit, as I trawl along the streets peering in windows or walking into the shops, I pass by the Jewish museum. I am always in a rush trying to squeeze a few more buying opportunities into a period of time that seems to run through my fingers like water pouring through a colander. There is the race to the coast and 'Le Shuttle' to be undertaken and a recreational tour around the museum does not ever seem to be viable.

To entice passersby to visit, the museum began to put up posters outside advertising highlights, and amongst those was an extraordinary thing: a light bulb which had a filament in the shape of a Star of David. I became obsessed by the idea of this object, trying to guess why it had been made and how many like it were produced. I am very fond of light bulbs. Many years ago, I bought for Mallett a set of very early bulbs which had belonged to the television pioneer John Logie Baird. As with many of my purchases, my colleagues were appalled by them and only recanted when they had been sold for a good profit. I looked up the light bulb on the internet, but seeing it in the flesh became a necessity. Last year I finally made the time to go in. The museum is housed in a large building and I was amazed once inside to see how small and intimate it was and how humble were its offerings. I was the only visitor at that time and I was shown the object personally by the lady who sold me my ticket, and by her husband who seemed to be a guide too. The experience was so charming, friendly and welcoming that when I was next in the city with the Mallett CEO, Giles, I swept him in to see this eccentric treasure. The couple were still there and hugged me and shook my hand warmly as if I was an old friend, not just a visitor to the museum. Giles teased me afterwards, suggesting that I had clearly bought a load of old catalogues, or that they rarely had any visitors at all. Whatever the reasons, they were lovely, and the kindly grey-haired lady of ample proportions and loose-fitting clothes was beaming with delight as her husband - who, similarly rotund, was further adorned with a generous and a droopy moustache - chased around trying to find a postcard of the light bulb for me. It was a splendid second visit and I vowed to take everyone I could muster along to share in the goodwill and generosity of spirit located there as much as in the items on show.

Last week two random visitors and my kindly old lady friend at the desk were shot dead. A man has been arrested and if he is the one who did commit the crime, he will hopefully be tried and sent to prison. The tragedy is that the dead get no comfort from that justice. The quiet sleepy museum which had a few visitors a week and existed without troubling anyone had become the focus of someone's deadly hatred. Belgium has a population just in excess of 11 million; of those around a mere 30,000 are Jewish. Even before the Second World War, the Jewish population was small. Belgium simply does not figure prominently as a country with strong Jewish customs or traditions. Despite this, my little, obscure museum in a sleepy antique district of Brussels away from the main streets and the Grand Place has become a legitimate target for Islamic extremism, or so it appears. My dear friend, whom I hardly knew at all, whose name I never knew, is dead, and that is very sad.

The light bulb comes from a memorial lamp, and is an electric version of the traditional candle that you burn for the memory of a death, a Yahrzeit candle. It is lit during Yom Kippur or on Holocaust Remembrance Day or to remember someone who has died on their birthday. I will now seek one out to commemorate and celebrate the kindness of that special little museum.

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

Week - 77 - Stanley Spencer Lobster and Burgundian snails

 

I began the week with Lobster thermidor and ended it with half a dozen Burgundian snails; or, I began the week with the Stanley Spencer exhibition at Pallant House in Chichester and ended it with the fabulous 13th century Tour du Guet in Calais. It all depends on how you look at your week. I like to merge the two, and every cultural highlight is enhanced when interwoven with as many culinary delights as possible. That is also our Masterpiece ethos - perhaps it appears a trifle indulgent. My son Vladimir once asked me: 'What are holidays?' I thought about it for a moment, thinking of how to respond to a four year old. My reply was: 'Treats every day'. I continue to believe that. In fact it is true for normal everyday life too: everything we do should be as near to being a treat as we can make it. Admittedly some things we all have to do are quite some distance from being a treat! But the aspiration should be there in my view.

Pallant House is a delightful Queen Anne building in Chichester which is home to a collection of modern British art founded on a donation by the retiring Dean Walter Hussey in 1977. The Cathedral is also enriched with an exceptional collection and so Chichester has become a destination for enthusiasts of 20th century British art. In Berkshire, the National Trust is restoring the Sandham Memorial Chapel, built to commemorate the donor's brother who died in the First World War. The work commissioned from Spencer records his experiences in the medical corps, a time which inspired him to develop and express what he saw in a very personal Christian way. The series is multi-layered in that it depicts war and hospital tableaux, and is thus a memorial, but it is in addition it is a symbolic or metaphorical expression of Spencer's faith. Therefore the centenary of the First World War is poignantly remembered through this show, which began at Somerset House and will end in August back in its Berkshire home when the chapel reopens. I have always liked Pallant House for its stone ostriches on the gates, the crest of the, geographically unexpected, Peckham family, the original builders of the house. These days you don't need to enter between the ostriches as there is an extension of a more predictable museum style adjacent opened in 2006 and designed by Sir Colin Wilson and Long & Kentish. Wandering through the gallery rooms showing the chapel paintings you are transported back to the time of both Spencer's observations but also to the 1920s when the world was brim full of guilt about the war. The figures in the paintings seem young and unformed and their deaths consequently so wasteful. Even Spencer's resurrection, though it offers redemption, does not present a viable validation.

From this very thought-provoking exhibition we drove back to Selsey Bill, where my mother and stepfather have a cottage. Since my childhood we have bought delicious crab and lobster from Julie on East Beach. Then, Julie was a vivacious and dynamic business entrepreneur in her twenties, setting up within the all male world of local crab fisherman. She was feisty and very pretty with red hair and freckles, I was shy of going in to buy from her, unable to properly look her in the eye. Today her children are behind the counter and her original basic shed has become a gleaming white purpose-built structure. My mother loves to cook from recipes gleaned from newspapers and magazines and these garnish every flat surface including most chairs. She has found one for Lobster thermidor, a dish invented in 1894 to celebrate a new play by Victorien Sardou, and named after the summer month of the French Republican calendar. The play and the calendar have melted away but the lobster dish has become a legend and represents for some the epitome of luxury. My father used to say in restaurants, 'Order what you like but not the Lobster thermidor!' As a May dish by the seaside with the sun blazing outside, it all seemed very appropriate. The fresh raw blue lobsters were duly boiled, split and covered with herbs, sauce and breadcrumbs and came gleaming and crusty to the table accompanied by chilled, flavoursome, scented, rich, but dry Cremant de Lugny, and as the succulent, delicate meat was consumed we all agreed that together the Spencer show and Lobster thermidor made for a perfect Sunday.

Whilst sitting looking at the join between the original Pallant House and the new extension in the light and airy garden I read a notice about the gold medal-winning gardener Christopher Bradley-Hole who was responsible for the design. On Wednesday Andy Hickling, the Royal Hospital Chelsea's quartermaster and solver of all our Masterpiece fair installation issues, hosted a party which gave his chosen few an exceptional treat. His house is just outside the gates of the Chelsea Flower Show within the bounds of the Hospital itself. He pours us copious glasses of Champagne, teases our palates with tasty snacks in cones and then sates us with an irresistible buffet, this year a superb lamb tagine with couscous. Then he sends us out with passes to roam the flower show freed from the crowds. It is the perfect way to see it. This year our Masterpiece sponsor RBC has also supported a garden and it duly won a gold medal. The show gardens are all incredible and complex and defy the temporary nature of their existence. They are almost like cut flowers, glorious for an instant and shortly afterwards - compost and gone. The massive tent smells of earth and grass and has in various spaces curious and sometimes appetising aromas. Every stand is as spectacular as it can be, some are wonderful but some nudge towards the absurd. I was intrigued by the city of Birmingham stand which had a flower bedecked train and a deserted bicycle. I did not understand the message, but it was undoubtedly splendid and had won a prize.

On Thursday I headed off to France. The pre bank holiday traffic leaving London was horrible and I finally arrived in Calais from Le Shuttle, tired, hungry and fed up. Calais is not a pretty town, but despite this it does have a certain vibrant commercial energy. There is an unexpectedly appealing square called the Place D'Armes which was once beautiful and historic but was bombed in the Second World War by everyone and rebuilt afterwards in the now under-appreciated 50s style. Before you are white, low-rise blocks with intermittent metal balconies. One side has been enhanced by a modern water feature lit with purple which squirts water into the air at random intervals from about 25 spouts. I tried to get a table at a wine-focused restaurant but was turned away as they were having a special wine-tasting evening, so my gloom increased. I wandered over to a corner of the square where I reflected upon my remaining food options below the imposing Tour du Guet. From the top of this tower the Calais citizens were told of the surrender of the city to Edward III. Their depression at being conquered felt very keen as I struggled to be positive.

The next day brought the positive mood I sought - in Chatillon sur Seine at the Côte d'Or. This classic French hotel and restaurant focusses on purveying the delights of Burgundian cuisine. So 'oeufs en meurettes' were preceded by six succulent snails. The shells were striped and fashionably pastel. The cast iron platter was white and the garlic and butter infused herbs were lustrously green. A basket of fluffy, crispy and flaky crusted baguette chunks were on hand to assist with the mopping up. Six transcendent mouthfuls ensued and Calais became a distant memory. Now I could concentrate on finding a treasure within the local salerooms to justify the trip.

Week - 76 - New York Contemporary Week

 

My first time in NY I had a terrible row. A director of Mallett at that time - it was 1996 - on arrival I was daunted by my first experience of serious jet lag. It was stupid o'clock in the morning, as far as I was concerned, when I sat down to dinner with my then boss Lanto Synge. He had spent the day working on the Mallett stand at the International show at the Armory at 67th and Park Avenue. He was tired and I was exhausted. We then proceeded to have a shouting match about the legacy of an American clothes designer called Bill Blass. He had been an enthusiastic client and we were debating whether his eclectic taste should be a guide for us in business, or whether we should invest in classics. We did not talk to each for a couple of days afterwards and Giles, now CEO of Mallett, had to intervene to make peace. It was all very absurd, but it makes a point. Foreign cities are always a mixture of the times you have spent there and the current moment; the former colours, but does not define, the present. I am back in NY for the Masterpiece exhibitor advice days. We fly over every year for a few days to support our US dealers with their plans for their stands at the fair and to hold an event for the US decorators who form a supporting committee.

The morning flight from Heathrow into JFK is my favourite. Everyone you talk to has their own patent plan, and will cheerfully drone on about how great it is to arrive at 4pm or 11pm at night. Every regular traveller likes to adhere to their own preferred methodology; my theory is that daylight is good. The more daylight you get the less jet lag you suffer. I don't know if my theory has any scientific legitimacy but there it is. Checking in to the hotel around lunchtime, I head out to the very local brasserie called 900 in West Broadway. Two things happen there, almost at once. First, a large woman and a small grey-haired man carrying a guitar enter and set up. She calls for cachaca and starts singing, drinking and berating the eaters for not drinking enough cachaca. She sings in the manner of Astrud Gilberto and it is quite, but only quite, entertaining. In the meantime, I have been served the nastiest most rubbery mozzarella I have ever eaten. The second thing that happens is that it starts to rain. This it does in an almost biblical fashion. Torrents cascade from the sky, more like a bucket being emptied than rain. Though the music is weak and the food weaker, I decide to order a glass of dark rose and settle in rather than face the elements. As I mused over my indifferent entertainment, I reflected that NY is full of friends and memories and delights still to be encountered.

The rain stopped and my glass emptied and I ventured out into the city. My mission for the rest of the day was to fix my sunglasses. I had sat on them on the plane and the frame was totally bent out of shape. I found a little corner shop and a friendly chap came up and immediately offered to help. He turned them over and contemplated them from a number of angles and then whisked them off behind a curtain for deeper reflection. He returned very shortly saying that the lenses were now broken as well, having survived the earlier squash. With no sense of irony he offered to replace the lenses, and fix the glasses, but said that I would have to return in a couple of days. I mused for an instant, debating internally whether these ancient but beloved Persol glasses should be consigned to history or restored. I plumped for conservation so an expensive process was agreed to. I do not understand even now how somehow I was beguiled into paying for the lens incident in the back room, but there you go!

Sunday brought a trip to the Frieze art fair via the ferry. It is held on Randall's Island and, with blue skies and warm spring weather, the boat trip along the east river was wonderful. The fair consists of long serpentine aisles of contemporary art. By Sunday, the fair was nearly over and the gallery principals had all gone leaving their juniors to deal with the occasional client and the plethora of non-buying enthusiasts. It is remarkable how much trouble and distance the aficionados of contemporary art will go to to observe the latest creations of the modern masters and their apprentices. Frieze is only one part of this week. There is another fair called Pulse and a design fair called Collective. Most of the galleries in Chelsea and beyond hold shows or host parties and events. But towering above and over all are the monster sales at Christie's and Sotheby's. I began at Sotheby's and they indeed had an impressive offering ranged around their 10th floor - but in terms of both famous names and volume of works the array at Christie's was astonishing. There seemed to be major works by everyone one had ever heard of, and many one had not. This created for them an eye-watering sale total for the week of $975 million, and the post-war and contemporary sale made a world-record for a single sale $745m. By contrast, Sotheby's achieved totals for the week around $450 million. Mind you, $450m is still a remarkable total, and only the Christie's result makes one question it.

The decorator Jamie Drake, who has previously had a stand at Masterpiece, hosted the supporters' drinks party at his uber-cool apartment in Chelsea. The dealers and the press gathered and speeches were duly made. The surprising thing was seeing Jamie smoke. Somehow one is so psychologically conditioned by the rule of "no smoking" in the USA, that seeing anyone actually doing it inside is somehow shocking. Silly, really as it was, after all, in his own home. We were his guests. It was not a question of disapproving, it was simply surprising. The apartment is an essay in comfortable contemporary design and the way he had articulated the space around a cunning storage block in the centre was inspiring. The support that Masterpiece gets from its American friends in the design and dealing trades is remarkable and we felt elated as we left. Around the corner a few of us dined at 'The Red Cat', where we had cocktails and shared some of the fun from the previous couple of hours.

The Mallett showrooms looked particularly inviting as we arrived for our consultations. Over 10% of Masterpiece exhibitors come from the USA and it is very important to offer them all the support we offer our European dealers. The days pass as we discuss carpets and wall finishes, PR and the website. Having these meetings allows one to share in the dealers' excitement about what they are bringing and how they will show it. Henry, my ex-colleague from Mallett sweetly takes me out to lunch at the Charlot. It is a small bistro a few blocks down from Mallett and it is nearly 3pm before we sit down as he has been dealing with clients in the shop since midday. He is excited, positive and optimistic about the future. That is the way we dealers are. A sniff of business and all our woes are forgotten; sadly if you go a week without success, all becomes doom and gloom. But I get Henry on an up day and as we sip away at our blush rose and consume our sea bass with clams and mussels, the joys of a warm spring day in Manhattan washed over us and warmed our spirits.

Week - 75 - Collecting Ladybirds and Plates

 

Sorting through my books, I rediscovered a stash of Ladybird Books and spent a delicious couple of hours reveling in both an erstwhile collecting obsession and a flashback to my childhood. In the 60s, when I was learning to read, these little hardback books were my constant pleasure. They have a very consistent form, being 56 pages long, as a rule, for printing cost reasons. They were affordable at only 2 shillings and 6 pence, 12.5p in today's money. They were often factually useful, and I remember using information gleaned from them in my A levels - though my results were not exactly a good advertisement for Ladybird Books. Many of my copies bear historic food stains or are enhanced by random underlining. The backs of the books carried a list of the others in each series and quite a few have inscribed ticks beside them, in my fair hand, marking the titles I had read. The illustrations are bold and in a very distinctive restricted colour palette. I leafed through a couple of the Biographies, then my eye was caught by the Utilities... and from there I began browsing through them all. I amassed a good number in my childhood but in my early 20s I took up the collection again in earnest - for nostalgia, for the books' clear expression of their period, and for the simple joy of collecting these endearing, un-ironic volumes. As I sat at my desk reading and looking at pictures I was carried back to childhood afternoons spent in bed when I was asthmatic.

If I was ill, as a special treat, I was sometimes allowed to spend the day in my mother's bed. It was a mahogany four-poster and seemed very grand. The bedroom floor was linoleum in bold geometric shapes of brown and a contrasting grey/blue. The best bit about being ill was watching television all day. Unlike today, there was not a steady stream of programmes. But they did have the famous girl/clown/blackboard test card and every now and then a colour test programme. We were very excited about our colour tv: the newspaper listed which programmes would be transmitted in colour, and the family would gather round just because a programme was to be in colour! Strangely, when I watch vintage programmes, I am often surprised to see that they are in black and white. It turns out that perhaps the thing that made the most lasting impression on me was in fact the story, rather than the colour. My favourite test programme, and one I would watch regularly, was called 'The Home Made Car", which is about a man who rebuilds a vintage car and finds love. I think it sealed in me a love of romantic comedies at an early age. If I was ill for a week or more I would watch it 5 or 6 times. The joy of the internet: I found it on the BFI website where I was able to see it again for the princely sum of £1. It was wonderful, but I did begin to feel slightly wheezy.

Dragging myself back from childhood, I cycled off to attend the opening of the Crafts Council show, Collect. This annual celebration of craft and design, now housed in the Saatchi gallery on the Kings Road, is a real treat. There are only 35 odd dealers but there is a boisterous enthusiasm and a clear sense of seriousness. There was a strong Asian influence this year with both pieces made in the East and inspired by it. I was very struck at Ippodo, a gallery based in Tokyo and New York, by some exquisite lacquer boxes which were traditional in technique but totally modern in appearance. I fell for and bought a small pair of porcelain plates by Roger Law from Sladmore Contemporary; Law was one the partners behind the satirical television puppet show 'Spitting Image', and has now immersed himself in Chinese porcelain, producing bold, original and reconsidered versions of traditional vessels. There is a palpable echo of the exaggeration in comic satire through this work.

There was not a lot of free stuff at Collect and the wine was definitely not good for more than as a garnish to the hand. However, for the opening of a new exhibition at Mint - a contemporary design shop just near the Brompton Oratory - there was a magnificent spread. Huge baskets of thinly sliced salami, buckets of hummus, whole wheels of sundry cheeses, all to be swept up by mountains of freshly sliced baguette. The only downside was that I found the work on show slightly disappointing. Some pieces seemed more interested in being gimmicky than in taking themselves seriously as works of design, or even in being well-made. There was one notable exception - a potter called Nick Lees. He was showing incredibly patiently-produced vases which seem to refer to machinery rather than traditional ceramics. Geometric shapes with symmetrical bands of fins all the way along the body, they look almost like scientific instruments or electrical components. They are calm, disciplined and very beautiful. They stood out.

Walking up the road, I was struck by a poster for Fendi. They took over the Mallett building in Bond Street and they have just opened. Some years ago Mallett commissioned an artist to make a watercolour of the facade. It looked strikingly like the Fendi advertisement. Where Mallett's name was once inscribed now Fendi's proudly sits. I did feel a pang, but Mallett are now very happily ensconced in the magnificent Ely House in Dover Street, so there is no looking back.

From the poster we went to dine at the Michelin building. The forecourt, which I always imagine busy with cars and the smell of petrol, has a little corral of tables and for a late supper it is easy and charming. We ordered a crab salad and it swiftly came with a basket of cut bread. I tentatively asked if it was at all possible to have some toast. The waiter was only too happy to oblige and bustled off. Some time later he returned with small heap of crisp brown sourdough. The crab was lovely but somehow the toast took centre stage. I will remember that toast for quite some time partly because it was crunchy, a perfect brown, warm and flavoursome, but also because the waiter brought it with such pleasure and éclat.

At 9 am next day we gathered in the rain, sheltering under a portico at the Royal Hospital to finalise the Masterpiece exhibition of the work of Philip King. It is a complex puzzle as the Hospital have space commitments and the ground is vulnerable in various places. But in the drizzle we fashioned a plan. Every time we go it seems to rain, and Tom from the gallery Thomas Dane Associates, who is the image of patience and calm, looking cool in a blazer and jeans, invariably gets soaked. Andy Hickling from the Hospital towers benignly above us and manages to find proper steel toed boots for those that don't have them and solutions for problems that seem intractable. As we leave, the sun comes out and it seems auspicious. The Chelsea Flower Show people are in full swing building their event and we wander around amazed by the extravagant construction and the effort they all put in. We sometimes wonder at the amount of work we do for just a few days of exhibition but this is on a whole different level, and it is quite humbling.

Week - 74 - From the Cafe Royal to the Langham

On Tuesday morning I got lost trying to find the Cafe Royal in Regent St. Hard to believe of a born and bred Londoner, but I had never visited before. A London legend since its heyday at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries when it was the place to dine, it closed in 2008 and four years later, after a transformation, by one of England's best-known architects David Chipperfield, it re-emerged from its chrysalis in 2012 as a fancy hotel. So much history, so much an icon of Belle Epoque London, and yet I was visiting for the first time - for breakfast, somehow incongruously - and I had to be there by 9 am. At 5 minutes to 9 I was haring up and down the street with an increasing sense of panic. For some reason Google maps indicated that I had arrived but as I stood on the street, it was plain to me that I had not. Looking over the road for inspiration the name suddenly appeared on the other side of the road - and there it was, right in front of my nose. Finding myself in the lush interior of the Domino room and both calming and cooling down, I was warmly greeted by the effervescent and beautiful Heather Kerzner, the host of this event - and because of the tube strike it turned out that I was far from the last to arrive, to my huge relief. Heather is chairing this year, once again, the Marie Curie charity night at Masterpiece. This morning was her 'call to arms'. Her team of the elegant and the glamorous were thrown into a fever of excitement by her stirring words about the upsetting but invaluable work of the Marie Curie nurses who bring comfort to those who are dying.  A nurse spoke eloquently too about her experiences and all felt moved by the personal but unemotional, matter-of-fact way she described the attempt to bring hope to those in despair and comfort to those for whom there is no hope. Nazy spoke about Masterpiece and endorsed the feelings of all of us by committing the fair to trying to raise a record sum for the charity. Last year, we raised nearly £850,000; this year the challenge is to do even better and break £1 million. It was astonishing and humbling to witness so many people undertaking to work very hard for the charity simply for the benefit of others, with no personal gain at all. These powerful guests at the Cafe Royal are going to spend the next couple of months calling in favours and cajoling their friends so that someone dying of cancer, someone they will probably never meet, can have a last moment of calm. I cycled away proud to be associated with this selfless effort. I too, in a small way, gave myself to the charity, offering to be auctioned as a guide to the Paris trade for a day. It will be fun for me but it would be great if I encouraged someone to help Marie Curie too. A few hours later I was chugged! This is a word which combines 'mugging' with 'charity'. Outside Waterloo station there was a young man working for Marie Curie - he was wearing their signature Daffodil badge and was charmingly but forcefully approaching all who walked past. I had foolishly taken off my Daffodil, which might have acted as a protective talisman, and he walked over. Twenty minutes and a long exposition later I just about escaped without signing over the deeds to my house, but I had promised to send him tickets to Masterpiece. At every level, from £1 to £1 million, the charity are working flat out.

On Wednesday morning, I I made my way to Ascot from Waterloo. Another first for me - having never actually been to flat racing I was very excited by the prospect. As a very small child I used to go to my grandparents for lunch at the weekend. My grandfather, my father and I were ushered upstairs to his office. My principal memory of that room was thebig cupboard that opened to reveal a treasure trove of glasses and bottles. from which I was allowed to take a bottle of Britvic orange -I can still conjure the smell of that cupboard and the intense chemical orange of the drink. We then all had our hair cut by the barber who arrived from Trumpers. At the same time, we watched the racing on my grandfather's huge and very modern 'colour' tv, and he would place bets via the open telephone line on his desk. All the while two vicious Burmese cats prowled around scratching and generally making a menace of themselves. I remember them as being almost the same size as myself, but the mind does play tricks. So whilst racing never became an interest of mine, it is embedded in my psyche in a way I cannot analyse or fathom. Arriving at the station and walking up the hill to the race track I could have been anywhere doing anything but as soon as I entered the building I was thrown back in time to my youth and my grandfather's office. I had been invited by Henry who has only recently started working in the marketing department of Ascot. We are exploring the idea of linking in some way the racecourse to Masterpiece and he gave me an extensive tour of the facilities and the entertaining options. Eating and drinking in a corporate box we admired the views. I am not a gambler outside of antique dealing(which can sometimes be seen as a gamble).The balance between winning and losing does not work for me: the joy of winning simply does not sufficiently compensate for the pain of losing. But clearly others do love it. My fellow visitors to the meeting buzzed about checking the odds and making complicated bets about who would win and who would finish in other positions. I watched as their faces and moods rose and fell - it is easy to see how intoxicating this sort of activity is. We went down to the enclosure and it was exciting to be so close to the horses, their grooms and the riders. Everyone is written in miniature; and everyone is incredibly skinny. The horses' veins and ribs stick out and their nervous energy is palpable. The racing itself seemed to me, in the end, secondary to the tapestry of the day. So much was new and exciting, colourful and noisy, and I am looking forward to my next time.

Back in London I rushed off to the Blain Southern dinner celebrating their international show of the work of Lynn Chadwick. The location was the Roux restaurant at the Langham hotel. Blain Southern is a gallery that is ostensibly new but is actually the reincarnation of the once renownedbut now defunct firm Haunch of Venison,  founded by Harry Blain and Graham Southern, as the names above the door. They have retained their historic team including Adrian Sutton and others so that the company seems very familiar. I remember Graham telling me that the new business would be very small and discreet. Today, only a couple of years into its new life, they have huge premises in Hanover Square, and galleries in Berlin and New York. Tiny!  Socially dinner was a peculiar fusion of local and global. A surprising number of Stockwell residents - neighbours of mine, familiar and previously unknown - were present, counter-pointed by a smattering of arts journalists, collectors and curators together with many members of the Chadwick family. This year at Masterpiece Blain Southern are bringing an outstanding large-scale work which will be on show at the centre of the fair. They are also bringing a new work called 'Masterpiece' by a couple known as Tim and Sue. We feel very closely linked to the gallery because of their support and encouragement. Dinner was very jolly and brisk challenging conversation took precedence over the food. As the evening closed I left feeling privileged to be connected to such a dynamic group.

Week - 73 - Work Work Work

Knuckling down is a great phrase which simultaneously calls to mind the twin thoughts of hard work and orangutans. After the Easter break there was a general sense that London remained a bit quiet, empty even. Many people were taking advantage of the bank holiday to grab a few extra days' rest. Not in our office. Knuckling down is what we were doing. We gathered in the meeting room at Masterpiece the day after the bank holiday and two hours later we were still there talking.

There is so much to do! Each member of the team is beyond fully-stretched; listing it all is too ghastly to contemplate. Suffice to say that from now until the end of the fair everyone will be working late; no task, from the trivial to the profound, can now be postponed. Despite the workload, energy levels are amazingly high. There is the sense that the event ahead is building its own momentum and we are merely facilitating its relentless onward path; we can steer it, guide it, and attempt to control it, but it is pulling on its leash and is eager and enthusiastic to perform.

On Wednesday I moved house too. To stoke my spirits in preparation for this I decided to try a restaurant called Cigala in Lambs Conduit St - I had a hideous meeting to attend in the afternoon and realised it was round the corner from this Spanish eatery. It has been there for some time and I have always wanted to try it but thus far the occasion had not presented itself. At last the moment had come. The restaurant interior is admirably simple with white and off white as the dominant tones. The menu is simple too with a short list of options and three types of paella. We chose the mixed seafood option and drank a half bottle of Manzanilla sherry with it. As I ladled spoonful after spoonful of this colourful and multi-textured confection onto my plate, the delicate, dry, thin, and scented wine worked its magic, rendering the joint stresses of moving and the legal meeting ahead, a softer-edged nightmarish prospect. Even without concomitant evils, I would strongly recommend Cigala for comfort food of exceptional freshness and deliciousness.

Outside the legal offices attended post-paella, lay one of London's most charming coalhole covers. As a city previously powered and warmed by coal, the streets are punctuated with these discs of martial-seeming low relief decoration in cast iron. In addition, all the utilities have their own individual access points which have changed in shape, ornament and material over the last century or so. Wandering home, I discovered that the same model is right outside the door of my new flat. It felt meaningful in some way, a curious coincidence. These tiny essays in the art of cast iron are becoming a bit of an obsession. For example I adore the fact that many of the ones in NY are proud to say on the borders 'Made in India'. A global trade in manhole covers? Who would have guessed. In Budapest they keep them brassy; throughout France they seem mostly to be made by Pont du Musson, who both sign and add their logo of a medieval looking bridge. Endearingly they are inscribed sometimes with their intended location too; 'trottoir' and 'parking' to name but two. Back in London - in Spitalfields - a local artist Keith Bowler has metamorphosed them from a utilitarian form with accidental beauty into works specifically designed as art. Look them up on the internet or visit them, they make for a delightful walk. These days I walk along any given street examining and comparing the various covers and caps that cross my path - our streets are full of these wonders.

Ripping open boxes and putting stuff on shelves may seem like pure drudgery and not a creative way to spend one's time, but oddly it can be. Objects that have accrued a certain look or meaning in one site look transformed when they are displayed at a fresh angle, height or lit differently. Sometimes they appear changed when they are simply viewed from a new direction. Some of the treasures now look forlorn and rather undesirable whilst others have become lovely through translation. It is a very good evaluation process, a sifting has taken place and I find that my taste has changed - it is impossible to say how because it is just as eclectic and peculiar as ever, but a shift has definitely occurred. The cardboard boxes are folded flat and taken outside, hoovering happens and the fridge is filled with fresh food. Suddenly you are in a new home and as you fall asleep to the unfamiliar traffic rumble, your objects chatter down below in their new locations and the next chapter in your life begins.

I have no oven and until it is replaced I was prepared to make do with hob-cooked food and the occasional takeaway. But I do love to barbecue and meandering round John Lewis in Oxford St my eyes fell upon a gas camping stove by Weber. It takes a small gas cylinder and folds up to be eminently portable. It was definitely not a shopping necessity but it came home with me. By the way, if anyone wants a taste of what shopping in Cold War era USSR must have been like they should try using the John Lewis customer collection area. A Kafka-esque sense of meaningless paperwork and people wandering around doing absolutely nothing pervades. It is a scary place as you are compelled almost immediately to believe that you will never receive your stuff and if it does come, there will be some weird reason why you cannot actually take it away. An hour shopping followed by an hour waiting. In my new minute garden beneath an overcast sky with an occasional spit of rain I road-tested the new baby barbecue. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Putting the beef on at a very high temperature I added the pudding bowl with oil in it and five minutes later, with the beef duly browned, the oil was scalding hot and the batter sizzled reassuringly as it was poured in. I reduced the temperature so as to avoid overcooking the beef and half an hour later we consumed delicious pink beef with a charred exterior accompanied by dense and aspirationally fluffy Yorkshire. This was a first for me and it was an acceptably tasty experiment. It made the hours pulling down deeply embedded ivy from the walls of the garden seem like a distant but painful memory. It made the heavy bags of garden waste dragged to the front seem like a delight. Every enthusiastic al fresco cook should have a go - barbecued Yorkshire Pudding.

Week - 72 - Easter in Bourgogne, with Salt and Wine

 

For many years now I have been boring my friends to distraction with my obsession with salt. If the conversation flagged over dinner at any point, I could always be counted upon to regale them with an account of how the French and American Revolutions, or Indian Independence, began with salt issues. Or, I would point out the linguistic route of the word 'salary', or that Salzburg was a mountain of rock salt. I would also note for their delectation that our bodies need an astonishing 250 grams of salt in them to be healthy. In short, I am a salt mine of information which is little or no use to anyone except me. Friends and relations therefore often bring me salty pieces of information confident that they will elicit firm interest. So when my friend Justin directed my attention to the magnificent French royal saltworks at Arc et Senans, built in the last quarter of the 18th century by the architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, I was eager to visit. It has taken me nearly 10 years to do so but I am finally on my way.

I am driving as I also have a second pilgrimage to fulfil. Together with Felicity, my dear friend and former work colleague from Mallett, I used to drink a lot of a white wine called Mâcon Davaye. In the days of Mallett at Bourdon House, when we needed a bottle of wine in a hurry we used to run up the road to Laytons Wine Merchant. They were always helpful and charming and encouraged us to try different things. One time they offered me a Mâcon Davaye as it was being discounted, and they also rated it - it was a promotion rather than a disposal strategy. It was delicious and very reasonably priced. Felicity and I bought all their remaining stock, and begged them to source more. Over a couple of years we drank it as much as we could. But the price rose, moving it from everyday drinking into the territory of treat, then to special treat, and finally to out of the question. My Davaye days were over. But I retained a nostalgic love of the mineral, fruity and flowery flavour and I have hankered after returning it to my drinking fold. The area around Mâcon is home to St Veran and Pouilly-Fuissé as well, so it made sense to join up the obsession with salt with a few days pouring aromatic wines down my willing and welcoming throat and filling the car with delights for London.

My adventure has its first pit stop in the Grand Place in Arras. This is a market square that compares to the great Grand Place in Brussels but is nothing like as famous. It is not as glittery as its Brussels namesake but it is very coherent, consistent and extremely large. Where the square in Brussels can claim to be a world famous tourist attraction, the one in Arras serves principally as a weekly food market and the town's main car park. Poor Arras. Or lucky Arras?! Walking round this charming but largely overlooked medieval market town the silence was broken by the distinctive low heavy growl of Harley Davidsons. It turned out to herald a biker wedding and the party were roaring round the squares hooting their horns and revving their engines. The locals seemed to take it in their stride with hardly a turned head but I was bewitched by their huge bikes and their wedding clothes. The tableau presented itself as an updated medieval wedding with horses and carts, the uproar was timeless and wonderfully appropriate and uplifting.

In Burgundy on Sunday I spotted a small 'vide grenier' in the picturesque village of Riel-les-Eaux - even though antique dealing is my job I cannot resist doing it as a hobby too. I bought a delightful 19th-century rummer for 20 cents and an 18th-century Chinese export plate for 2 euros. It was a warm and friendly day and the locals all teased me by saying everything I looked at was once owned by the English royal family. Lady Diana had used and been very fond of all the pewter plates of one trader, another was certain Prince Charles loved using his cracked and aged pottery coffee bowl and I could acquire it for a mere 2 euros. Who could resist?

Driving down into the Jura, famed for its Vin Jaune, was splendid as wide open, rape-filled fields gave way to hilly alpine scenery with half-timbered chalets. Then back into flat lands for the approach to the salt works. Needless to say I arrived during lunch - the site was closed. In France the period of lunch is still sacrosanct. So I sat in the sunshine and ate a baguette sandwich of ham and the local Comte cheese washed down with a dark, almost red, rose. As I munched, I looked across at the entrance, with its round windows carved as amphora issuing gushing water like the attribute of a Roman river god, and the temple-fronted Guard House, reputedly based on Ledoux's studies of the temples at Paestum, with a dramatic, craggy, arch like in an Italian grotto but symbolising rock salt, I knew I was going to fall in love with this semi-circle of extraordinary buildings. The structures are famous for their pioneering and powerful neo-classical designs but, there are also elements exhibiting a strong agricultural character. This may have given Ledoux's contemporaries reassurance through a sense of familiarity and recognition, as the neo-classical mode must have seemed very shocking almost revolutionary. Ledoux has been cited as a Utopian, someone who saw that industrial buildings might have the potential to actually engender a better quality of life for those who worked in them or simply encountered them. Around the Royal Salt Works he envisaged a model town, with factories and public buildings, all designed in the new fashion and fashioned in exotic shapes. Constructed and conceived around optimistic and healthy lines which would bring the workers both happiness and greater productivity. Only what we see today was built, but his more extensive designs for the salt works, together with designs for other schemes are on show at the site. They are thrilling and truly visionary. Sadly none of the actual salt-producing machinery survives but the buildings and the philosophy they illustrate truly justify their UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

The town of Mâcon, cut through by the river Saône in slow, wide and stately mode, gives its name to a plethora of wines. Two days were spent quaffing and climbing, beginning with the rock at Solutré, which was used as a place of refuge and a look-out by people living in the region over 50,000 years ago. Standing on its peak, vineyards stretch out in all directions as far as the eye can see. Tasting is an arduous and absorbing task and I forgot to eat lunch and ended up eating an emergency Mars Bar stuffed into the glove compartment by the Eurotunnel in! But I got to Davaye, Lugny and Pouilly, where I bought some dozens and half dozens and weighed the car down until the steering and brakes became unhealthy. All the Domaines are interwoven in their grape production and they all claim that their methods of production are the same, but apart from the bare bones of the taste, they differ wildly in all the details of the balance between the flavours. I am looking forward to revisiting the experiences in London.

My last treat of the trip was the market in Chatillon-sur-Seine. Occupying a utilitarian post-war shed, 20 or so food producers display their wares every Saturday. They start at 8 and by midday nearly everything has gone. The smiling bread man has his child with him and looks fashionable with a pony tail and an unshaven face. The butcher is old-school with a belly and blood on his apron, whilst outside a pretty middle aged woman trumpets the freshness and moist nature of her fruit-infused Macaroons. This is a classic market. I buy goat's cheese, dried magret de canard flavoured with herbs and ground pepper, and a half kilo of fresh prawns in their shells. These are quickly consumed over lunch with chilled wine from Mâcon and Easter ends with a long, careful and slightly unsteady drive back to London.

Week 71 - Shopping and Sipping in the South

 

On Sunday it's goodbye to the Oval, London, and hello to Montpellier, Languedoc, where Michael, my carpet dealer friend and I picked up a rental car and drove to Avignon. The latest iteration of the thrice yearly confluence of brocantes/deballages at Beziers (which we skipped), Avignon and Montpellier is upon us. By 7pm we are sipping kir in the courtyard of the Hotel D'Europe in Avignon. It is a perfect French hotel. An ancient and cosseted tree dominates, trimmed and trained to the Nth degree. The soft yellow stone of the surrounding buildings exudes a deep soul-warming glow. The staff are nonchalant to the point of surliness and yet when our drinks come they immerse us in a deep joyous reverie. It is April; we are outside; there is still a warm zephyrous breath left in the evening sun and we are going to have a great couple of days. Michael is a dear friend - we were at university together. He can be a trifle laconic but our buying trips are always fun and full of easy conversation. In London, he bears the weight of the world on his shoulders but here he feels liberated, on holiday. We dine at the 'Fou de Fafa', named after a comic song by Flight of the Conchords, mocking people who pretend to speak French. The waitress comes from Streatham but her command of the French language is immaculate. The tourists are delighted by her seamless bilingualism. We drink deep of dark red wine and consume pâté de foie gras followed by duck. By the time we repair to bed in preparation for our early start we are really enjoying all things French.

The fairs are extraordinary: everyone has to wait together outside the gates, the vendors and the buyers standing shoulder to shoulder with their noses grating against the railings. The gates open and a frantic stampede follows. Several thousand people rush around frenetically, some looking for buying opportunities, some desperately heaving large pieces of furniture out of the backs of their white vans. The sellers come from Spain and Italy as well as France and they bring their picnics with them too. By midday, when the tumult is over, a wonderful panoply of international breads, cheeses and salamis are pulled out of linen napkins and a feast begins. Laughter and bottles being uncorked take the place of hard negotiation and food swaps supplant goods and art.

After Avignon, we used to race down to Nice to visit a carpet dealer and I would browse along the street of dealers near the port. It was always nearly 5 hours of driving with usually little or nothing to show for it. This time Michael decided to skip this leg of the trip and instead we went on a micro road-trip, driving happily down picture-postcard tree-lined roads with rolling hills and lush fields of grass to left and right. We arrived in the walled town of Uzes where we ate outside the walls in a little courtyard restaurant called 'Au Petit Jardin'. We felt slightly fatigued by the hoards braying inside the town and this presented a tranquil refuge. Our lunch was grilled goat's cheese and salad with that special dressing that is signature to a certain sort of bistro throughout France. It has a distinctive richness and smoothness, coupled with a distinct and bright sharpness. The cheese was creamy and oozed luxuriously out from its crust. Following a fierce espresso, we headed on to La Grotte des Demoiselles. This site was developed for tourism in the 1930s and bears a curious Art Deco cast, despite being a magnificent and enormous collection of vast chambers of stalagmites and stalactites, millions of years old! The funicular railway that takes you up and the signage combine to place you in a period mood. Even the shape of the tunnels and the stairway balusters conjure up a pre-war world, when tourism and holidays for the masses were in their infancy. After oohing and aahing suitably at the hugeness and splendour, we continued our journey on to Montpellier. Arriving in the satellite town, Antigone - the creation of architect Riccardo Boffil - for the first time is quite a shock. Built in the 80s, it already looks really dated and has a strangely fascist feel, borrowing and distorting neo-classical ornament for shopping malls and hotels. It may yet become brilliant as time reinvents it as a period fantasy rather than the ghastly pastiche reminiscent of the worst of Disney that it now appears to be.

Tuesday morning brought the same furore as at Avignon - but Montpellier is twice the size. Several English dealers were patrolling the pavilions and squares and, when asked, they all moaned about the good old days and how the fair was not what it used to be. I never knew the good old days so I just run around delighting in the oddities and charm that I encounter unfettered by nostalgia. At midday, as the dealing day ends, we have a glass of Champagne from a kiosk there: for 5 euros you get a plastic flute and non-vintage fizz; for 6 you get a real glass and vintage. This is what you call a no-brainer! Michael has always had a passion for random Chinese restaurants and he inveigles me into sampling the buffet place over the road from the fair. It is very popular and half an hour after opening it is a seething mass of hungry patrons. Why? It was pretty disgusting. But I ate a bit, having paid my 14 euros - and left feeling slightly queasy. The airport is just a hop away so only a few minutes later we were checked in and relaxedly sipping coffee waiting for the plane.

On Tuesday night, I am back in central London rather poorer, having bought more than I intended. Each purchase had been both a commercial pleasure and a human encounter; in addition to arranging the shipping back to London through Stuart and his cheery crew at Alan Franklin is an integral part of the adventure. I even like the scribbled pink under-copies that succinctly describe the expenditure. I have arrived in time to celebrate, with our Masterpiece team, the first of the Exhibitor Information Days. For three days we host a gathering consisting of our fair builders and co-founders (Stabilo), our PR team (Gong Muse), our vetting manager, and us. Together we offer advice to exhibitors on any aspect of the preparations for the fair that may be concerning them. On this, the first night, we have established a tradition of dining together. This year we decide to go to The Punchbowl, a pub in Farm St - it is noisy and robust and though our table is supposed to have only 10 people we are a party of nearly 15. Everyone is cheerful and obliging and we 'bond' over fish and chips and rose. As the night draws to a close, precipitated by the abrupt calling of 'time!', I feel a huge surge of optimism being part of such a hard-working and tightly knit team.

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Week 70 - Spring Has Sprung

 

The clocks went forward and the blossom looks lush, pink and heavy on the trees. Spring brings eagerly anticipated light and those ephemeral tiny-petalled flowers which have burst from their buds almost look relieved after all the effort they have made. The vital and vigorous business of being out in the open somehow washes into each aspect of city life. Missing that hour of sleep is absolutely no loss as we enjoy the days which merge into longer, lighter-hearted evenings.

At 7 o'clock on Wednesday, Crafted opened at the Royal Academy. It was not dark as I tried to enter by the wrong entrance; my Spring enthusiasm hastened me round to the correct entrance at the back with a smile rather than a scowl. This year, the show is sponsored by the watchmakers Vacheron Constantin and several rooms on Burlington Gardens are filled with earnest weavers and potters standing alongside young art student types, who hope they may turn out to have created the next big thing in design. Everyone is keen, but there is a bit of a conflict between the creators and crafters, the polished steel versus the knitted jumpers from remote northern Scotland. My attention is drawn to the Vacheron engraver, who is beavering away at a desk; his skill is extraordinary and captivating as he fashions swirls and other patterns with a deft confidence and fluency which renders his genius all the more beguiling. I don't speak to him or engage in any way, I just hover like a schoolboy watching someone older play a video game in an arcade. I just watch and admire. I also quaff a couple of glasses of Nyetimber English sparkling wine. It is a bit brittle and lacks the subtlety of the proper stuff, but it is remarkably good all the same. Given time I think it will become a worthy alternative. Whilst hovering, I run into my dear friend Ben the lapidarist. He has just returned from the extraordinary Baselworld watch, jewellery and luxury fair. I have never visited this annual event but am told it is mind-blowingly decadent in the extravagance of the display. Ben confirms this.

He is an amazing looking man, 6ft 5 and entirely vertical, not a horizontal dimension to him at all. His thin, swept back hair accentuates his sharp darting eyes and an impressive hooked nose. He moves with a feverish intensity and is unsettlingly unpredictable in direction. We decide to repair to my new favourite bar in the Oval, the Cable Cafe. Half an hour later we enter the domain of Hamish, the master mixologist with the intellectual beard. I introduce Ben, the neophyte, and Hamish instantly announces that he has the perfect cocktail for him - the Corpse Reviver! I have a Beefeater Gin martini, which is perfection, and Ben graciously accepts the Corpse option. Debating the art and craft of Hamish and that of the Vacheron engraver makes for an entertaining end to the day.

With the onrush of Spring and the hour-change, so the gears shift for Masterpiece. Now we move from filling the fair to perfecting it. The exhibitors are undoubtedly the strongest group of international players we have yet had and we are all excited to see what they will bring. Now the PR team will go into overdrive and we need to make sure that the visitor experience is as seamless and sybaritic as possible. The vetting also begins to take up time as exhibitors send in images of items and the relevant chairmen need to assess as far as they can the legitimacy of the objects presented. It is a task that calls for both rigour and tact as the dealers have invested their money, their pride and their emotion in these pieces. If the vetter has doubts - and often they are just doubts - the dealer has to be handled with great care and diplomacy. But it is a time of increasing excitement and the buzz is growing as calls and emails are start flooding rather than trickling in.

On Saturday I cycled over to Portobello. I have not been for a while. Often as I lie in bed on a Saturday morning the urge to cycle over fades away. Friday night is often suffused with enthusiasm for getting up early in order to blow away the week's cobwebs with a good long cycle ride and a steady walk down the hill ducking and diving around the tourists. But as the light begins to creep through the curtains, so the lazy slug in me persuades me to stay underneath the duvet a bit longer. But this week I had another incentive: I was meeting Joost for breakfast at the Electric House, so I could not allow myself to laze about.

I sometimes avoid going to Portobello because I know I will buy something and though shopping is my purpose in life, not spending money can be a rest and a relief. I did consider going straight to the Electric, but Spring beckoned, so I pointed my trusty bicycle towards Notting Hill and off I went. After what seemed an eternity of gruesome booths of stuff, I found myself in front of an irresistible set of 19th-century brass measures and I knew I was bound to conform to the pattern. Breakfast was restoring too. Poached eggs with deep orange yolks, fatty thick bacon, a massive grilled half tomato, all mopped up with thick white country bread. And washed down of course with short little intense double espressos.

Joost is a dealer in Indian and Islamic art, but he has a passion for Japanese 20th-century bronzes. He has sucked me into this wonderful area of collecting and I now have a small group. We are meeting for fun, but also because he has a desk that he thinks I might be able to sell. With Joost is his little daughter Soraya, who is 5. She immediately charms all around by showing us her ballet medal. She has her school class bear with her that she must look after for a week. Soraya and the bear consume one croissant with jam and butter, and then another. She explores the world under the table and with tremendous concentration plays a game on my telephone, her little fingers, sticky with butter, croissant and jam (not to mention bits of fluff from the floor) press heavily on the keys. My children are 17 and 20, so long past this stage, and it is very charming both observing and reminiscing. After breakfast, I cycle off to see the desk. On the way I pass the Globe bar. Back before there were any children, we used to end many an evening here. It was a late-night/early-morning drinking place, full of representatives from all sections of society, linked by the desire for booze at 2 in the morning. It was entirely decorated in red plastic and the music was powerfully loud and deliberately cacophonous. The management definitely did not seem to want to encourage us to stay. But we all did, stay and stay. At the end of the night they used to play answering machine messages to a drum and bass background to finally drive us away. Today I see builders gutting it; another nail in the coffin of the old, all but lost, Portobello. I cycle on slightly saddened. The globe was not a nice place but it was special in its own way and now it's gone. Sadly the desk did not work out but it was in a lovely apartment in Portland Place and it is always fun looking around people's houses - especially such grand ones!

Week 69 - Milan to Coombe Bissett

 

Alitalia to Milan: arriving at City airport, embarrassingly early as ever, I found myself lost in its recently acquired slickness. In days of yore when we used to fly to Maastricht from City, it had an old school amateurishness. Once, flying to Scotland from here with Giles, the little airline we were using got very muddled over each aspect of the flight; tickets, check in, boarding - everything was chaotic. There was yet another delay and I asked too loudly whether the pilot had overwound the elastic band driving the propellers? Everything ground to a halt and the air hostess rather sheepishly came over and asked me to apologise to the pilot as he was not prepared to take off until I had. I did so with as much dignity as I could muster in the circumstances, which was not much.

Today City is like any international airport, beginning with a winding labyrinth of duty free. They all do it. It is a cunning way of making us admire every scent and every discounted bottle of vodka. The only failing is that it drives us all crazy with annoyance and disinclined to make a purchase. After the queuing for ticket checks and the subsequent indignities of the bag and body searches you press forward desirous of coffee, but you are forced to run the gauntlet of the duty free maze. Never mind, I am before too long parked behind a table and a nice overly keen waiter, ever so slightly reminiscent of Basil Fawlty brings me coffee, water and a brace of poached eggs on almost bearable brown toast. Phew!

I am collected in Milan by my host who greets me eagerly and enthusiastically even though we have never met before. I have a sudden rush of English reserve and withdraw mildly. After a swift luxurious journey into town in their chauffeur driven BMW I am deposited outside their shop in the Brera district. Milan is huge and sprawling but its great treasures are all in or around the Brera, The Duomo, the fabulous adjacent 19th century shopping arcade called the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, La Scala, the legendary Opera and Ballet house, and the Brera Picture Gallery. Here all the best shopping brands have their outlets but also, reassuringly so do a multiplicity of local shops selling everything from cakes to haute couture. My hosts have 5 shops in the district and they display and sell from each period of the whole of the 20th century from its first decade to its last, and they do so with amazing style and panache, and with astonish quantity. I have almost never seen so much stock. Every available space is filled, but unlike the Netherlandish warehouses where most of what you see is of little consequence or merit, here each item is chosen and is interesting at the very least if not desirable. I am here to look but I cannot resist buying a couple of wonderful things. The business is called Roberta e Basta and Roberta herself is a fountain of energy and enthusiasm. It practically crackles off her. Her son Mattia is charming and efficient but I see he spends a lot of his time holding his mother back. She says she buys every day, I do not doubt it. Over lunch she tells me the bare bones of her story. Beginning by buying period antiques, she turned to buying contemporary and modern in the 60s and thus she was decades ahead of her time in seeing that opportunity. But she never looked back and now she stands tall as others are trying to catch up. We drink Arneis, a Piedmontese grape that produces a delightful fresh and brittle taste which is a perfect lunchtime enhancement. The waiter comes to the table and says; what would you like to eat? We choose nothing from the menu, we just say what we feel like and it comes. I eat deep fried zucchini flowers stuffed with Mozzarella and the fillets of a really ugly looking fish, whose breed is a mystery to me. I have never seen it at a fishmonger in London. The flesh is an off white colour with a dark brown spine and it is presented amid black olives, roast delicate slices of artichoke and a scattering of cherry tomatoes. The son is being serious and practical, the mother and I have a fun time finishing off the wine.

Back in England, on Thursday, Giles and I head off to the west to see some mystery furniture. We are not told what we are going to see but we are promised lunch at Scott's if we are disappointed. Giles is reluctant to go without some indication of what lies ahead but I love the intrigue. The M4 is not a beautiful road, it is flat and dreary and the trucks rumble along constantly vying for supremacy and thereby blocking everyone. Eventually we peel off and the smaller roads bring a sigh of relief. After a couple of slightly missed signs we arrive and have the tour of treasures. Coffee is consumed and chocolate coated ginger biscuits. Our host has a battle with the packet, stabbing away at the plastic with a massive knife. Eventually he breaks in and discovers that the packet has already been opened at the other end, he hides his embarrassment by suggesting that the packet has been purchased pre-opened and that a biscuit theft has been perpetrated. We eat the biscuits. The object in question is admired and reflected upon, it needs to come to London for forensic checks so the Scott's lunch wager will have to wait.

We drive on to Marlborough and have a jolly lunch in a tucked away pub called the Lamb. Giles, from Mallett, has the cunning plan of asking in the vintage clothing store for a good eatery. Sure enough the staff have a local favourite, and, as we enter, there is a nice girl behind the bar wearing 50s clothes, so we know we are in the right place. I have a vintage lunch, a beef and ale pudding. It is stodgy and delicious. Half way through our lunch in this quiet backwater of Marlborough, a rowdy gang of OAPs burst in. Zimmer frames and walking sticks crash around and everyone is in a festive mood. Laughter and mutual teasing fill the air and Giles and I feel strangely youthful but delighted by this effusive and playful gang. We head off for our afternoon satisfied and cheered.

We finish the day in Coombe Bissett, in a dealer's converted chicken house. We talk trade and the fairs. He has a strong local and national business, both decorating and dealing, and his model clearly works well. We look round but there is not a lot to see, he has been preparing for Masterpiece and his treasures and surprises are being kept back for then. The secret of a successful fair is to do this. Those dealers that just turn up can be lucky, but the ones who search out the new and the exceptional and who hold things back for the big event tend to be the biggest winners. Nothing comes easily in this complex but rewarding phase in the market cycle. It is a cliché to say it, but I will anyway, the more you put in the more you get out!

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week 68 - TEFAF and Beyond

 

Monday morning at TEFAF brings a different mood; the preview day, Friday and the 1st weekend are widely considered the make or break days. If you have not done business by the close of the fair on Sunday, you are seriously gloomy. Many a dealer has dragged himself to his stand sale-less for 9 days and sold several pieces on the last day. So it is not hopeless, it is just a different character or tone. The clients with a serious intention of buying still come through but the museums and the hard core professionals have gone. As the day begins, there is still a massive throng hovering by the ticket barrier eager to get in, but they are for the most part, day trippers, looking forward to their annual quick visit to Maastricht. It is on these days when people ask you if the items are for sale, or if the pieces are antique, or let you know about something they have at home, which is exactly like an item on your stand, with only a few minor variations - like theirs is plastic and yours is made of precious stones. The dealers are in a soft mood, for the most part. People who have been too frantic to talk, now sit down and drink coffee in a leisurely way with their friends, colleagues and visitors. I drink far too much coffee. There are little stop points all over the fair where small vintage-looking miniature vans dispense brilliantly-fashioned elegant coffees in paper cups. They take huge pride in wiggling the milk jug in such a way as to create a fern or some such pattern in the top of the milk. The fair is vast and to look at everything is an equally vast challenge. Even though I have been here for a few days of set up, and already four days of the show, I feel rushed in trying to get round everything in my remaining three.

The show itself is only part of the point. None of the exhibiting dealers lives in Maastricht and therefore everyone comes from elsewhere. This lends the evenings a curiously festive air as 270 odd stands worth of traders fan out into the city, determined to eat and drink as energetically as they can. Men and women who would normally be home and tucked up in bed by 11.30 are out whooping it up until the small hours. The streets, though quiet, ring out with the enthusiastic shouts in a myriad of tongues. Of course, Cafe Sjiek is a key destination. But for the endurance party-goer there are nightclubs and late-night drinking holes where you could still be carousing when the fair opens again in the morning. There are a few mishaps, I heard of one foreigner who after drinking deeply of a particularly delicious eau de vie, decided to drive home. Not knowing the Byzantine one way and pedestrian-precinct-rich area, he drove into the square and was promptly arrested. But he got off with a caution and a stiff fine. The police in Holland are called the Politie and they are exceedingly polite! They do not have a problem with drink, merely traffic rule breaking. I managed to lose my telephone (yet again) in the supermarket and I went to the police to report the loss. They were charming but they were not interested in such a minor detail. I have never been dismissed with such elegance and a sense of being respected.

In Maastricht there is a dealer called Guus Roell. He has a large 19th century town house from whence he trades. He focuses on export and trade related to the Dutch East India Company. The house is elegantly arranged on three floors with objects of greatness and charm. During TEFAF he entertains every night. Parties of up to 30 people are fed and watered each evening. There is no menu, you just eat what you are given, though he does make an accommodation for vegetarians; less accommodating of the voguish gluten or nut allergies. It is great fun, you drink out of glasses which are copies of 17th century ones and you wander around the house before supper soaking up the house and its treasures by candlelight. When you sit down to dinner, you are introduced to your neighbours and thus begins a highly convivial evening during which you may not speak to your own guest hardly at all as you are swept up in a conversation at the other end of the table. Guus is grey haired, of modest height and has the rough hands of gardener, but he loves his objects and late at night he will pull out his latest beloved piece and talk you through its purchase, the hunt - the inspection - the capture/purchase and now though he loves it with a passion, he is eager to release it back into the wild. He caresses each item in a way that conveys his intensity, it can be almost erotic.

Wednesday bought the drive back to London, but the Saab took a detour to Brussels and we did a swift tour of the antique district around the Sablons and munched through some delicious fried fish from my favourite open air seafood restaurant the NordZee which is by St Catherine's. There is always a mad bustle around and you have to practically fight your way to the counter, then place your order swiftly and efficiently or the waiter will move on. They make wonderful miniature pieces of battered cod, tiny bacalao balls, grey shrimp croquettes, and calamari, but my personal favourite is what they call a crab burger. It is really a flattened crab cake with nothing but crab in it, it rests on rough bread with a thin layer of mayonnaise and rucola. It is quite simply perfect. Exiting Brussels via the nearby specialist mushroom dealer called Champigros, I sped to London laden with morels.

Thursday brought a visit to another fair. I had missed the opening, on Wednesday, of the BADA fair in Chelsea. This fair is a quintessentially British fair and it has a distinct aura of country weekends and weddings in marquees. But they get a very good crowd and the fair is incredibly easy and convenient to visit being slap bang in the middle of the Kings Road. As I walked round at about 6pm, many of the dealers were happy with business and all were complimentary about the serious quality of the opening day visitors. The fair was not crowded but there were a few people enthusiastically looking round. This fair is a stalwart of the London spring scene and it is the coun-terpoint to the LAPADA fair that takes place at the beginning of the Autumn.

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Week 67 - Approaches to TEFAF

 

The euro shuttle is does its job beautifully and sooner than expected I am crunching up the gravel visiting Paul De Grande at his schloss. The Kasteel van Snellegem is in the village of the same name but is accessed from Jabbeke, which is just over an hour from Calais. After a few visits the alien nature of these names wears off and it all becomes perfectly normal. Just off the motorway and conveniently located for the citizens of Snellegem is the Ardappelautomat - or in English, the automated potato dispenser. This one trumpets being, thank goodness, a 24 hour one. Such comforts are apparently available all over Belgium, just to deal with those last-minute potato crises that we can all suffer from. Paul De Grande is a hardened veteran in the business of antique dealing and one of the very few survivors from the days when I was starting out. He has a warehouse and a castle, every room heaving with stock - so crowded are they that you have to manoeuvre carefully around in order to avoid causing a catastrophe. He is white-haired, twinkly-eyed and very charming. He has a young wife and a 10 year old son who potters around complaining about his homework. Whenever I go with my assistant Francesca, Paul is particularly lively. Today, on my own, he is a little less enthusiastic. We sit and drink coffee at the Willy Rizzo table he bought from Willy himself back in 1972. We eat delicious chocolate ginger cakes and I wolf them down conscious that this is both my breakfast and my lunch. He is impressed and amused that I consume all that is put before me. He asks fondly after Francesca. I make a small purchase, squeeze them into the Saab and on I go.

Just outside Brussels is Joost Dusol. He is middle-aged, has a sober, slightly mournful demeanour, and unlike most country dealers his dress is neither deliberately casual nor smart. He is, I imagine, the very epitome of a proper Belgian trader, with a fine house by the austere church at the centre of Haaltert. We walk through his parade of sober white rooms but sadly I do not find any temptations this time. We have done lots of business over the years. He is always straightforward and honest, though he is quite dry.

From Joost I drive on to Maastricht, check in to my hotel and then on to Cafe Sjiek. To those of you who keep an eye on this blog cafe Sjiek will not be new. It is my home from home when at TEFAF and if I miss a night it would need to be for a good reason. The staff are very friendly and they even send me a Christmas card. This is really a bar that serves food, but you can get coffee etc during the day. It has two rooms, the first is a bar with five tables and stools, the second has a massive oval marble drinking table at which you perch, drink and consume. Around that are three large sharing tables at one end of which you often find yourself eating. Conversations with neighbours are inevitable and any given evening can turn into a very convivial party. In the old days when I was at Mallett we would all dine with separate friends and clients and without planning would end the evening drinking the devilish local eau de vies, which Andreas or Max (our two favourite staff members) would over-fill our glasses with; or we would order a bottle of Harmonium, the Nero d'Avola which has been my boon companion for many a Maastricht. One of the Mallett men likes to conclude the evening with a dozen oysters as a type of digestif. At 2 o'clock in the morning they seem as happy as at 9 at night to wheel out another battered tray of ice enriched with the bright and flavoursome Zeeland treasures that we all love.

In Brussels on Tuesday we were allowed early access to the Eurantica fair; this is a general fair that bizarrely has decided to have its grand opening on the preview day of TEFAF. Last year Amir Mohteshemi and I braved ice and snow to get to view. This year we once again took the trip together but this time the sun was shining and we had the addition of Amir's brother Mo. They are as hard-working and enthusiastic a pair of dealers as you will ever meet. They cover the miles and buy with tremendous discipline the finest Indian, Islamic and Chinese pieces. Unlike me, they are sanguine about driving or flying long distances fruitlessly, because they know that the right thing will eventually present itself.

We all enter TEFAF after vetting on Wednesday. Everyone rushes to their stands concerned that they might have lost a treasured item of stock to the vetters. The process of analysing the stock is comparable to Masterpiece: both fairs require that everything on show is subjected to close scrutiny by a posse of independent academics, restorers and dealers. The difference is that at Masterpiece the dealers are allowed to remain in the hall, allowing for a swifter appeal process and a generally more collegiate approach. Here in Maastricht the dealers have to leave the hall for a day and a half. To most, even the most careful and scholarly, the process is very stressful. Needless to say there is some heartache and intellectual battles take place to reverse decisions that are perceived as incorrect. By the end of the day everything is reordered and resolved and the trade go to bed to prepare for the marathon that is the preview day at TEFAF.

It is hard to précis or even fully describe the preview day. By 9pm, when with a 'bing bong' straight out of a railway station announces the day's end, over 10,000 people have gazed, drunk, eaten, discussed, kissed, stumbled, broken, laughed, cried, bought and sold their way through an epic of heaving crowds. The poor staff balance massive trays high in the air as they race to their dedicated stations trying to avoid the greedy fingers that throng around the food and drink. The picture here is not one of vultures, which are slow lazy scavengers, but rather of a bleeding body consumed by sharks or a cow stumbling blindly into a stream seething with piranhas. The crowds bustle around the black trolleys of food and little white plates become a blur as their contents are guzzled fast, so as not to not waste the opportunity of getting more. The day does have a flow - with a slowish start, a frenetic middle and a calm-ish last hour. But the main aisles are full, full, full of people to the extent that at times it is hard to walk along and it must be even harder to do business.

On Friday we were invited, by a Masterpiece prodigal son, Vanderven, to their annual dinner at the private club 'Groote Societeit" at the corner of the Vrijtof in central Maastricht. Floris and his wife Nynke are great hosts in the Dutch tradition. There is great solemnity, formality and a splash of academe. Tables are richly laid out and we have every treat and luxury. The Vanderven clients are very well looked after. What makes this event such a Dutch affair is that it is all done without pomposity or any self importance. Everyone is encouraged to have fun and Floris greets us with jokes and a relaxed good humour. I am delighted to have Vanderven back at Masterpiece.

We finish the evening with a flourish at Cafe Sjiek, naturally. As the first days pass I am sad that I am not in residence for the full 10. The difficulty is deciding whether I will miss Cafe Sjiek or the fair more!

Images supplied by Thomas Woodham Smith

Week 66 - Here We Go Again

Can it be that time of year again? Already? Really? Yes, astonishingly time has sped through the seasons and it is TEFAF time again. The Gander and White shipping trucks are blocking Dover St and the drivers are hooting their horns in the traditional fashion for the season. At Mallett the showrooms are in upheaval as the worker bees buzz around gathering pieces for the forthcoming festivities in Holland. I picture in my mind how many dealers streets are in the same throb of chaos around Europe and the world. TEFAF has over 250 exhibitors; each one of them has quite a large booth. Just imagine for yourself how many disgruntled normal street users there are. Let us say that each dealer manages to disrupt 100 people directly or indirectly, whilst packing. There could well be more. But it is an exciting time and wherever I go the air is rich with Maastricht TEFAF. Dealers and clients ponder whether it will be a vintage year or not; the economy is improving, but events in Russia and Syria cloud one's enthusiasm. Inevitably, some dealers will triumph, some will fail, but most will be 'fine'.

Easyjet delivered me safely to Barcelona on Wednesday. I had not been to this city for some time and it was an unalloyed joy to leave the gloom and rain of London for this bright, sunny, energetic business city. I have been called in to look at a collection that may be for sale. It is in an apartment and we drive straight there. I have no time to roam the thoroughfares and it is strangely disconcerting to not get ones bearings. Our host welcomes us and we sit on his balcony and discuss life. I don't fully understand this function of getting to know people but it was apparently important to swap tales of the past and discuss areas of London that might or might not have had a good restaurant in them once. The owner/host is dressed traditionally and formally, wearing a business suit and a tie. He is tall, grey haired and distinguished looking. He and the others smoke relentlessly and his voice has the distinctive gravely tone of a regular smoker, especially a Spanish one. As the day progresses his jacket and tie go by the wayside and he substitutes cigarettes for stubby aromatic cigars, I wonder if being more relaxed means he reaches for the hard core tobacco.

We pause for a sandwich lunch. Everyone is feeling smug that we are having a working lunch and make amused remarks about how hard working the Barcelonans are as compared to the 'slackers' in Madrid who take endless long lunches. The sandwiches come from Mauri. This bakery dates back to the 1920's and there is something redolent of a bye-gone age about the elegance and delicacy with which it is all presented. Lovely wax paper packages, all branded and exquisitely folded, each item is laid out on a gold backed crinkle edge cardboard tray. There is a gutsy quality to the offering, typically Spanish; but it is done with such elegance that it becomes very refined. We have a tray of mini bread rolls and wrapped crustless sandwiches containing ham or beef with wafer thin slices of tomato. We have before us: a tray of croquettes and a tray of differently flavoured miniature doughnuts. Each tray takes a serious beating but the doughnuts are wiped out completely, each mouthful accompanied by a guilty apology from the consumer.

I spend the rest of the afternoon completing my survey of what could be available. I photograph and measure like a man possessed. It is a great collection of very English taste pieces. Chinese porcelain sits alongside Chinese lacquer accompanied by English furniture and chinoiserie. He bought in the 80's so these pieces were acquired near the height of the market. He may not be able to cope with the drop in values that we have observed since 2008 (it had begun before but the crash exacerbated it). However I do not want to dampen my own spirits. It is good for the soul to see great things, and even if we do not buy much, or anything, it is very restoring to share this man's enthusiasm for the style and the objects that have been all our careers.

Back in London I repair at about 10.30 at night to a place near the Oval called the Cable Cafe. This simple and simply decorated bar has one man running it. He is of medium height and is distinguished by have a rather ragged beard, that outlines his chin rather than covering his face. He sits low behind the bar reading a thick book. I suspect it is something complex or Russian. They offer only a few beers and a modest selection of wines; their main thing is cocktails. Hamish is our bearded hero. He can mix like a master. We had espresso Martinis and classic Martinis mixed with Beefeater Gin, which apparently has citrus 'notes' and therefore picks up the lemon twist. Then we had them again. Both times they were immaculate, as good as anything I have had in the states. Perfect balance and perfect temperature, they floated down after a hard day measuring and flying.

I looked at my diary on Thursday and I realised everything in it was described as a "meeting". I think I am becoming fed up with meetings. I am even fed up with writing the word 'meeting'. How can ones life be crowded with meetings? Do we not just 'see' people? Office life should provide an environment where meetings do not need to happen. We are all already in an all day 'meeting' called 'work'. But the viral affliction of meetings infects us at work too. My colleagues are always saying 'lets have a meeting in ten minutes'. I suppose it is a necessary evil as it allows us to focus on one issue or one topic and then move on, but I feel like having a bit of a quiet scream in a dark corner about the relentlessness of 'meetings'.

Masterpiece is at a fulcrum moment and it is always the case that TEFAF comes at that crucial moment, the last few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of exhibitors are falling into place and we are ready to move from the plan stage to the build stage. It is very exciting, even though the fair is still months away, it feels imminent. Dealers who do both fairs plan what to hold back for our fair or what to prepare. The publicity is starting to build up and journalists start calling to ask what might be the 'new' and the 'different' this year. Masterpiece has established for itself the onerous expectation that we will continue to improve and innovate every year. It is a pressure but one we welcome.

I end my week packing my trusty Saab and pointing it East towards Maastricht. See you there.

Week 65 - Silence

 

Last Thursday night the drain burst outside the Oval tube station, in the Clapham Road, where I live. That most disturbing partnership of the words 'raw' and 'sewage' came into play as the road and its neighbours were awash to above waist height. Disgusting certainly, but the following days brought a closed road and men in high viz clothing power-washing everything; and only cyclists were left rolling along. I have never known such a hush. The normally raucous, siren and horn rich road is dawn-like. I hear trees sway, I can hear bird song; the world seems strange - uncanny but at the same time delightful. It puts me in mind of the great silences of this art-dealing world.

The best or possibly one of the most important silences in the art world is the one that lurks portentously between a client and the dealer. Standing before a work, the dealer says his piece: he praises its line, its colour, its quality and rarity. He moves on to express what good value it represents and that quite astonishingly he might consider taking even less than the already good price at which it is being offered. The client stands beside the dealer, listening and occasionally asking a question and soaking up all the proffered expertise. Then, when the dealer has finished his speech, there comes the silence. It is a fat silence, full of all that has come before and full of anticipation for what is coming next. For this is the silence of an impending sale. The silence can drag on a bit long but the cardinal rule is that the dealer must not be the one to break it. If he or she does so, then the spell is broken and the sale will not be made. The client speaks and the dealer can exhale. Business has been done and noise can re-enter the room.

The second great silence is the silence before the hammer drops at the end of an auctioned lot in a sale. The bidding flits between the auctioneer, the bidders in the room, and, these days, those on the phone and internet. The bidding slows and then stops, the auctioneer says ' Final warning' or some such phrase and then his gavel hovers. The silence that follows has the highest bidder willing it to drop and the vendor hoping for another bid from elsewhere. It has the uninterested bidders waiting for a later lot and impatient for it to arrive. It has the train-spotting types who write down the results of each lot in their catalogues, whose pencils are poised. All eyes are on the gavel and all ears are waiting for the bang that signals the final figure. Sometimes this silence is fleeting, sometimes it takes what seems like a lifetime.

One of the most exquisite silences is the one endured waiting for Oscar Humphries to arrive for lunch. I met Oscar when he was editor of Apollo - he has now left and we remain good friends. I have agreed to meet him at Sumosan, the Japanese restaurant I adore in Albemarle St. I have tried to institute a rule by which if Oscar is late he pays - but it never works. Fifteen minutes late, he rings to say he is going to be fifteen minutes late. Almost inevitably he is 45 minutes late by the time he actually arrives. As always, he is instantly forgiven as his febrile brain and winning charm puncture any rising annoyance. He is full of exciting plans and though I have no idea whether any of them will bear fruit, they are fascinating and intriguing to debate. He shoots off after lunch, currently only a little late for his next appointment.

On Thursday, in an ante-diluvian (before the Oval flood) moment, I went with the Masterpiece CEO Nazy to the VIP opening of Art14. The hall at Olympia is a venue I know so well and I had memories of Mallett and other stands from past summer fairs spinning in my thoughts. Nazy's view of the hall is not blurred by any distracting nostalgia. She studies the art and weighs up the quality of the dealers and their displays. The show looked good - the organisers seem to have done well with gathering a very international roster of exhibitors. The overall appearance is the international pared down look and no-one uses much colour. The floors are bare and everyone employs lights of the most basic variety. Though this could not be more different to the Masterpiece aesthetic, it is what contemporary dealers seem to be most comfortable with. There were plenty of people there but it was hard to judge at this early stage whether deals were being done. One of the gloomiest silences in the art world is that of a fair where the traders are all standing around with no visitors and the aisles echo with a dead silence. Art14 was not like that.

I have a dealing friend who is a great single-handed exponent of the silence. He tells wonderful trade stories about people and things. They are unusually insightful - by listening to the end you invariably find that there is some special pertinence to the tale he is recounting from years gone by. He cunningly begins by asking you if you remember something or other. This trick both includes you in the conversation and excludes you because of course there is no way you could remember. His memory is elephant-like. He picks you up and nimbly trots along with his story - but once you are ensnared, he slows down to a snail's pace. Sometimes there can be a full minute or even two between single words, as you drool and perspire desperate for him to continue - let alone finish. But woe betide you if you try to anticipate or try to guess which way a sentence will unfold. He gets irate and looks reproachful and disconsolate, so you have to just sit back and engage in the ever-lengthening silences. It is always worth it.

I finished the week chatting to Adrian Amos, owner of the antique and salvage company Lassco. We had coffee in Brunswick House in Vauxhall, which he owns and is developing. It is a beautiful 18th-century house which sits on Vauxhall Cross roundabout below a Leviathan housing development. The poor building is dwarfed by its surroundings but it has retained its dignity and is now a rambling antique shop with a low-key but charming restaurant attached. Adrian is first and foremost an entrepreneur and has a portfolio of interesting and quirky spaces in London and beyond. One day I would like to do business with him as he is the epitome of creative. But my idea this time is not for him, so the dream will have to wait. Nonetheless, the coffee was delicious, and that is my last great silence for this week - the one achieved in anticipation of the first sip touching your palette.

Week 64 - Change or No Change

Some experiences pall under the burden of frequent repetition, some just get better and better. Repetition can bring consolation and comfort; it can reassure us to find and enjoy the consistency of certain places and tastes.

Le Petit Cafe is a tiny restaurant above a sandwich bar in Stafford Street, a tiny cut-through between Albemarle Street and Dover Street. They serve a short list of pasta dishes, a couple of salads and a dish of the day. Everything on this almost severe menu is neat and delicious. The pasta is fresh and always al dente. The Penne al Arrabiata is pretty much perfect, but for real decadence try the Escalope Milanese with Pasta Pomodoro. The crispy crust is crowned with a row of milky mozzarella slices alternating with sun-dried tomatoes. I wash this down with San Pellegrino lemonade diluted with sparkling mineral water. I have enjoyed this feast on a regular basis since Masterpiece moved with Mallett to our current offices in Dover Street. To enter you have to push your way along a narrow corridor past the queue of people waiting for sandwiches and mount the winding stairs to the first floor. This is a tiny haven of calm. There are only 6 tables and luckily they are rarely all occupied; sometimes you need to book but usually not. The fair-haired waitress who holds dominion over this area smiles sweetly and knows her regulars. She also avoids any superfluous communication - she does not chat or engage in witty banter. In this perfect reserve she is like the Asian girl who has cut my hair for more than 7 years without our exchanging names or biographies. Today I am lunching with Philip Hewat-Jaboor, the Masterpiece chairman, to review the vetting procedures and committee members. Though we are productive, the conversation ranges over many subjects and, for a brief moment, the sun shines and the room is bathed in sunlight, throwing strong shadows onto the tables and diners. It is one of those happy moments when the universe falls into order and everything is in its correct place. A happy repetition.

We said goodbye to Scholars House this week. This fine early nineteenth-century building, standing on Clapham High Street, has been home to Mallett's storage and van, alongside the Hatfields restoration business, since 2006. The building has been sold and everyone is moving out. New premises have been found nearby on a small business estate in Sidney Road. Aussie Man & Van have removed everything and the rooms are as they were when I first looked roun,d thinking about how it might work as a home for the Mallett workshops. So much has changed since then - even though it is only 7 years ago, it feels almost as if we live in a different world. The Managing Director Anna Cardinale has overseen an amazing, almost military, operation of bundling everything up and relocating. My role has been to organise a leaving party. I race round Booker, the supermarket for shopkeepers and caterers, and gather the basics of beer, wine, burgers and buns. We set up my gas barbecue in the romantically dilapidated Conservatory - and we're away. The rooms are so empty that some of the lads kick a ball about, all the while thinking about the furniture that was there but a few days earlier and enjoying the rebelliousness of playing football indoors. The party passes off gently and the melancholy of leaving pervades. All those habits that the various occupants have forged over time have now to be parceled up and packed away into the memory file. Change.

One of the most exciting projects coming up at Masterpiece is creating the second annual sculpture walk. This year we approached the Gallery Thomas Dane to curate a single-artist show of the work of Philip King. This remarkable man looks exactly as an artist should. His eyes are sharp and observant and his wild untamed grey eyebrows seem to underline his creativity. We are looking round Ranelagh Gardens, which lie beside the grounds where the Masterpiece structure takes residence. It is drizzling with rain with the occasional heavy patch. Tom from the gallery stoically walks round with us getting damper and damper. He and Philip are thinking about which works will go where; photocopied photographs of pieces become limp with rain as they are consulted and considered. The end result is far from limp however and I can see Philip's enthusiasm mounting as we briefly survey his life of work through these pictures of monumental and striking works in iron and painted iron. For a moment, we take shelter in the Soane pavilion which sits in the centre of the garden. There the in-pensioners have inscribed some of the bricks with their initials. The oldest one I spotted was dated 1877. This charming graffiti seems like an organic work of art especially when examined by this artist and dealer. After a couple of hours we repair for coffee at La Bottega in Lower Sloane Street. This little chain of coffee and sandwich shops has delivered a consistently great coffee for a few years now. Add to that delicious ricotta cannoli. Revival sweeps over us and we step back out into the day ready for battle.

I cycle off to meet my old friend Nick Chandor. He has been behind the clothes designer Paul Smith's new shop designs for ages and was my co-conspirator when Mallett and Paul Smith did a joint show of the work of photographer and furniture designer Willy Rizzo many years ago. We meet at 10 Greek St which is a small restaurant serving clean and simple British food with a minimum of fuss. I have wanted to eat here for ages but they don't take reservations in the evening and I hate queuing for food. We reminisced, and he told me about finally leaving Paul Smith and becoming a consultant to a number of different establishments. He has not changed at all except for giving up booze for a while. He has a pointy elfish grey beard, is 6ft 3in and has always and continues to sport trousers that are 6 inches too short. It is very fashionable, apparently. A friend of his once teased him that he was clearly buying his trousers in instalments! We spoke of a possible collaboration but our encounter was more about recovering a missed slice of life.

The week ended in the King's Road with James Harvey, who has been a great source of creative ideas over the last few years. He is constantly planning and plotting how to improve and develop his business; it is great to admire his verve and consider how many dealers' businesses would benefit from his level of energy. We had lunch at the Mona Lisa, a King's road legend. Tucked away in the council block of unappealing shops at Worlds End, it is a slice of another time and era. All types dine here, from two large and vociferous Poles enthusiastically tucking in to large steaks with a bottle of dark red wine, to a group of old ladies having tea and sandwiches. I had never been here and it was magical to step back into what felt like the swinging 60s.

The week had been about novelty, change and consistency, and the flow had been fairly evenly balanced, which felt about right.

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