Rude

Spokes and I arrived in London this afternoon for a few days.

We're staying in Bermondsey, as we did this time last year, and are already enjoying the local vibe. But this evening we made it north of the river to take advantage of the Thursday late-opening at the National Portrait Gallery. I was particularly keen to see this year's Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition www.npg.org.uk/whatson/twppp-2015/exhibition.php and I really enjoyed looking at the photographs - although I didn't always agree with the judges in respect of the award winners.

We also visited a couple of other rooms within the gallery and it was startling and poignant to see that the final portrait in the '1960 - 2000' room was a photo of David Bowie by Brian Duffy. It still came as a shock to see the notes next to the photo begin "David Bowie was..." rather than "David Bowie is..." and to see his dates set out so starkly, "1947 - 2016". I still feel a case of "Oh no, don't say it's true" about his death www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMThz7eQ6K0

Speaking of portraits... I took several shots of Spokes this evening but at one point she wrestled the camera away from me, turned the tables, and took this picture. So, I've decided to hand the journal over to her today - for one night only!