No cameras

I had a lovely day, today. Firstly, The Minx and I went to see the Goldfrapp exhibition at the Lowry, also taking in the LS Lowry and 'Defining Me' rooms, and then we met up with @millstermum to see the Grayson Perry exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery.

Ideally, this post would have been headed by a photo of one of his six amazing tapestries that we saw in the exhibition. The photo might, conceivably, have been quite a good one, but it's highly - nay, stratospherically - unlikely that it would have been so good, both in terms of composure and technical execution, that you'd have had it printed up to put on your wall.

So, why is it that we're not allowed to take photos in galleries? Sure, I understand the 'no flash' rule, that repeated camera flashes might causes paintings or, in this case, tapestries to fade but why can't we take photos?

The galleries say that when they get pictures to exhibit, they aren't always licensed for the public to take photos but why is that? Because it might stop us buying a print? A framed print of the Lowry painting I liked best - 'A River Bank' - was £170: I'm not going to buy that whether you let me take a photo or not!

Why not allow 'phone cameras (with flash turned off), at least? It gives us happy memories and, if the galleries and owners have to be mercenary about it, acts as free advertising for their shows. As it happens, I don't have a great visual memory, and already the images of the tapestries are fading a little.

Anyway, rant over. We enjoyed the show and then we all went off to see Local Natives at The Ritz. It was a splendid day out :-)