Today I went to the National Gallery (http://www.nationalgallery.co.uk/ ) to take advantage of one of their free tours. Their guides are excellent, giving just the right amout of information to make the talk interesting without being patronising. They always include historical facts about the artists and the context of the painting. Today we were shown paintings by Botticelli, Gerald David, Velasquez, Thomas Lawrence and Deloroche. Afterwards I went to a free lunchtime concert at St Martin-in-the-field (http://www.smitf.org/). Unfortunately the concert was to celebrate the centenary of Carl Dolmetsch who was a recorder performer, maker and teacher. Not the most pleasant sounding instrument.
