VERJAARDAG!

Yaay!

GRRR!

© tate

The new Turbine Hall exhibition at the Tate opened this week. Two days later, it closed. Or rather, it was closed. And for spurious reasons in my humble opinion. It seems that those ever-present, nanny state, health and safety 'experts' were concerned about the wellbeing of our lungs since the thousands of people walking, playing, laying down and sitting on the sea of porcelain sunflower seeds caused such a dust cloud it seemingly rivalled the Icelandic volcano. Now, visitors are forlornly cordoned off from this supposedly interactive installation. I still intend to visit the exhibition but if you hear of any arrests for trespassing, that'll probably be me.

Incidentally, I find it slightly ironic that in the Guardian report on the closure, there is also a link to a video article on the artist entitled: 'Life is never guaranteed to be safe.'

CHILEAN MINERS

© bbc

Today, I woke up at 4am and heard the euphoria about the first of the Chilean miners to be rescued from the ground and since then have been mostly transfixed, like the rest of the world, by the rescue of all the others emerging from that little cage and that hole. Truly touching, amazing operation.

H-CUP/AMLIN

© abrugby

Now that I am supporting teams in both the H-Cup and the Amlin Challenge Cup, last week-end necessarily became a bit of a rugby bender. As the Telegraph's rugby correspondent says: "what an orgy of televised action these weekends have become." Indeed. Furthermore, in order to fit in all of the games, these week-ends begin on Thursday evenings but on Saturday and Sunday, I managed to get most of my chores out of the way in the morning before the 1pm kick-off. But once those games started, that was me gone, not to be interrupted for the rest of the day. Some of the games were admittedly more thrilling than others and some decidedly more soggy than others. The best bit though? No, not Mirco's entrance in the 54th minute of the Leinster game (although it came a close second). It was the camera angled on Nick Easter standing in his ripped shorts in the torrential rain! ;p

POLLEN

These recent lovely sunny autumn days have meant that the bees have been able to quite busily go about collecting stores to see them through the winter. I am often to be found crouched beside their hive, mesmerised by their comings and goings, observing their full little pollen pockets and marvelling at the various colours. In the summer, it's almost a riot of colours but this week, it's been mostly very pale yellow or creamy white on their tiny legs. Thanks to the handy Pollen Colour Guide - much like the pollen equivalent of a paint colour chart, but more for bee nerds, obviously - I can hazard a guess that the bees have been feasting on chicory and borage flowers. Num num.

RAPHAEL

© v&a

Brian Sewell may come across as a caricature of his snobbish and art critical self but he does sometimes talk a modicum of sense. Like when he describes the Vatican Tapestries in the current V&A exhibition as 'travesties of Raphael's intention'. The exhibition, which promised to be so much more, is interesting if only to compare the Raphael cartoons beside their poor fabric representations. Curiously, these latter seem to have been given prominence, which serves only to highlight their inferiority the more. I personally preferred the preparatory charcoal sketches and indeed if you close your eyes to the tapestries, it is possible to enjoy the rest of the exhibition. However, after this disappointment, I am eagerly looking forward to the next Big Exhibition: Gauguin at the Tate.