Day two, in which I see dead people

I bought my copy of Timeout today and discovered that it's only of limited value unless you begin with an idea of what you actually want to do. Which I didn't. I quickly discarded it and the began to wander the streets of London trying to determine what entertainments were on offer. That I'd be interested in at least - some of the entertainments are of a strictly dubious worth. An answer was quickly stumbled upon: The National Portrait Gallery. Unlikely, perhaps, to provide me with an afternoon of thrills and spills, but on the other hand it was one of the few major galleries I'd yet to visit. Plus it's free, which is always a... erm plus. I'd put off attending it following a rather negative review from my younger brother after a field trip once. If memory serves, he declared it full of paintings of dead people. Naturally that fails to do it justice. It's full of paintings of fat dead people. The heft of those sitting in many of the portraits came as something of a surprise to me. I've always imagined dead people to be, well, thinner.

That said, it was far from a waste of time. Whilst the artistic styles of many of the portraits did little for me, the small history lessons that accompanied each were more compelling. History was a subject that failed to captivate me at school. I put it down to my lack of interest in the subject, rather than the way it was taught, but I saw enough today to make me question that. Somehow simply being able to put the faces to the names made the stories behind them all the more memorable. I believe I likely learned more today about the succession of English royalty than I managed in all my years at school. But even with my new found respect for antiquity, I couldn't maintain my concentration past the late Jabobean period and I decided to make my way back to the twentieth century, pausing only to gaze upon some portraits of the current Royal family. It's may seem a strange for those of you reared outside of the UK to discover that there was a time, not so long ago, when the unveiling of a new portrait of any member of the Windsor family was something of an event, which would commandeer a seemingly disproportiate amount media coverage. Various media pundits could be guaranteed to crawl out of the woodwork to weigh in with their opinions as the artistic merits (if any, and it frequently seemed as though there weren't) of the latest works. It's been a while since this I've witnessed this happen, so I assume it's another quaint tradition that has started to slowly fade from the collective consciousness. Of course, it was also a slightly silly tradition, so I can't say I much regret it's passing. Anyway, I do recall there was a particular fuss raised over one portrait of the Queen Mother a goodly many years ago and it was this I found myself pondering. It seemed eerily familiar despite my viewing it for the first time and I couldn't help but be reminded of a portrait of my own Gran that still hangs in her old house. I think I'm fond of it for that reason if not others.

Back in the 20th century I discovered, hidden behind the Opie's and a series of Testino's, a sleeping David Beckham. Funnily enough, I'd read about this particular installation only a few days ago when it was taking up a significant number of column inches, but it had quickly passed from my mind. I can't say David Beckham is someone I'd be desperate to converse with, but he is undeniably a very beautiful man and there effect produced by being able to watch his sleeping form is both charming and intimate (if ruined slightly by a small hoard of teenaged girls...).

I wouldn't recommended NPG without reservation, since there are many other museums and galleries that I'd rate far above it, but I can't imagine where else I could have gone to discover that Ben Johnson, one of Shakespeares... um peers, bears an uncanny resemblance to a younger Tom Baker and the poet Philip Larkin could easily be mistaken for Eric Morcambe (or at least I did - promise you won't tell on me). Or to sadly note the new biography next to a photograph of Peter Ustinov, now bearing the date of his death.

But I would recommend it.