Power Cuts

Power cuts have been rare in recent years, but we've now had two within a fortnight. Last night the power went off just after midnight,  came on again, went off again and finally steadied itself around 12.30.  Every time the power came on our house alarm started yelling  and I had to pad downstairs to reset  it.

A Bigger Picture

David Hockney is doing wonderful work in old age. The film A Bigger Picture follows him around East Yorkshire as he gears up- at the rate of a canvas a day- for the huge- multi-canvas painting Bigger Trees Near Warter (which he was to show at the R.A. and then donate to the Tate). It's an odd thing about painters: while other types of artist slow down in their seventh decade, painters just go on getting brisker and better. Hockney attributes his unfaltering creativity to an extra large helping of the life force. Watching him is inspirational. It's rare for a major artist to be filmed at work. Pollock and Picasso allowed it. Hockney makes a third. I have little doubt he belongs in that company.