Motion Pictures

Early yesterday morning I was lucky to see one of the peregrine falcon fledglings fly from its nest to the roof at the north east corner of Charing Cross Hospital. Most of the time they either sit still or slowly sidle crabwise along the ledge where they were born.

I was watching through binoculars and couldn’t possibly have captured the flight on camera. My Goddaughter’s father has foresaken Maastricht for Masterpiece Art Fair in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where pictures are easier to capture. Subscribers to the hard copy FTWeekend get free admission so I went yesterday evening. There was something old by Munnings, yours for £750,000.

And lots of things new.

Last weekend the FT had a supplement about Masterpiece. The cover story was an interview with the Chief Executive, Lucie Kitchener. She is described as being “polished and personable” and looks it in an accompanying photograph. But handsome is as handsome does, as I heard from my Goddaughter’s father. He has a bad knee, the result of playing too much rugby at Cambridge, and found the floor of his stand unforgiving. She had a soft underlay put down. More seriously, when there was torrential rain the roof leaked. His complaint to the construction team was met with “what do you expect when it rains”. Lucie took a different view and got it sorted; fortunately the pictures hadn’t been hung. She has been in post since 2017 and it takes a while to nurture a professional culture in a diverse workforce but that’s what Lucie is doing. If I’m showing a bit of favouritism it is because we are both alumni of Durham, although of different vintages.

Brenda and Pamela, perhaps unwisely, asked for some more pictures of Bertie. Here he is stretching his legs.

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