Two good art experiences in four days!

Not long after we got together, Miles said to me "you don't really like art, do you?"

I found this pretty offensive, but like many insults it's the ones with a hint of truth that sting the most. So I put my hands up -- I don't have a lot of time for a lot of art.

I hardly ever enjoy films, and when I do it's rarely for the cinematography. I was 20 before I went to an art gallery and that was only because I was stoned. I still can't be doing with anything painted before about 1930. At uni there was a picture lending service for students. I put up a poster of Blackpool and a selection of my favourite carrier bags. Poetry leaves me cold. And so on.

But having said all that I do have my moments, and don't try and tell me I don't, all right?

Moment #1: Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. Don't tell me he's not art. Rest of film: pretty good for Hollywood -- half an hour too long, plastic cheese ending but top swashbuckling and lots of fun. Johnny Depp: divine.

Moment #2: The mural in the x ray waiting room at the Radcliffe Infirmary. Hospitals are depressing and smell. Waiting rooms with little natural light and dog eared copies of Bella magazine are doubly depressing because they are full of ill people waiting, and well people waiting for ill people.

So whoever commissioned Sarah Tisdall (who is the artist in question, as I later discovered) to turn this one into a Victorian greenhouse, complete with cats, dogs, clematis, palm trees, trompe l'oeil fountain and sky and more deserves a medal. It is a triumph of public art. More results like this.

joella