• Picasso’s full name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso.
• Frida Kahlo’s right leg was thinner than her left one. This was as a result of the polio she contracted as a child.
• Andy Warhol was a secret hoarder of pizza dough.
• Tracey Emin has a twin brother called Paul.

As I study them again several hours later, although they may be correct, I’m not entirely convinced that they’re very interesting. I’ve rehearsed a few in front of the cat but she’s barely stirred in response.

Thursday May 24th

What to wear to an art gallery? I consulted the internet. That was a mistake: it seems there is no clear consensus. Fashionista.com eloquently summed up the dilemma:

Dressing for an art exhibition presents a unique challenge. Turn up in your mufti and all will assume you’re a nobody or that everything in the gallery belongs to you. But arrive ‘too dressed’ and you will look as if you’re wearing the art.

Most evidence pointed to this being either smart-casual territory or casual-smart territory.

I set out for M&S with my points card.

Friday May 25th

A Brief History of Modern Art in Poetry

1. Impressionism     Roses sway in softened reds     Violets swim in murky blues.     Sugar sparkles in the light,     Blurring into golden you.	2. Surrealism     Roses are melting     Violets are too.     Ceci n’est pas le sucre.     Keith is a giant crab.
3. Abstract Expressionism	4. Social Realism     Roses are dead.     Violence is rife.     Don’t sugarcoat     This bitter life.
5. Pop Art     Roses go BLAM!     Violets go POW!     Sugar is COOL!     You are so WOW!	6. Conceptual Art     Roses are red,     Coated in blood:     A deer’s severed head     Drips from above.

It may not have gone swimmingly well but neither was it drowningly awful; it was something in the middle, a doggy-paddlingly mediocre affair, in which we felt pleased to have kept our heads above water even if we didn’t really get anywhere.

I met Liz on the steps. She looked like a Botticelli study of beauty, which made me feel like one of those blobby efforts by Francis Bacon, slapped onto canvas on one of his off days. All the same, I had the inner confidence that comes of someone sporting a new Blue Harbour shirt and who could feel the reassuring bulge of his deck of modern art fact cards in his left-hand chino pocket.

I tossed the first one out there as we gazed thoughtfully at a Giacometti:

‘It’s interesting to think of what else he might have done if he hadn’t died of pericarditis and chronic bronchitis at Kantonsspital in Churin, Switzerland in January 1966.’

Liz looked impressed.

We stared at Duchamp’s Fountain: