Terence Donovan

Last night I attended the opening of the Terence Donovan photographic exhibition at the Chris Beetles Gallery in St James's. It was so well attended that it was quite hard to look at the photographs. My favourites were of Sir Ralph Richardson, Lord Olivier and Alec Guinness (1980), and a picture of a policewoman helping some children over a zebra crossing (Miss Allen and Children, 1959). If you're my age, this exhibition will bring back many nostalgic memories, and I also recommend it to the young, as it's a photographic history by one of our great exponents of the art.

Among the guests was John Madejski - recently appointed as Chancellor of Reading University - who told me to stop fussing about players' wages at Cambridge Rugby Club, because he described modern footballers' wages as nothing less than scandalous - he is of course the owner of Reading FC, which he has made clear to the outside world he would be willing to sell if only he could find the right buyer. If an American billionaire or a Russian oligarch is reading this blog, plese get in touch with him.

Talking of Russian oligarchs, did you notice in this morning's papers the report of the oligarch who has halted a planned Sotheby's auction of the Rostropovich collection by buying the entire collection to send it back to his homeland. He is rumoured to have paid over £20m. I must congratulate Sotheby's on this coup, as I felt the collection was actually rather average. Not so many years ago when oligarchs didn't exist and Russia was a communist state, Roy Miles was selling Russian art from his gallery on Bruton Street and was unable to find enough buyers. Success in any field so often depends on timing.