Playing to the gallery

I spent three days in Madrid last week with Chris Beetles and Simon Bainbridge, wandering around three of the most exciting art galleries in the world - the Prado, the Reina Sofia and the Thyssen, before we travelled on to Scotland to spend the rest of the week in Edinburgh. There, we visited the National Gallery (I can highly recommend their current Impressionist Gardens exhibition), the Gallery of Modern Art (their excellent Another World: Dali, Magritte, Miro and the Surrealists show) and the Dean Gallery. Frankly, by Sunday, I was galleried out. I don't think I'll go into any detail about the three Edinburgh Fringe shows we saw, as they could hardly be described as the highlight of the week. Mind you, the flamenco show we saw in Madrid (recommended by the British Council) didn't do anything for me either. But a delicious dinner with amusing company at the home of Malcolm Rifkind and his wife in East Lothian ended a very enjoyable week.