Sir John Soame

ST LUKE'S: 99% packed up and moved out of the house, I've been splitting my time this week between house sitting Anna and Joe's flat in Tufnell Park and my place. It's not bad up there. I get straight on the Tube, no crush, and down to work in about ten minutes.

Last night I was off to the John Soane's House Museum where, on the first Tuesday of every month, they have a candle lit evening. I thought the candle bit was just a posh way of staying they were opening late but it was a pleasent surprise to discover that it was a literal description. Soane was a prominent eighteenth century architect and socialite who dabbled, as far as I could gleam from the musuem, in collection artefacts of antiquites, Egyptology and Hogarth paintings.

He designed the building himself and, like most architects designing their own houses, he really let himself lose. There is a tremendous five storey spiral staircase in the middle of the room, a crypt on the bottow level to display a ridiculously large and expensive sarcophogus, numerous sky lights, cleverly designed parlours and a weird scuplture gallery out the back where every spare space is crammed with Classic sculptures. The flickering lights made it hard to really appreciate the art but they more than compensated by creating a realistic atmosphere.

So the only things left on my list are: The Cabinet War Rooms, the Cortauld Institute, another visit to the Tate Modern, ditto Tate Britain, the Natural History Museum, Kenwood House and the London Eye.