Week 33 - Latitude

Having just completed the epic that was Masterpiece London 2013 which consisted of 8 days of control and order, coupled with excellence and elegance, there has to be a ying to the yang, the balance should be restored. And mine was the Latitude festival in Suffolk. Three days of music and much, much more. In fact you could go and simply skip the music completely and indulge in poetry, literature, comedy, film and theatre. They all have their own pavilions. And there are daily charming and sometimes even troubling pop up events (for example a scantily clad girl hula hooping with a knot of blonde hair on the top of her head, or discount tattoo parlours) All are drawn together in the sprawling, rolling grounds of Henham park by a myriad of small kiosks offering up a panoply of delights, from Ostrich and crocodile burgers to juggling lessons through vintage clothing and back to espresso and your basic plain vanilla fish'n'chips.

As behoves tradition we all gather on Thursday night. My friends and greater family have fashioned a corral out of tents and we link in obediently. Despite being amongst so-called 'like-minded people' we endeavour to carve out as much privacy as we can. Our friend Justin is particularly defence minded and he has two traditional ploys. One; he puts up a barrier of spurious police tape around our self-styled plot and two; he leaves objects and bits and pieces strategically around gaps between tents to put off walk through passers-by. I need to stress that none of this ever works and people walk through all the time and often engage in fun, charming and enlightening conversation.

This is our only full team supper on this night as there is barely anything on in the arena and our crew arrive in dribs and drabs. From here on it is only breakfast that we have as a group. By 9 pm we have all arrived and our evening begins with Kir Royale, olives and that underrated snack from heaven the Twiglet. Barbecued marinated pork loin, potato salad garnished with fresh coriander, tomato salad and finally cheese and fruit. Coffee, of course, from freshly ground beans from the Algerian coffee house in Soho, courtesy of our pal Conrad. Justin has brought some exceptional rum from Cuba and we do our best to dent the bottle's contents. I am pleased to report success in that area. One of the oddities of our experience is that everything has to come in plastic. So all the lovely bottles and their labels are missing, instead everything is poured from recycled plastic mineral water bottles. It is not very appealing but once you get over the initial lack of glamour it becomes commonplace, normal even.

The first morning sets the pattern for the three days following. Rising early because of bright light, and the searing heat, nowhere inhabited is hotter than a sealed tent with no breeze on a bright sunny morning. In fact, one of the most unfortunate aspects of tent life is the transition at about 4 or 5 in the morning of the temperature. It is quite usual for it to mutate from freezing to boiling in a few snores. We sleep in the tent under a duvet with proper sheets and pillows, no sleeping bags for us! The accompanying truth is that one second you are snug as a bug and the next you feel like a boil in the bag meal, throwing off the covers to try to steal some more sleep despite being roasted at high temperature. Emerging into the day the debris is depressing, even on day 1; no matter how hard you try to keep the camp tidy the mess always prevails. So you meander around bleary eyed and tidy up, put on the kettle and await other risers. Breakfast happens with a massive fry up of sundry pork products garnished with mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans. The masses crowd - we are about 20 people, and everyone greedily tucks in to the herculean platter. At this point, bellies satisfied, we open the Sea Breeze bottles. I have made two litres and frozen it. Thus, as a morning bracer it is in immaculate condition. We sit basking in morning sun with a vodka, cranberry and grapefruit juice glow warming our souls.

Off into the arena. I think I am the only one who looks at the tent and pavilion construction. I cannot help but compare and contrast internally wondering how our exhibitors would react to the blue and yellow circus tent that forms the cover to the number 2 stage. There are bright stripy swags that adorn the inside to cheer up the decor. During one set, despite there being no rain, a massive flush of water cascades down on a section of the crowd. It remains today a mystery where that water came from. There are three main stages of descending size as well as the same number of small ones. So, at any given moment between 12 and 11pm there are at least 6 bands playing. After 11pm there are small performances and DJ sets which wind up at about 3 am and then dancing until about 6 (I never made it that late to find out, a wimp I know) The sets performed are rarely longer than an hour and usually only 45 minutes, this means that each day you get to see and hear at least 10 things. You quickly get into a rhythm of flitting from one thing to another. You can become manic and end up almost missing everything by being too mobile. Some people just like to tick bands off their list, rather than actually listen to a whole set. This year I decided to only listen to whole sets, on the basis that each group applies some balance or structure to the shape of their set and only by listening to the whole lot would I be able to judge them fairly. We listen to many bands we know and love, but the best fun is getting the input from the rest of the crew. My children like the younger, new bands. My friend Tim likes listening to classic R & B, preferably headed up by the last survivor of some famous band from yesteryear. Others like electro dance, others prefer proper instruments. My niece loves comedy, literature and cabaret with the occasional foray into world music. Thankfully all tastes are catered for.

There is no way we can act as a herd, we are all a mixture of cat and control freak, by which I mean everyone is independent but also wants everyone else to like and love what they do. We spend our days criss-crossing the ground, meeting, eating, drinking discussing and parting again. We look like some experiment in random movement. We retire to the campsite after the last big bands finish at 11pm and regroup over bladders of red wine. Salami and goats cheese accompanied by oat cakes and the occasional chocolate refresh us. Then either to bed, back into the arena for further frivolity or extending verbal soul searching and more wine. Each night follows the same structure but with varied participants.

The weekend ends on Monday morning with slow, sad clearing up and parting of ways. Each one of us tired but already excited and in waiting for next year.

Week 32 - The Party is Over, The end of Masterpiece

The party is over, the music has stopped and the band is packing up their instruments. Outside, dawn captures the last merrymakers as they wend their weary and uneven paths home. Actually, Masterpiece is not a party, it just feels like it.

Monday arrived and the Masterpiece team and exhibitors gathered around the piano in Le Caprice for the annual exhibitor meeting. The ritual of 'the exhibitors meeting' always feels a little like an employee's appraisal. The room fills with representatives of all the dealers and I stand up and give a sort of 'end of term' speech. I balance my words with praise for the exhibitors, information about the fair, proactive feedback and plans for the next few days but we are always learning and looking for recommendations. I try to pre-empt as many questions or complaints that might be heading my way. There is fragility to my voice as I have been talking for over a week to press, exhibitors and the many visitors that attended this year. My frog croakiness, I hope, will not dilute the enthusiasm and excitement centred on this year's fair and exhibitors. The truth, which you don't often hear from fair organisers, is that the fair has gone pretty smoothly, visitor numbers are significantly up and sales across the fair have been unexpectedly robust, both institutionally and from international private buyers. Record numbers of collectors have passed under the white neo classical arch and into the vastness of the fair; Exhibitors are happy. I finish and address the floor to ask questions. A dealer stands up and rebukes us for pouring too much champagne on preview day, but I am not sure their clients would agree. Another dealer comments that he thinks the fair is a little long but as this is his first Masterpiece I suggested that he waits until Wednesday and close before he registers his suggestion. The meeting closes shortly after, the whole 'appraisal' taking less than half an hour. I am in shock, I had been prepped for a bit of sweat (as you always do with appraisals) but nothing occurred. We went back to preparing for the days ahead.

Tuesday night was the night of the Midsummer Party for Marie Curie. I had hardly been involved and I was nervous because in previous years the dealers had not felt that the party sufficiently involved them. However, Heather Kerzner is a consummate professional and I need not have worried. Over 1,000 guests arrived, chatted, drank, gave and departed. A smaller gathering went into dinner where Simon de Pury, coaxed with charm and cheek, further generosity out of the pack. An astonishing £840,000 was raised and everyone basked in the glow of the success.

One of the more remarkable things about Masterpiece London is the way the fair gets busier towards the end of the day. With every other fair I have ever exhibited at, or attended, the last hour is quiet and the dealers use it as a wind down before dinner. At Masterpiece London the crowd builds from 5pm to closing time. At 9pm when the bar closes, and everyone is ushered out, the fair is often full. On our last day this anomalous effect was redoubled. The hall was packed. Our central bar is branded as Scott's but in previous years it has been Harry's Bar. One of our big hits, as a summer cocktail, has been the Bellini, a Harry's Bar signature drink which, we continue to offer. The refreshing mix of pink peach pulp and Prosecco is consumed in heroic quantities. The only challenge at the bar is the Rosé from Ruinart which is so sensational that it can compete with anything. The fair ended with record numbers of visitors and the last day was our largest increase, up over 30%.

Hands were enthusiastically shook, with hugs and kisses exchanged. Cards and email addresses criss-crossed the aisles. Even a few tears roll down a few embarrassed faces as the end arrives and the great clear out begins. The Masterpiece team stand like hosts by the doors and see the exhibitors out of the building. It may mark the beginning of the end but there is no time to relax. The team speed off to a celebratory drink but it is a short one as the clear up must be done with control and speed.

I go in on Thursday morning and it is a shock to see how quickly the stands have all disappeared. It is nearing lunchtime and most of the dealers have already cleared their stands. It is very peculiar to think back a few hours. I pass by one stand that I had thought to be rather over furnished, I was mentally preparing myself for talking to the dealer about thinning out his display next year, but the stand is empty, thinned out to nothing. A squashed empty water bottle and some random scraps of tissue are all that remain. In many ways the jewellery dealers are the most shocking. They make an enormous effort and their stands glitter with precious metals and stones, now they are forlorn, broken, discarded. There is sadness but it is a glorious one. The debris speaks of a battle fought and won.

Life goes on. We now have to start planning for next year. In the autumn we are taking a project to Hong Kong and the Fine Art Asia fair. This has to be organised in a hurry and there is no time to waste.

In London the sun is finally shining and Wimbledon dominates the sports news. I go out, in my ebay bought soft top Saab, and look for low end tables. I drive around covering all corners of the antique dealing metropolis. I find what I am looking for in a junk shop, up by Golborne road. The two men who run the shop are wearing tea shirts, have shaved heads and are unfeasibly muscly. It is with some sense of annoyance that I force them out of their deck chairs to help me with prices. I make a purchase and their irritation passes. They have nothing to do with Masterpiece London, they probably have never heard of it. It is with sadness and, surprising relief to leave this unique world.

Week 31 - More about Masterpiece

On Monday morning the vetters arrived. 126 people divided into 26 committees gather to spend the day poring over every nuance of each piece on show in order to pass on their own special imprimatur. It is a long day, charged with intensity and emotion. Debates abound, within committees and between dealers, yet it is never angry, just heated academic discussions, and the fair is all the healthier for it.

In Le Caprice Paul and Gina hold sway. They are calm and elegant. Paul is over 6ft tall and has a neat head of red hair. But the hair colour does not indicate a fiery temper, quite the reverse - he is an elegant and controlled manifestation of good service, he is based normally at J Sheekeys off St Martins Lane. He has a slow swagger to his walk and he never seems rushed, he treats the restaurant as a sort of catwalk of which he is totally in charge. Gina is at the front desk and wears a well-cut green tweed jacket and black thick-framed glasses. She is of medium height and moves with a very distinctive and individual gait. Both of them hustle and bustle, always positive, always smiling and Le Caprice, though only a temporary pop up, runs like a well-oiled machine. Even on this, our vetting day, control and efficiency are by words.

On Tuesday we had our Curators Evening and the fair Patrons and museum curators and directors arrive at 6pm for their exclusive early view. Selven, our head of security, is at the door. I think he must have some sort of magical power because he is everywhere at once. If there is a problem Selven is there. I don't know how old he is but he has an inner calm and a friendly 'solve the problem' attitude which seems to come from ancient wisdom. Outwardly he appears a young man. Throughout the show all the security guards concentrate on smiling rather than giving the visitors grief. It is amazing, and actually unsurprising, that a friendly, helpful, smiling attitude diffuses issues. It is not a hard lesson but one that I encounter surprisingly rarely. The Curators Evening passes off well with the community gathering and heading off to Daphnes, after deep discussion and the occasional purchase. There I am seated next to Helen from the Sir John Soane Museum. She has given her professional life to the museum and is not unsurprisingly passionate about it. She is suffused with the excitement that is building as they undertake to bring back into circulation the current offices. I have been there myself to access the Robert Adam archive and the rooms are magnificent. It is and will be a herculean task but one that I know the public will greatly appreciate. Daphnes is part of the Caprice group and is delightfully cosy with rusticated plaster walls and soft curtains. Our Chairman Philip has ordered Gavi de Gavi, a Piedmontese wine which has lovely colour, freshness and is full of fruit. It goes down well. The conversations flow and we all move between tables chatting to Cleveland, New York, Boston as well as London and the counties. Everyone is buzzing with what they have seen and are looking forward to a return visit.

Wednesday is the big Preview day. By the end of the day over 6000 have passed through the doors. Steve, the pillar of calm who keeps our show in order logistically, comes up to me on Thursday to say we need to change the glass skip. We usually change it after the weekend but it is already full after 2 days. The Ruinart champagne is going down only too well. The aisles are heaving as I wander round at 8pm, and we are a few hundred people away from having hold the queue back until there are some leavers. The dealers are happy, business is being done, crowds are thronging. Helen on guard duty is feeling the pressure as visitors are keen to get in and they don't like being held up by a bag search. Six hours into the day she is still calm and controlled. Though born in the USA she spent most of her young life in Portugal. She speaks many languages and has a fantastic accent that I challenge anyone to place. But it is fabulous to see faces change as they are politely but firmly spoken to in their own tongue. Disarmed is not nearly strong enough.

Sunday morning and I am sitting in the Spitfire Cafe, the crew catering outside the fair. The air conditioning guy James, a good looking rangy guy with a harassed appearance, sits having a cup of tea. The tent site is bigger than two football pitches and as the weather changes from hot to cold on a sixpence and we have had periods of both burning sunshine and tropical downpours, his job is both thankless and impossible. I am sitting with Mike, a genial bearded man who is responsible for CCTV and the passes. He is suggesting we could have a live web stream of the fair to our website. Next to me is Emma who works for Steve the continuity guru. She is pocket sized and has a broad smile, she has named her quad bike Herbie, but woe betide you if you cross her. I have seen huge tattooed truckers quake in their boots if they try and bully her. The cafe itself is run by Dave and Tracy, they heap masses onto their client's plates, and I can honestly assert that the pigs have not died in vain who sacrificed their lives for our breakfasts. They are served with love and we all share this energetic, active and creative forum.

The weekend brings a different tone to the fair. Visitors who came in suits and ties during the week return in jeans and shorts. Families tuck in to burgers and fish goujons at Le Caprice and a garden party air pervades. But these are not tourists - serious business continues and conversations about objects and artworks continue as children pull on arms to drag their parents away. I wander along the aisles chatting to exhibitors and greeting friends. The mood is good and I am not being too berated about the vagaries of the internal temperature. Scotts, positioned in the middle of the fair, are selling seafood and the chefs are flat out all day cracking shells, slicing salmon and shucking oysters. I could watch it for hours.

The fair still has three days to run and we are sure to have many adventures before it closes on Wednesday.

Follow Thomas Woodham Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twoodhamsmith

week 30 - Masterpiece

Okay, this is it!. All the waiting is over. The rain has held off, the structure has risen from the ground. The stands are built and the dealers are flooding in.

It is hard to sum up or characterise the team's feelings at this stage. If you can imagine a palpable sense of both exhaustion and anticipation you will get something of a sense of it. As they packed on Friday for the move from the office to the site there was a tingle, a buzz, a frisson, and every word like that, was somehow or somewhere in the air. It is a very exciting time to be here anyway. Christie's and Sotheby's have had and will have sales over the next few weeks, not to mention other auction houses. Furniture, sculpture, silver, Chinese art, every era of fine art - it is all out and on show in London both in the auction rooms and in gallery shows. This is the moment for London; this is the fortnight of intense activity. Even my annual incipient hay-fever seems strangely timely or portentous.

The Stabilo team has been working hard. Janneke and Marianne sit behind their black operations desk fielding exhibitors' changes and additional work. They are both fair-haired. One has frizzy hair whilst the other's is straight. They are an amazing double act. They have brought me and Nicola an orange towel. A Stabilo gift, emblematic of Holland and of the company. We steal them away so that the other exhibitors don't get jealous. The girls are positive, jokey, bubbly even, but they are also ruthlessly efficient and everything gets done and is properly documented. Behind the scenes Dennis, Hans and the other Hans build and perfect the infrastructure and details of the background of the fair. As the Dutch say 'many Hans make light work', or at least they should say that.

In the background trucks rumble through the site and there is a strange sense of calm as everyone gets on with their work. The songs on the Dutch playlist are not quite annoying yet and as Friday arrived the build was well ahead.

At the front my son Inigo and some of his friends are processing and handing out the passes. This is a real-world expression of the time-honoured impression that the young are good with computers. These four boys (men?) are happily taking photographs, even photo-shopping the images to suit the tastes of the incoming exhibitors. It is impressive to watch and not only because it is my precious scion at work.

But the dealers are the real stars. 160 of them all beaver away in the booths to create individual and expressive spaces. Without exception everyone is making an effort. What strikes me as I walk around is how much variation there is and how imaginative people are. It is sort of like a sonnet with its strict 14 lines, no more, no less. Here we have boxes 6-metres deep, with an open front and walls to left and right. Despite this 'plain vanilla' basis no two stands look the same. The fair is the diametrical opposite of the ubiquitous white walls we are so used to from international art fairs. Here we have unalloyed imagination and creativity. Leila Heller from New York has a wonderful terrracotta colour for her walls. It is striking how good contemporary art looks against a strong but well-chosen colour. Elsewhere, Hamiltons has created a brick warehouse and Sperone Westwater from New York has brought fabulous period pieces to place alongside the rigour of his cutting-edge contemporary offering.

I had a typical experience at the fair just now. I was looking at a pair of vases and the dealer was wondering what I thought of them. An hour later and following a walk round the fair we had shown them to half a dozen experts. We had a full picture of what they were and where comparable examples could be examined. I imagine that we plugged into around 150 years of knowledge and visited four countries in our perambulation around the fair. This is the great joy of fairs and the confluence of knowledge and objects that they inspire.

On top of everything else at this stage in the fair everyone is positive and full of optimism. The petty annoyances of setting up their stands pale into insignificance as they dust, buff and fill their stands with light and labels, all the while moving objects, furniture and pictures from one wall to another. Each move is better than the last and each one full of expectation. During the fair most will have some success, some will sell out and perhaps a few will walk away unlucky. In other words, a week from today there will be a mixture of emotions on parade, but today, before the vetting and the preview, the entire structure surges with excitement and positive thoughts. The dealers wander around and admire or discuss each other's goods. Perhaps a few even eye things up for purchase. But the buzz is rising.

The fair is increasingly international and the languages on offer are a global melting pot. All these different voices share discussions of hotel rooms, noisy parties, restaurants discovered or returned to and travel arrangements. We are, for a few brief days, a community. There is no partisanship, no barriers driven by national borders, there is only the wholesome competition of who has the best things and whose taste will most capture the imagination of the forthcoming clients.

We are a group of nearly 1000, including all the sales teams, their carriers and all the support staff. We are together unified in a single purpose: to make Masterpiece a success for one and all. A small army, we have dug in, we have prepared. But this is not warfare, this is love. Everyone here is looking for appreciation, if they achieve that then there is the hope of love and ultimately the perfect end to the romance - the raising of an invoice!

Follow Thomas Woodham Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twoodhamsmith

Week 30 - From the Rhine to the Danube - Basel Art Fair

I know don't what comes over me but there is a certain kamikaze spirit that drives one to oblivion. I knew that I had an early flight on Thursday morning and Wednesday night is a weird night anyway. It nestles in the middle of the week. With the best will in the world it is not yet suggestive of the weekend - it should be work work work. However Wednesday does have a strange festive quality. It offers a reward for surviving Monday and Tuesday along with an encouragement to be brave and take on Thursday and Friday. So, oblivion found its outlet through cocktails and nourishment at Soho House. Emma, in the Masterpiece office, was celebrating her birthday. We have three Masterpiece birthdays. This one just before the show and Bess and Elizabeth during. The team tried a Martini Royale which was universally acknowledged to be filthy. A dastardly corruption of a martini with ice, soda and mint. It was the proverbial mouthwash. Luckily things picked up with Gavi de Gavi and grilled meat. Not, you say, traditional - white wine with meat? But the scented rich Gavi merged all too successfully. I cycled home, scraping in just past midnight.

5.30am and we are off to Stansted and Ryanair hell. In the way of these things, despite my throbbing head, habit kills pain. The seven pointless queues between ground and plane are mere nothings to me now. My crushed knees and folded spine are almost comfortable. Even the cursed self-congratulatory fanfare played upon landing seems mildly humorous. All is fine. Habit is the cure. I guess it is the way people become accustomed to prison, or worse, physical abuse. Admittedly international travel should not be akin to abuse in prison. But that is the way of the people who run Ryanair. In the end I do buy the tickets. Nobody pays to go to prison.

As our taxi rumbles to Zebergeny where we are attending a party for American business graduates I reflect upon the preceding days. On Sunday I had gone to Basel to vet the design fair. I travelled with Simon Andrews from Christie's. We have done this trip for a few years now and it is great fun. He is an astonishing encyclopaedia of knowledge. For 20th-century design he is Mr. Memory. He could stand on stage and field design questions and he would never be caught out. He is cool too; bald, medium height and superficially scruffy, he has gathered from markets and thrift stores a panoply of design classics. Each accessory or garment is chosen. Nothing he has is haphazard. I would wager there is no one else like him in the world.

As we sit together over breakfast we are shocked to see a vast, bloated, brown and white dead cow float past the window. We both wonder whether this is life or an Art Basel event! I am staying until Tuesday night and the vetting work is done, so I can look forward for the first time to properly viewing Art Basel. The design show has fewer than 50 dealers. The main show plus the Unlimited section has over 300, maybe even more. Our Masterpiece CEO is out too. We have the Unlimited opening on Monday and then the main show starts on Tuesday. This is really Nazy's element, her home turf. She knows everybody. We make slow progress as cards and kisses are exchanged hither and thither. I follow, trying to give the impression that I am not completely ignorant of all that I survey. We take a breather and drive up to the Beyeler Foundation. There is a world-beating Max Ernst show there as well as an appropriately surreal contemporary installation of five stuffed, headless horses by the artist Maurizio Cattelan. My triumph is achieved whilst trying to help a guard move a floating silver balloon. I burst it. Nazy looks away, deeply embarrassed by her art vandal companion.

The Unlimited section and the show itself make a stupendous festival of art. There are some old pieces too and so there is a sense of context and history. But the primary emotion here is surprise, everyone wants the 'new' or if that fails the 'discovered'. It is an intense couple of days and I head for the airport fully aware that I actually missed more than I saw.

Back to Hungary, we arrive at the house in bright sunshine. The first I've seen in ages. The Danube is huge, fat and smug-looking, having caused so much trouble along its banks over the last few days. We were having some pieces shipped over and they had to be loaded onto a special army truck with high wheels to make it through. But it made it. We set to work with the help of a cheery team of local labourers. The leader, whose name sadly I could never pronounce, was always laughing. Hugely fat, in a magnificent Falstaffian way, his face ruddy from beer and being outside. His green overalls matching his flowing but thinning blonde locks, he worked and worked. Several hours and buckets of sweat later the house was in order. The rooms went quiet and Mrs. Sungoose and I sat down to enjoy an epic sunset with some superb local Prosecco, a small piece of Camembert and some spicy Mangalitsa salami - peace and heaven. We dined in a local restaurant and hotel that opened just for us. Our companion over dinner was a small dog, he barked once when we arrived and then was happy to sit at our feet and have his tummy tickled. Our host brought us menus and then cunningly said that he would suggest what we ate. I cannot say or repeat what he said but I was impressed by the hospitality and the firm direction toward what we suspected was the only thing he had! Sweet sparkling wine and deep fried packet food was not a culinary delight, but it was most welcome and we ate everything with appreciation and gusto.

Friday, party day, began with staff bustling and no food in the house for breakfast. But our host arrived at 10am and the champagne began to flow. The American students arrived at 12 and there was wonderful traditional food aplenty. There were long speeches about personal and business development and more drinking and toasting. Then the senior people drifted off leaving the young to party. Clothes pared down to swimming costumes. The swimming pool full of young drunken bodies accompanied by loud dance music. I repaired to a quiet corner of the Jacuzzi and ate goulash and drank wine for more hours than I can comfortably remember, observing this tribal group slowly pass from exuberance to passivity and finally sleep and the coach home. The next day, as we headed to the airport, the debris and occasional forgotten sleeper were impressive.

Follow Thomas Woodham Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/twoodhamsmith

Week 29 - A new Beginning.

Friday will begin at 7am with an auspicious event that I am not even attending. Nicola has a taxi booked for 6am. Otherwise impeccably attired, she will appear in a high-viz jacket, a garish, ill-fitting hard hat and comedic clown boots with steel toes. She is at the Bull Ring Gate on the Embankment of the Royal Hospital. There she is met by Andy Hickling, from whom she will take possession of the site and commence the Masterpiece tenancy. Eleven months of work have led up to this moment. I imagine a few jokes about the earliness of the hour. I imagine trucks from Neptunus who build the structure, backing up round various corners. The throb of their engines and the hum of Dutch language radio and banter in the distance. All this I can see in my mind from the comfort of my bed in Stockwell. I don't know how much is real and how much is my fantasy but I do know that our tenancy will begin at 7am on Friday morning.

Whilst the actual appearance of Nicola on Friday is something I can only conjure, her presence on Thursday was something I did observe. Founder's Day at the Royal Hospital is a wonderful, touching and magnificent affair. It is partly their 'end of term' and partly a celebration of their history. Founded by Charles II in 1682, and developed and enhanced by James II and William and Mary. The day bears a weight of memory and history. The in-pensioners, of which there are 300, have an average age of over 80. Their serried ranks of red coats and tricorne hats look stately and sober. A member of the Royal Family always attends, inspects the troops and gives a speech. This time it was the Duchess of Cornwall. She spoke well and shone in a coat of green-blue. There is a certain sort of managed clothing that is distinctive of the Royals. Only they can have matching shoes and handbag, a matching coat and hat with the dress underneath only a tonal shade different. The end result of a flash of silk and a broad-rimmed hat is something bizarrely calm and also surreal. It almost looks like 'fancy dress'. The governor then speaks, he thanks everyone and makes amusing remarks. His tone is very much that of a headmaster. I cannot see him from where I am sitting but his voice has a warm, benign tone, very reassuring. It bears a very British sense of confidence. You feel that with voices like these nothing bad could ever happen. The sun glitters off the brass of the band and everything seems in order and harmony.

However, the real stars of this show are the soldiers. As they stand there full of dignity, the heat increases and yet they still stand solid and stable despite their years. Kindly, matronly nurses skitter about with cups of water. Your eyes scan the ranks. Some have effulgent beards, some carry a stick. There are tall ones, short ones, fat and thin. Nowadays there are even women amongst them. They march, they stand, they are reviewed by the officers and the Royals. The binding reality here is that they have made a commitment to the service of their nation. They have, each one, made a sacrifice of individuality for the greater good. As I watch them stand from my seat in the stands I cannot help but feel a debt of gratitude. In the programme there is a whole page dedicated to listing the medals and citations the assembled have been awarded. This is an astonishing catalogue of courage. The names are not noted, I think this is rather beautiful. The message here is that the list represents an accumulation of heroism, the men and women here share their pasts, presents and futures. At the end of their lives these people have pooled all their experience and offer it up for us. One of the most touching parts of the march is the parade of electric wheelchairs. They have cunningly only ordered red ones, in line with the red coats. They try their hardest to drive along with the same dignity and gravitas as the soldiers who can still walk. They manage it beautifully and with great charm.

The British military tradition is rich with eccentricity and I don't believe there is any country in the world where 3000 people can sit with perfect seriousness as each person is bedecked in branches, sprigs and leaves of oak. Charles II, the founder, was sheltered by hiding in an oak tree after his defeat at the battle of Worcester in 1652. The oak leaf has since become the symbol of both the founder and thereby the Hospital. I also love the Bearskin, the magnificently absurd so-called 'cap' the British army guards and grenadiers wear in memory of defeating Napoleon at Waterloo. To top that, on view are miles of gold frogging, beautifully cut suits and quite a few swords. The final effect is not comic; it is awe inspiring and resplendent. This is because it is done with total seriousness and it has the weight of centuries of history behind it.

After the parade we have a pause and then we walk into the refectory where we dine at the time-honoured oak tables. Above our heads are flags captured in battle and we are surrounded by portraits of the great and the good. The food and the wine are not the point, the opportunity here is to celebrate and enjoy the contribution that the supporters of the Hospital have made. Everyone here is positive and enthusiastic and the conversation is easy. The assembled company is as one in mood and character. As we leave, our feet crunching on the gravel, wending our way back towards the underground station at Sloane Square we all feel as if we are leaving one world and entering another. At the station I see my first advertisement for Masterpiece and it brings me back to reality with a jolt. We have a lot of work to do in a very short space of time.

Week 28 - A tragic loss

Sitting round our dining room table we are enjoying a bottle of Volpetto and some chicken roast by my wife in honey, mustard and lemon. It has given the skin an intense black glaze, sort of burnt, but in a good way. Strong sweet and tangy flavour alongside succulent meat, A very successful dish. I look around the table. Both my sons are discretely keeping an eye on their mobile phones. I am too. My 'ever loving' has a rule 'no toys at the table' we abide but secretly disobey. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a message. The conversation up to this point has been random, mainly complaints by me about how little the boys help with the day to day tidiness. You know, the usual boring crotchety dad stuff, no one is listening anyway. I pick up my phone and read. Sallie Brady has died. It was such an extraordinary mental gear shift to even take this news in. Immediately I could see her lush golden hair and her broad smile and slightly nervous hesitant tone. Gone. It is so peculiar. She was only 47. I learnt later that there had been a fire at her home in New Jersey. She had suffered the loss of her husband not long ago and the grief had been hard to handle. So, a double tragedy. Her absence will be sorely felt. She was a sort of talisman for Masterpiece. She had spoken on our first promotional video and was always trumpeting our success and aspiration wherever she went or wrote. She was almost an ambassador for us. But it was not just for Masterpiece. She was one of life's enthusiasts. Always positive, always smiling, always delighted to see you and speak. Journalism has changed since the economic downturn. Writers are expected to work harder, for less and with little security of further work. Those that manage to retain their composure and charm are few. She was categorically one of those. She was also a sort of symbol of love too. Her marriage must have been very special. I never met her husband, in truth I did not know Sallie that well. But the bond they had that was broken was devastating to her. I wonder how many other marriages could claim a similar reaction. For me Sallie and Masterpiece are inextricably joined and this year we will all celebrate and miss her during the fair.

Pre-Tasting the food for the various events during Masterpiece is one of the treats of the fair. At the Caprice practice kitchen in North London we sat round guided by Lucy and studiously munched through the vetting breakfast, the curators evening and the preview day. We sipped wines for each event and diluted the pleasure with a non-alcoholic cocktail, a sort of elderflower mojito. The surreal nature of this experience is hard to capture as we all learnedly weigh up the sourness of a goats cheese or the potential crumbliness of a pastry. We pretend to be old or frail or simply drunk, or a greedy dealer wanting to get value for money out of his stand price. We create many an odd scenario over a couple of hours. In the end we conclude with as many delicious things as we can. The aspiration is to deliver a worthy accompaniment for the exceptional items that are coming. This all has to be a background to the excellence and scholarship available, and it has to be complimentary and supportive, not distracting.

Friday early morning we are off to Paris. Giles (from Mallett) and I are off to the sales and a visit to the rive gauche for the 'carrement audacieux' a very amusing pun in French which I had to have explained to me. It is so amusing I will leave you to work it out. The route in Paris is so familiar to me now that I could almost do it in my sleep. Down on foot to the Drouot. Then Metro to the Faubourg St Honoré. Then Metro to rue du Bac. Lunch, looking, shopping, cocktails at Le Pré aux Clercs, supper at Lipp, digestif at les Deux Magots. Bed. Breakfast at the Voltaire with a tartine and their homemade jams. Off for a day of exploring. Now most of that did happen. But. Radically we took a taxi from the Faubourg St Honoré to the rue de L'Universite. It felt weird, spoilt and even lazy. Giles and I both commented that in other cities we don't think twice about taking a taxi. Even in our own fair city, London. But habit is insistent. Somehow over the decades we have got used to this orbit around public transport. It feels right, it feels normal. Anything else carries with it a sense of transgression or naughtiness. The taxi driver was great and we duly found ourselves back on track visiting shops and having lunch at La Fregate with Sylvain. The food here is not really memorable or even sufficiently traditional to be worthy of comment. We only eat here because Sylvain fell out with his culinary alma mater the Voltaire, 50 yards away. They let him down appallingly on the opening night of his new shop. He had booked half the restaurant and when he arrived with 30 guests they had given away his tables. Even though he had eaten there at least twice a week for nearly twenty years. They were unapologetic. He has never darkened their doors again. Moreover the pain is still there. He will repeat the story at the drop of a hat. Lunch therefore was fine but it was, as usual, more about where we weren't eating than where we were.

A few object purchases later and after a few entertaining chats to exhibitors we found ourselves meeting up with my ex assistant Ruth. She is an American, a pocket dynamo, as they say. She worked for me for a while then she moved to Christies. She is now covering for someone in Paris for a couple of months. She speaks great French and though work obviously has its annoyances she seems to be thoroughly embracing the experience, ahead of an ultimate return to, and career in, the USA. It is a terrible admission but though Giles and I get on really well and there is never a shortage of things to discuss an 'extra' at the table is always hugely welcome. I persuade them both to have the chicken and mashed potato. It does not disappoint. The day ends in the traditional manner at les deux Magots and I sleep well knowing I have a fun day at the puces in Clignancourt ahead.

week 27 - Books, Books, Books

Books books books, my house is awash with books. Every dusty corner has a bookshelf. Some rooms have several. By my bed, behind the door, is a vertiginous tower of books. It precariously teeters towards the ceiling, on the very top sits a much loved teddy bear. He is ancient and appears to be suffering from an advanced case of alopecia. His once effulgent fur is but a distant memory. He sits like a nervous Greek philosopher atop his hermit's tower. He has a mournful but patient air. Other rooms are equally clogged. I felt the urge to crash through, to liberate myself from the thraldom of all these oppressive pages. Since the creation of the kindle i have found myself increasing wondering why the novel still creeps and skulks around my home. Finally my wife has agreed. But from the beginning of deciding to purge ourselves of the cheaply produced novel we found ourselves contemplating a deeper, profounder task. We were going to tackle our university books!! Astonishing to realise that shelves are still squatted by yellowing copies of Hamlet, that I scribbled telling comments in, supposedly to help me write essays. These are numerous in quantity. Poor cursed editions of Yeats poetry defaced and flaking, lurking there reminding me of the fact that I barely scraped a second. Suffice to say their moment has come. Boxes have been procured and the bank holiday weekend has been sacrificed to a book clearance.

Every shelf has a reference book. Bought or given as a guide to knowledge or self improvement. My particular weakness is gardening. There is here a mixture of ignorance and indolence. I hate gardening but I have a really charming small sun trap at the front of the house and at the back a patch of scraggy grass flanked by overgrown beds of weeds. I have a lot of gardening books that aspire to drag me out and dig. Their purpose is to drive me to learn the names of plants in Latin. I am over 50 and it is still not working. Those books have to go.

Earlier this week my wife and I were invited to the house of the Royal Hospital Quartermaster Andy. (I have mentioned him before when we introduced the Hospital team to our CEO Nazy) He and his wife host each year a party which allows his guests to roam around the Chelsea Flower show after the official closing time. It is a wonderful treat. They ran the event with a perfect mixture of charm and military efficiency. They both have dedicated their lives to the service of others both at a local and at a national level. We are privileged to know them, especially as they are both such fun. Wandering around the flower show I could not escape the visual echoes and massive differences to Masterpiece which is only a month away!! The flower show is huge and sprawls right through Ranelagh gardens as well as all the way round to the flats on Embankment Gardens. I found it inspiring trying to come up with ideas that would enhance and expand our Masterpiece project. I could already, in my mind's eye, see the Sculpture Walk that we are launching this year enriching the area around the entrance to the fair. The show gardens are impressive as are the big flower displays in the main tent but my wife led me into a side tent dedicated to flower arranging. There was a delightfully bonkers and old school character to this. The arrangements were in many cases dazzling and original. But you could not escape memories of village fêtes and Mr Burroughs unfeasibly large vegetables that the local vicar has always awarded a rosette to. It was charming and nostalgic. But I know now that the gardening books can go.

I have an extraordinary number of books on art and interior design. They have now come before my executioner's eye. I realise that an interior illustrated without names and locations is quite frustrating and annoying. Especially when I don't look at them from one year to the next. Now, there are lots and lots of design books that pass the survival criteria but there is a small mountain that don't. Many many casually and recklessly acquired at boot fairs and charity shops for pennies and almost never perused after their purchase. But disposing of them is quite an emotional and intellectual wrench. I think of my exhibitors and I wonder whether I should distribute book largesse amongst them, in as appropriate a way as possible? Then I remember last week when I went to the opening of our exhibitors Bruno and Ricardo. The Brancolini Grimaldi gallery in Albemarle Street have a show of contemporary art merging with the renaissance pieces of Bacarelli and Botticelli. The names alone are poetry but I doubt they would like a deposit of art book cast offs? They had a good party and there was a healthy smattering of the right crowd of enthusiasts and collectors. We went to dinner afterwards at HIX in Browns hotel. They looked after us well, with rather too much attention to filling the glasses. I cycled home slightly unsteadily. I think the art books will have to go to a charity shop.

When you look at books you don't see the shelves. I am suddenly confronted by the hideous selection of rubbishy flat pack shelves that adorn, if that is the word, my house. On Monday the landlords of Masterpiece, Mallett had a party for an exhibition of very grand English furniture. They have put the show out with everything on a plinth and it looks very special and museum like. We chatted and quaffed and admired the walnut. My bookshelves look even poorer by comparison. Perhaps I should put everything back and look at the smelly paperbacks rather than the smelly shelves. But I have started so i will finish. The literary enema must take its course.

The real worry is that nature abhors a vacuum. In addition I have a self made cliché about myself. I say I love minimalism, but I love lots of it. Something will creep in. In fact I know what it is. It is "objects". I am an obsessive and compulsive buyer of stuff. This habit has been catered for by decades of buying for Mallett and others but now the outlets are drying up and the urge is still intense. Yesterday before the book thing began I went to Portobello to pay for and collect a wonderful tortoiseshell triptych dressing mirror I had bought from people at the Battersea fair. Of course, I bought some other things too. Over a decadent full English at the refurbished Electric house I reviewed my acquisitions. I had to reflect that I had no one to sell them too. I had bought them simply because they were charming and well made, and the right price.

Those empty shelves will soon be full and I won't have to notice the shelves.

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week 26 - Rooster soup - Budapest

You know you are in a foreign country when you bite down and enjoy your first rooster testicle soup. Okay the rest of the rooster is in the soup too. But my host generously, having gobbled up ( pun intended ) the first one passes the second to me. Gasping, I hope not too obviously, I popped it into my mouth and chewed. It was soft and delicious; Reminiscent of kidney but without the bitterness or chewiness. A true delicacy, the rest of the soup was fabulous too. Chicken broth can be a bit bland but this was meaty flavour. With this clear but oily broth came slabs of dark brown rooster meat accompanied by soft vegetables cut in disks with a crinkle cutting machine. Enhanced by a scattering of salt this was the perfect restoring soup. There is a Jewish concept that chicken soup is the the ultimate cure all. But this Hungarian dish would bring you back from the dead. After our lunch we walked around feeling as if we had been to a spa.

I was making a day trip to Hungary. Starting with the Ryanair beasts; no bags, nothing to hold me back, the day began well. Even London transport failed to skewer my day, completely randomly I had checked the transport For London website for travel hiccups the night before. I have done this trip many times and my habit is to trudge off to the tube without so much as backward glance. Fortuitously I looked and found that I had to take a completely different route. At 5.30 am it is sometimes hard to be mentally flexible and make the necessary gear shifts to change route, but i managed it. Sitting on the tube to Seven Sisters I thought about Tuesday evening. Heather Kerzner had orchestrated for Marie Curie a photography event at the Bulgari hotel, in Kensington. It was a great drinks party and charity auction to benefit the charity. Young up and coming photographers had all taken the pseudonym David Bailey and the great man himself had donated a few large prints. The evening went well with Simon Philips, one of the founders of Masterpiece, loyally supporting many of the lots and, perhaps, unluckily not buying any. I put my hand up once and also failed to buy. Harry Dalmeny of Sotheby's was at the rostrum stirring everyone up and making risqué jokes

The evening raised money and Heather put huge energy into encouraging and praising those who had bid. It augers well for the midsummer party at Masterpiece.

From Seven Sisters i changed and headed to Stansted on a proper train. It was gleaming and brand new. The train I normally use has an incredible disconcerting habit of producing very large bangs every 5 to 10 minutes, due to some contact shift in the overhead electrical connection, but this was silky smooth. On Wednesday Nazy (CEO of Masterpiece London) and I went to the Syngenta award for photography relating to the wilderness or nature under threat. They seem to be a moral company, they employ over 27,000 in a myriad of countries and have corporate responsibility at their core, rather the pure lust for profit. This is quite a rarity for an agri-business. The show was held in the back rooms of Somerset house. The challenge to bring these threatened areas into public focus is huge but immensely worth it, the exhibition will only be up for a week but it is well worth seeing. We then rushed off to Pimlico road for the opening of Rose Uniacke's shop. She is a new exhibitor at Masterpiece and will be bringing 20th century design but she has a completely eclectic eye and could bring anything. All the Pimlico road were there, the dealers and a few clients, it made a fascinating counterpoint to the art crowd at Somerset house to the decorative arts mob in the Pimlico road.

I arrive at Stansted and go through the scanning process. I'm such a weirdo, I take a strange sort of pride in getting my ipad out the bag, putting my jacket in the right place, making sure I have no metal in my pockets. Perfection, I usually sail through in less time than its some chump to pull his belt out of its loops. I never wear a belt or lace up shoes for flying. Anyway I got it completely wrong. I left a half bottle of water in my bag, I had to line up with the idiots to be ticked off and humiliated by the guards who obviously live and breathe for such triumphs as handing my half bottle of water and making me walk off to the bin to dispose of it.

Onto the plane and two and half hours of sleep catch up before I will have to listen to the idiotic Ryanair fanfare. It allowed me the reflection of how Thursday was a day of dealing. I started at Hatfields and picked up two pieces of furniture, a Pembroke table and a Canterbury. I put them in the car and headed off to the west end. I was going to 'run' them. It is strange to admit that in all my years in the business this is the first time I have ever done this. You drive up, press the door bell, raise the boot of your car and off you go. It is a humiliating business, sale or no sale it is like showing someone your underpants. It is very personal. I will need to toughen up if the future holds much more of this. Rejection followed, for good reasons but it followed nonetheless. In the afternoon I headed off in another direction and this time I did make a sale but it was the same underpant revealing exposure.

Finally in Budapest my taxi driver speeds me off to the house, not before regaling me with anecdotes of Hungarian drinking bouts on a recent driving job he had in Cuba ferrying round a Venezuelan business man. Strange but true. The House is coming on well and we discussed the forthcoming wedding of his daughter and stood looking at the Danube as the sun beat down. A calm fell on the scene and we could smell the spring and the warmth reflecting off the water. Then back to work and Rooster soup.

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week 25 - New York, New York - Frieze opens in NY

New York is not London. As soon as you queue up at immigration you know you are not in London. It smells distinctive, it looks distinctive. It acts in every way distinctive. The dread of a massive line, the TV broadcasting news, the size of everyone and everything, it all compounds to render the scene both awe inspiring and slightly intimidating. Despite the obvious language false familiarity it seems as if you need to talk your way in. Travel in Europe does not require you to 'blag' your way in. But to enter the United States you have to chat up the bored and aggressive gun carrying officer. I must reassure him of my good intentions, one of which is that I will, in due course, leave.

Once through, New York beckons and is thrilling to arrive in. The clouds are grey and the night has fallen by the time I arrive at my hotel. But the taxi ride is worth every penny. The traffic, the terrible roads that make the car bounce and shake in a bone jangling fashion, then the bridge and a view of the ultimate shining high rise city. Anybody who is not elated by their arrival into Manhattan is missing a piece of soul. The Soho Grand Hotel is superficially quite cool. The stairs are made of iron and have glass inclusions that make the walk up from the ground floor to the lobby on the first floor quite twinkly. There is a dash of showbiz. However that is where the pleasure ends. I have a theory that they draw their staff from Ryanair rejects. With a grin and a cocky comment they manage to delay your checking-in as much as is humanly possible. Once in, you go to your room where your card "key" does not work. Back down to reception and the card is recharged, or whatever, and you gain access to your room. Then you wait for your luggage that you weren't allowed to take yourself by the doormen at the front door. A flash of service disguises the desire to torture the recent arrival.

I escape to meet my friend Nicko for a drink and a plate of food. Not before i run into the Dutch contingent. Stabilo are here in the incarnation of Marianne and Janneke. They have come to support the exhibitors and we have two days of meetings ahead. Every aspect of stand building will be discussed and Nicola and I will make sure that everyone knows all the plans we have for the fair and all the events that are scheduled. The girls have come with their husbands and have added a couple of days for their trip to turn it into a bit of a holiday. We greet in the bar and the torturers/ staff kick in. There is no wine I want by the glass only by the bottle. So I decide to have a cocktail and they don't have the ingredients. A Black Russian is not a really obscure drink with an arcane list of ingredients. It is just vodka and Kahlua. I have never known it to be unavailable anywhere in the world. I feel like a snack so i order a chicken club sandwich and a portion of chips. These take over an hour to come and they come twenty minutes apart. I realise I am sounding quite spoilt at this point, but I think staying at a hotel is such a treat and when it isn't it is sad, that's all. The Dutch are on great form. They have walked all over the city and have embraced the native culture of beer and pizza. Janneke is up for an adventure so she asks me to recommend a cocktail. I suggest that NY classic a Negroni. They bring it, amazingly. She loves the colour but the bitterness is a shock. She looks at me with a sad and accusatory face like i had played a trick on her.

Nicko arrives and we separate off to reminisce and catch up. He used to work for me at Mallett at Bourdon House. He then moved to the NY shop, fell in love with a local girl and stayed on. He is married now and recently has set up on his own as mid century furniture dealer. He seems to be doing well. He has amazing knowledge coupled with great charm. He will be fine. We gossiped for a while but then I hit the jet lag wall and had to bale. Back in my room my telephone had a red light blinking. I had a message. I rang down to the desk, listened to the message. The red light was still on, blinking at me. I looked at the phone, I couldn't see any way of switching off the flashing light. I rang down again. The desk said that they sorted out the blinking from the main switchboard. Suffice to say the phone blinked all week. I covered it each night with a pillow. I got used to it, it became like an annoying friend.

On Wednesday we had the decorator and dealer preview party for Masterpiece. Our host was the New York decorating legend Ellie and her husband Ed Cullman who sweetly allowed us to invite many of our supporters in the city. The apartment was elegant and the staff attentive, Philip gave a very confident speech which said it all about the forthcoming fair. Copies of Architectural digest were handed out and a general mood of elegant civilisation pervaded.

The next day was the opening of Frieze NY. We took the ferry from 34th st. The city looks superb from the water and my colleague Francesca sat on the top deck oohing and aahing to her heart's content. The massive serpentine tent was enriched at the front by a huge inflatable balloon dog by Paul McCarthy. It is supposedly an ironic reference to Jeff Koons. But it was huge and red and it looked eager at the entrance as if waiting for its owner to come out and play. Maybe he or she did before the end of the fair. Hours passed and the fair became a bit of a blur. Certain galleries stood out, as did certain works but in the end I think I liked them simply because they were shiny.

We headed back into town in order to visit Sebastian and Barquet. They had put on a show of modern sculptures from the historic Talavera pottery in Mexico, and the presentation of Johnny Swings latest designs and catalogue. We arrived late but we luckily got to meet Johnny and admire the Mexican pottery. We will see the Swing piece at Masterpiece.

The next days are packed with the amazing shows that fill NY this week. Hauser and Wirth have a Paul McCarthy show of monumental wooden sculptures that are both eerie and über kitsch. They have a café installation alongside which is truly amazing and strikingly disturbing as it is both weird and familiar. Then on to David Zwirner and his Jeff Koons show of heroic plasters of masterpieces from antiquity coupled with trashy garden ornament, the common link being the dazzling blue gazing ball, which is the exhibition title. Both Christies and Sotheby's had massive sales which by the time you read this you will see many auction records have been broken. Unusually at Christies, up on the 20th floor they had taken over a space to show the work of Ruth Asawa, a Japanese American artist based in San Francisco. Beautiful, floating and delicate, work that is reminiscent of baskets and yet is very powerful. It was a straight selling show, not an auction at all. This seems to be the future.

week 24 - Debate and Debacle

Last week was all about the joys of dogtastic Battersea. This week was about Masterpiece and tidying up.

It's Sunday and I am dragging my suitcase along the seemingly endless corridors of Green Park underground station as I am 'tubing' it to Heathrow en route to New York. I began the day by making scones for my son who is in a rowing regatta this afternoon; he woke me at 7 explaining that he needed the carbs in order to perform well and if i did not make them his position at no 4 in the boat was under dire threat.

Following this I mowed the lawn- Mrs Sungoose pointed out that it needed doing, especially as I was away for a week and the grass would get completely out of hand. I finished, put the mower away and swept the boy off to meet his team. On my return I filled the car with petrol and picked up Anna ( boss of Hatfields ) and started lunch. Barbecued rhubarb may seem like a bit of an oddity but we love the barbecue and we grew the rhubarb. Marinaded in palm sugar for an hour and roasted for 5 minutes then tipped back into the sugar to cool it is a wonderful sweet and bitter pudding when garnished with thick yogurt. Preceded by sweet corn, green beans in soy and fried crispy garlic, micro burgers scattered with paprika and cosseted in mayo. Result! Lubricating this luncheon machine was Sauska 113, a crisp aromatic white that unfortunately is too delicious for only one bottle to suffice. An intense cup of Illy coffee and I am off, trudging to the station.

Years ago I envied my Mallett colleague Richard. He set off each year for Tefaf in exquisite county garb -padded jacket, bright red trousers, a canary yellow jumper and shiny brogues. The very epitome of the English gent. Admittedly he was only in his twenties, but the perfection was intense. Pulling behind him, as we headed for the Eurostar, an immaculate world traveller suitcase, it was blue, had wheels and a stylish leather handle to boot. I have to admit I wanted it. The green eyed monster of jealousy. But I am cheap and he is not. I scoured eBay. I looked in charity shops. I expended endless energy looking for a bargain. In the end, indeed, only a few months ago, I found one, bid and bought it. The result is that I now have the most annoying suitcase ever. It clips my heels and has a stupid balance. As I walk it either falls out of my hand or twists, turns and jumps like a rodeo bronco. It will do anything to avoid falling into subservient line. Mrs Sungoose told me not to buy it so obviously I must give the impression that it is the best purchase I have ever made. It so isn't. It drives me nuts. It is an inanimate direct recrimination for my greed and avarice. And I am lugging it along the platform as we speak. Dammit.

As I walk the week past washes over me. In a weird way I am not only leaving London I am also saying goodbye to the last week. It was an extraordinary week.

It began with a debate at the Ivy Club. Oscar Humphries, editor of Apollo, and Philip Mould, exhibitor and TV icon, were mediated and moderated by yours truly on the subject of whether modern art would stand the test of time or not. We quickly reduced it down to a binary choice between the 'living or the dead'. The debate raged in an amiable sort of way washed down with our sponsor's gift of Ruinart champagne. Oscar besports many a cunning tattoo - including his chest which reads 'protect me from what I want'. Philip is every inch establishment, steady argument, finely coiffed hair and masterpieces in his own stock to draw reference from. We had this game - each member of the audience was given an imaginary million pounds to spend on art. At the end they had to vote with a show of hands who would get the pot to spend, Oscar or Philip. It was fun to see an almost palpable sense of where the gathering throng wanted the money to go. I thought the maverick Oscar would win with his outré vision and cunningly self-effacing air. But Philip carried the day.

Moving into the building phase of the fair sees some issues pass and others enter the frame. Stands are all allocated and numbered, plans are being framed and pictures are flooding in to the website. One of the strangest indices of the impending fair is watching the building of the Chelsea Flower Show. As their structures ascend so ours become ever closer to their moment. We had a very jolly lunch introducing Nazy (our CEO) to the Royal Hospital team - Peter Currie, Lieutenant governor, and Andy Hickling, Quartermaster. The management of the Royal Hospital is based on military lines as their titles would suggest. There is a refreshing sense with them that if there is a job to be done then the only hurdle is how to do it quickly, efficiently and economically. There is no ego, or any other distraction. It is never a question of doubt, or concern about covering their backs, none of the paranoia associated with corporate 'health and safety', the euphemism for inertia that cripples many a business. If they want to do it, they get it done. They are completely committed to the welfare of the in-pensioners, as they are called, and the sensible and pragmatic modernisation and development of their site. At the table we are all builders and planners and it made for a very stimulating and creative lunch. Ideas for the future crackled.

Friday was a key day. We and Apollo finished the magazine and I cannot wait to see it. Oscar and his team have fashioned with us an appetising meld of both serious scholarship and entertaining reading. Natalie in our office has been working all hours to get it done and as she strode out of the office for a weekend away she had a definite triumphant swagger alongside a sense of exhausted relief. She had pulled it off!

For me Thursday and Friday were a counterpoint between California and Egypt. I had two clients in town, one on each day. California I met in the exquisite Bar de Cuisine by Poilane in Cadogan Gardens just by the Kings Road. I had not been there before and it was a revelation. The decor was pale wooden benches and seats and a broadly industrial air. This has become the paradigm set by "Le Pain Quotidian" but this was altogether a superb expression. I had a double espresso with grilled bread and butter, scattered with rosemary above a crispy sea of bacon. Dead simple but totally - distractingly delicious. Poilane bread is so moreish- it has a sourness and coarseness that could be perceived as negatives but it is amazing. With Egypt I was faced with the awful truth that I know nothing about carpets. She had rung me to say that she needed rugs for a new house in London- I had taken her and a friend up to park royal and an old university friend Mike who deals in great stuff, but mainly to the trade. He does not like dealing with actual end users. They want precise sizes and colours rather than admiring the detail, quality or rarity of a carpet. He greeted us cordially and had laid on sweet tea. So far so good. He is exceptionally knowledgeable and is happy to share and discuss but I had nothing to contribute. When I had said "ooh that's a nice colour" for the umpteenth time I could see my superfluousness written in capital letters on everyone's face. Countries of origin, ages and patterns merged into a swirl in my head and I had to sit quietly in a corner to avoid embarrassing myself even more. They were all very polite and as I drove Egypt and her friend back to town they could not have been kinder and more appreciative. But the crunch came when they wanted to see some of the best pieces at the house. Egypt kindly and gently pointed out that my presence would not be required.

So here I am, dragging that stupid suitcase off to New York and another continent where we are having a Masterpiece event and exhibitor meetings. All next week.

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week 23 - Battersea Decorative fair

It is the penultimate day, Saturday. I am standing in the corner of my 5 m by 2.5 m grey painted stand. My feet are on the sisel carpet that got laid down a week ago. The mortadella, cheese and chutney sandwich in sourdough that I have just bought is disappearing fast. The glass of cold white Chilean Chardonnay that is supporting the sandwich and me, is comfortingly still not empty. My mouthfuls are a bit nervous. I don't like eating on the stand,but I don't want to go away for fear of missing the stand clearing deal. But equally my dribbling chutney down my chin and onto the white calico upholstery is not a good look. My wife, optimistic and cheerful as ever, is cleaning the glass on her cabinets of costume jewellery. My stuff lurks in recrimination around the rest of the stand. Don't get me wrong. I still have affection for the pieces but the fact that they are still here tarnishes that affection. They are like children in their twenties who still live at home. Of course you love them, of course you will cry when they do eventually leave home, but another part of you will whoop for joy and feel like your work has been done.

Around me there is a wonderful binary character to the dealers and their stock. There is a dealer here called 'the trading room'. On the fair website they specify what they sell economically as; 'nice things' is all you get as guidance. On the other hand you have my neighbours at the fair Pinn and Lennard; '17th & 18th century furniture, metalwork, treen & decorative objects.' The former wears jeans and artfully torn clothes, has his hair fashioned in a cunningly tousled, slightly oiled manner and has a contented, successful, look to him. His stock is undeniably glamorous; pieces are chosen for scale and drama. They are what the estate agents call 'statement' pieces. Friends of his buyers will gather around the latest purchase and jealously, covetously admire. The secret is that these are 'nice things' not really antiques with concern for history, provenance, knowledge, condition or restoration. They are all about shape, colour and function. This is what people want!! Pinn and Lennard worry. They are concerned about every aspect of what they buy and what they offer. I bought a Windsor chair from them. They took me through the condition, the regional variation of the chair, they explained how to care for and maintain the chair for the next generation. They really appear to care deeply and have profound knowledge about each object.

If you sell Antiques here you face an uphill struggle. If you sell a 'look' you start at an advantage. There are dealers who strive to achieve both, but it is not easy. It is a sort of Holy Grail. It is a credit to the fair that both strands have their place but the team playing in the old, historic, antique way are definitely the B team.

I cannot resist buying, each day when I wander around to stretch my legs I find a new treasure to delight and attract. Graham Child, erstwhile of Sotheby's brings a collection of garden implements. He retains that smart smooth Sotheby's way almost like a retired senior army officer, charming to everyone, casually dressed but with beautifully polished and cared for old shoes. He chooses things for their sculptural qualities. Each one is metamorphosed from a humble tool to a cross between surrealism and the antique. I often gravitate his way, and I hate gardening. It is like housework -washing, tidying and hoovering, but outside in the cold and rain. Then we have the Norfolk crew of father and son Pearse and Morgan. The latter is relatively new to the business but his father has been around for ever - I suspect he was doing deals at Primary school. He looks formidable with a shaved head and a penchant for black but he is incredibly nice. He can be rather gloomy though, his stand looks impressive, combining a crumbling country chic with a dash of scholarship. But everyone is friendly and charming, they all are happy to chat, reminisce and discuss their stock. It may not always be commercial but the sense of community is palpable. They are all real people.

But I must not forget the dogs, they are everywhere. Exhibitors and visitors alike worship and parade their hounds. I don't know anything about dog breeds but every size, every colour, every nose or leg or head shape out there would be available for view at some point. There are the perky, cheeky, noisy ones that yap and need constant attention, walks, water and cuddles. Then there the others who are larger and more docile that curl up on a blanket in the corner of the stand and sleep or yawn all day, between the occasional biscuit, noisy slurp of water and rotation in their bed. It is the fair for dogs.

All week I have been wearing, to much comment, my daffodil from the charity Marie Curie. The masterpiece team attended a breakfast at the super sleek Bulgari hotel, sponsored by the generous owner Hani Farsi. I gave a brief talk about the fair and our party chairwoman Heather Kerzner enthusiastically and passionately roused the troops for action. The assembled listened and watched a touching film about the last few days in the life of the labour party strategist and erstwhile advertising executive Philip Gould, Baron Gould of Brookwood. The role of the Marie Curie nurses in bringing his last days, the 'death zone' as he chillingly dubbed it, as much comfort as possible was very powerfully expressed. He spoke of his own forthcoming death with incredible honesty and frankness. I spoke to one of the nurses, Irene. She had been a nurse, then had turned to holistic healing and finally had returned to nursing for Marie Curie with a zeal for care that was intensely humbling. We all pledged our efforts to Heather for the party. And I have been promoting the charity and its spring fundraising daffodil as hard as I can.

week 22 - Naples eating and shopping.

On Monday I was in Paris, with Giles from Mallett.We had run round the auction rooms at the Drouot, which they are sadly renovating, cunningly destroying an immaculate 70's interior just when it is becoming the height of cool. They are replacing it with a ghastly confection of chrome and wood which will probably be ripped out in 30 years, just when it stands a chance of looking interesting as a period survival. We ventured to the Carré on the rive gauche where we bought a couple of fab things. Giles and I then celebrated over lunch at Lipp. Giles is sensible and prudent and had poached haddock with boiled potatoes. I don't remember what I was having because all my attention was spent on Giles' potatoes. They were broadly rugby ball in shape with what could best be described as carved sides. They glistened slightly and sat like basking seals in the shallow waters of the fish juice. Giles disdained them for reasons of controlled greed whilst I tucked in. They were just slightly waxy and were a soft bite suffused with flavour, a hint of salt and their own potato essence. These were the perfect "pommes vapeur" something so ineffably French that one felt instantly transported to every French moment in the memory banks.

Potatoes can be so evocative. They are chips and pommes frites. They are boiled and vapeur. They can be baked, mashed, fried, rolled or cut into a fathomless myriad of shapes and sizes. There are probably hundreds of different species and yet they are all the same, recognisably a potato from a mile off. Simultaneously they manage to be deeply rooted in their individual culinary cultures. No ingredient has quite the same chameleon nature. In Spain, Italy or any European nation, no matter where, the same magic takes place. In Naples on Friday at La Bersagliera in Santa Lucia the sea bass and boiled potatoes achieved the same indigenous perfection. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Masterpiece had an event on Wednesday for the London decorator scene. The magazine World of Interiors co-hosted as they are Masterpiece media partners. Our team had organised a drinks party at an extraordinary house belonging to a wonderful Iranian couple in South Street. Just over the road from the famous Art Deco house built by Bendor for Coco Chanel. With the interiors they have combined in an individual and beautiful way, superb contemporary art sits alongside ancient and renaissance pieces. The furniture is just as eclectic and the overall achievement is both arresting and comfortable. The decorators attending were duly impressed.

On Thursday I flew to Naples and my potato rendezvous at La Bersagliera. Naples is always a shock and a surprise. The mess and the chaos on the streets disguise a systematic way of life that is probably unchanged for 3000 years. For example if you take a taxi in Naples you can choose a fixed fare or use the 'contadore' - the metre. The fixed fare is negotiable but then set as they scrupulously write it down for you on splendid official looking sheets of paper. The metre it turns out is negotiable too. But at your destination and never downwards. At the end of your trip there is always a 'supplemento' which whatever the actual total on the metre turns the final bill into a sum much greater than the original fixed tariff. It is like a weird sort of morality tale. If you trust the guy in advance as a person, it is better than trusting the man via the machine. I don't know what the moral is but it is multi layered and too complex for me. But the paper is definitely the winner.

Naples is full of antique shops and second hand warehouses. Though they love the internet and mobile phones and other trappings of the 21st century the city throbs with a love of the ancient. The infamous but always super charming taxi drivers often recount tales of recent archaeological discoveries and often share their own excitement with a favourite find or discovery. I had a taxi driver who loved scuba diving and had a room full of broken pots which he listed to me over a long traffic bedevilled ride. No other city in the world could boast so many enthusiasts for broken pots, shards of ceramic and twisted metal. The shops are dusty and apparently full of unloved objects but it is a charade. These objects are revered and cherished. Each grizzled diminutive dialect speaking vendor waxes grandiloquently on the subject of each treasure in his or her emporium. It is not just salesmanship; they really love the things they own.

There is one dealer in 20th century things who focuses (not unsurprisingly) on 20th century Italian design. He has curly black hair, dark rings round his eyes and a fluttery enthusiasm. He has a makers name attached to every work, which I think he mainly makes up. However his taste is impeccable and whilst his warehouse is beyond cramped everything seems to emerge unscathed and beautiful. Somehow he is always able to find something we cannot resist.

In the evening we dine at San Ferdinando which is in the Nardones. This wonderful place appears to have been a restaurant since the late 19th century and serves quite simply the best Neapolitan food I have ever had. We began with pasta and I had a miracle of a dish - tubette with mussels and clams. It was dark and mysterious and had a taste of such intensity that one mouthful was almost enough. But like the fine food junkie I am, I had to have more and more. After an embarrassingly short space of time the plate was gleaming white and empty. On came a fantasy of Orata (bream) and more magical potatoes. Again a well carved, waxy, perfectly cooked balance between bite and softness, along with a sufficient suffusion of fish juices, oil and potato. Heaven, but tempered. The end of a week in celebration and respect for the potato had come. We also had red wine, an extraordinary liquorice toned black red wine from campania called Marziacanale, an Aglianico but a delightfully twisted variant. A genuinely extraordinary wine that was great to drink but one that I would not court again. The experience was good but not repeatable. We drifted after dinner back to the hotel which was not too far away but felt like a long walk after such an epic gastronomic event. Sleep came fast but endorsed the intensity of the experience through memory.

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week 21 - Spring Has Finally Sprung

Spring has finally sprung. Admittedly there is the worrying, nagging doubt that another cold wet snap lurks like some mugger round the next corner. But heh, let's enjoy the aroma of warmth and the effulgent budding of the trees. That killer blossom moment is upon us and sap city will surge our brains into creativity and concomitant optimism.

That feeling of creativity was bubbling when the Masterpiece team met on Monday with Apollo. Oscar, the editor of Apollo is steering the Masterpiece magazine along its path. He seemed full of energy and buzz and has come up with some terrific interviews and articles which I hope will both delight and enlighten. He has a great tattoo on his finger of a cigarette. Whilst most people struggle to give up he has his passion tattooed onto his pointing finger. It is almost as if a hedonistic, directional urge is bursting out of his finger tip. Only the gestural lines of ash offer any note of reflection or hesitation.

From Tuesday through to Thursday we had our exhibitor meetings and the myriad dealers passed through the doors. The Stabilo team bustled around providing advice and encouragement. Nicola sat sagely alongside drawing a veil of calm and good sense over the proceedings whilst the pr team from gong muse whipped the exhibitors up into a frenzy of excited expectation. One of the ideas we have this year is to get our exhibitors to make micro films of their favourite objects. Not to pump up the importance of the scholarship or the value but to share the excitement and the passion. To show in a discrete way why an object or a work truly speaks to them. They will be fun to watch.. Every year the commitment to bringing a Masterpiece to Masterpiece seems to be truer and truer and so many of our dealers have put aside fabulous things for the fair. This year in every discipline the great, the newly discovered and the unusual or pioneering will be revealed and displayed. Have a look at the Masterpiece London website if you want a sneak peak.

Then on Thursday I flew to Madrid. I have an English friend who has lived in Madrid for nearly 20 years and last year with worries about her ailing parents she returned to the UK. For the last few months she has been tortured by the foul weather, worse food and depressing blandness of renewed Englishness. I told her I was in Madrid and she revealed that she had moved back. We met at Bufalino just off Gran Via. Her eyes were gleaming and I could see that every corpuscle in her being was celebrating her return. The bar was busy, Thursday night and there a throb if people. She was a few minutes late and idled away the time working my way through a goats' cheese tapas and a typically enormous Spanish vodka and tonic. Not my usual drink but enlivening after a boring flight. We were also meeting a great friend of hers who ironically was moving to England after a sojourn of twenty years in the Spanish capital. Work is very hard to find in Spain. The options and opportunities for creative people have evaporated with the economic downturn. He is called John and is an industrial designer, a sort of cross between an architect, an interior designer and a product designer. I have rarely met such a polymath. Looking quite scary at first glance with a fierce expression and a shaved head, he revealed his enthusiasms. There seemed no end to them. He makes wine of the dark deeply fruity style I adore. He makes olive oil. He adores food. His knowledge of history and design seemed boundless. The Italian bar we were in produced dish after dish of original yet simple food. Although it had an Italian edge the dishes were rooted in Spanish cuisine. Wonderful savoury tempura fried courgette sprinkled with sesame and sweet soy and amazing spinach burgers which managed to combine crunch with a hint of texture that was almost meat like, but so fresh and immediate tasting that they leapt off the plate. After hours of gassing we went our separate ways but bit before I was shown his amazingly cunningly arranged apartment which had an Edwardian dentist's chair which bizarrely I owned the doppelgänger of many years ago. A true kindred spirit.

The next day was spent with my dear friend Antonio. He has been dealing for a thousand years and lives for objects. He will buy anything from any period and is fearless about price. He revealed he had literally not eaten for a week so that he could buy a Trapani coral decorated object a few weeks previously. He is quite ancient and he has constant health grumbles but he continues to smoke enthusiastically and is constantly eager to learn and discover more. We toured the shops and found intriguing and beguiling objects. But then we stopped for lunch at Cruciero. We were lucky, a table and two stools were unoccupied. What shall we have? He was only asking me out of politeness. I could see he had already chosen. A tosta of Morcilla (black pudding with rice) chopped and deep fried. Octopus drenched in oil and paprika with boiled potato to soak up the juices. Calamari which were so light and hot they floated above the plate. Salt cod sliced wafer thin and bedecked with finely chopped spring and red onions. A feast in other words. Washed down with a fiercely cold fruity white wine that barely had a label.

Back in London I went to the Pompeii show at the British Museum. It is a wonderful portal through to understanding provincial Roman life. The focus of the show seems to be to highlight the domestic and the objects, art and fresco fragments brought so much of that to life. Also, inevitably, there is the story of the cataclysm that brought this captured bubble of life to us across the centuries. A truly astonishing moment. Whenever I go to the BM I cannot avoid a quick hello to the wonderful Hoa Hakananai, The Easter island figure, and a walk through the Enlightenment gallery which is such an elegant snap shot of the whole museum, highlighting the figures behind its establishment.

A wonderful end to the week.

week 20 (a)

It began on Thursday with a photograph in the paper. A sale in France on Sunday was offering a pair of Chinese coromandel lacquer armchairs. They looked 18th century and though that is quite late for Chinese things it is the golden age for European furniture.

I booked the euro tunnel for 8pm, booked a cheap hotel in Calais and held my breath. It was going to be a long drive. Down to Angers, (I immediately nick named it angers managements) and I prepared to set off.

We had had a frantic week in the office. With finishing touches being made to various aspects of the fair. After Easter is one of those transitional moments between gathering and building. The gathering is now almost done and we are ready to fully focus on getting the show ready. It is like a play and we now have the script and the cast, the next target is a fabulous performance.

After this week of calls and meetings a quiet weekend would have been welcome but I had decided to drive. As a rule I like people and their lives and stories. But this weekend I was going to have to sit in a box on wheels and discourse with a very dull man called "me".

Friday was frustrating too. Calls were expected confirming a number of choices and one after the other they were put off until Monday. So it was with a certain relief and aggression that I revved the engine and headed off.

The roads for a Friday night were astonishingly clear and I was serenaded by a podcast of "in our time " I arrived in Folkestone in good time. Dealt with customs, manoeuvred my car onto the shuttle, felt uncomfortable as the train seemed to rock, shake and grumble generally as it was loaded. Then we were in France. My hotel, awkwardly named the Cottage and aspiring to look like the White House with a white colonnade at the front, was reassuringly gruesome. The lady at the desk was nice enough. She wore a badge with the Spanish flag and the English flag proclaiming her efficiency in those tongues. Her bright dyed orange hair and slightly blotchy complexion did not encourage me to test her language skills. I quietly scuttled away to my room. A certain type of hotel has worryingly stained carpet in its common areas and the rooms are faux wood Formica or vinyl. This was one of those. There was a shower too which had a surreally high tray. It was almost encouraging you to try to bathe in its minute squareness. Also certain hotels have a very distinctive smell. Bleach and ancient vomit. I was quickly asleep lulled by the rumble of large lorries rumbling past.

In the morning I checked my destination. 5 hours away. Then a second destination and then Paris for the night. Wow. I had better get going. The roads passed but I did not feel the urge to stop. Usually with friends I try to negotiate a lunch. With wine, them driving in the afternoon and me snoring quietly. No such strategy this trip. Mid afternoon I filled up and bought a vaste bag of m & m's. A sausage in a bun and a bottle of Evian. Gastronomy indeed. Cunningly I managed to empty the entire bag of sweets onto the floor and for a couple of hours until my next break my feet looked like they were in some miniature children's ball park awash in brightly coloured balls.

The first stop was Rennes. There the single room auction house was quite full. And there were some interesting bits. But the lady who sat on her dais behind her computer screen was in full flood. ' You want to bid on the telephone? Where is your letter of credit from the bank? Have you never bid here before? I don't care for your credit card or your business card or the names of the dealers you know' . No, it is not a shame for the vendor that you will not be bidding. Rules are rules. I stomp back to my car heading for 'angers managements' with real relish and intent.

Two hours later I am in Angers. The sale room is charming and the staff are helpful. I examine all I need and I jump back in the car leaving my mobile as the contact number. It is a bit scary as the phone is never 100% but what is the option?

To Paris and again sat nav Melvyn Bragg and I make it without much of a hindrance or a hazard. The car is purring and the only problem is my sugar rush from eating all those sweets all day. Even the dusty ones.

Paris, and I park on the pavement right outside the hotel. I shower and head out to brasserie Lipp. This restaurant is a legend. Classically good, no Michelin stars or anything like that but for decades and decades the food has been brought to the table in a charming and efficient way and is absolutely delicious. I celebrate my 750 mile day with a glass of champagne and a half bottle of Chablis. Next to me a group are magnificently tucking in to that festival of pork products choucroute garnis. The large slabs of pink meat nestling in grassy mountain of sauerkraut. They are large people with large mouths and facial hair and gurgle and chew noisily and appreciatively. On the other side are a youngish couple who seem to be having a row. They sit side by side and though we are inches away I never hear a word exchanged. Just gloomy expressions. They don't last long and are soon gone. But the roast chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans that are brought to them look wonderful. And amazingly French. I don't understand how such basic food can be graced with a national identity. But those dishes were the quintessence of France.

I order one of the house classics the pate de fois gras. It comes with a tiny sprig of lettuce leaves, you might deride it as garnish but it is better than that. It leavens the richness and smoothness of the pâté with a fresh bitter crunch. Joining all together is the soft runny jelly. As I quaff the last bite so do I swallow the last vestige of my champagne. Perfection. Then on to the main event, brandade de Morue. It comes in a pot, a spiral of grilled brown surmounted by a sharks fin of toast. Fluffy, salty, fishy and potatoey it offers a forkful of France in every mouthful.

Bed and I simply disappear in white linen to emerge a little late to rush round and see a friend who thinks he has made a furniture discovery. Sadly not so. The piece is a 19th century copy.

Then I notice the sun is out. I have not seen the sun for weeks. London has been bleak and grey and cold. Paris is smiling and there is a flash of warm in the spring sun. I put the hood down for the first time this year and drive around enjoying the beautiful city. Then I head back to the shuttle. Painless. The smell of the tomatoes and strawberries I bought in the market by the rue de buci aromatically smoothing my way.

Two hours delay because of French reasons. Then supper in Primrose Hill discussing kitchen rearrangements and job prospects for recent graduates. Then home, bed and back to work in the morning.

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week 20 - Easter Weekend

Two short flights and an hour in a hire car and the hurly burly of TEFAF is a long way away. Not before the ghastly Ryanair have managed to add a new twist to their reasonably priced torture. The wretched fanfare they play on landing now, I realise, is also aimed at waking you with a start when you are trying to catch a few zeds after a criminally early start. Cunning devils.

I am in Ireland. I make an annual pilgrimage here to the West, to Co Mayo. I have done this trip with my family for over 18 years and for a week or two, sometimes, the world stops. Long walks on the beach are rewarded with local fish and simple vegetables. The fire becomes an activity in itself, needing constant fiddling and tweaking. Sleep is a full time job. Early to bed and late to rise and a nap in the afternoon. Here the batteries are fully disengaged, taken out. They can be recharged elsewhere and at another time.

One of the most wonderful views in the world can be enjoyed from one of the most depressing pubs in the world. Dalys in Mulranny has it all. It is a petrol station, a grocery, a restaurant and a pub. It sits beside the road with the natural bay of Mulranny below it and some of the many small islands of Clew Bay further off. In the distance you can see the Holy Mountain of Croagh Patrick. Come rain or bright sunshine the view from the massive picture windows at the back of Dalys is majestic, breath taking, humbling. However, the pub is the deadest place I have ever entered.

You enter to a small outer bar by the road - there is no one there, ever. Then you enter a sort of intermediate bar, where you have no view of either the bay or the road. No view of anything at all except a few faded posters of fish breeds and an old signed picture of a Gaelic football team that has hung crooked for as long as I have been going there. Here in this inner sanctum the die hards gather. There are never more than three - I think there must be some sort of rule here. They are never the same three but there are always three. As you pass they emit an ambiguous grunt. It could be a curmudgeonly welcome. It could be a death threat. It is impossible to say. Having made it to the vast back room you order your Guinness and bag of crisps. It can often take quite a few minutes to be served. They don't like coming to the back room. The view captivates and enchants as it always does, but the cold and the emptiness get to you after about 20 minutes and you leave. It is an annual ritual.

In the nearest town, Newport, there is a masterpiece. When we are not consuming the local black sole, we are eating produce from Dominick Kelly's. The black sole is a breed of fish I have not encountered elsewhere - it is very like plaice but the locals insist it is definitely sole. I like to think there must be some sort of religious irony or pun in the deliciousness of eating black sole. It is a very refined fish and the skin on one side is very black. But the meat is lily white, delicate and soft with just a hint of the bite you get in sole. When you have the opportunity to buy it, it comes twitching fresh and needs no accompaniment other than a hot grill, a knob of butter and a knife and fork. It also goes down well with a glass of Powers whiskey, whose peat and pepper taste perfectly enhances the fish.

But Kelly's is a dream of a shop. Owned and run by the family name over the door they have provisioned the west with a dazzling array of very individual meat products. They make multiple award winning black and white pudding. Once when my son was about four he was caught in the kitchen with what we thought was a chocolate biscuit in each hand. I chastised him for his naughtiness taking away the biscuits. Only then did I realise he had raided the fridge and had a slice of black pudding in each hand. I was very surprised but he has loved the stuff ever since, even raw!

But Kelly sells sausages too, which are delicious and very old school. They have lots of bread and mysterious whatnot in them and cook in the most erratic way but are a byword of yum. He makes chicken burgers, which sound pretty grim but again the boys fight over them. He also has access to the most amazing chickens that taste different to chickens I eat elsewhere and eggs that are bright orange in the yolk and sit up in an almost flirtatiously buoyant and springy way when fried. All in all Kelly's is a wonder of a butcher and the brothers Sean and Seamus and their sons who run it always seem to be laughing and joking and the place is spotlessly clean. The older brothers have short grey hair and are quite round in a healthy and ruddy cheeked sort of way. They bustle about directing and serving and I am sure there must be some sort of pixie magic in their twinkle.

Given the chance the world would be run on Kelly's produce. Certainly my family runs better, just yesterday we had an omelette and a fry-up of pudding, mushrooms and their wonderfully strongly flavoured back bacon. I have rarely seen food disappear so fast.

week 19 - A Tale of Two Sjieks

How can I admit this? How can I publicly admit to such an emotional betrayal? But I must! I must confess to a venial sin. I have discovered another Sjiek. I am back in Maastricht for the final weekend of TEFAF, and I have strayed.

With almost perfect symmetry and by pure coincidence and with no connection Sjiek Kookpunt is on the other side of the river in Hoogbrugstraat. It is run by the lead character in an American cartoon called "Family Guy". He is happy and cheeky and immersed in Italian cuisine. A week ago I ate there as a guest of Helena the super smart and glamorous wife of Ramis - one of our Masterpiece exhibitors. The star turn at dinner was Mira the daughter of the genius craftsman George Nakashima. She is creative herself and was awash with both charm and elegance. But I sat before a plate of pasta with mushrooms laced with truffles which completely bewitched me. There was no cream just a salty dark stock, mushrooms with just a hint of bite and truffles that aromatically entranced me. Yes the conversation was distracting. Yes so many things tried to divert my attention. But in the end the truffle mushroom pasta took me home. Nothing else mattered. Now I am back in Maastricht and with Giles and the rest of the Mallett team. The boss looms before us and the pasta arrives and it is love all over again. This time it is washed down with a delicious wine called Eclissi di sole, by san Valentino, which is intense and full of rich cherry fruit and spicy notes from the Sangiovese grape, just the way I love.

Back across the river to Cafe Sjiek, in Sint Pieterstraat. I met Robin the benign monarch of this perfectly ordered but passionately unruly eatery. He has a deep and intense love for the business of creating a thoroughly professional and delicious fusion of wine, food and friendliness. Somehow you always get into conversations with neighbours and random fellow travellers. It isn't just the other dealers you chat to, it is anyone who happens to be there. He is quite round and has short curly hair but the jovial tone and air should not be mistaken as softness. He definitely carries the air of The Boss. There are others too: Andreas who spins around totally on overdrive all evening, he knows all about the wines and is constantly trying to beguile us with alternatives that are ever more obscure. Andreas has been at Sjiek for 8 years and I cannot imagine him leaving unless he were to start his own place. Then there is Max who has fair hair and is a bit round, like the boss. He moves in a calmer fashion than Andreas but he still gets round the cramped bar with the elegance of a dancer, and he never stops until the last punter crawls out of the door.

I am so torn between my old love and my new one. They are both low key, food and wine centred, disinterested in show or pretence in any way. In the end I think I can cope with two Maastricht Sjieks in my life. It is not a betrayal after all.

At the fair the mood is very complex, some dealers have done well and quite a few have not. I sit at breakfast chatting to a Masterpiece exhibitor who has done every TEFAF, all 26. I ask him what structure does a normal Tefaf take, given that I have only done 18. He replies that he would like to know as he is still trying to work out a pattern. It is true, no two fairs are alike but this year there has been lots of snow and the global economic outlook is far from rosy. However it is not a time of gloom - the energetic dealers make it happen. Through inventive display and a robust attitude to doing deals they create an active market. The stands where sales have been made seem to have a glow or an aura, maybe it is just because the dealers are smiling. I prefer to think though that there is some sort of sympathetic magic, an energy that passes between the dealers and their objects and the clients are drawn to this positivity.
 

The stands are all so diverse; every time I do a circuit I notice something new. Hamiltons have an amazing collection of Irving Penn photographs of sculls and cigarette butts- a minimalist and elegant reinvention of the concepts of Momento mori. The hang seems strangely appropriate in the home of the Dutch still lives. Turn the next corner and you can see anything from ancient to modern.

On the other side of the fair is the stand of Leslie Smith. He has built a two storey stand housing Aborigine painting upstairs and Impressionist on the ground floor. It is great fun and the work is very strong.

In another corner the Finers, father and two sons have put on a glamorous display of arms and armour. Peter, the father stands proudly beside his boys and his stock - the boys look on eager to make a sale.

Every corner of the fair has an art and a human story to tell - you could walk round for weeks and not hear or see it all.

Tonight it will all be over and the Stabilo team in their orange garb and their blaring dance anthems will start taking it all apart. In a few days the dentist show will be installed where Andy Warhol and Van Gogh held sway an echo ago.

week 18 - TEFAF cont.

TEFAF is 260 exhibitors, seemingly miles of corridors and countless objects, pictures and jewels to admire. But behind all of this sparkle lies a delightful human drama. It is the people that make this show happen, it is the daily flow of passing crowds and hurried meals and chance encounters that create a unique ambience.

The week began with a sort of elegant dance, a courtship. Leaving my travelling companions at Brussels station I drove off to Maastricht. The weather was closing in and the snow was beginning to fall. I arrive at TEFAF mid-afternoon and gather my badge from Nadine who smiles enthusiastically from behind the information counter. We met last year and it is always reassuring to see a familiar face. The Mallett stand is looking marvellous but I don't spend long there. The strange fact is that Tuesday is vetting day and we all have to leave the building until Wednesday lunchtime. So I run round like a mad thing looking for buying opportunities. Then off again. My little sample of the fair is all too quickly over and I am at the hotel.

I had wanted to whizz back to Brussels to view Eurantica. This is another fair that takes place simultaneously. But I look out of the window and snow is everywhere. The whole of Maastricht has been transformed appropriately into a Brueghel winter painting. My friend Amir, who has more energy than any human I know, is keen to take on the snow. At 2pm we brave it, gingerly making our way down the motorway in his sliver Range Rover - 4 wheel drive owners love bad weather, the chance to press all the buttons is a dream come true. Despite appalling conditions we hit the fair in good time. The only downside is that there is nothing good or tempting at the fair. We repair to les sablons (the famous Brussels antique district) and do a lightening tour. With good fortune he spots a rarity which cheers me as he has done all the driving without complaint and thus far only I have managed to buy.

Back to Maastricht and poor Amir gets home ragged and exhausted. Cafe Sjiek is my refuge and with the Mallett crew we sample their wares. To begin the traditional Dutch croquettes. These crunchy rolls of potato, spices and grey shrimps are such a cliché that many despise and ignore them on the menu. But when they are hot, crunchy on the outside and fluffy and spicy inside they are a dream and not to be beaten. Then a topical taste challenge. Today's special is horse steak. It is pitch black meat but soft and subtle in flavour with a gentle bite to the meat. It comes with mushrooms and a rich but not heavy sauce. But the mood enhancer to beat all mood enhancers was a new wine to me. It has a great label with Durer's rhinoceros and it makes a perfect accompaniment to a Maastricht evening. The wine ticks all the boxes. Dark as night, spices and rich fruit. Delicious.

So, I have flirted with the show and now I am refused access. Wednesday afternoon we are back in for housekeeping and further refreshments. Then Thursday beckons and the real event begins. It is extraordinary how the space fills and fills. It is like the tide coming in. In small waves it increases and increases. In proportion the catering starts gently with water and orange juice, then little cakes, building to a crescendo with venison and mashed potato. Champagne emerges in the afternoon. Like some strange bacchanalian ritual the crowd begins calm and focused but metamorphoses by evening into a ravening beast. The waiters are besieged, the serving tables are crowded round, people argue about who is first in line. The dealers are all observers to this. They stay keen and alert often not eating or drinking. They are there to work this crowd. Many appear content as deals are concluded or negotiation begun. Others look twitchy like hunters waiting for prey, expectancy and nerves are palpable in the air.

Then it is all over. The hall empties and the post mortem begins. Was this year better or worse than last year? How were the crowds? Did you see so and so, did you see this or that. Tired dealers troop out with clients or friends for the final push. The opening night dinner - a marathon that begins at around 10 and rarely concludes before 1. The diehards go out and party. The famously ghastly Alibaba club heaves with the glitterati until dawn.

Headaches in every sense stalk the hall for the first official day. TEFAF is well and truly underway.

week 17 - TEFAF

TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht) beckons and is everywhere. Bond Street and all the streets around Mayfair are jammed with shippers. Paper, bubble wrap and enormous wooden crates clutter the pavements and galleries.

A little further out of town and every restorer is being rung up to complete that last piece of perfection which will complete the object and make it ready for TEFAF. Assistants and secretaries pack books, type tickets and prepare research folders, ready for their ultimate sales pitch and ready to meet the stringent vetters who in a few day's time will be poring over their goods.

This brouhaha is taking place in Munich, Paris, Rome and all over. The confluence of cultures and international people is remarkable. It is a unique invasion of a small, strategically placed, but otherwise irrelevant town. On a personal level I felt touched by a postcard that I received from my friends who run a bar called Cafe Sjiek. It is the culinary and oenological epicentre of Maastricht for me and they are eagerly awaiting my return, once again to stalwartly battle my way through their stock of Nero d'Avola. The pitch black wine from Sicily that inspires and comforts in equal measure.

Now I am off to Belgium and then to Holland and Maastricht. The usual early start is accepted and I head off to Folkestone in the car with my assistant Francesca, and previous colleague Nick. Nick is a hoot to be with and he is coming with us to scout for treasure. He has gone into business with another ex Mallett guy, Tarquin. They work well together as a sort of Abbott and Costello double act. The car journey is surreal. Francesca coughs in a way that must hurt her and it pushes her forward in her seat whilst Nick chortles away in the front, what about is a mystery. Strange companions.

As we sit having a coffee in the hall our shuttle is called and it is immediately 'last call' (shades of Ryanair). We rush out and drive on. A few minutes into the tunnel and my name is called over the tannoy. I find a guard and he informs me that I left my jacket and wallet in the hall. Argh. The whole trip is in jeopardy. But amazingly my jacket was handed in and equally amazingly it has been bundled up and put on the next shuttle. A delay of half an hour and we are once again on our way. Thank you Euroshuttle!

We end the day in Vismet in Brussels by Saint Catherine's. It is a simple place, not overly large, and is a broad rectangular room with an open kitchen to the side. It is one of the best fish restaurants I know. The staff are super friendly and they scamper around in a helpful and obliging manner. A surprisingly rare thing with waiters. We order Zeeland oysters which are medium size and bright and clear in taste, with an intense saltiness. Six is perfect. And my beloved grey shrimps, I am obsessed with these little salty chewy morsels of the sea. They are on every menu from here to Maastricht and what a joy they are.

The market at Tongeren is huge and sprawling and takes place every Sunday. It is great fun and awash with delightful foreign ephemera. Why is it that foreign junk is so much more appealing than domestic junk? I once bought at a 'vide grenier' in France a petrol can. It was rusty and covered in oil stains but it had some lovely French writing on it. It sits in our kitchen to this day, my wife still cannot understand why I bought it. Unfortunately Tongeren is too tempting and I sweep up loads of bits and pieces. I buy one thing that is really intriguing a pair of blown glass spiral candles. According to the vendor it was a Belgian tradition to have fake candles when you weren't using your chandelier. Well there you go.

Back in Brussels and a visit to Tom Desmet, a father and son concern which thrives because they manage to combine being quirky and original with being focused on quality and classic design. This again is a rarer combination than you might think, especially considering how vital it is for survival and success in our business these days.

Tomorrow off to Maastricht.

week 16 - Willy Rizzo

 

I am sitting in La Caleche on the rue de Lille in Paris. The waiter, who is also the owner, hums as he works. There is a bar and a few tables at the lower level. Two steps up and you have a further half dozen. The decor is mainly black painted wood. Rough not chic and slick. I am eating snails. They come in a rustic pottery container with six holes for butter, garlic and herbs. There is a thin crust of Parmesan over the dish. Though quintessentially French, there is an Italian twang about the whole place. I am drinking blood red dark wine from southern Italy and remembering the last time I came here. It was with Willy Rizzo and his beautiful, attentive wife Dominique. We had walked slowly from his eponymous shop around the corner. He was frail and speech was difficult. But Dominique attentively, gently and lovingly coaxed him along. We sat at his normal table at the top of the steps just to the right. He was very excited by a new piece he was developing. A sort of media centre, based around a pod into which all manner of devices could be inserted and from which all manner of things could be managed. Aesthetically, it was a cross between James Bond and space age. Both are very Willy. He drank a glass of the same wine that I am sipping now and toyed with a steak tartare. Though frailer than I had ever known him, he was still brimming with ideas and creativity. I left the lunch inspired. The restaurant was a home from home for Willy, a Parisian from his teens but born in Naples. The touch of Italy in this very French restaurant clearly made him happy.

This Monday I learnt that Willy had died at 91, and that his funeral was going to be on Friday at Saint Pierre de Chaillot. A peculiar and ugly Art Deco period Byzantine flavoured church. I cancelled meetings and sped over on Thursday night to be there for Friday at 10.30.

Now as I sit, gradually suffusing my body in garlic and red wine, my mind is roaming over our last few years.

It all began with a purchase - a pair of end tables in polished steel and brass. I had sent them to be cleaned and the restorer had marvelled at the quality of the work. This was an especially rare thing as restorers never give compliments. During cleaning someone had visited the workshop and had been so taken by them that he bought them. I never learnt who the maker was. A year or so later I saw a pair of console dessertes in the Paris Carre. They were clearly by the same hand and I was told they were by Willy Rizzo. I looked him up and found out what a legend he had been.

As a photographer he was close to everyone in LA, Rome and Paris. He had an unprecedented history of over twenty years and countless covers for Paris Match (a French magazine). He was the last to photograph Marilyn Monroe, he charmed Marlene Dietrich into a rare photo shoot and he took the only known picture of Coco Chanel laughing. But he was also an amazing furniture designer. He fashioned a style in the late sixties that straddles both classicism and modernity - a struggle we are all engaged in today. He effortlessly combined the period and the modern in life as well as art. His apartment in Paris was a poem of modern ideas laced with antiques. Or was it the other way around?

But in 2006 when we first met, following months of telephone calls and internet searching, he was rightfully in semi-retirement. He was still taking the occasional intimate portrait in his inimitable style but doing little else.

I sat awkwardly in his flat perched on a massive sofa and with a perfect pair of breasts in brass right in front of me. He could not escape following my gaze and noted that they were modelled from life. In the end I persuaded him to do an exhibition with us and Paul Smith to showcase his photography. He agreed. My only worry I expressed to him was that I was nervous of finding enough furniture to go along with. He then revealed to my amazement and joy that when he had closed his business in the early 1980's he had mothballed a warehouse full of pieces. I jumped up. The event was in the bag. Mallett and Paul Smith were going to have a show of pieces from nearly 30 years earlier all of which would be essentially brand new. It was like finding a garage full of unsold Ferraris. In addition he had agreed to print his photographs in an unfamiliar size of nearly a metre square and he also created a new design of frame for them. Both were big hits.

Needless to say the show was a wow. And Willy was hugely, and rightfully, lionised. We could not wait to do another one.

In 2009 we followed up with a show of new furniture designs and his ballet photography which captures, amongst other things, the end of the Ballet Russes in Paris. One of his images was chosen by the Guardian newspaper as one of the defining images of the 50's. A year later 2010 he opened his own shop in Paris selling his designs and photography. Mallett continue to sell his work and have shown his pieces at Masterpiece and elsewhere. Wherever it goes it gathers plaudits for the magical way it all seems so timeless.

I am very proud of the time Willy and I worked together. We always used to joke about him being 'pere et fils' to himself. His own life offering up two careers but in truth he was not just a creative genius, he was mainly a really lovely man who was full of fun and generosity. I adore the story of his friendship with Jack Nicholson. Dear friends for probably 40 years. Neither had managed to learn the others language and I was told they would make each other weep with laughter making animal noises and drinking late into the night. Dominique would roll her eyes in despair as Willy would make pig noises as Jack collapsed in giggles followed by Willy falling off his chair as Jack pretended to be a donkey.

Jack was there at the church. Sitting behind Dominique, his head bowed. The church was heaving and the young were there in force all looking chic in black; all friends of Willy's children. And there were many old people. Dear friends mourning their lost beloved companion. The recorder and witness of their generation. The glamorous and the once famous in all their crumbling magnificence. We trooped up to the coffin, which was traditional. I was half expecting a coffin in Willy's trade mark lacquer. Red maybe. Everyone said goodbye as we touched the coffin and sprinkled holy water. The man before me was tall but stooped and helped along by a younger relative. He seemed to hesitate before the coffin. Then he bent down, whispered a few words and kissed the coffin. Old friends saying goodbye.

I touched the edge myself as I had held Willy's arm so many times, a gesture of tender support.

I too wish him well and thank him for all he has given me.