‘circumspice’

It’s hard not to feel like a tourist when you visit some of those places in London. I hadn’t set foot in St Paul’s before, but gladly ponied up the �6 this time around, just because it was time. And it’s astonishing. What’s easily forgotten is that on the scale of things, it’s a relatively new cathedral: at least, if you’ve wandered around the gloom of Westminster Abbey or Durham Cathedral (or the glorious little churches of Suffolk, as I did the weekend before), you’re used to the lines and the patina of mediaeval England. St Paul’s is different. It’s not where the English go to die, the chummy gentleman’s club of the choir eternal down the river. But it’s still astonishing. An odd mixture of the rather overwrought military memorials and the new, quieter artists: Turner and his paintbrush; Johnson, colossal and grave (himself being in Westminster); a handful of pre-Raphaelites and modern culturalists.

And then, there’s the best museum in the world.

[In case you hadn’t noticed, Verisign are useless. Tell Leslie you love her.]