Sorry, Skuds I didn’t see the maps or flags unfortunately, but am planning to head back there at some point (giant spiders on the doorstep nonwithstanding).

I was particularly suspicious of the pieces described as ‘designed to be ambiguous’. Maybe if they were ambiguous from some kind of moral/political perspective, but when it’s just aesthetics…I’m unconvinced there’s any particular virtue there.

I found your comments on art really interesting and I’d love to go round it with you sometime. I am going to admit to something very uncool here but I’ve always had a slight problem with abstract art. Or at least with the very modern stuff. I’ve no problem with a painting consisting of shapes and colours that plays around with our perceptions but when I find myself looking at a black square I am kind of thinking ‘it’s a black square’ despite all the very serious analyses and murmurings around me I am still thinking ‘just a black square’. You say you approach it too much as a scientist, I think I approach it too much as a historian/political analyst. I am looking for what it’s telling me about the here and now, our place in history, and I’m looking for the allegories and the comments on power etc. So I am still thinking ‘it’s just a black square, it doesn’t mean anything, it hasn’t told me anything…’. I know this is not the way to approach art but I just can’t help it. Maybe you’ll have to teach me.

I also loved what you said about bringing up the opposite opinion to someone. I have spent my entire life doing that. I seem to define what I think according to who I am speaking to and I am usually playing devil’s advocate. I find myself saying things I don’t really mean just to disagree with the person speaking. Anyway, it’s nice to know someone else does it too! Maybe we are both instinctive troublemakers who just like to shake peoples’ certainties!

I spent 5 years trying to escape the commute into London and now I have achieved it you remind me of one the definite advantages of working there. I used to spend lunch hours doing 20-30 minute visits to the Tate Modern, Tate Britain, NG and NPG and now realise how much I miss that little pleasure.

Did you see the cut-up maps and the flags of the world ant farm (both in the same room)? Not pretty but you could spend ages looking at them I reckon.