Fish and chips with London nudes

I went to a book launch last night at a swish London club called Home House, the kind of place that buys old books by the yard to line its walls; think comfy leather chairs, brocade wallpaper and marble busts.

The afternoon had started well with haddock, chips and mushy peas at Fish next to Borough Market, followed by a meeting at the Globe cafe, then a stroll along the Thames to Somerset House and the Courtauld Gallery to catch the Walter Sickert exhibition, featuring his Camden Town nudes, before it closed.

Some might know the artist in connection with various dubious Jack-the-Ripper theories mentioned here, including forensic examinations of his paintings made by the crime novelist, Patricia Cornwell.

I left some time for the other works, including Manet's enigmatic A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. I love this painting but can never work out just what is happening to the right of the girl. The angles are all wrong for a mirror image. I wonder if it represents part of her imaginings: she knows, perhaps, that some time during the evening she is going to be chatted up by one of the regulars. Is that why she looks so apprehensive?

The book launch was a jolly occasion and I stayed longer than planned. There was the usual moaning about publishers and agents and the way they can make life difficult for writers. I must thank a publisher colleague for sending me this Mitchell and Webb sketch that puts the relationship between writer and publisher neatly in perspective.