24 March - Peruvian art & top photographers

We go to the gallery owned by alexander dellal, space courtesy of property king father in a corner of Hoxton sq. En route I look at estate agent porn as usual. Quite fancy a large flat on the top floor of a building next to the White Cube Gallery. Nice views of the square though as squares go it's not that lush. 700k for under 100sqm. Not quite Kensington but getting there.
Remember the days when this corner of london was dark due to nobody living here, no shops apart from crummy corner shops and the only bars were the bricklayers and barley mow. Someone I knew was busy buying rotting buildigns. Oh how he must be laughing now, though at some point in the early 90's he nearly went under due to shifts in rates and the fact he wasn't able to rent /use any of this.. yet. Wonder where he's now.

So, the gallery has a show by Peruvian artists and for some reason Mario Testino brought them to you. We were to stalk him but as I said to Toph, MT would probably arrive only with ten mins to closing time to shake a few hands and then the inner circle would go to dinner. We arrived mistakenly too early and after a beer and some art that's not inspiring all you can do is go for another beer at some other opening and so to 30a redchurch st , possibly the smallest 'gallery' ever though it has a long name I forget. Only one item on show which I won't mention as was pretty dismal and curated by the daughter of Mick Jones from the Clash who you'd think should know better as she must be 30 something. The public was outside having a fag as the music for the piece was (deliberately) deafening. If had had the energy would have retired to Conran's terrace, must be open by now, but a swift viet was calling and then off home.

Am sure at some point when I was circa 24 all this would have been riveting and scored by dozens of hellos to/from people I knew. Alas..