"This is her picture as she was"

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise
Thy voice and hand shake still,--long known to thee
By flying hair and fluttering hem,--the beat
Following her daily of thy heart and feet,
How passionately and irretrievably,
In what fond flight, how many ways and days! 

- Dante Gabriel Rossetti

As you know, this blog doesn't just write itself. So a few days after a brief burst of 'Lady of Shalott' and some Dante I went to Cartwright Hall in Bradford to see their exhibition of studies that Dante Gabriel Rossetti did of Jane Morris, wife of William and the fulcrum of one of those odd set-ups that the Victorians seem to have all carried on behind closed doors. It's well worth seeing, as are the other two temporary exhibitions there at the moment.

The first, a travelling show from the British Museum, is basically just one turban, but what a turban. It's a Sikh fortress turban from the nineteenth century with a small amount of background material and other artifacts. I was sorry to see that I had missed lectures earlier in the month on Sikh troops in the First World War and one in conjunction with the Royal Armouries on Sikh arms and armour.

The third exhibition was actually the best, a number of lithographs and prints from the city's own collection. There was inevitably, and quite rightly, some Hockney, in this case 'The Rake's Progress' a series of sixteen prints from the early sixties. There are also some colourful and amusing Glenn Baxter's and a selection of prints specially commissioned to celebrate the 2012 Olympics including works by Tracey Emin and Chris Ofili. Perhaps of most interest to wargamers would be a dozen small prints by Sir William Rothenstein entitled 'Landscapes of the War', the war in this question being that of 1914-18 because Rothenstein served as an official war artist in both world wars. However, those that I'd personally like on my walls are thirteen Lowry's from the mid 1960s.

One for the malchicks

 Hello droogs; it's been a while.

The legendary wargames room from a rarely seen angle

So what have I been doing? Well I went on a walk along Outer Edge from Langsett Barn, which was very pleasant apart from the climb up to the trig point, which nearly rendered me an ex-blogger. Anyway, there were some lovely views, of which this isn't one.

Your correspondent demonstrates his grasp of camouflage

I also went to see 'The Heat'. It's not in the slightest bit original, but I laughed a few times and that'll do me. Sandra Bullock appeared to be intending to enter a Michael Jackson lookalike competition as soon as shooting was over; if you ask me she was a cert to take first prize.

And finally a word about the Guardian. I have long lamented the fact that it isn't anything like the paper it used to be. Only the other week they printed a complete load of nonsense about the US invasion of Grenada, which long-suffering readers will remember is my specialist subject. However, all is forgiven. Yesterday they revealed the scoop that Dante Gabriel Rossetti (whose sister -  those same loyal readers will also remember - appeared in these very pages just a couple of weeks ago) kept a pet wombat, which died after eating a box of cigars. If that's not investigative journalism then I don't know what is.