We've discovered that the Courtauld Institute - famous for its paintings and infamous for its former director, Anthony Blunt, exposed as a Communist spy, is free from ten until two on Mondays. Lucky timing as there's an exhibition of Michelangelo's drawings, some of them quite moving - and a number lent by the queen.
There's lots in the permanent collection as well. Manet's A Bar at the Folies Bergere could, apart from style of dress and decor, be a very modern work - the weary and distracted girl tending bar thinking of anything but the gentleman she is serving. And there's Monet's Antibes - a single tree against the water - and one realises that the painter was still alive after the first world war and that without the ornate gilt frame the painting could look contemporary.
JAWORSKI TRAVELS