V&A

I had a great day today, me & my daughter being tourists. She was a trouper. After peering through the bars at the guardsmen outside Buckingham Palace she was promised a trip to see the dinosaurs and blue whale at the Natural History Museum - but when we got there the queue to get in was backed all the way up to the Cromwell Road, so we ditched that - much to her disappointment - and went to the V&A instead.

The Victoria & Albert Museum is an absolute treasure trove. I used to spend bored, wet Sunday afternoons there when I lived on my own in Fulham. Somehow in the intervening decade (and a bit) I'd clean forgotten about the cast gallery - the huge space at the back of the building where plaster casts of some of the world's greatest historical and artistic treasures are stored. I'll be drawing on this for a few posts yet - here is a detail from Trajan's Column, which you can find in its entirety (albeit in two halves) and inspect at your leisure.

M was amazingly patient, wandering through the museum inspecting works of art, asking about the inhabitants of Angevin royal sarcophagi (conclusion: all very good, except King John, who was very naughty); sympathising with the dragon in a 12th century Bohemian carving of a rampant St George; and calmly commenting on Michelangelo's David's impressive physical attributes. I was proud of her.

Details: Nikon D70, 50mm prime, f/1.8, 1/15s, ISO 400, b&w conversion in Photoshop. London, 2 January 2007. Placemark.