V&A - Directors Circle

Cast Court

We have our quarterly meeting of the V&A's Directors Circle, led by Nicholas Coleridge who became the museum's Chair in November 2015 (when not moonlighting at the V&A, Nic is the President of Conde Nast International). The Directors Circle raises the dough for upcoming exhibitions and events or general funds - the musuem's annual budget is about £70m of which half comes from commercial activities and donations. We are now pursuing a large gift in return for the naming of the new entrance on Exhibition Road. £5 million cheap.

After our meeting, which includes update presentations from the curators on FuturePlan (futuristic everything) and designer Balenciaga (my otherwise quiet neighbour gushes about her Balenciaga which she wears now, of course), we head for the Cast Court for drinks.

And the Cast Courts are seriously amazing, perhaps my favourite thing inside the V&A. First opened in 1873, the Cast Courts were purpose built to house one of the most comprehensive collections of casts of post-classical European sculpture. Pictured. I meet the new head of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics & Glass Department who promises me a tour of the court's balconies - otherwise untouched by visitors for a century and a throwback to the Victorian era. It is really Indiana Jones kind of stuff.

How honoured I am to be on the inside of a spectacular remarkable British institution. It is to Sonnet I bow.