Ophelia dissolves into a puddle

Gorgeous day.

Met Jamie for lunch. Felt very important asking reception to summon him. By this point I'd already bought The Ode Less Travelled and vowed to buy a new Moleskine to practise writing iambic pentameters. TOLT turns out to be a textbook for writing poetry in proper forms, which is something I've always wanted to be able to do. The actual writing of poetry wasn't something I was ever taught. Stephen's entirely right to say that learning something artistic requires structure and proper terminology. Otherwise you end up with the poetic equivalent of Pollock.

Running with the theme of art, I went to see the Munch exhibition at the Royal Academy, which was rather dissatisfying. Not the state of the exhibition itself, which was wide-ranging within its theme and extensive, but the artist and his technique. I can't muster up respect for artists who paint in a way even I could manage. I admire Vermeer and artists like him, because they replicate reality with minutely accurate skill. That's something I don't seem to be able to do very often, so I enjoy seeing it. So that started me thinking about what qualifies art, which was touched upon later by...

The divine Stephen Fry. Who was on fine form on the subject of poetry at the Institute, be-cardiganed and be-bow-tied. Hmm. Word invention not going well. He rattled through the rationale for writing a book on writing poetry, which is basically the same as the intro to the book, and read from the sections on ballad and villanelle. Usual hilarity, including necessary condemnation of the French and certain newspapers, e.g. "We must all blame something. Sometimes we must give a name to our pain - hypothetically, let's make it the Daily Mail", which was much approved of. Brilliantly Stephanic explanation of the basic use of language to represent something we can't see: "If you say bounce, I don't think of...clitoris - sorry (slight embarrassment at mental processes)" I think his definition of art, which was in response to a question, ammounted to an expression of feeling, of which we are all capable - essentially, it's something that makes us feel like we're human.

Queued up afterwards to get TOLT signed on the verge of fainting from nervousness. The comparison between chocolate and poetry was made manifest by a chap walking up the queue with tin of Roses. Yum. In front of me were a trio of German-speakers, to whom Stephen gamely tried to speak in German. I think he's reasonably competent, but they reverted to English, so it didn't get complicated enough to judge properly. Got the book and my ticket scribbled all over. Noted to SF that his revealed interest in poetry cast a new light on the Hippopotamus, which I'd (ironically) considered his least autobiographical novel. Went away very happy and with a grin that lasted all the way home and beyond.

Go and get the book. Read the book. Read the amusing bio on the back of the dustjacket. Oh, and those of you who've seen the preview clips of this week's QI, fear not - the centre parting isn't permanent. The specs, however, seem to have vanished.