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Friday Diary: I Was Thrown Out Of The National Gallery!

Shelagh Fogarty tells us how she was caught misbehaving in the National Gallery.

By Shelagh Fogarty

14 Oct 2011, 12:00

* I forgot myself. I forgot my gallery etiquette. I was lucky not to be thrown out. Recording an interview with the Theologian Tina Beattie in The National Gallery, I reached out and touched a painting of the crucifixion over a thousand years old. No flies on the security people at the National. Instantaneous sanction in the form of a loud, sharp, and oh my goodness so effective 'Excuse me, Madame!' They should send those boys into failing schools. I'm still smarting, but even so I plan to take my chances and return this weekend for a more leisurely look at a collection that would grace the Uffizi. I do hope they don't operate on the same system as football grounds and ban hooligans for life.

* I know in me there is no inner Buddhist, no follower of Krishna breathing deep in my bones. That said I do have a daydreaming streak. I think it's a healthy thing to be going about your business getting from A to B, while mentally wandering through other places, other notions. How ironic that as I was doing this on my way to the theatre this week (another great place to daydream, depending on the play), I was jolted out of it by a bald smiling man in saffron robes shoving a booklet on meditation into my face. I declined and told him he might to work on his PR chakras!

* The riots this summer were rocket fuel to the ever present debate on social opportunity in the UK. It always saddens me when statistics seem to show that birth is all too often destiny. Yesterday I met Grace and Shannon, teenagers who live barely a mile apart in North London (rioting took place on their doorstep).  I listened to them, together, talking about their family life, school, friends, views on the police, on jobs, money, ambition, and on the riots themselves. Grace goes to private school, Shannon to state school. Both have happy homes, Grace with older siblings living abroad, Shannon's horizons for now strictly her part of London. Grace can't wait to travel the world but thinks London will be her base. Shannon has no appetite yet for travel, saying the UK is enough for her. Grace wants a career in the Civil Service and has done work experience already in Parliament. Shannon is without doubt a girl with brains and ambition but in what direction she'll go isn't clear yet. Fair enough. She's only fifteen. She dismisses any notion of ever going to a place like Parliament. I invite her to my Wednesday programme for Prime Minister's Questions and she leaps at the chance. It's chance at the heart of all of this. In the same way Grace shouldn't need to apologise for the chances she has had, Shannon's future needn't be left to chance. The reassuring thing from meeting the girls was how frequently they said 'I agree with Grace, or I agree with Shannon'. I didn't ask either of them if they agree with Nick.

You can hear Grace and Shannon on Five Live every day starting Monday 24th October from Midday. I'm taking my chance - and plugging it!