The film crew came to the private view — with many turbo-brained scientists, invited along by the director. The worlds of art and science do not regularly collide, and the scientists seemed politely baffled. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before’ one of them confided. I tried to impress my nephew Felix (a maths and science whiz) with their eminence, but I am so scientifically ignorant that I couldn’t remember their names. ‘I imagine there is a mathematical principle behind your paintings?’ one of them enquired. ‘Possibly,’ said Matt, ‘but they are done intuitively.’

When the Slade talk was over, there were questions about the relationship between ethics and aesthetics. I can be a nervous interviewee, but I felt safe on this ground, as I have thought a great deal about why we make what we do, and how social issues raised in my work in mosaic inform the painting.

After the lecture was over we joined the students for a meal. It was in celebration of Chinese New Year. Thirty of us sat round a huge circular table  at the top of a grand staircase in the painting department. I had the good luck to be next to a bright young artist called Tom, who talked knowledgeably about Slavoj Zizek, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. ‘How much is theory part of the course?’ I asked.  ‘We are told about it, but the reading is something we do for our own interest.’ he replied. After the meal Andrew Stahl, Head of Undergraduate Painting, took us on a tour of the studios. Industrious students were still hard at work at nine o’clock at night.

The relationship between theory and practice can be complex and obscure, we both agreed on the bus home.

Today, as Matt and I have been putting the finishing touches to the paintings, Claudia, Sandra and Monica have been working on the wallpaper. Accuracy and tidiness seem important to both processes and I can’t remember when either the studio or workshop looked so well organised.

The mosaic roundels are the same dimension as the smaller canvases, and the broken circles on paper (a printed version of the mosaic laying style ‘opus circumnactum’) are also based on these proportions. The attention to scale is a strategy aimed at unifying the diversity of elements .

We broke for lunch late yesterday and ate with my son, who was watching football on TV. My loyalties were divided, as Arsenal (our local team) was playing Stoke City. Arsenal is often thought of as rather middle-class and namby-pamby, in contrast with the down to earth, carthorse kickers of Stoke, Pete told us.  He illustrated his thesis by contrasting managerial behaviour in the dressing room.

At half time, Arsenal’s manager is reputed to leave the boys five minutes to calm down, then to allow them five minutes to analyse their play, before giving his measured thoughts on general strategy. This is not the style of other managers – who may approach matters more emotionally. In fact the last time Stoke (who won yesterday 3-1) played at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, the manager head-butted the captain. It is hard to stay calm when things get tense.

This afternoon I went to the gallery to check dimensions and plans. There was a show of black paintings by John Beard — portraits of almost illegible figures glimpsed through an inky haze. Blaise, who works at the gallery, and is handsome and stylish in a part Jeeves, part fop, part gangsta kind of way, liked the portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi best, he said. The paintings are about human recognition – and it took me a little while to work out which one he was talking about.

Central London in the wintery snow is beautiful, and for the first time I felt excited by the experience of going to the gallery, rather than nervous. We are aiming to install hand made wallpaper and mosaic as well as paintings. Will it ever be done in time?

Eye catching trousers for the private view.