Since when is a 'tin of turd' art? A weekend in London

9.28.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 23rd Jul 2006

I have just got back from a very busy weekend in London, it was mainly a weekend of 30th birthday celebrations - three of them!

I went down straight from work Friday and met with Sue, Chris and Rob for a few drinks in the Kings Arms in Victoria. Sue introduced me to the pub last time I was down and I would certainly recommend it.

Saturday was the birthday day. Liz and Chloe were having a joint birthday party at Browns in Covent Garden in the evening, earlier in the day I met up with Kate to belatedly celebrate hers. Kate is one of my oldest friends and its always great to see her.

As it was Kate's day she chose what we did. We met up in Welling, caught a bus to Blackheath had a walk through Greenwich Park which whilst nice was far too hot and then caught a train to the Tower of London. Then we took another walk down the Thames Path and crossed over the Millennium Bridge (where there were lots of people dancing - all very odd!) to visit the Tate Modern.

It was my third visit to the Tate Modern, I am not into modern art but it was what Kate wanted to do. As well as the permanent exhibition we saw the Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction 1908-1922 and an installation by Pierre Huyghe. I was not too impressed with the Kandinsky but liked the Huyghe - especially the doors and the Antarctica film. It was the permanent exhibition that made me question modern art - I am not convinced a 'tin of turd' is art, or a video of four prostitutes being given tattoos for a hit of heroin or indeed pictures of homophobic graffiti - maybe someone can explain.

After the Tate Modern, we took a bus over to Covent Garden had a little look around and a drink (whilst watching the second half of the Arsenal match) before heading to Browns. I have know Liz and Chloe since University, it was great to see them and all the other friends that came along - it was a very good night.

Sunday I took the opportunity to spend some time with my parents after setting up their new DVD player (they are even worse than me with anything with a plug!) we had a lovely roast lamb lunch in their garden before heading back to Wolverhampton.