“That’s quite nice.”

Here, the most important word is “quite” – as in almost something worth looking at. Not nice enough to buy or have in the house but, sort of nice. In the way that, compared to everything else that was on show, it was better but without any “WOW!” factor.

I probably said it a few times. And that, kind of, summed it up.

Amongst the dross there were a few things that were OK enough to look at.

Saturday, bless him, even if he was tired, he knew I wanted to go and see some things with him. So, off we went, with his friend, Fi, from Austria, walking not far from my flat. We were going to Wallpaper. There we did see some lovely things. Last year, we then continued to Brera. This year, Fi wanted to go to Lambrate. So we got a taxi and went.

I’ve never been to the “famous” Lambrate area during Design Week, so I was quite looking forward to it. It’s the other side of the railway that circles Milan – a place I would never normally have gone to. It’s quite a nice area in that it has a “village” feel. It was packed with people. Lots of ex-factories have become workshops and places to exhibit. This is the Fringe Show of the Furniture Fair. We traipsed through some but after two of them I mostly stayed outside. Not only was there really nothing worth seeing (in my opinion) but the crowds were just too much. Still, the sun was out and it was warm, so quite nice. The whole area felt quite bohemian (what, nowadays, is called Hipster, I believe) – full of young designers and artistic types doing the rounds.

There were a few things that I found “quite nice” – but most of it was crap or seemed to have been done before.

By about 2, we were leaving. Fi was going somewhere else, we were going home.

The next day, there were a couple of “exhibitions” by friends or friends of friends. So, yesterday, early evening, we went. the first was a photographer (who, apparently, used to do sculptures which were very good) but he should have stuck to the sculptures because the photographs were, quite frankly, nothing much. Housed in a tiny, tiny room, there was hardly room for the three of us (this time, with F’s colleague, Ma).

Then on to a “utensil” exhibition in a studio. Again, a couple of tiny rooms, only one of which had anything – on a large table in the centre of the room were things created from everyday utensils. What was created was neither decorative nor useful. It looked like the sort of thing you’d get kids to make in primary school!

Afterwards, when we having a beer, F (who was of the same opinion as me) said that, next year, he would set up an exhibition with his photos of Ma in various disguises (which are very good). Now THAT would be worth seeing. So, next year might be more interesting than this year