Along with other countries, Great Britain has a long tradition of honouring foreigners who have achieved great things.
I would like to propose that the American John Isner and the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut each be awarded an honorary MBE for services to tennis.
Their world record-breaking, marathon endurance tennis match captivated a planet otherwise obsessed with the foootball World Cup. It was gripping, wonderful tennis, and we ran out of superlatives long before the end. Although Isner won, both players will go down in history as winners.
It was a great gesture by Wimbledon to give both players awards; now I think the country should recognise them. I’m starrting a group on Facebook — please sign up to it.

I love this show. I go every year, and it’s always a treat — there’s much to admire, much to despise, much to marvel at. There are over 1,000 works of art from the grandest of Royal Academicians to the humblest of students.

But before you see the few images that caught my eye, here’s my annual UNTITLED count. Last year 18 out of the 1,266 works on display had the caption UNTITLED. What is it about artists and / or their agents? If you can’t think of a title for what you’re doing, why are you doing it?

My rant clearly shook up the artistic community because out of 1,267 pieces this year, 33 of them were captioned UNTITLED.

Hmmm. That’s a 183% increase in unimaginativity. I am compelled to take this as a personal affront.

Here chosen at random, and with no reference to scale, are four works titled UNTITLED. When I finally get on the Hanging Committee, its name is going to take on a whole new meaning.

The sleb artist Tracy Emin has four works on display and they’re all crap. I guess it’s a matter of taste.

Bile to one side, many pieces caught my eye, and here are just a few of them.

Ken Howard’s paintings of Venice capture the moods of La Serenissima like few since Canaletto, but here’s a non-Venetian portrait of DORA, SUMMER INTERIOR, CORNWALL:

The Architectural gallery is always a delight, and here are two pieces that stood out for me:

The COWLEY ST LAURENCE SCHOOL, a Church of England primary school in Hillingdon, north-west London, appears to have a façade made out of Lego bricks, 1,063,800 of them apparently, created by WHAT_architecture. This is a detail of it.

And this won, won wonderful self-explanatory chess set by Mobile Studio is titled STYLE WARS: (CHESS SET) MODERNISTS VERSUS TRADITIONALISTS. The Gherkin King! I want it! but I don’t have £1,600. And I’m not very good at chess (though I once beat a fomer Mayor of Paris):

I’m not David Hockney’s biggest fan, but I do admire his protest against the totalitarian smoking ban, and I adored his mighty THE TWENTY-FIVE BIG TREES BETWEEN BRIDLINGTON SCHOOL AND MORRISON’S SUPERMARKET ON BESSINGBY ROAD, IN THE SEMI-EGYPTIAN STYLE, PHOTOGRAPHED 19TH AUGUST 2009.

I believe a measure of the importance of art for poor people like me is: can I live with it? So size has to become a consideration. Not many of us possess vast empty walls for hanging space, or the square footage needed for a Richard Serra installation. I’ve always liked the Small Weston Room because it fills the needs of the ordinary person — small paintings on a human perspective. I loved Lance Fennell’s tiny HEADLIGHTS NEAR PADBURY, simply because I could live with it and it would inspire the imagination to create endless stories. This is almost life size:

Not illustrated is David Mach’s SILVER STREAK, a gigantic gorilla made out of coat hangers — an amazing sight — but here is a small snip from his huge collage BABEL TOWERS. Where are these towers? They are incredibly familiar, but I can’t place them. Please tell me!

Go and see the show. It’s one of the highlights of the summer.