Shine

Spent an hour or two in the National Gallery this aft. Earlier I'd given my talk in a committee room in the House of Commons with Anne McGuire, MP for Stirling. It went OK. Then on to a gallery in St James's to meet an old friend, Orri Vigfusson, who has probably done more to conserve the Atlantic salmon than any man alive. Orri introduced me to Joannes Hansen, a diplomat, who represents the Faroe Islands in the UK. I'd never met anyone from the Faroes before.

The Faroes belong to Denmark but it's possible that the first settlers were Irish monks. He told me about the annual whale hunt, the grindadrap. No, it's not a pretty sight. That said, the whales are not sold commercially but eaten by the locals. In the past this food was sometimes the difference between life and death, although that's not the the case today.

The Faroese have not fished for salmon for 25 years, switching to fishing for other species after an intervention by the North Atlantic Salmon Fund.