Dead pot horse to resin willy in one post

It starts off as the sort of air-polluted, miserable, cold day that Travelling Aunty would almost certainly prefer to spend passed out on the sofa under an unread copy of the South China Morning Post.

No such luck for her. She is frogmarched over to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, propped upright on the escalators and taken off to see a two thousand year old funeral horse, a length of old scroll, and a joke map of Canton.

No, I don't like the great snorty beasts but I admit it's beautiful.

This is what you get if you pass over the organisation of the cultural tour to the gritlets. I instructed them to pick one China art item each, tell Travelling Aunty all about it, then test her listening comprehension with pertinent questions about what year the horse was buried in, etc. etc.

Anyway, if she failed to answer correctly, she must have dozed off. Keep her awake and tell her again, louder. Funeral horses were very popular items to bury with the dead, along with houses, guardians and cooking pots.

Grit's choice is Touching Art. This is a fantastic exhibition, because you get to stroke semi naked men in art galleries when you're not normally allowed to. The resin that makes up these exact replicas from the classics of European art is shockingly accurate. Ten minutes in, and I'm half thinking that all the marble statuary we see in the British Museum is probably fake, because unless I tapped those thighs with my knuckles, I wouldn't know. I certainly couldn't tell in dim light.

I take my opportunity, and go round fondling it all, or most of it. Chests are especially thrilling, but that could be just me.

After I pull myself away, I think that the exhibition should properly be called Touching Art but not brave enough to touch the naughty bits, especially on the fighting warrior. It's not the laser-cut resin that puts me off. Neither that everyone else stands round wondering exactly the same thing as me. It is mostly because the poor fellow is sculptured with so much expression - fight or die - that he looks to be in enough effort already without my exploration of his vulnerabilities. Like the last straw of a really bad day. I just couldn't be that ungenerous and bad spirited to him, even if he is resin.

I'm not rambling, really I'm not. I miss filling my eyes full of European art and naked men, that's all. Anyway, touching art is better explained over here. Well worth visiting if it's in a town near you.

Even Travelling Aunty perked up a little and agreed.