I admit it; I was a little taken aback when the Queen strolled by. I ought not to have been. After all I was in her house. But still, it was odd: surreal.
Then again, that's Buckingham Palace for you. George IV's opulent makeover of his father's central London residence into a lavish palace fit for a Prince Regent is at once full of magnificent things whilst being brazenly over the top. It is also fascinating, and every object within it tells the story of its royal residents.
I was on the Today programme this morning to talk about Lucian Freud with Martin Gayford, who was painted by Freud. You can listen to the discussion here.
An exhibition of Freud's portraits opens at the National Portrait Gallery on Thursday, the first major exhibition since the painter's death in July 2011.
Here's my report about art historians who say they have found a copy of the Mona Lisa, which they believe is probably painted by one of Leonardo da Vinci's own pupils.
It is claimed the find will transform understanding of the world's most famous picture.
Here's my report about principal dancer Sergei Polunin who has surprised bosses at the Royal Ballet by resigning from his post, less than two years after he was promoted.
In a statement, Royal Ballet director Dame Monica Mason admitted his decision had been a "huge shock".
David Hockney thinks that over his lifetime art has become "less". He blames the art establishment (museums, galleries, art schools) for becoming over-enamoured with conceptual art: "It gave up on images a bit" the artist laments.
By which he means that the artworld ignored figurative art: paintings, sculptures, videos and installations that aim to represent the known world: the sort of work Hockney makes: landscapes, portraits and still lifes.
A devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East, riots in London and Manchester, and the imminent threat of financial Armageddon in Europe. That was the big news of 2011.
There is no such thing as free money in the arts: there are always strings attached. The government wants certain targets attained in return for investment, philanthropists need plenty of wining and dining and corporate sponsors have business goals that need to be reached.
All of which the arts institutions know, having weighed up the pros and cons before taking the money. They are particularly sensitive when it comes to financial relationships with wealthy individuals and corporations. Connections with arms manufacturing, cigarettes or companies which attract widescale protests are generally avoided.
Oil giant BP says it will continue to sponsor the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Opera House and Tate Britain, pledging £10m over the next five years.
Each of the four institutions already has a long standing partnership with BP - most stretching back more than 20 years.
Here's my report on The Artist - a silent film shot in black-and-white - that has won praise from critics and become an unlikely contender for an Oscar nomination.
Most of the actors are unknown and the story takes place in the Hollywood of the 1920s and 30s as silent cinema slipped out of fashion.
Corporate and individual giving to the arts has plummeted according to the first UK Arts Index which shows that, between 2007 and 2010, corporate giving has plummeted by 17% and philanthropy is down by 13%.
I discussed the drop in art philanthropy with Sam West of the National Campaign of the Arts on the Today programme.
Here's my interview with this year's Turner Prize winner Martin Boyce. The 44-year-old claimed the £25,000 prize for his distinctive sculptural installations, which seek to create an urban landscape within the confines of the gallery space.
The ceremony was held at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, it is the first time the ceremony has been held outside a Tate venue.
Here's my interview with actress Meryl Streep in which she denies giving a sympathetic portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in new film The Iron Lady.
Streep, who is the most Oscar-nominated actress of all time, says that she wanted to "capture whatever it was that drew people to her and whatever it was that meant people have a special venom for her".
This pencil portrait of a stern-looking regency woman was given to Dr Paula Byrne by her husband on April Fools Day.
He had purchased it from a well-known specialist, who was selling because an Austen expert had told him the image was not authentic. Dr Byrne thought differently and her efforts have led to several eminent experts concurring with her view, that it is a genuine portrait of Jane Austen.
The lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have come up with their Word of the Year. Actually, they haven't. They've come up with an expression - squeezed middle.
It was a term coined by Ed Miliband - not a person one instantly associates with wordsmithery - while in conversation with John Humphrys on the Today Programme. John, a man who takes a keen interest in the English language, asked what the Labour leader meant by squeezed middle. Mr Miliband gave a slightly faltering answer in which he mentioned something about the broad middle classes in this country who find themselves financially hard pressed.
Here's my report about recently discovered graffiti by Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten which may be of greater significance than the discovery of early Beatles recordings, academics have said.
Rotten, born John Lydon, drew on the walls of the band's London flat in 1975 after disliking a recent redecoration. Now, a paper in the journal Antiquity is suggesting the flat is an important historical and archaeological site.
The new Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate has seen 300,000 people come through its doors in its first seven months, double the amount expected for the whole year.
Here's my report on the secret behind the gallery's economic, social and cultural success.
Before that, he was a director at the Tate Gallery for seven years, where he was responsible for the award-winning Tate Online, the UK’s most popular art website, and Tate Etc, the UK’s highest circulation art magazine.
He was voted one of the world's top 50 creative thinkers by the New York-based Creativity Magazine.
In 2009 Will wrote and performed a sell-out one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe called, Double Art History.
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