If I wasn't still in bed with the quilt pulled up, dreaming of wenches, wine and warmed by self-disgust, I would give very serious consideration to getting my threadbare coat on, polishing my scuffed Chelsea boots, and skating along Old Father Thames' frozen loins to Tate Britain for a gawp and gander at the new William Hogarth exhibition .
Had I not spent last evening up Beer Street I would spring from my pit to pay homage to Chiswick roundabout's finest son. I could even take my birth certificate along and try to reclaim one of the paintings - a portrait of my supposed ancestor Benjamin Hoadly (1697-1761), Bishop of Winchester (not that it helped my daughter get into a C of E primary school.)
Of course, the papers are filled with it this week, so there's little need to do a Brian Sewell impersonation, as pleasant as it would be. It doesn't take a genius to draw parallels between Hogarth's 18th century and our own festering, morally bankrupt times. Life is still ugly and brutal - it just lasts longer these days.
I must admit to a certain fondness for the age of the periwig, scurvy, syphilis and gin. I realise that the satirical engravings carried strong moral messages - rather like our own caring government's attempts to curb anything that might render us unfit for a day at the call centre, but Hogarth certainly wasn't averse to a bit of roistering himself. He has an eye for detail that only somebody truly "in the know" could possess, and anybody whose commissioned portrait of wealthy landowners contains peasants shagging in the background is worth getting out of bed for.
