(China of this period, the catalogue notes, was the only Asian nation in which chairs were used; most of them folded, or collapsed, to be moved to other rooms or out of doors). This chair was the seat of honor, and according to a passage from a novel on the wall caption, a gentleman visitor would sit there, awaiting a lady as she finished dressing in a room off a rear courtyard.
There were young children served tea by their parents as a rite of passage to becoming young ladies and gentlemen; elderly visitors from the ex-colonies feeling a bit of pre-independence nostalgia; Americans determined not to make a faux pas; Brits from the countryside persuading themselves that some things never change in London.
His predecessor, Johan Kuhnau, had already noted that "visitors and distinguished gentlemen certainly want to hear something fine in the principal churches".
The only unusual visitors had been two unidentified gentlemen, one requesting money with which to send a telegram of some kind to Kenneth Simpson, the other just requesting money.
We press on to the jewel in Norwich's architectural crown, the cathedral, where Sayer remembers one visitor: "A gentleman once looked up at the spire, paused, and asked me: 'So what is this building used for?'", a line Steve Coogan would surely enjoy.
Most visitors are amused, though one older gentleman "said 'harrumph' and walked away," he said.
Sometimes, after one of these "experiences", I've thought that an immensely popular work of art might consist of asking visitors to go into a darkened room where a gentleman is waiting to kick them hard up the arse.
He was also known to many campus visitors and eventual Columbia students simply as the kind gentleman with the bowtie outside Hamilton Hall who would patiently answer question after question.
On the second night, drop in at the Graaff-Reinet Club, a historic former gentleman's establishment that still has about 250 stalwart members but welcomes visitors.
