Hello, I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive for rights reasons

We've had to shorten the music

The program was originally broadcast in 2001 and the presenter was Sue Lawley

My cast away this week is an arts administrator

His flair and exuberance attract many admirers

But his tendency to speak his mind is possibly the reason he failed to secure the top job at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

He didn't enjoy his private education

He preferred collecting porcelain to playing football

But he quickly found himself at home in his first job as assistant keeper of the Manchester City Art Gallery

In his current position he's helped save cannabis famous sculpture the three graces for the nation

and raised more than ten million pounds to prevent body cellism, Madonna and sleeping child from going abroad

He confesses to a passion for his work that is quite un-English

I like the spicy things of life, he says, mint with raspberries

He is the director of the National Galleries of Scotland, Timothy Clifford

What else appeals to this kind of un-English pallet of yours?

Well, what I'm fascinated in is seeing works of art in their natural habitat

We are all thrilled by seeing birds and animals in their natural habitat

And we don't like to see things stuffed or things having their heads chopped off and displayed on walls

And it's the same way with works of art, I want to see works of art in all their glory, in their pop-up context

What does that mean?

Well, what that really means is that if you're looking at a picture by, for example, Caravaggio

I don't want to see the Caravaggio sitting in a picture gallery on a white wall hung at belly button level

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