While we remain closed, sometimes it's hard to remember how it was when the Gallery was open. However, this time one year ago, we were showing Ron Mueck – and we had thousands, literally thousands, of visitors.

The first day back at work after a holiday is always a bit rubbish isn't it. And today is no exception, particularly when you add to the general post-festive blues the new layer of plaster dust and earthquake-related detritus that this particular break generated.

As we all know through the apocryphal grapevine, it's not where your house is, or what it's made of that determines the likely effects of seismic movement.

Portrait of an Unknown Man – one of the earliest portraits in the collection – has recently been identified as a portrait of the seventeenth century English poet Edmund Waller (1606–1687).