Later, at 4.10am, her name comes to me unbidden – Shirley Jones. I feel strangely placated by my memory. I didn't like her on TV, but now her death and my poem make us kindred sufferers of the real.

The following is a conversation between David Walsh and Tim Jenison about Vermeer, Viagra, and the nature of genius. (Interviewed by Elizabeth Pearce, with a cameo appearance by Mona curator Jarrod Rawlins.)

Paul, 2014, is a creepy man-child self-portrait (of sorts), by Melbourne-based artist Ronnie van Hout. His sleepwalking pose and little boy PJs cue us for cuteness, so the craggy face is discomforting

Painter, 1995, by Los Angeles artist Paul McCarthy, regularly tops our list of works most hated by Mona visitors. I have avoided writing about it for a long time, because that would entail sitting through the whole thing...