According to a friend of mine, we can't get anything right in this country.

His favourite moans are airports, railways and politicians. He reckons, they're all terrible in the UK.

Stop knocking Britain, I say. This is the best place for all sorts of things - from television to thatched cottages, and from rock music to ginger beer. It's also the best place for art.

I can't remember visiting many other countries with art galleries that are free, and even fewer with free art galleries containing some of the best pictures in the world.

Take Rembrandt: those saturnineself-portraits that chronicle his late years appeal to my brooding personality. He's the Eminem of the 17th century.

He was Dutch, so you'd think the best Rembrandts would be in the Netherlands, but I reckon we've got the cream of his output here.

Amsterdam has top-notch examples, like the Night Watch group portrait and the highly-sensitive Jewish Bride, but for self-portraits - Rembrandt's strongest suit - our National Gallery and Kenwood have two world-beaters.

And the National Gallery weighs in with some of the Dutchman's finest brushwork in his Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels (just look at that fur coat!) and Woman Bathing in a Stream (her entire robe made with about six sweeps of a paintbrush!).

London is only 70 miles from Winchester, but we're even closer to a painting thought to be at least partly the work of the tragic genius.

The portrait, almost certainly of Rembrandt's mother, is in Wilton House, on the other side of Salisbury. It's an early work with much of the pathos of his old age. For a feast of paint, look at the pages of the bible she holds.

I'm totally convinced it's Rembrandt's work - and it's only 30-odd miles away.