The choice of music on this series of Strictly Come Dancing is a great disappointment. What an opportunity they have to range over the world’s fantastic dance music, and what a shame they don’t take it! I find it particularly annoying when the on-stage band is so good. I’d love to hear them in a [...]

An intriguing hour at ‘The Sacred Made Real’, a National Gallery exhibition of Spanish religious art from 1600-1700. Although it had some wonderful paintings, its main focus was a series of statues – of Christ, of Mary, and of various saints – carved from wood and beautifully painted by artists who specialised in making the facial features [...]

Richmond Park this morning offered many examples of a discouraging sight which is fast becoming familiar in the parks round here: of dog-walkers absorbed in conversations on their mobile phones, while their dogs trail meekly behind them.
Are we really still a nation of dog-lovers? One of the cheering sights of the park used to be dog-owners [...]

I’ve just realised that this is my hundredth blog post on this website. I am a centenarian!
To celebrate, here’s a sweet story I heard from Mark Morris when I attended his question-and-answer session the other night at Sadler’s Wells.
He was complaining about someone sitting in the balcony at one of his shows last week who [...]

Yesterday I was astounded to hear a golfer talking on the radio about the current trend whereby competitors in golf championships are ferried from tee to green in little buggies. When asked whether it was really so hard to walk that short distance, the golfer replied that hitting a golf shot is a demanding physical skill which takes [...]