August - the first half
15 August

Well, having had the official summer holidays, it still feels as though I'm having a break from everything.

Work is just gradually petering out. I'm doing what I have to do before it all comes to an end.

Ross and I took in another new operatic experience. I've been looking at Clonter Opera for some years now but they have always had as their summer performance something which I had either just seen or did not want to see. This year their chosen piece was Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor which is one of my favourites and which I have not seen live since 1993. It was time for a re-visit.

Clonter's productions are basically graduation pieces by highly thought of students from around the country. The setting was minimal (although I think that it made several nods towards the recent ENO production from the reviews I have read) and the orchestra was very much a scratch band of about a dozen players. Clive Timms conducted and, although the orchestral sound was not wonderful, I'm always amazed by how quickly the ear adjusts.

The singers were fine even if a few accommodations had to be made for the youth of the voices. Natalya Romaniw took on Lucia and showed that she may well have a very fine future ahead of her. Koji Terada as Enrico and Jung Soo Yun as Edgardo both made very good attempts at their parts.

All in all, it was a very good night out. Even so, I would have to say that it was expensive for what it was and I would need to be convinced of what I was seeing before I made the journey back again.

Ross then took himself off to his parents' for a week and I joined him later.

But not before I had attended the second Liverpool Pride.

I didn't ever think that my home city would ever stage such an event but there I was walking those streets with my gay brothers and sisters and the whole range in between.

I didn't stay for the on-going jollifications. I had had a clear pass from Ross so that, if there had been any naughtiness, it would have been OK. But I simply didn't want to stay around in town getting more and more pissed. So, I went home and was the fresher in the morning for the drive over to the East Coast.

We had been going to drop in on the new Barbara Hepworth museum in Wakefield but, just as I was about to drive off, Nutkin did a runner. I delayed my departure a little but it got to the point where further delay would have become an embarrassment. So, we came back early and Nutkin had a night on the tiles.

In any case, we had a trip to London planned for the end of the week. Ross had got us a very good deal for the Novotel near St Pancras and we were looking for a good relax.

I took in the opportunity to go to Opera Holland Park to see Catalani's La Wally. I had caught this once before as a student production at UCL back in March 1995. All I can say is that this was not a wonderful evening. The cast included Gweneth-Ann Jeffers, Adrian Dwyer and Stephen Richardson and none of them, to my mind, had the right voices for their roles. I left after the second interval and felt better to be back early in my bed.

Which was the better as we were down at Tate Modern in the morning for the Joan Miró exhibition. I'm going to cut straight to the chase here - this was a magnificent exhibition; it made me want to go back to Barcelona immediately in order to revisit the Fundació Joan Miró. From the very first room, I was entranced. This early work, The Farm captivated me. It is so unlike anything of Miró's that I have ever seen before but has depth, pattern, surrealism, cubism, control of colour. There's so much that will be present later.

The Constellation Series of paintings was just mind-blowing. I could have spent all day just in that room alone. Energy, detail, joy in abundance.

Then, just as I was tiring, we hit this monumental work, Blue II/III - one of three wall-sized canvasses. It is like a Rothko in size and scope and spirituality but it also has COLOUR. It is brilliant.

Without a doubt this will be my exhibition of the year.

Camelot came to an end on television. It's been very hit and miss throughout. Some good bits; some very long longeurs.

But, praise be, Jamie Campbell Bower showed us his cutely tush once more at the end of the final episode. Goodness only knows whether or not we shall see the show again. Joseph Fiennes wisely opted for an equivocal ending as Merlin went off on a quest so he can miss all of the second series if he chooses.

And finally, sometimes even the BBC makes a bish of things.