Culture

Last night I went to see The Descendants starring George Clooney (and others!). I found it terribly moving and had used up a box of tissues well before the end. It is a family tragi-comedy set in Hawaii which touches every sinew - a troublesome pre-teen and a late teenager, a husband and wife who have let their relationship slip; a wife who is dying because of a boating accident and an extended family who could become filthy rich. I won't spoil it for you but go and see...

I have started to go to the late Friday night galleries because the crowds are less and it's just a lovely way of easing yourself into the weekend.  So last night at Tate Britain I saw Don McCullin's Landscapes which were a welcome escape from his usual war torn imagery and then onto Migrations which was decidely bitty. www.tate.org.uk

30th January 1649 King Charles 1 lost his head 1948 Gandhi was assassinated 1965 Sir Winston Churchill died 1972 Bloody Sunday - the Bogside massacres - in Derry

On Wednesday of last week I went to see the colourful funeral cars exhibition at the Festival Hall. They were good but not quite as good as the ones I last saw three years ago in Seattle!

Finally, I managed to see The Iron Lady starring Meryl Streep. It was an excellent film with a number of outstanding performances but like many others I was saddened at the way she was portrayed.....notwithstanding that she was one of the reasons I entered politics. 

I have been asked by the Ditchley Foundation to spend three days in March looking at the issues around Cultural Diplomacy. I have been a fan of Joe Nye's work on Soft Power and I am really looking forward to the event.  

I'm a member at the V&A and one day I shall walk all eight miles of their galleries!!  Today, I saw the Al Weiwei exhibition which was uncomfortable as he was destroying ancient artefacts and replenishing them in a contemporary environment. Anne Lennox's House was next and I saw her great costumes, awards, photos, charitable work and naturally her music. She tries almost too hard to want to be recognised but that essential hunger is what has made her great. I then dipped

I am also a member at the National Portrait Gallery and this morning I went first to see the Taylor Wessing Photographic competition winners. This has been an annual exhibition for some time - I am little hazy as to how long.  I also tried to have a look at the newest commissions but the NPG is busy putting its Lucien Freud exhibition together so sadly the area was closed. But hey, Lucien Freud? 

I went to see Margin Call at a private showing at Somerset House last night (it has been well reviewed today in The Guardian). The film is about the close call "collapse" of a NY bank in the first crisis in 2008. It's edgy and frightening realistic but may have come too late to influence the Oscars. There were very strong performances by Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Demi Moore, Jeremy Irons and Zachary Quiinto. It feels like the bookend to Wall Street.

I went to see The Artist this afternoon which has had a lot of wind lately in the media and that's partly because it is a black and white silent movie. The last one I saw was Abel Gance's Napoleon epic  - which then lasted five and a half hours - at the Barbican back in 1982.... The Artist is slightly drawn out but the ending is quite amusing. It might just score at The Oscars. 

The Leonardo at the National has drawn record crowds and till receipts for the Exhibition and subsequent purchases in the book shops have topped £60k a day so at this rate the overall income from it will be around £5.5m plus sponsorship from Credit Suisse. As to the exhibition itself, I found it disappointing. The sketches are so hard to see (and so small) and the bigger portraits such as Christ as Salvator Mundi and The Madonna of the Yarnwinder seem to be less by him and more by other...

To wind down from Christmas I went to Ronnie Scott's on Boxing Day to listen to Gill Manley's tribute to Nina Simone. I first heard Nina at Ronnie's on New Year's eve back in the late 1980s.  

Before going on to spend Christmas Day with Rosa, my God daughter and her wondrous family in Cambridge, I stopped off at St Andrew's Church, Histon for their very amusing Family service (jokes included).

I have to admit given it seems to be harder to find the present I was really fortunate this year!!! Books Veg by River Cottage bod Hugh F-W Private Eye: the First 50 Years World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson & Janice Robinson Music Amy Winehouse: Lioness - Hidden Treasures  Rebecca Ferguson: Heaven  Wine A Vine to grow - loved it  

London Chamber Brass@NPG I went to the NPG last night to hear the outstanding LCB who are on Classic FM this evening at 1800. They played an outstanding rendition of White Christmas which was lost a little in the small auditorium. Check them out at www.londonchamberbrass.co.uk

Yesterday evening I went to see with Daisy, my daughter, the film: My Week with Marilyn starring an outstanding Michelle Williams. The script was thin and we gave it 5/10 though there were some solid performances from Zoe Wanamaker, Eddie Redmayne and Ken Branagh. Directed by Simon Curtis.

As it was my birthday yesterday, I took my children, Daisy and Jack to Bibendum at Michelin House. I cannot think of a more relaxed place to have Sunday lunch with such an excellent wine list and a menu to die for. The chef kindly endorsed my pavlova with a chocolate version of "Happy Birthday"!!

I went last night to the John Maynard Keynes room at Birkbeck College, Gordon Square for a talk by Amir Amirani, an award winning documentary maker. He is trying to find the funding for a film about all those anti-war (Iraq invasion) marches across the world in time for the tenth anniversary of the illegal occupation.

Michael Lewis should be floated on Wall Street. Almost everything he has written has either been ahead of the curve - The New New Thing & The Blind Side - or summed up an era like Liar's Poker. In 2003, he wrote Moneyball about the Oakland A's 2002 season in which they scored a record 20 straight wins but still failed to qualify for the World Series. Hollywood does baseball films better than it does rugby or soccer viz The Natural, Field of Dreams & The Babe....

I went to see Deepak Verma's new film: Mumbai Charlie at Somerset House yesterday.   ‘In the middle of India’s arid landscape of Gujarat, Vijay, a businessman from Mumbai comes across a cult-like society which is obsessed with and prays to Charlie Chaplin. His experience of them changes his life forever, as he learns to cultivate a more emotionally and aware sense of being.’ It was a very funny short film: to think that Chaplin met Gandhi and knew him but Gandhi had never heard...

Real Venice is a fund raising project of the charity: Venice in Peril. 14 photographers were commissioned to take photos of Venice and the hope is these will be sold to help the cause. I didn't enjoy the exhibition. Giving photographers a free for all to shoot whatever they wanted left me thinking that I didn't really care less for them or for the cause. It is true Venice is sinking. Venice receives millions of tourists a year who pay excessive rates at hotels, in bars and for...

Somerset House has undergone a quiet revolution with its ice rink, British Fashion Week and the opening of bars and restaurants plus a host of exhibitions which do not gain the coverage they deserve. One such is Forgotten Spaces on till 29th January 2012 which is a showcase of 28 innovative design projects for the regeneration of neglected spaces across London. Go see it: it will stimulate your senses especially as it is housed in one of Somerset House's own lost space!!

I met Syl Tand the founder & CEO of hip guide yesterday: check out her site www.hipguide.com it's a lot of fun.

It was such a lovely day yesterday I spent it in Aldeburgh and whilst there looked at two houses and a flat. I saw a redstart with its orange tail. One day I shall live here. 

After Remembrance Sunday, I went to the V&A to see the 50th Anniversary exhibition of Private Eye and was pleased to see on video the craft of Ken Pyne. a great cartoonist. I then spent an hour at the Postmodernism: Style & Subversions 1970-1990 exhibition which was beautifully curated.

Once again I went to the MfY Prom last night at the Royal Albert Hall and once again it was simply outstanding.

I attended a London RSA lecture at the RSA last night given by Sir Michael Arthur, formerly our High Commissioner in India. (As an aside I do wish we could call our High Commissioners "Ambassadors" which is what they are; it is silly to continue the High Commission nonsense at the FCO just to placate a crumbling Commonwealth which matters less and less to us every day). Sir Michael's talk was entitled "Elephants on the Move: How much will India shape the 21st century?" and his answer...

I went to see Driving Miss Daisy last night. It stars the simply wonderful Vanessa Redgrave as Miss Daisy and the equally outstanding James Earl Jones, as Hoke Coleburn, her black driver. It was always a play before it became a film and this transfer from Broadway is simply wonderful. Go see.  

We held our annual dinner at the Worshipful Company of Innholders' Hall on Wednesday - Simon Hughes MP was our guest speaker. Yesterday I was back at the Hospice to review how we introduce music therapy and this morning I went to another meeting which looked at our overall Comms package. This afternoon, I am visiting a software team who handle eBay accounts.

At the Comment Awards on Thursday morning, neither The Guardian nor The Indy won a single award rather they were shared 4-4 by the FT and The Times.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24000535-standard-wins-commentary-awards.do    http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/times-and-financial-times-dominate-comment-awards/s2/a546432/   http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/10/media-commentator-awards-wilby   http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/oct/20/robert-peston-media-events-conferences?newsfeed=true   http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/wire/8312...

Editorial Intelligence announces The Comment Awards 2011 www.commentawards.com www.editorialintelligence.com London, 20th October, 2011 The media, analysis and networking business (www.editorialintelligence.com), has announced 2011. In their third year, The Comment Awards online commentators and their editors over the The winners of the 15 categories, and the Chair’s Choice award special breakfast at RIBA, London this morning in front of shortlisted candidates, category...

There was a goodly audience at the Curzon Mayfair last night to see WoodY Allen's much trailed film: Midnight in Paris. I went with Daisy, my daughter and given the plethora of Lebanese restaurants in and around Shepherd Market, we settled for a snack beforehand. Woody Allen prodigious film oeuvre (he is 75) began in 1965 with What's New Pussycat? (he wrote the initial screenplay) and he has subsequently produced almost a film a year. I remember him first as a stand up...

Last night I went to hear Melvyn Bragg, Labour Peer, author and media man, give a lecture entitled: The Impact of the King James Bible 1611-2011 which was based on his new book: The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible 1611-2011 which was published back in April. Lord Bragg spoke for just on 75 minutes with a PA system which echoed and so we struggled to hear his lecture clearly which was bitterly disappointing. However, it was enough to make me order...

TOP 10 UNIVERSITIES: a first for CalTech Rank / Institution 1. California Institute of Technology =2. Harvard University =2. Stanford University 4. University of Oxford 5. Princeton University 6. University of Cambridge 7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 8. Imperial College London 9. University of Chicago 10. University of California, Berkeley www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings

The Livery companies of the Mercers and the Information Technologists came together last Wednesday at the new Hammersmith Academy which they both have agreed to sponsor to the tune of £3m and £1m respectively. The Academy is wonderfully designed and at present just has Year 7 and 12 students. Through member ship of the ICT Livery Company I am a small donor of the Hammersmith Academy and have agreed to mentor a couple of Year 12 students.

Tate Liverpool's Retrospective on Rene Magritte (it runs until 16th October 2011) is a must-see exhibition and if you book your rail ticket early enough you can still do a day return from London for under £60. There is much to see that is new including his posters, photographs, home movies, commercial art and letters. Moreover, seeing his work as a whole demonstrated at least to me the profound influence he has had on modern advertising and on on our current crop of artists. He...

Last Friday week I took a trip down memory lane first by train from Fenchurch Street to Chalkwell and then via Jim Harrison's house (my PE teacher) to Westcliff CHS, my first secondary school, which I attended from 1961-66. I was the main speaker at the Old Boys annual dinner.  Two of my class/sports mates - Ron Curtis and Ian Fowler - went out of their way to attend and we spent half an hour remembering our golden age! The past isn't what it used to be.  It was a...

I took Jack, my son, to see Tinker, Tailor on Sunday afternoon to a packed Cineworld in the Fulham Road. All the hype was true: it was an exceptional film, beautifully shot, wonderfully scored with a host of outstanding performances especially Gary Oldman (who may well win an Oscar nomination) as George Smiley. The story would be familiar to those old enough to recall the book by John le Carre published in June, 1974 which was adapted for BBC television in 1979 (and starred Alec Guinness...

I went to the newly opened Hammersmith Academy (Years 7 and 12) yesterday to sign up as a Business Mentor; the building is to die for. The official opening will be on 28th September 2011 and I have made a small contribution through the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (our members have raised £1m for them).  

Bleary-eyed 30 or so of us representing the Commentariat met this morning at Webber Shandwick to finalise the short list for this year's Comment Awards organised by Editorial Intelligence. I was a judge on two panels: Mainstream Media Blogger & Columnist of the Year whilst we were all asked to decide on the newspaper with the Best Comment Pages. My lips are sealed but the short-list should be out later today!

The Comment Awards 2011 - Category Shortlists   Commentariat of the Year – Sponsored by Jaguar Land Rover Shortlist: Matthew d’Ancona – The Daily Telegraph Suzanne Moore – The Guardian Peter Oborne – The Daily Telegraph   Best Comment Pages Shortlist: Financial Times The Guardian The Times   Best Online Comment Site Shortlist: Mumsnet Reuters Breakingviews Coffee House @ The Spectator   Columnist of the Year Shortlist: Peter...

I went to see Jane Eyre last night at the Kensington Odeon. London streets were on meltdown for most of the day - there were 9.11 services everywhere leading to closures, there was something in Whitehall so Parliament Square was blocked for an hour and then there was a street festival on the Embankment for most of the afternoon. Transport for London needs to have a state of the art traffic web site which updates every five minutes and links into mobiles and gsm systems. Maybe they could just...

I went last night to Ronnie Scott's to hear James Pearson and Dave Newton (two grands on the stage) pay homage to Oscar Peterson. "House Full" signs were up early and the crowd had a ball. It was a joy to be there.  It's on again tonight at 2030.

Heather Brooke's new book "The Revolution Will be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War" is essentially an aide memoire into what has happened in our digital world over the past two years. Nonetheless it is a cracking read.

Tom Bingham was our most senior Law Lord and his book shines a brilliant light into what exactly do we mean by the term "The Rule of Law". This is a precise and intelligent read and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Pedro Almodovar is the finest Spanish director of films since the heady days of Luis Bufnuel. His latest film: The Skin I Live In stars Antonio Banderas and new muse Elena Anaya, though she was in his film of 2002: Talk to Her. It explores much of the themes of previous films and is an acknowledgement to a past movie entitled Live Flesh (a lose adaption of Ruth Rendell's 1997 novel of the same name). Skin covers: a  sex change, voyeurism, brutal sex,...

From wikipedia: The Secret in Their Eyes (Spanish: El secreto de sus ojos) is a 2009 Argentine crime thriller film, directed by Juan José Campanella, based on Eduardo Sacheri's novel La Pregunta de Sus Ojos (The Question in Their Eyes). The film stars Ricardo Darín and Soledad Villamil in a joint production of Argentine and Spanish companies. The film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards, making Argentina the first country in Latin America to win it...

From wikipedia: The Lincoln Lawyer is a 2011 American thriller film adapted from the novel of the same name by Michael Connelly, starring Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Phillippe, William H. Macy and Marisa Tomei. The film is directed by Brad Furman, with a screenplay written by John Romano. I saw it last week and can recommend it. Here's the plot: Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller (McConaughey) operates around Los Angeles County out of a Lincoln Town Car. Haller has spent most...

The number of books on Google grows and grows - I can count six in my collection and now here is a seventh.... Douglas Edwards was the 59th employee at Google; he lucked out and walked away with $millions when he left five years ago. This is his story.

The Pursuit of Italy by David Gilmour is an extraordinary book by one of the UK's great authors; and if you are only half interested in what made Italy (eventually) into a nation state (it is celebrating its 150th year, this year) then this is the book for you. As someone who visits Italy regularly (twice this year) I couldn't put it down; it is so readably and so full of nuggets and joy. Go read.

I drove up to Aldeburgh yesterday to check in at the Thompson Gallery sale of two artists - Michael Sanders and Emma Williams. I'd bought a large Sanders's of a misty beach scene soon looking back at Aldeburgh from Thorpeness last year and was tempted by an Emma Williams painting of the famous Chip Shop but when I called earlier last week it had already gone. On walking round the Gallery - and to my delight - there was another painting of the Chip shop still unsold...

Every Monday morning I receive a stream of stats from my server company about how my relatively new web site is doing. My old site www.derekwyattexmp.co.uk topped 20,000+ weekly visits (not hits) but eventually settled at around 15,000 which made it the most visited web site for a Parliamentarian. This site is gradually improving - last week we had 1380 visitors who accessed 4080 pages.

I went to see Pinter's "Betrayal" last night at the Comedy Theatre. I sense I briefly drifted off in one of the "pauses" ..... I'm not you ever enjoy a Pinter play but there was a goodly performance by Kristin Scott Thomas, the sets were sparse matching the play itself. But it did feel very 1970s!  

I was President of St Luke's College, Exeter between 1970-71 before it was subsumed by Exeter University. I was grateful for the three years I had there and over the past decade or so I have given two small donations to help Sport flourish in the past and last month to the new Business Centre which opens shortly. Many years later I won a place at St Catherine's College, Oxford to read for an M.Sc. It was beyond my wildest dreams that I should find

Jack. my son, and YT went to see Senna, the movie last night at the Curzon Soho. This wonderful film has been directed sensitively by new kid on the block, Asif Kapadia. Senna won three world championships and more F1 races than anyone. He was captain courageous but lamented even on the day he was killed at the new love affair with technology which had taken the "driving" element away from F1. Even, if you're not a racing buff, this is a wonderful portrait of a decent man whose legacy has

Monday: we learned that the late,murdered, Millie Dowler's phone was hacked Tuesday: we learned 7/7 victims and widows of our heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan have had their phones hacked too  Wednesday: David Cameron was toast at PMQs Thursday: News of the World closed I'm sure the rush is on first for a book but much more interestingly would be a film commission. Why not Four Days that Shook the World?

On Thursday, I chaired another eiClub Supper at the Groucho Club. WE were meeting two hours after the News of the World closure blew out the rest of the news...........We also talked about the repercussions on Europe and the euro if Greece was to renege on its new debt agreement. www.editorialintelligence.com

Last night, I went to see the premiere of Holy Rollers, starring Jesse Eisenberg, fresh from his award winning performance in Social Network. Holy Rollers is about the closed community of Hasidic Jews in NY and how just occasionally it can be contaminated. I won't spoil it for you because you need to go and see it! www.holyrollersuk.com

Andrew Lansley, Health SoS, commissioned a Palliative Care Funding Review Report and it was published on Friday morning. You can find it here: www.palliativecarefunding.org.uk

The first London New Zealand film festival was underway last night at The Baribican and continues over the next few days. Opening the Festival was Boy written and directed by the acclaimed, award winning, Taika Waititi. I was a guest at the opening party and film. For other films see www.barbican.org.uk 

I am the proud Dad of two cracking children. Last week whilst in NY, my daughter calls, she has gained a First in her degree..............fantastic, must take after her mother.

Editorial Intelligence's Names Not Numbers - www.namesnotnumbers.com - two day fest described by Mrs Moneypenny in the Financial Times as "intellectual Viagra" finished late Tuesday at BBC.com's NY offices. Indeed, it was Mrs Moneypenny who brought the curtain down with her own one woman show which was a sell out at Edinburgh last year. The range of speakers was stunning and included Seth Godin Pat Mitchell Abigail Disney John Gapper Steve Bratt P.J.Crowley Nina Planck Ken...

For the Names Not Numbers two day conference in Manhattan earlier this week, I stayed at the relatively new Mondrian Hotel in Crosby Street, SoHo (it was opened in February). It's a curious mix of boutique meets muddle. Downstairs the breakfast room which doubles up for lunch and dinner is a light, thoughtful space but clearly was an after thought as the "bar" and overspill dining facilities were small. noisy (not even ear plugs could diminish the sound) and poorly lit. In the lifts...

I flew Virgin Atlantic to Newark Airport in New Jersey (a first) using my air miles. Air Miles are of the great deceits of our age. You fly with an airline, you collect their reward points and then you hope some day to have enough to maybe give your children a "free" flight or even yourself. That's where the fun starts. You cannot book any flight: indeed you cannot book most flights; you then have to book at least two or three months ahead to benefit as if anyone knows their...

Editorial Intelligence's Names Not Numbers two day conference hits New York tomorrow. The English board members are meeting this morning for breakfast then I will pop in to the Apple shop in Greenwich Village before brunching with old friends. Here in SoHo the sun is smiling.

I have had a soft spot for Mihir Bose ever since I published A Maidan View in 1984 - about cricket in India. It is a cracker of a read. I subsequently commissioned him to write another cricket book Cricket Around the Boundary about the people who make up a first X1 - touts, ground staff, media players et al. I was trying to see if we could make some inroads into CRL James' epic Beyond the Boundary which I thought we did. He also did a biography of Michael Grade for me. Mihir hails from...

I have been reading The Guardian for over forty years but I am beginning to wonder if it is worth my while renewing my subscription. Where has the photojournalism gone now that Eamon McCabe is no longer its picture editor? Where are the real stories in their Comment pages which in themselves are becoming too predictable? Has the change in newspaper format to a Le Monde style restricted it somehow? Has the editorial team been there too...

Why do so many countries waste so much money buying space in Venice to show their art when they could run their own Biennales? Why haven't the UK Art aficionados done just that? It can't be because they all want to spend a few days in Venice at inflated prices both in the hotels and in the restaurants? It must be because they are all on expenses as Joe Citizen simply couldn't afford the costs. Mind you hardly any Joe Citizens actually go to the Venice Biennale. Q. How many paying...

About Professor Putnam Robert D. Putnam is Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard, and Visiting Professor, University of Manchester has written more than a dozen books, including Bowling Alone and Making Democracy Work, both among the most cited publications in the social sciences in the last half century.    In 2005 he initiated The Saguro Seminar: Civic Engagement In America, an ongoing initiative aimed at developing recommendations for strategies to help...

I went to the pre-auction party at Bloomsbury to look at a couple of photographs I was keen on - one on Astaire (a Bert Hardy) and another on Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore (Terry O'Neill). The Astaire featured Audrey Hepburn but alas nothing from "Dancing Shoes".  

It's been an Editorial Intelligence kind of week: Monday: Board meeting Tuesday: Comment Club breakfast thought pieces at Somerset House Thursday (tonight): I'm chairing our Comment Club's dinner www.editorialintelligence.com

I went to the V&A to see:   "The Cult of Beauty - the Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900" (until 17th July) and curated by Stephen Calloway When I read for my first degree at the Open University back in the mid- seventies, I studied the history of art and architecture from 1850 and for my dissertation I chose the work of Thomas Jeckyll, the Norwich based, architect and designer, then still largely unknown. (Thomas Jeckyll by Susan Weber Soros and Catherine Arbuthnott...

There is another pleasure when you have to take an eight hour flight, as I did last week, to Doha and that is being able to catch up on "Films Missed"! Normally, any flight over five hours is a signal for me to spend my time asleep but more recently as the in-flight entertainment has become more and more bespoke I have enjoyed watching those films I have missed. I watched the rather slow moving and somewhat staid "Burlesque" but was then riveted with "The Fighter" which was a...

I went to Fidelity HQ's on Tuesday evening in the Ciot of London for the launch of the new University of Exeter's Business School. See: www.exeter.ac.uk/business-school

There was a small gathering of the English clans in Monticiano, up in the hills south west of Siena, this morning to watch the Royal wedding on television. Curious locals wondered what the fuss was but we had a goodly time watching the beautiful event unfold.

I have been a member of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists for almost a decade (and with it I am allowed, as a Freeman of the City of London, to drive my sheep across the Tower Bridge for free). A few years ago some very brave WCIT members persuaded us to adopt an Academy and we then agreed to raise £1 million for the new Hammersmith Academy which opens in September and on Wednesday, at our Hall in St Bartholomew's Close, thirty or so members met to better...

I went so see Beeban Kidron’s wonderful Storyville film about the devadasi system, Sex, Death and the Gods on Monday evening at Somerset House. I missed it when it was shown on BBC4 (why not BBC2??) earlier this year.

I attended the Editorial Intelligence Comment Conference yesterday on Enterprise and was a panellist in the final session. www.editorialintelligence.com www.commentconference.com

Editorial Intelligence held another of their successful soiree events on Wednesday evening at the Commonwealth Club when a panel chaired by Peter Yorke discussed the place of Royalty. The panellist included fiesty Rachel johnson, Peter Tatchell - the star turn and national institution, the Ambassador of Sweden, Sarah Sands and Peter Kellner (YouGov). It was a goodly event. www.editorialintelligence.com

From The Art Newspaper The Top 5 Exhibitions 1. Hasegawa Tohaku at the Tokyo National Museum Total visitors: 292,526 average daily figure of 12,116 2. Post Impressionism at the National Art Center, Tokyo 777,551 and a daily of 10,757 3. Designing the Lincoln Memorial, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 2,926,232 and a daily of 9,290 4. Hasegawa Tohaku at the Kyoto National Museum 244,347 and a daily of 9,098 5. Van Gogh at the National Art Center,...

If it’s Friday evening it’s normally a film. I seem to be replacing my traditional Sunday early evening slot with Fridays……..and this time I went to see Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in The Adjustment Bureau… a strange film. It was if Hollywood backers were trying to find a way of marrying reality with fantasy. The reality was that the Matt Damon character was a young white version of Obama hoping to win a Senate seat in NY and Emily Blunt’s wondrous heart. And up till then it was a fun movie but...

I caught Fair Game yesterday evening. It is a film about the appallingness of the Bush administration. Go see it.  www.imdb.com: Fair Game (I) (2010)   108 min  -  Biography | Drama | Thriller   -  11 March 2011 (UK) CIA operative Valerie Plame discovers her identity is allegedly leaked by the government as payback for an op-ed article her husband wrote criticizing the Bush administration. Director:...

BBC World recorded an interview for their The Forum programme when we were at Portmeirion last week: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f5w18   Or you can download a podcast from Itunes or http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/forum It includes a question from YT.............

Today's FT Magazine has a goodly write up by James Crabtree of the event last weekend: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/58ff33b0-49f2-11e0-acf0-00144feab49a.html#axzz1GN5WyRPJ

I went to the sale of Edward Ardizzone's paintings, watercolours, drawings, original book illustrations and prints yesterday evening at Gallery 27, 27 Cork Street, Mayfair. I missed the illustration I wanted to buy of The Boat to Southend by a whisker and though I looked at all the others I had gone with the intent of purchasing it! Drat. There was also On The Beach (Sheerness) which went for £1200. I have been interested in Ardizzone's work ever since we purchased a house he had...

I went to the first part of the BSAC Film Festival at the Rutherford Conference Centre this morning. Amanda Nevill, Director of the BFI and Adrian Wootton, CEO, of Film London gave us a flavour of how the Film industry was to be re-organised following the closure of UK Film. Then Ben Keen, Chief Analyst and VP of Screen Digest presented a talk on where our leisure spend is likely to go over the next four years.

I went to see Brighton Rock. I was tempted by the book and the original film but sadly this version wasn't worth the effort. You know when a film is scraping the barrel when it has to use sea swells and moody music to jack up a disappointing script.

Three cheers for Hollywood they more or less voted for the right films in this year's Oscars........ The King's Speech hardly stuttered once it had been released and this word-of-mouth film won four Oscars including best actor for (Sir) Colin Firth. Natalie Porter deservedly won Best Actress for her part in Bleak Swan aka as Black Swan.   For a full list of 2011 Oscar nominees and winners, visit the official site of the Academy Awards. Major Categories: Best Supporting...

Editorial Intelligence's third Names Not Numbers weekend kicks off this Friday at Portmeirion. NNN also launches in New York in June and Mumbai in November. www.namesnotnumbers.com

From: www.bbc.co.uk Enigma genius Alan Turing papers saved for the nation Alan Turing is credited with a key role in breaking wartime German codes A last minute donation from the National Heritage Memorial Fund has saved the papers of the computing genius Alan Turing for the nation. The collection of scientific papers and material relating to Turing's work on wartime codebreaking was in danger of going abroad. He was one of the founding fathers of modern computing and a key...

127 Hours is Danny Boyle's latest film starring James Franco and Amber Tamblyn and is about Aron Ralston's true life story of being trapped by a fallen boulder in an isolated in a canyon in Utah which leads him to cut off his arm with a penknife......

Wall Street 2 Director Oliver Stone with Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf Gordon Gekko emerges from eight years in prison and seeks to re-create his fortune as a high roller. Sounds kind of trite and unworthy but the script is slick and the pace of the movie is equally fast and there are enough twists and turns to make it worth watching.

Last night I was taken to the Curzon Mayfair to see Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful based on the under class and human trafficked in Barcelona. There was a brilliant portrayal of the main character by Javier Bardem surely a shoe-in to win the Oscar for best overseas film performance. The film is bleak, black, bawdy and beautiful. Go see it.

I went to see the Portuguese Nun (English sub titles) at the ICA last night. I felt it was two hours too long.

Last night, I tripped along to Pictet & Cie: www.pictet.com at 120 London Wall for a drinks party to welcome them to the Editorial Intelligence's family of sponsors: www.editorialintelligence.com for our Names Not Numbers symposium at Portmeirion in March.   (I am a small shareholder in Editorial Intelligence and on the Board).

I went to see Black Swan at a packed early evening showing at the Curzon Mayfair yesterday. As we were shuffling out of the cinema it seemed like we'd all been at a funeral that had gone terribly wrong.  There's lot to admire about the film itself - great sets, sensational acting, wonderful colours - but at the end you were left wondering whether it actually worked as a film. I know the critics have largely given it a **** or ***** rating but I wasn't so sure....

I went to see the King's Speech on Sunday afternoon; usually when I go at this time (around 5.30pm) any central London cinema is more or less empty but not for this film where the pre-publicity and word of mouth has made it the must-see movie for the new year and there were queues for tickets stretching outside the Odeon in Leicester Square.  There will be lots more awards other than the single Golden Globe to Colin Firth for his masterful performance as Bertie (King George Vl). What

I moved on from the Fabian Conference to the Tate Modern to see the Gauguin (again) before it closed tomorrow, the Wei Wei's art installation of ceramic sunflowers which I love (again) and finally the Surrealist's Poetry & Dreams exhibition especially the work of Tanguy, Giacometti, Ernst and Dali.  

CAABU Election to Executive   I was re-elected.....

I caught the Venice: Canaletto & His Rivals exhibition at The National this morning which closes on Sunday as does the Eadweard Muybridge at Tate Britain. It will be another lifetime before these paintings and photographs will be seen again in the UK so if you are free on Sunday do try and see them. Whilst at The National there is also the Bridget Riley and, as interesting, the Ben Johnson Liverpool, Zurich and London landscapes which are quite sensational.

CAABU - Council for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding www.caabu.org I have been associated with CAABU since June, 1997 and for the past 3 years I have sat on its Executive Board. It is election time again and I have thrown my hat in the ring!!

King Fahad Academy, East Acton www.thekfa.org.uk I was a guest of the Headmistress yesterday.

New Year's Resolutions for 2011 ** read more Fiction ** cook from recipes taken from a River Cottage book - a birthday present (!) ** improve my health (bad year 2010) ** travel more ** finish my book on Politics: Events Dear Boy, Events ** make the final of the RWC 2011 in NZ

In between finishing off my next book on the Rugby World Cup 2011 (with co-author Colin Herridge), I was able to read the following books: ***** The New Machiavelli by Jonathan Powell; a Christmas cracker must-read for all politicos ** Five Days to Power by Rob Wilson MP; slightly boring assessment of the Tory-Lib Dem pact back in May, 2010 ** After the Lemons: the Glory Days of Bath rugby by Kevin Coughlan, Peter Hall & Colin Gale; volume two takes us from 1965 to 1996 and...

I went to see Mike Leigh's recently released (5/11/10) film: Another Year starring David Bradley and Jim Broadbent on Saturday. It is split into the four seasons and revolves around a blissfully happy couple and their family and work colleagues. It lasted 2 hours 9 minutes and it makes you concentrate very hard indeed despite the usual free flowing, ad libbing script. The camera shots are held just that extra few seconds to take you inside each personality. In the end optimism just defeats...

I was keen to see the Gauguin Exhibition this morning (on until 16/01/11) but had completely forgotten about Al Weiwei's 100 million ceramic Sunflower Seeds and was floored by them.   The Gauguin entrance fee was £15 each and was overpriced. I am beginning to think that Exhibition prices are edging towards £20 a) Because of the scandalous cuts to the Arts from the coalition government (though the DCMS ministerial team has no Lib Dems) and b) because the Tate would...

The amazing jazz pianists and composer Dave Brubeck who is 90 today (a good month to have a birthday!) had a special BBC 2 Arena programme with Clint Eastwood and others. See it here: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wbp64/Arena_Dave_Brubeck_In_His_Own_Sweet_Way/  

Daisy and I went to see this play on Saturday evening at the Vaudeville in The Strand. We booked the day before so there are some tickets available for every performance and as we booked directly through the theatre rather than through online agencies where the prices were higher we bought a better deal...... An ideal Husband stars Samantha Bond, Alexander Hanson and Eliot Cowan. The play is in four acts and the first two are slow and slight but the final two after the interval cause...

It was back to jazz again last night when I went to listen to Sarah McGuinness at The Pigalle Club in Piccadilly performing music from "Believe - the Eddie Izzard Story." www.thepigalleclub.com

The Alan Turing papers for sale at Christie's next week fit the Waverley criteria as listed on the DCMS web site. Thus: Department for Culture, Media and Sport The Waverley criteria History Is it so closely connected with our history and national life that its departure would be a misfortune? Aesthetics Is it of outstanding aesthetic importance? Scholarship Is it of outstanding significance for the study of some particular branch of art, learning or history?

The 2010 London Jazz Festival was underway yesterday with a host of concerts but the key one was at the Festival Hall last night when the Mahotella Queens and Hugh Masekela wowed an ecstatic audience. The "Queens" have been performing since 1964 and they haven't lost any of their enthusiasm or polish. They were a great warm up act and thrilled us. Hugh was at his magical best preferring to sing as much as play (with a great band) and he had us on our feet dancing and...

Westminster came to a stand still this morning at 11 o'clock (for the right reasons after yesterday's student demo) as the Abbey and Parliament observed a two minute silence to remember the end of WW1, a war to end all wars, except that 20 years later we were at it again. Fred, my grandfather lied about his age and joined up to fight in WW1 for the Artillery and was in Naval Intelligence in WW2. My Dad joined up at 19 to spend his "university" years (1939-45) away from his family in...

Martin Bright, Jude Kelly, Nii Sackey and David Worthington were our e.i. breakfast panel this morning at the Royal Festival Hall (chaired by John Wilson of BBC Radio 4's Front Row) where we chewed over the current savage cuts in the Arts thanks to the Tory Government's cuts package. (Over night, Tory led Somerset CC had voted to end all funding of the Arts.)  Once again it was another packed house for the 0830 start (despite the awful weather) and there was a pretty lively debate. I

Karen Newman's new sculpture of Dean William Vincent was unveiled yesterday afternoon to mark the bi-centenary when the "Fields" became enclosed (and then ultimately renamed Vincent Square after the Dean). You can view it at 56 Vincent Square, London SW1. Dean Vincent was Dean at Westminster Abbey from 1802-1815. Karen's work can be viewed at www.karen-newman.com   The Vincent Square Residents Association's web site is www.vincentsq-residents.org.uk     

The Music for Youth Schools Prom last night at the RAH was simply sensational. There's another two nights to go but a packed house saw acts from all over England - an 800 strong choir from Slough (14 schools) to a 14 year old female singer who wowed the place to bands and anything else you could imagine. Broken society? Not here.......... www.royalalberthall.com and www.mfy.org.uk 

The Arbor is a film set on a seedy estate in Bradford, about the late Andrea Dunbar and her dysfunctional family; she lived there whilst writing plays for the Royal Court. I spent last evening at The Renoir watching this extraordinarily gripping film where the actors lip-synched the actual voices from people on the estate which in itself was pretty amazing.   It wasn't exactly a fun viewing but the brilliant direction and casting shows what we can do

The legendary Hugh Masekela will be at the Royal Festival Hall this Friday as part of the London Jazz Festival. For a discography and the odd book about Hugh go to www.amazon.co.uk . There was an excellent article in the FT about Hugh last weekend (30.10.10): read it at www.ft.com.

Made in Dagenham **** Directed by Joe Dante Starring Teri Polo, Haley Bennett & Bob Hoskins This is a whimsical film about a 1968 strike at the Ford Car Plant in Dagenham by a small group of women who wanted equal pay. It led to closures not helped by dodgy shop stewards, awful management and political interference. They won in the end..........and women's pay was changed but still it lags behind today despite endless new laws...........a feel-good movie.

National Portrait Gallery www.npg.org.uk St Martin's Place London WC2H 0HE I spent yesterday afternoon wandering around the NPG. As there are 16,000 portraits in its archive there is always something new to see and not just the newly commissioned. I saw three exhibitions: Thomas Lawrence Portraits (until 23/01/11) **** Camille Silvy (now closed) *** and An Englishman in NY Photographs of Jason Bell (until 17/04/11) ** The Lawrence is quite outstanding and...

Names Not Numbers will be returning to Portmeirion from 4th-6th March 2011 for its third iteration. Billed as the UK Davos - it is nothing like that -being much more intimate, appealing and friendlier............. This morning we celebrated the 2nd iteration and looked forward to the next at BBC Portland Place where Lord Reith must have looked down on us horrified at the very thought of a social network gathering!  For more details: www.namesnotnumbers.com...

Archipelago **** written and directed by Joanna Hogg BFI London Film Festival: General Release (Curzon) expected April 2011 Part of Joanna Hogg's movie grammar was clearer after watching her second film Archipelago on Friday evening: ** she determines the conversation but allows the actors to ad-lib ** she prefers nature's noises than a soundtrack ** she dwells on the neuroses of upper middle class families ** her shots dwell over long to draw you...

Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikotter (Bloomsbury) ***** This is not a book for the faint-hearted. Frank Dikotter who shares his time between teaching and researching at the University of  Hong Kong and SOAS has become our leading historian and chronicler on all things Chinese. This is his eighth book on the subject. It comes just as if there seems to be another seismic change in Chinese politics as Xi Jinping is being groomed for the leadership according to articles

Under The Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin **** Selected and Edited by Elizabeth & Nicholas Shakespeare (Jonathan Cape) I had read all of Bruce Chatwin's six books written in six different genres before his premature death in 1989 aged 48. Like many I thought he was destined to be our greatest living writer. He died of Aids at a time when his family and friends were keen to hide his illness. He was thought to be bi-sexual despite his marriage to Elizabeth ( who was some kind of...

This morning at RIBA, the second EI Commentariat Awards took place hosted by the legendary Peter York. The shining knight of C4 News, Jon Snow gave the best speech for a guest giving away an award commentating on the lack of women on short lists and the lack of women winning awards.........I was a judge as I was last year. (I'm also a Board member of e.i.)  Editorial Intelligence announces the winners of      The Comment Awards 2010 at RIBA,...

BFI London Film Festival 13th-28th October 2010 www.bfi.uk/lff Tickets: 020 7928 3232 I went to see this afternoon, Fire in Babylon, a documentary about the might of West Indian cricket from the mid 1970s until the mid 1990s. It was the second showing and was sold out. My dear friend David Hooper (of Spycatcher fame) invited me as his son John was a small investor. It may just find a Distributor but is more likely to be shown at cricket  and social clubs up and down the country...

Joanna Hogg's first film Unrelated, won the Guardian's Film of the Year in 2008. Set in a house near Siena, known personally by both of us, it was about a couple middle class families on holiday. Things were going swimmingly until a friend turns up without her husband and becomes attracted to one of the sons. Beautifully filmed (and unusually without a soundtrack) it deserved its award. Now, Joanna is back with Archipelago, shot in the Scilly Isles, again it observes middle class manners. I...

London Jazz Festival 12th-21st November 2010 www.londonjazzfestival.org.uk Book now for a host of concerts and follow some of them at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3  

I went to see Shelley Wilson's Body Politic this morning at the Westminster Research Library tucked behind the National Gallery. Earlier this year 147 MPs stood down from Parliament and Shelley has captured them in a sculptural installation which reminded me of the Valley of Death or a version of the Terracotta Army. It surprised me.

For reasons not obvious to me the Art World refuses to acknowledge the brilliance of our Curators. Unlike film producers or theatre directors, our galleries and museum directors (who we do know) want to keep the brilliance of their staff to themselves. This is patently unfair. An Exhibition depends almost entirely on their professional competence. There ought to be an annual awards ceremony to celebrate their success. I mention this yet again because I slipped along to...

There has been much Mandela musings over the years since he was released from Robben Island after 27 years of tough, mostly brutal, imprisonment in 1990; three years later he won the Nobel Peace Prize and a year later he became the first democratically elected President of South Africa. To all of us he the Man of the 20th Century. His Autobiography Long Walk To Freedom sold millions when it was first published in 1994 and there have been a string of...

Our first family holiday after we had returned to the UK from our world travels which had taken us to Nigeria and Hong Kong was in Aldeburgh in April, 1959. We took a caravan (the park is still there today) and every morning I used to walk across the fields (now a desperately disappointing new-ish housing development) to a dairy to collect the milk in a jug (alas, that's gone). We walked to Thorpeness and boated on the mere and laughed at the large converted water tower....

I have a soft spot for South African music having visited the country on nine occasions over the past 18 years.........I bought: Zamajobe by Ndoni Yamanzi Kulture Noir bySimphiwe Dana and Live in Concert by Lira For good measure I also picked up a couple of books to read:  In a Different Time by Peter Harris   and Khayelitsha by Steven Otter

Wherever I am in the world when I have a few hours spare I try and find a jazz club. In Seattle I have frequented Jazz Alley, in Washington, DC I've taken to Blues Alley and in NY I have drifted into Harlaam and taken advice. I am in Cape Town seeing Jack, my son, who is on his Gap year and having spent five weeks teaching in eastern Tanzania, he is now also in the city taking a course which will give him a number of sailing certificates including day-time crewing on a yacht.   So...

I first came to Cape Town for Christmas in 1991 to stay with the MacDonald family (four brothers) and visited Constantia for a delightful supper. I failed to visit the vineyards and so today 19 years later I made amends.  Jack and I tasted wines at the Steenberg Vineyards - we started with a Steenberg 1682 (the date the vineyard was laid down) Pinot Noir Methode Cap Classique which to you and me was a champagne rose, soft on the palate, it slipped down. We moved on to a Sauvignon...

In the 1960s there were three LPs of many which I played again and again they were Sergeant Pepper, Bridge Over Troubled Waters and Good Vibrations. I know there were others from Jimi Hendrix, Santana, the Stones et al but for me these three stood out.  And unlike our parents and because of the changes to technology we can buy them again either as a reversioned cd or simply download a track.   It is hard to believe two Beatles are already no longer with...

Daisy and I went to see Yes, Prime Minister at the Gielgud Theatre on Friday night. Daisy just might have been the youngest there by forty years..... As those of you who have followed first Yes Minister and then Yes, Prime Minister on television back in the early 1980s you will know how close to the bone the scripts were and nothing has changed in this theatrical version first seen at the Chichester Theatre a few months ago.  The theatre was packed and there were laughs aplenty...

Eadweard Muybridge is at The Tate until 16th January 2011. I thought I knew a lot about Muybridge until spending a couple of hours at this wonderfully curated exhibition which comes from the Corcoran in Washington, DC. I think curators should be given the same headlines as an author or a director of a film but you'd struggle to know who was responsible for this or any other exhibition. But after a bit of scrambling around I found them to be Ian Warrell and Carolyn Kerr and well done...

Stephen Fry's second volume of his autobiography The Fry Chronicles: A Memoir has sold 37,325 copies this week easily outselling Tony Blair's A Journey (25,869). Blair's book may yet sell over 200,000 copies. Is the publishing industry now mirroring its film cousins by putting everything into a major book in its first two to three weeks before moving on? 

The Speaker's Works of Art Advisory Committee. The Election Project by Simon Roberts, Photographer. From 2001-2010 I sat on The Speaker's WoAAC and for five years was its vice chairman. The Collection does not have a great collection of photographs and I was keen to see us award our third Election Artist to one. In the end so did the committee and we were so impressed with the short list we then made strenously efforts to commission those that were placed second and...

1. Visit London Everyone but everyone is on holiday; you hardly notice the tourists; hire a Bike  (free for first 30 minutes) and pedal around the centre; check out www.toptable.com for deals in the best restaurants (about £20 a head with a glass of champagne); visit all of our national treasures (museums and galleries) for free but don't forget the British Library part of the North Bank close to Euston and King's X. 2. Eat at www.pescatori.co.uk 11 Dover...

Live Event The largest crowd of the day will be at Twickenham for Wasps v Bath on Saturday (5pm kick-off) for what will be a decider for both clubs as the winner is likely to qualify for Europe. Ticket sales have topped 55,000 and if the weather stays good expect this to climb to 65,000 – 10,000 or so short of the record 76,716 for the Quins v Wasps (20-21) game just after Christmas.   If you’ve never been to a rugby match have no fears, bring the family, dine out in the South Stand and