disappointed by Hume at Tate Britain

He is a contemporary British artist, one of the Young British Artists, and so the Tate Britain, showed his work alongside Caulfield. Sadly, there is no comparison. Ok he does bright colour, painted like glass onto aluminium, which makes the colours cold and clear. But sadly his designs are so esoteric that only the absolutely educated art elite can interpret them. I enjoyed his textured flowers and the slightly angular snowman scultpure. But I think the emptiness of the gallery suggested I was not alone in my alientation from his artistic genius.

Caulfield represents European pop art at Tate Britain

Simple designs and superb use of colour contrasts makes you stop, smile and appreciate. The window at night is ajar, the perspective is slightly tilted and you are instantly imagining what is inside. Patrick Caulfield had a great appreciation for northern Italian lakes and the Mediterranean and he shared simplified representations of key objects, views and memories. I found this small exhibition uplifting and inspirational.

Lowry reflects real life at Tate Britain

What hidden gems; paintings of everyday people, going to and from work and school, alone, in groups, laughing and having fun, fighting with each other, walking with their pets and young children. The paintings are timeless and it is clear that they are engaging crowds of people, transfixed, curious and just enjoying the modern day parallels amidst excellent perspective and design. Yet, it seems Lowry has challenged the art establishment way back and they will not stop criticising him. He dared to show how life was in the industrialised north of the country - lots of dirty factories, tiny terraced houses and people enjoying football and fairs. The beauty of his honesty and painterly capacities was largely ignored. Although the Brits claim they started the industrial revolution, there is an ignorance of what it really meant to the physical and human environment - and the audio guide frustrated me as a piece of patronising propaganda. Lowry was portrayed as a failed middle class as he had to work as a rent collector for over 40 years. He was criticised for being a conservative, when there is no way that if he was, he would have painted the Welsh coal towns in the way he did. He was more prolific in the Parisian art salons than in London during the 1920's and 30's. Clearly the stuffy London art world wanted to live in ignorant bliss about what really happened outside their country estates and they could not even appreciate the brillant contrast of painterly people and perspectives, with impressionistic skies.

Oxage: street theatre in Oxford

I love seeing open air theatre in Oxford during summer. Most summers see the performance of several Shakespeare plays in different College quadrangles. Small audiences with limited props and great actors all combine for some memorable events. This summer, I have started with a walking play, written and performed in the streets at dusk, while everyone goes about their daily business. We met in Turl St, and about 20 of us followed the actors, listening to small scenes in quiet lanes. We enjoyed a flautist and a guitar playing singer to complement the action. We are caught between worlds of good and evil and the protagonist Alex looks for clues to understand her situation. We are all scared by the dark, masked Gators who seem determined to get Alex - and luckily, they cannot see us, the audience, who exist somewhere between both worlds. There is a love tryst and two deep revelations; one that surprises and the other satisfies... so I guess it leaves it open for two more plays! It was great to walk back as a group to the Turf Tavern to have drinks with the cast, their families and a few interested newbies.

We steal secrets: a version of the story of WikiLeaks.

This political documentary, written and directed by Alex Gibney, takes us through the twisted story behind the revelation of American state secrets in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are introduced early in the film to the infamous Julian Assange, as a young idealistic radical supporter of free speech. He confessed in a broad Aussie accent how he likes 'crushing the bastards'. I was mesmerised by the story of how Bradley Manning, a lonely, cross-dressing military intelligence analyst, was betrayed to the CIA by the young bisexual, and emotionally aloof hacker Adrian Lamo. Julian's idealism about sharing the truth prompted him to create his controversial website as a safe way to share this enormous amount of secret material with the world. The film interviews an impressive array of high profile people who seem willing to speak honestly, but there is a real absence of any interview with Julian, so we are left a little uncertain of his view of the parody of events. It was reported in The Big Issue that he wanted $1million to appear, which suggests that he has moved to the other side - has power corrupted him, just like everybody he turned on? As the film gathers pace, the traditional media seem to spark the truth telling but then quickly turn on Bradley and Julian, as dangerous and deranged individuals. They are targetted as irresponsible wistleblowers while the inherent enormity of the truths revealed have been largely ignored by governments and media corporations. It is as if they are being punished for their ruthless presentation of the facts, and for not understanding or managing the consequences of this truth-telling. I walked out feeling very despondent about the way power corrupts individuals and how organisations attack the messangers when the message is one they don't want to know.

a coast 2 coast cycle adventure

Having left my car at our destination of Robin Hood's Bay, we drove across the country to start cycling at St Bee's, on the west coast of the northen Lake District. There was warm sunshine over a large almost empty beach, and it was fun to gradually climb out of the village and into the Lakes.

Small, shaded and windy roads, great views over Scafell and Scafell Pike and lots of dry stone walls filled the first hour.

Then we started slowly climbing up towards the Hard Knott pass, a single lane tarmac track that winds up the side of a running brook. There was the scary sign, warning of 30% inclines, which were mostly on corners! It is one of the classic passes and driving it later was actually more scary than cycling it! So I gave it my best shot, but with the cars going up and down, and the lack of gears to go any slower, I interspersed walking with cycling, while Mark made it all the way on his montain bike with road tyres.

The views on the summit were amazing and it was a test of my brakes as I slowly made it down, to the quiet valley. This was the first of 3 passes on our way into Great Langdale, and it was a real treat to enjoy a drink at the Old Dungeon Ghyll, with lots of walkers, before we settled into the evening at the local climbing hut. We had cycled 50 km in just over 3 hours.

On the second day, we cycled through undulating foothills in the very green Lakes, alongside Easthwaite water and up to the ferry across Lake Windermere. It was fun to cycle on and off the ferry and we headed up through the hills to pass north of Kendal before leaving the Lake District.

We found a quiet A road and covered 75 km before staying overnight in Nateby, a quiet village beside the more infamous Kirkby Stephen, which is also a key stop for coast to coast walkers.

On our third day, we headed up above the Yorkshire Dales onto the high moors to visit Britain's higest pub, the Tarn Hill Inn, at 1732 feet above sea level.

This is where our route crossed the Pennine Way, another classic north-south walk. It was great to cycle through this barren moorland on a wide undulating road, before we descended into Swaledale, a classic Yorkshire valley. The road was mostly shaded, bordered by more and slighly lighter dry stone walls, and it crossed the babbling brook several times between many absolutely gorgeous villages. We cycled about another 70km to stay overnight in the northern city of Northallerton, where we found a great curry house to stock upon carbohydrates!

Our last day was the longest and most challenging in terms of height gained (almost 2000m) as we cycled through the Yorkshire Moors. At first, they were undulating and I was impressed at how the hillsides were completely covered in bright green bracken. Everywhere, there were sheep, and it was uncanny how they always found some shade to rest in. But soon, we entered steep valleys with villages at the bottom, the top and along the way.

This was truly hard work, but it was ultimately rewarded by great coastal views as we flew down into Robin Hood's Bay. Over 4 days we had cycled for almost 19 hours, covered 280 km and climbed 3,900m. What a brilliant adventure!