Moore still

Continuing our quest for Yorkshire treasure, we have just returned from Wakefield and the Hepworth Gallery. Brilliant! As a building it knocks the new Cheltenham extension into a cocked hat. And what other British artist of the 20th Century has such a shrine in their home country, around which so much other excellence is assembled?

Earlier we visited Salts Mill, which must have one of the most extensive arts-related bookshops in the country, not to mention all those Hockneys. And the magnificent Yorkshire Sculpture Park, with its eclectic mix, the majestic Moores (today is his 116th birthday) standing out from the crowd. A heady experience.

Foucault's pendulous

By way of explanation of this laboured post title - more laboured even than usual - "floppy" is said to be a synonym for pendulous. And flop the blind cat, Foucault certainly did, onto his master's lap last night after dinner. Though it was the six of us who had eaten so richly in one of Cheltenham's more elegant basements, not necessarily the cat.

This photograph of a distinguished contemporary of Frank Auerbach, Bridget Riley and Peter Blake might or might not be recognised by him as a tip of the hat to Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy.

Our host was in sparkling form considering he underwent major surgery last year, but he told me he had felt less anxious about that than the recent hassle he'd had over renewing a tax disc. "Into thy hands I commend my heart."

I've been anxious about pruning the apple trees. A couple of years ago, the experienced Martin Hayes began to take them in hand: today another Martin has been my generous guide. It's really a question of summoning up the confidence to tackle what's a huge task, when trees have been let go like ours have.

Ravenna

The Severn Forum runs a programme of lectures on theological subjects, so tonight's "The mosaics of Ravenna" may have seemed a bit of a let off. It turned out to be nothing of the sort. Christopher Herbert, now the retired Bishop of St Albans, had the good fortune to visit Ravenna when his diocese was twinned with dioceses local to that city. Making full use of his red carpet reception, he has now put together a splendid talk, explaining what caused Ravenna to become the focus of so many "glittering prizes", and how they illustrate the development of doctrine in the early church.

So, through a sequence of excellent slides, we came to consider the absence of representations of Christ crucified; to observe that Jesus - shown naked in the Jordan in the late 5th Century - was not baptized by total immersion; and why the Good Shepherd was portrayed wearing a toga.

My photograph shows Dr. Herbert in front of a photograph of the figure of Archbishop Maximiamus - "drawn" in mosaic more than 1,500 years ago, he could be at home amongst our National Portrait Gallery's Contemporary Displays.

And the lecturer is clearly himself at home in the world of art - not just church/biblical - history: parallels with David Hockney's swimming pool pictures and an Anish Kapoor sculpture round out his talk, though he wears his learning lightly.

Great stuff, and deserving of a larger audience than the 50 or so who turned out. Surely it wasn't the football? I didn't even notice that it was being sacrificed: anyway, the talk ended early enough to let me watch the final 20 minutes - a satisfactory result!

On Sunday evening, we were in the (virtual) presence of another master of his art, Woody Allen - his Blue Jasmine, brilliantly over ripe, and redolent of the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald.