Post-investiture

Luckily, we happened to be coming to London anyway today, so could be part of the celebratory lunch party after our friend Sarah received her MBE at Buckingham Palace - well-earned by many years at the inter-faith coalface in South London and elsewhere.

Pope Francis' Strasbourg speech yesterday rang simultaneously a warning to and an endorsement of the EU - the latter being something Sarah's Islamic friend and I passionately agreed upon. Unfortunately she had moved round the table by the time I found myself in a radically different conversation on the same subject with my other neighbour, a UKIP sympathiser.

Having been brought up short by this, I was again by something in the Times, a paper I normally never see. Columnist Janice Turner - in her Notebook - writes about a friend with a home that makes Janice want to change her entire house. How does she achieve this? Why, by abandoning "dim eco-friendly bulbs". "Sod the planet," the friend says, and Janice follows suit. Haven't they heard of LED?

Serious food

We benefitted from it being Agnes' birthday yesterday - and her wishing to celebrate elsewhere rather than by taking up the posh lunch tickets we'd bought her. Looking through the programme a while back, she had been full of enthusiasm about Morito coming to our festival: we on the other hand had never heard of Sam and Sam Clark, half of whom were there in the Spiegeltent to promote the inevitable book. Great food, and with it six delicious wines (from Laithwaites) - and also good company on our table, though from the photograph you might not gain that impression.

Before the lunch, I had been to another Times Leader Conference on stage. Much talk around the subject of poor Alan Henning - as David Aaronovitch, to applause, described him, "a modern martyr".

In the evening we drove to Tetbury for our one and only visit to this year's music festival on its final evening. It was a happy choice, as the Dunedin Consort's Bach St John Passion was one of the very best TMF concerts we have experienced - and there have been a good few over the years. A superb performance all round.

Billy Jo-King

It's Festival time again in Cheltenham, and given the shortage of parking spaces the tall statue of King William IV in Montpellier Gardens has been appropriately adorned. I went to two Times events, one more enjoyable than the other.

The Leader Conference - for a third year in succession - took place "live" at Midday, half a dozen journalists discussing what should appear in the three slots in tomorrow's paper. Last year, former Ladies' Coll. Head Enid Castle, in the Q&A towards the end of the hour, suggested a topic that hadn't been canvassed - and they went with it. This year, I put in a bid for tomorrow's feast of St Francis and the opening of the Rome Synod on Monday, but Oliver Kamm had other ideas, and he's apparently the one who writes "religious" leaders, despite being by his own admission "devoutly irreligious".

At this very moment he'll be polishing the third leader on the vital question of Um and Er. Can't wait.

Despite this failure, I found the hour's exchange of ideas entertaining and provocative. Is the suggested reform of human rights legislation just a political gesture?  Does it matter that Milliband's Conference speech was much-derided? (What, for that matter, differentiates Cameron's speech from "the old policy of populism" in Venezuela? And don't pledges of tax cuts undermine austerity?) Should we send the army into Sierra Leone to halt the spread of Ebola? What are the knock on consequences of making cycle helmets compulsory, as in Australia and now Jersey? Should they also take the brakes off cars?

The Times, News in pictures event this afternoon was by comparison low key, the star of the show - photographer Jack Hill - not being a naturally-gifted communicator in words. So his narrow escape last year, from capture at the hands of the Syrian man he thought was a friend, didn't register with me as I know it has done with others - an  appalling ordeal.

More people than ever throng Cheltenham for this year's Festival. No doubt it's no longer PC to say that the world and his wife were there.

Tetbury finale

I have to confess a love/hate relationship with Bach's B minor Mass. When I first heard it, more than half a century ago in York Minster, it meant nothing more than a numb bum. What was all the fuss about? I wondered. "Ankündigung des größten musikalischen Kunstwerkes aller Zeiten und Völker" - Nägeli describing it as his "Best ever" piece of music a couple of centuries ago. And again this evening, as Bach was taking 15 minutes over his first Lord have mercy!, I wondered whether I would, despite the appropriate words, possess the stamina for another two hours of this iconic piece. After all, the Mass I'm used to takes less than an hour end-to-end even with a sermon and more than a hundred communicants. Besides, what has Bach to do with prayer?

The B minor - I have heard it a lot on record over the years - gradually began to reestablish its power over me, though, as the soloists, and solo instrumentalists, came forward in the Gloria. By the interval, I was committed to sitting it through, and by the end, just sorry that Dona nobis pacem came so soon. Jonathan Cohen directed a stunning performance! His 20-strong Arcangelo choir were superb: it's invidious to single out individuals after such an event, but Tim Mead's Agnus Dei and Rachel Brown in both her flute solos were outstanding (Mead having starred also in the Sheldonian Messiah eight months ago).

And my question "What has Bach to do with prayer?" was answered in the "...et sepultus est", a moment of utter calm and devotion. One of several.

For something completely different, there were two Cheltenham events earlier in the day: dinosaurs for Ida (I enjoyed it if anything more than she did), and another Times Leader Conference. Very entertaining. Historical characters improved: "Ivan the Not So Bad, Ethelred the I won't be a Moment." "Hedgehogs: why can't they just share the hedge?" What if Nancy Dell'Olio married Lawrence Dallaglio? And apparently Ian Fleming had an affair with Nick Clegg's grandmother. "We are digressing less than we would normally," said Danny Finkelstein.

And who was saying The Times had gone triv.?

Cheltenham Festival of Literature

Two competing festivals this year, less than 30 miles apart! At least till the end of this weekend. Tetbury, hub of Royal South Gloucestershire, attracts a wide local audience plus many loyal regulars from London and further afield, émigrés for the weekend, no doubt dipping into Westonbirt Arboretum for some Autumn colour during their stay. Cheltenham's twin tented villages draw many more all and sundry, an amorphous horde growing by the year, less dress-conscious than last night's gang.

Once, at a gathering near Tetbury, I fell into conversation with one of the RSG Set. "Where do you live?" he inquired. "Cheltenham," I replied. "Cheltenham?" He spoke the word as if he was rinsing his teeth with a wine he thought was corked. "Cheltenham? Completely beneath my radar."

At our Literature Festival events, you used to be able to meet up with friends: now it's a matter of chance whether or not, even as a long-established punter, you see anyone you know. Harri is one of the regulars: I remember seeing her and her mother at an early event in last year's Festival and being amazed by the thickness of their ticket bundle. Today, therefore, I requested a photograph: the wadge on her lap covers admission to 42 events, I gathered!

We were queuing to get into The Times leader conference: I loved it last year, an hour of rich theatre with a highly-articulate cast of six. The only disappointments this year were the absence of the editor, and the distraction of the large screen flickering away in the background, above the stage.

Times live

The 2012 Cheltenham Festival of Literature is in full swing. On Friday and today, amidst the plethora of events, main sponsor, The Times, held its leader conference live. I hardly ever read that newspaper these days, yet it was a privilege to sit in on this process.

Each day at midday, eight highly intelligent people grapple with the day's main stories, one after the other pitching in on the question, which are the most important? Until James Harding says, "Here's what we're going to do." The youngest person to become editor when appointed five years ago, there's no doubt it's James who's the boss, resolving not only what subjects should fill the leader columns in the next day's paper, but also exactly how The Times should "thunder" on those stories.

Rising from the meeting after an hour, the appointed journalists trot off to research their subjects, finalising their 600-odd word leaders in time for a six o'clock deadline. Brilliant theatre!

Bloomsday

Radio 4 went to Dublin yesterday, and did so in style. Bloomsday has never been so widely publicised, surely! I failed to stay awake for Molly's soliloquy, but have hopes to ListenAgain.

My battered copy of Ulysses has two covers: this is the inner one. (The outer one contains photographs from Joseph Strick's film.) I bought it in July 1967, rather later than the Lady Chatterley trial: Philip Larkin, whose ‘Annus Mirabilis' also dates from 1967, had therefore already received his sexual awakening.

I can't recall Ulysses doing much for me in that regard. The linguistic ingenuity grabbed me far more than any dirty bits. I know I took a long while to struggle through it - I recall reading part one hot Summer's afternoon when lying on the deck of Freddie Harmer's boat, as we sailed down the River Alde. The dust cover has a quote from The Times, half a century pre-Kindle: it begins: "That the format of a book can affect its readability has long been known..."

Ash Wednesday

On Monday, I mentioned The Times were doing an article featuring the Davis family and its "ashcan". How appropriate that its publication should be today! (There is even a second photograph in the print version.)

It's been quite surprising how many people have telephoned and emailed: The Times is evidently still the paper for many - in spite of the impossibility of such an article appearing in The Times as it was when I was first introduced to it. Our headmaster promised a Mars Bar for any boy who managed to have a letter printed: one did, but the promise seemed by then to have been forgotten.

Meanwhile, at my former office, a petition is circulating to save the family dog...

Rubbish photos

The Times has been interviewing Agnes, Caroline and me for an article about ways in which families argue over what it is to live the green life. It's been rather interesting, and today they sent a photographer along to try and secure an appropriate illustration for the forthcoming feature. We happened to be going over to Herefordshire to visit Agnes anyway, so it all fell into place.

And what more photogenic than Agnes on top of a rubbish bin?

Leo & Mini

Thomas took this excellent photograph in August: Leo and his fiancée, Katsumi Ikushima, known to the world as Mini, are now formally engaged. In The Times, there is a Guest Book for them: do sign in! You can see half a dozen other photographs of them on The Times' site also, in their Photo Gallery.

The wedding is now fixed for May next year, to take place in England, with another ceremony in Kyoto in October: we shall be flying out!