As usual, London seems to go into over-drive before putting on the brakes for the long, inevitably cool English summer. I’ve had an inspiring past week, from seeing Akram Khan’s Bahok, with dancers from the National Ballet of China, to the brutally moving documentary on torture in Afghanistan, Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Darkside. In between there was the opening of the brilliant Cy Twombly retrospective at the Tate Modern (that reminds me of a successful Italian gallerist I met the other day who seemed to think retrospectives are only for dead artists - “shame on you” to borrow la Clinton’s words) and the extraordinary play, The Pitmen Painters, at the National. And here’s the sleek Tate Modern exit just to whet your appetite…

Phew. In tandem with a week of scintillating Indian summer, it’s been culturally full-on from Brian Wilson & his pretty big band belting out Beach Boy classics at the Festival Hall to statically stunning terracotta warriors at the British Museum, to a glimpse of the roller-coaster life of the American photographer, Lee Miller, at the V & A.