Tonight’s opera is Eugene Onegin, which has a plot written by a 13-year-old girl. Byronic poet doesn’t fancy bookish girl, flirts with her pretty friend. Bookish girl gets makeover, goes to ball. Poet fancies her now.

Today, I'm scooping up all my anger and choosing to channel it towards balloons. There are two stuck on a telegraph pole outside my house flapping away noisily. The local FB group is 60% people trying to give away balloon arches. Stop this balloonacy!

Art history class tonight on Konrad Mägi, Estonia's first Modernist, a magpie of other painters' styles, and widely considered too gloomy for Norway, which he frequently painted in wildly different ways. In 1909 he's a Post-Impressionist. In 1910 he's Klimt.

Reading a 577 page novel set in 2008. The first unanticipated thing just happened on page 367. Maybe I’m judging too soon and it will suddenly turn into Tolstoy and the next 210 pages will be about wheat.

Godspeed little tomatoes. And everything else I potted up today. I’m going for a lie down now.

Welcome in May youtu.be/pXn_LMrb-L4?...

Have a peaceful Walpurgisnacht. Despite the association with Germany, Saint Walpurga was from Devon, daughter of Saint Richard the Pilgrim, making her a nepo saint.

Feels like an appropriate repost.

I’m sorry, you want me to call Birmingham’s peaceful, elegant 1829 Botanical Gardens Botty G now? I think this is the point I part ways with modernity.

Summer has been delivered in the post. If only it wasn’t blowing a gale I’d do some gardening.

Signs that we're going to the dogs: I have been up a ladder cleaning my windows and not one of my neighbours has cheerily said, "You can do mine next". Time was, you could get at least three neighbours saying that and still have change for a Sherbet Fountain and the Beano.

The Moon is early. Someone tell it I’m not ready.

The unbearable lightness of donating books by post. Do think it's odd that I can do it at the chemist's, though. It's as if the entire categorisation of shops is collapsing. I bought some toothpaste in case they thought I wasn't taking them seriously.

New word acquired, courtesy of Henry James. Hebetudinous: displaying mental lethargy or dullness. Not just a word but also an excuse. "I'd love to come to your book club / barbecue / talk about the civic history of Wolverhampton, but unfortunately that's my day for being a hebetude."

New TARDIS interior revealed, complete with silent film and orchestra (yet to arrive, they’re probably still busy defeating Daleks by shoving them down a slight incline).

I have found my dad in the newly-released Census of the Irish Free State 1926. There he is, aged three, John Alphonsus. As a little boy he was called Fonsie, as an adult, Sean. No one ever called him John, but priests in those days would only christen you with a saint's name.

Home from London to the news from my GP that yes, I do have post-viral fatigue and should avoid...oh, I don't know...maybe going to London. Having a cup of tea but no biscuit because they're in the kitchen and I'm too tired to stand up.

Summerfolk tonight and, although this feels like what the National Theatre should be doing - a handsome revival of a Maxim Gorky with a large cast - it’s Chekhov light. Everyone droops with ennui and so did I.

Do you have a favourite blue plaque? I do.

I mean, have you ever *tried* to get to Willesden in a tube strike? God, it’s practically in France. Currently idling at *that* zebra crossing on Abbey Road.

Never mind St George, today's the feast day of St Pusinna who, despite coming from Champagne, is not the patron saint of champagne (that's St Vincent of Sargossa, who should really only be considered a sparkling saint).

Vincent in Brixton: really enjoyed this tonight. Young Van Gogh in London, torn between being an artist or Jesus, thinks why not be both? Unsentimental, often funny.

Because I’m on its doorstep, I’ve been to the Wallace Collection, national repository of things I don’t like, though I do like how modern this Van Dyke lady’s face is.

Anybody speak Swedish? I suspect it says: Yes, the Swedish church will always be shut when you walk past.

Magic Flute tonight, which is the Freemasonry one. I’d roll a trouser leg up in its honour but I don’t want to be told off by the Pope. Apart from anything else, I’d be in bad company.

Art history tonight was Canaletto, not my fave but interesting change from impressionistic style of 1730 (choppy canal is naturalistic) to more formulaic style 5-10 years later, (waves are just squiggles). Maybe done by an assistant under pressure of churning out Grand Tour souvenirs?

My portable wildflower meadow is taking shape. Last year’s planting racing ahead of this year’s.

It’s always “this meeting could’ve been an email” and never “this email could’ve been a fine cask of delectable amontillado wine”

The Morecambe & Wise Show (18th April 1964). Eric and Ernie meet The Beatles.

Peregrines nesting on Old Joe, the Joseph Chamberlain Clock Tower. Four eggs, no chicks yet. www.youtube.com/live/4dsZIFf...

I have been to a gong bath. This is very like lying on the floor of a Quaker Meeting House in your socks. You can probably tell that my energetic blockages are healed and my body is resonating in balance. I expect my chakras will do something in a minute.

Today's supernatural event in my garden, a heavy planter bag has been moved and its handle gnawed off. Top suspects so far: 1. Sprites 2. Goblins 3. Liberal Democrats (who have always been unconventional campaigners)

NT Live of All My Sons tonight, and can I be the last person to point out that Bryan Cranston is rather good, though he is gradually turning into Jack Lemmon. We seem to have had a spike of plays by or about Arthur Miller lately. I've seen five in the last eighteen months, which is plenty thanks.

Upstream timeout: Now, who's brought a railway timetable? We need control of rail and telegraph, a system of soviets and a five year plan for electrification. And has anyone got a book that explains how to drive tractors with fins?

CBSO Winds concert today. Verdi, Mozart & Donizetti (or but Donizetti, depending on your point of view). Obsessed with the official portrait of flutes man: “Flutes, did you say? As it happens…” He probably started with one but didn’t inhale, then it just spiralled.

Favourite footnote so far this morning.

Nearly 100 pages into a book before realising it's essentially The Portrait of a Lady II: Electric Boogaloo. Actually, I wish it was that strange. So far it's mostly ladies sitting silently in hotel rooms or having weird vegetarian lunch dates.

Outstanding cataloguing, only enhanced by mysterious glowing object, hovering above.

It’s happened again. Everything I was keeping in the bins is gone. Who’s doing this?

Yellow Submarine socks!

I see the National's been won by a horse again. I'm going to stop backing other animals, I think it's rigged against them.

Live scenes from splashdown.

Less than three hours until Artemis splashdown. Everyone, get your monkey masks ready.

Holding a press conference later to make clear I did not just buy more books from the charity shop while waiting for my sister-in-law, who I have never met.

I was trapped in the Apple Store again today, built in 1879 as flagship of the Birmingham & Midland Bank, which I'm charmed to discover designed beautiful cheques for business clients in the 1900-1920s. I love the sense of civic pride and permanence these embody.

Day 37 of the US war with the Vatican and the President has triumphantly announced a ceasefire under which the Papacy can charge a toll on souls passing through the Pearly Gates, the Swiss Guard get nuclear weapons, and Holy Water sanctions are lifted.

The first mention of Parsa (Persia) is in 844 BCE in the annals of Shalmanesar II, king of Assyria, whose name means 'being peaceful is foremost'. That's what being a whole civilization means.

Apple Store Birmingham, surely one of the circles of hell. This old banking hall was once a beautiful, multi-balconied bookshop. The fact that I do need a new phone battery and don’t need more books is absolutely not the point here.

Watching films from 1966 means Funeral in Berlin rather than The Ipcress File and...oh, it's not as good as I remember. Caine is still enjoying himself but the script and direction aren't as stylish as the first one, overall a bit flabby. You're a big film, but you're in bad shape.

Watching the NASA live feed and loving the Science Team, who I imagine dreamed, when they were children, of having a big desk covered in computers and a sign overhead reading: Science. Hope they’ve got protractor sets in their blazer pockets…