O'Keeffe show doesn't deliver the magic I was seeking

I set off for Tate Modern wanting desperately to love the Georgia O'Keefe show. I already had an affection for the artist based on childhood visits to her work at the Art Institute of Chicago. I wanted to bask in her rich colours, get past the cliches of the endlessly-reproduced flowers and the sexual innuendo to find something greater. Sadly, I did not.

Instead, I drifted quickly through a series of rooms filled with a lot of work that didn't catch my attention. The first four rooms on her early career left me cold. I know the developmental stuff is essential in a major retrospective, but knowing more didn't do me any favours. I saw an early version of today's marketing-savvy modern artist, more about creating shock and disrupting the status quo than creating inspired beauty. (I freely admit that this statement reveals my prejudice against ... and some would argue lack of understanding of ... modern art.) 

We're confronted early on with some of those highly-sexualised flower paintings. Sorry, but the enormous floral clitoris just hits me as a juvenile attempt to shock. The New York cityscapes are striking, but I didn't think they were that much better than the Art Deco-style paintings that finish off the 1930s look at the recently renovated Lansdowne Club's dining room. Great interior design, but high art?

Things improve when O'Keeffe gets out of the city. There's an enormous canvas of two luscious red poppies that delivered the awe and emotion I wanted from the whole show. Many of the other canvases were smaller than I expected, and lacked depth. Little drew me in or invited lingering study; I found her colours surprisingly flat, closer to great graphic design than great art.  

I was most keen to see her works from the American West. With the Grand Canyon such a recent memory, I have a greater appreciation of the magical colours of the desert. In trying to photograph it, I got a sense of how difficult it is to capture the nuances, the shadows, the vast spaces. It's a landscape better suited to art than photography. Indeed, these were the works I liked best, wanting to clamber through that frame and explore the alternate reality of those shadowy valleys and mesas. And yet, the things that held my attention for longest  in this room weren't O'Keeffe's work, but a couple of black and white photographs from her buddy Ansel Adams. These moved me more than anything else in the exhibition, and are the things I'm likely to remember longest.

Near the end there's a version of the cloudscape that was my childhood favourite at the Art Institute. Chicago's is vast, hung above a light-flooded, grand stairwell so that you actually have the feeling of soaring as you hold on to the upper landing railing and gaze over it. The show's version is more modestly-sized, on a normal wall. Without the setting, it just doesn't inspire the magic. 

I wanted this show to move me past the cliches. Instead, it pushed me towards them. O'Keeffe's work reproduces well for posters, bags and household items. It's pretty. It's a perfect interior design choice if you're trying to convey Art Deco, or flowery femininity with a modern edge, or a sophisticated version of the American West. But I wanted more.

Drinking and Dining at Tate Modern

My general ambivalence towards modern art means I've only covered the Tate here once before in almost ten years of cultural coverage. Gaugin didn't fare that well under my criticism either. 

I've been in the building frequently over the years, however. It's a popular event venue with spectacular views over the Thames towards St. Pauls. I have many friends who are members as much to get access to the 5th floor members' lounge, with its stunning rooftop balcony, as to see the art. We spent the early evening appreciating the view as the long light of the setting sun peeked through clearing clouds, making streets and buildings that had been slicked by an earlier rain shimmer. It was as beautiful as anything we'd seen inside.

We headed upstairs one floor to the Kitchen and Bar for dinner. The Tate has just opened a massive new extension called the Switch House, which is topped by a new restaurant. They're clearly trying to push visitors there, as the old Kitchen and Bar no longer accepts reservations and is doing much less promotion. It used to be tough to get a table here for a Friday night; last night it was half empty.

The Switch House restaurant is much more expensive and has gotten terrible reviews, both for poor room design that squanders its views and small portions of average food at unreasonable prices. Meanwhile, the Kitchen and Bar continues to deliver what I've come to count on it for: gastropub style classics with a resolutely English provenance to match the Tate's original British mission. With a stunning view. Unlike the Switch House restaurant, which reports say only has windows at shoulder height, meaning you can't see anything when you sit down, the original restaurant has floor-to-ceiling glass walls offering the whole sweep of the city between Waterloo and Tower bridges. I don't think there's anywhere else along the South Bank you can get that view while dining for such a reasonable price. You can even indulge your inner modern artist with pots of crayons and colouring-book style table covers. 

Summer round-up: restaurants (Fenchurch, Nopi), music, cricket and underwater archeology

Whoever coined the phrase "the lazy, hazy days of summer" clearly had a very different life to mine. Summer in England always seems to be the busiest time of year other than the run-up to Christmas. Every weekend is packed with special events, many of them annual traditions that populate the calendar well in advance.

We usually avoid vacations over the summer months for this reason. This year, two weeks and three weekends out of the country seems to have made things even more manic. Between work, my parish councillor duties and all the fun stuff programmed in, I've barely spent time in my garden. Ironic, as this is the lushest and most floriferous it's yet been. I certainly haven't had time for much blogging.

And so, in the interest of accurate reporting ... and not wanting to miss out several excellent adventures worthy of attention ... here's a round-up of social, cultural and culinary highlights since returning from Las Vegas.

Fenchurch & the Sky Garden

For a special meal with spectacular views in London, try Fenchurch inside the Sky Garden at 20 Fenchurch Street.  The venue is spectacular. The top three floors of this new skyscraper slope outwards from the floors below, left open by the designers to form a tropical hot house 35 stories up. The views are fantastic, and gardeners will be delighted to wander up and down the tiers of exotic plants, most with informative labels. (The garden is clearly immature; give the plants five years to bed in and it should be as good as Kew or Wisley.) A glass pavilion rises from the garden's heart with restaurants on two stories. The top one is, unsurprisingly, the more expensive.

It's a great place to impress someone, celebrate a special event or take advantage of an expense account. The warm, wood-and-brass traditional interiors form an almost colonial counterpoint to the exotic foliage beyond the windows, as do the resolutely English costumes of the staff. (Houndstooth check waistcoats, tailored jackets, natty bow ties.) The food is high-end continental with heavy English influences. Doing things properly, with three courses, cocktails and wine, will easily nudge you towards the £100 per person mark, so this isn't a commitment to be taken lightly. But in addition to the excellent food and amazing views, it's a surprisingly quiet venue in the heart of the city where they meet all your needs then allow you the table for as long as you need it. A top choice for an important business meeting.

With advance planning, however, there's a much cheaper option. Entry to the Sky Garden is free, as long as you reserve a ticket online, well in advance. There's a bar that also serves snacks in the general admissions area, and a handful of tables. Book for 5pm on a weeknight and you could have the swankiest happy hour venue in town for the price of your drink.

Sunken Cities at the British Museum 

I have promised myself I will go back, and I will write a longer review. But just in case...

This is the finest example thus far of how the curators can do magical things with the museum's new exhibition space. Here, they've used subtly wavering blue light and a soft aquatic soundtrack to give you the sense you're under water, discovering all these priceless artefacts for the first time. That's assisted by high definition videos on large screens next to certain artefacts, where life-sized archeologists are shown uncovering the same object from its watery grave.

You're looking at the remains of two Egyptian cities sunk beneath the Mediterranean, preserved perfectly by water and silt until their recent re-discovery. The circumstances mean that this is some of the most beautifully intact stuff from the ancient world you've ever seen. More interesting ... and definitely playing into the British Museum's goal of making relevant, modern political points ... these cities were crossroads of international trade, where Egyptian and Greco-Roman culture mashed up comfortably and accommodated many others. Much like the just-closed Sicilian show, this one reminds us that multiculturalism has worked well in the past.  Why can't we do it today? A question to ponder over lunch at the Great Court Restaurant where, though the prices carry the usual museum dining mark up, you'll find excellent food, a reasonable wine list and a blessed retreat from the children who are packing the galleries at this time of year.

A test match at Lords
Even if you don't think you like cricket ... if you have a friend who can sort the tickets and explain the basics, go. It's one of the great delights of the English summer, and perhaps the most civilised of all sporting events. While the teams break for both lunch and tea, fans can bring lavish picnics and their own alcohol into the stands. Any game that can be credibly enjoyed with foie gras and sparkling wine is worthy of attention. Too bad England's performance against Pakistan was softer than the centre of my home-made brownies.



Alcina at Longborough Festival Opera

Another triumph from our favourite country house opera company. As with the past two years, they've chosen to revive Handel's baroque opera for their young performers' production. In doing so, they continue to breath life and innovation into operas that have often been ignored as ponderous and archaic.

Alcina is a re-telling of the Circe story: man-eating sorceress entraps wandering sailors on her enchanted island. The spell is broken when one plucky lass comes in search of her bewitched betrothed. It's the music that's truly bewitching. In typical Longborough style they made the most of a simple set, focused on a raised circle that called to mind an Olympic wrestling ring. Here, the battle of relationships unfolded with tension, trauma and poignancy.  They move away from Handel to Gluck next year. Can't wait.

NOPI
After cooking from Yotam Ottolenghi's recipes with great success for several years now, I finally got to his flagship restaurant. As expected, the man elevates vegetables to a heavenly place. Though we had a couple of meat dishes, this is a place you could easily go vegetarian and not miss your animal protein. Beetroot and goat's cheese is a classic combo, but I've never had it done better.

Though you can do a traditional three course meal, the menu is skewed toward small plate starters, and its typical to share a bunch of these. The decor is cool and white, all marble and modern art. The wine list is interesting, filled with intriguing vintages you've never heart of. The staff is well informed, friendly and seemed to be packed with good looking Australians who enjoyed a bit of flirting with a few amusing, mature ladies on their girls' night out. We split a couple of desserts that were as creative and intriguing as the rest. (Strawberry mess with sumac and rose water? Yes!) I'm in a hurry to get back.

Battle Proms
It's the same core event every year: military re-enactments, Spitfire flyover, '40s swing, 1812 Overture with canons, Beethoven's Battle Symphony with fireworks and the usual suite of patriotic last-night-of-the-proms stuff. But it never gets old. And we've rarely had better weather. Yet another luxury picnic (just realised I've produced them three weekends in a row; no wonder I feel time-deprived). I can't imagine the summer without it.