Christmas lights

Now bathed in blue light, Bristol has welcomed in Christmas. Tree branches light up College Green, waving in the wind like dancers' legs encased in sparkly fishnets. Tent roofs fashioned from glimmering tendrils hang between shops in Broadmead, and in Clifton Village a large tree has been draped in luminescent pearls.

The wrongs of spring

Sorry Stravinsky. Sorry that your iconic masterpiece The Rite of Spring is being subject to this. That while the ENO orchestra in the pit doesn't put a foot wrong in all those complex rhythms and wild accents, unleashing your score's visceral power, there's a company of dancers on stage not putting a foot right. Sorry that you have to write one of the best ballet scores out there, and the choreography of this ENO production has to be so disappointing. A mass orgy followed by cigarettes? Tens of naked mens putting on flowery dresses to symbolise - I'm told - femininity? Not radical. Ridiculous.

Background music

Sorry Adolphe Adam. Giselle might be the quintessential Romantic ballet, with lots of suffering for love, otherworldly spirits and featherweight long tutus, but - to be frank - your music's a bit dull. Yes, you might have written one of the first purpose-composed ballet scores, rather than tacking together lots of catchy melodies to make a patchwork ballet, but where's the sparkle, the drama, the melodies? Giselle dies of a broken heart, comes back as a slightly creepy being called a Wili, and then saves someone else from death through her love. Surely that deserves some musical tugging at the heartstrings? Beautiful ballet, shame about the magnolia music. (Though, as a viola player, thumbs up for the long viola solo in Act II.)