Those who venture beyond Bruges and Brussels to Ghent will find culture, canals and a top B&B. William Cook paid a visit

Many know about the death by drowning of WS Gilbert; others are aware that in 1933 Ernest Hemingway, incensed by a review, trashed the Paris bookshop in which he read it. Few could point to these incidents' one degree of separation. Such surprises regularly punctuate the soberly engrossing chronicle which Robert Fraser has created around the life of a poet whose modest fame has burned steadily, almost brightly, since his Thirties emergence as a teenage prodigy.

Gorecki may not be a minimalist in the strict sense of the term, but his choral works, in these beautiful interpretations by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain under Mike Brewer, are all about deriving maximum impact from minimal material.

Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas

It might seem like everything is crashing down around us in Austerity Britain, but judging by the bumper-billion-pound sales figures disclosed by one London auction house, it appears now is the perfect time to cash in on those artistic masterpieces you've left gathering dust in your attic.

Doctor L's production on Tony Allen's Black Voices made it one of the most innovative albums of 2000.

This reissue of Michael Nyman's second album from 1981 – effectively his first with a Michael Nyman Band that included Alexander Balanescu and Roderick Skeaping – has aged well.

The creator of Secret Cinema has teamed up with one of London's most distinctive eateries. Sarah Morrison takes a bite