One possible reason for Margaret Thatcher's uncharacteristic support for the new British Library, which ended up costing pounds 511 million, emerged the other day when I saw Michael Portillo popping in there. After all, unemployed ex-ministers have to pass the time somewhere. (I think it was Mr Portillo's first visit, because I saw him being directed to the cloakroom, so it should be at least a couple of years before the memoirs appear.) Sad to relate, Lady T has not yet found time to pay a visit to this palace of learning. I was shown round by the same genial BL guide who whizzed me through the old joint in Bloomsbury exactly a year ago. "The new building has a 200-year lifespan," he explained in an effort to justify the mind- boggling price-tag. "The average Tesco superstore costs pounds 40 million and has an estimated life of 15-20 years. For the price of 13 Tescos, you have a national library."

The Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, today breaks his silence over the life and suicide of his first wife, Sylvia Plath, with a volume of poems that few knew existed. Clare Garner reports on the poetic account of his days with Plath.

Buxton Daeblitz Orr, composer: born Glasgow 18 April 1924; married 1955 Isabelle Roberts (marriage dissolved), 1968 Jean Latimer; died Hereford 27 December 1997.

Christmas choral concerts don't have to be all `Jingle Bells' and `The Messiah'. Composer Judith Weir has devised an eclectic and pleasing mix of old and new music to be performed at Christ Church, Spitalfields

Mike and Kate Westbrook The Albert, Bristol

The likes of Oakenfold and Weatherall may be better known for their remixes and indie/dance crossovers, but it's arguable that without the pioneering work of Adrian Sherwood through the Eighties and Nineties, dubwise production would never have secured quite as firm a hold within the UK music business.

Australia 235 & 395-8 dec England 161 & 130-5

Ever lost something really important? Don't want to be reminded?

Looking for the venue of Wilton church could lead you first to the baptist chapel in the marketplace, and a fit and proper setting for an evening with William Blake. It was, of course, the wrong church - though its low-ceilinged acoustic may have been just right - and the grandeur of Wilton church proper looked a bit too Byzantine for old Bill's tastes. Inscribed on the walls at either end of the altar were all the commandments possible except the one that was really relevant: "Thou Shalt Not Play Drum Solos."

From Jah Wobble to Johnny Depp, by way of Mike Westbrook and Allen Ginsberg, interest in William Blake and his works is at an all-time high. Roger Clarke surfs the legacy of our first multi-media artist

Jah Wobble's long musical career takes a strange new twist with `The Celtic Poets'

Abbot Aelred Watkin was one of the most loved and most respected monks in the Benedictine Order. The two most conspicuous features of his character - a deep spirituality combined with an infectious love of life - are encapsulated in one of his favourite quotations from William Blake: "Everything that lives is holy; life delights in life."

Allen Ginsberg was the exemplary avant-garde figure of the post- war world. In verse, in politics, in his own intimate life - there was no room for a "private" life - Ginsberg resisted and disdained the orthodox, the social lie. Few people have done as much to make non- conformism respectable in our time as he did.

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