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It’s three in the morning and a BBC executive is home in bed. Suddenly he wakes up, sweating. ‘What is it, darling?’ asks his solicitous wife. ‘I had a nightmare,’ he replies; ‘I dreamed that one of our viewers was bored. Bored! Just for a moment, but, my God...’ It’s the only explanation for some of the Corporation’s programming. It seems to believe that we can’t cope with anything more than five seconds long. If it doesn’t provide us with new excitements in a constant, hectic flow, then we will — the ultimate horror — switch to another channel. Take The One Show, which goes out on BBC1 at 7 p.m. most weekdays (though not during the Olympics).

L’Incoronazione di Poppea The Proms Glyndebourne’s visits to the Proms are usually highly successful, which can seem odd considering that the home auditorium is so comparatively intimate, not to mention comfortable and air-conditioned, with fantastically good acoustics; while the Albert Hall is celebrated for its large-scale lack of any of those qualities. And Monteverdi’s last opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea, though it is about imperial power and every kind of domination, is for most of its length a work that takes place in what one imagines to be small rooms, or at least settings where intensely private carryings-on of one or another kind are conducted.

Vilhelm Hammershoi: the Poetry of Silence Royal Academy, until 7 September The poet Rilke cautioned that ‘Hammershoi is not one of those about whom one must speak quickly. His work is long and slow...’ It is certainly muted, being composed mostly in shades of oatmeal and grey. Interiors and the fall of light were favourite subjects, together with buildings and the occasional landscape. He also had a taste for painting portraits of the back of the head, a theme developed by the surrealists (think of Magritte’s portrait of Edward James) and still popular with some artists today.

One had confidently anticipated (‘The sex is better than ever!’ he burbled in excited undertone when I last met him a few years ago at a York University concert) that Wilfrid Mellers would make his centenary. His death this May at only 94 doesn’t sadden, however, so much as joyfully recall the wacky life force that invigorated and enhanced writing on music in this country (so often lacklustre) for some six decades. Since his death I’ve reread his half of the co-authored Man and his Music (1962 — even back then Wilfrid would surely wish to instate Woman into this title!). It covers the Classical style, Romantics early middle and late, and the 20th century up to his favourites: Tippett and Britten.