Andrew Lambirth

Mummies have exerted a strange fascination over Westerners ever since the first tomb was rifled and its contents transported to Europe. At one point, the unwrapping of mummified bodies became fashionable events to which came fee-paying audiences of the rich. Lord Londesborough’s At Home card, for Monday, 10 June 1850, was a numbered invitation to attend at 144 Piccadilly. A mummy case in profile decorates the card which is thrillingly inscribed ‘A Mummy from Thebes to be unrolled at half-past Two’. The problem with such dramatic divestments was that nearly all the useful information to advance our knowledge of the Ancient Egyptians was lost or destroyed during the spectacle.

If you were to wander round the Luc Tuymans exhibition at Tate Modern (until 26 September) without any previous knowledge of the artist (and with a disinclination to read the information panels), you might come away with the impression that here was a rather traditional painter, eclectic as to subject matter, with a distinctively pale, washed-out palette. The portraits, still lifes and occasional landscape would reassure with their pseudo-familiarity. The faded, emotive colours might even seduce aesthetically. You might enjoy what you construed as a fey poetic vein in the artist, or an attractive intimacy of statement. But you would be wrong. Tuymans deals in banality and horror, and his work is about the nature of history and memory.

We were fortunate with the weather in Siena. At first it was warm enough to sit outside having a drink, a treat in early December, but then the temperature fell rapidly and freezing northerly winds buffeted the ancient edifices in this most compact and beautiful of Tuscan hill towns. The cold did not affect the passeggiata, the ritual evening perambulation, in which everyone takes part in order to see and be seen. In fact, there now seems to be no particular hour sacred to it - it takes place all day long and into the night, or did when we were in Siena, with different generations gossiping and strolling at different times of day. The only concession to the weather was the appearance of warm wraps (plenty of fur to be seen) and flannel overcoats for the pet dogs.

Shakespeare is all things to all people. The greatest writer we have, he was subtle to the extent of ambivalence. As a man he was sexually fluid, politically ambidextrous and not prepared to commit himself on anything, least of all religion. It's sometimes said that the son of a provincial glove-maker could not have had sufficient knowledge or experience to write the plays and poems he is credited with. These people perhaps forget the quality of imagination. Shakespeare is imagination and he was naturally a master of disguises. Those who say his plays were written by Sir Francis Bacon may be forgiven: they weren't, because Bacon didn't have the imagination. (Though I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Shakespeare on occasion pretended to be Bacon.

Here's a random sample of my postbag: an invitation to a mixed exhibition of nine artists' interpretation of 'focus' through painting, photography, digitisation and computer manipulation; notice of a show of photo-text, photo-document and photo-juxtaposition-cum-montage pieces about HIV and place; and the press release for an installation of scarlet mobility scooters which is supposed to be 'a reflection on age, youth and contemporary Britain'. Clearly Britain is in a bad way. A watered-down conceptual art is the current orthodoxy. Much of what looked new and radical when it first emerged in the 1960s is now being run past us again, and it's limping badly. And so much of it is the same.

Although best known as political cartoonist of the Daily Telegraph, and for his eye-catching covers for The Spectator, Nicholas Garland trained as a fine artist, and never stopped drawing even during his active though short-lived career in the theatre. Recently, he has focused his energies on print-making and is about to open his first exhibition of woodcuts at the Fine Art Society. Exploiting different densities of black ink and the varying texture of the woodblock into which he carves his design, he makes bold simplified images of considerable impact and sophistication.

Days Like These is only the second Tate Triennial Exhibition of Contemporary British Art, so the reader may be forgiven for not being altogether familiar with the set-up or its purpose. It's intended as a kind of alternative or extension to the Turner Prize, offering a representative cross-section of contemporary art practice in the British Isles. This particular show (which runs at Tate Britain until 26 May) features the work of 23 reasonably diverse artists, and reveals - and I quote the press release - 'the breadth of thoughtfulness, humour, subtlety and complexity in contemporary British art'. Oh, that it did. The artists seem to have been selected almost at random, provided they fit readily into what has become the new orthodoxy.

Walking around this exhibition is a humbling experience. We are privileged to have a display of paintings of this quality in London, and it is an incredible achievement to have obtained loans of such distinction. One of the pictures scheduled for the show is not in fact available, 'Sacred and Profane Love' from the Villa Borghese in Rome, but two late additions more than compensate for its absence. One is the 'Crucifixion with Saint Dominic' from Ancona (which was so last-minute that it hadn't yet arrived when I previewed the exhibition), and the other is the magnificent 'Flaying of Marsyas' from the Czech Republic. When 'Marsyas' was last seen in London at the Royal Academy 20 years ago in The Genius of Venice exhibition, we were warned that we'd never see it again in England.

For any art lover, the prospect of a new year of exhibitions - of new wonders revealed and old friends revisited - is, of course, immensely exciting. But only the very organised institutions have their exhibition programmes confirmed well in advance, and in these increasingly uncertain times, even the top museums sometimes have to change their plans at the last moment. Since 9/11 collectors abroad have been less inclined to lend valuable works, while the downturn in the economy has made sponsorship more elusive than ever.

Ten years ago, Bristol council were apparently thinking of demolishing the building which now houses the newly opened British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. This would have been a great pity, for it was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as part of the world's first purpose-built railway terminus - Bristol Temple Meads (completed 1841). And the new museum fits into the renovated Grade I listed building rather snugly, with enough room for a temporary exhibitions gallery on the top floor. In the basement, the education rooms lead directly out of the cafZ, so it's difficult to escape the hordes of schoolchildren, though they genuinely seem to enjoy the displays - especially the Morse code tapper. (I wonder how soon that'll have to be replaced?