My weekends are getting shorter and shorter. What with teaching, admin, and a recruitment fair, this one didn't kick off till 3 pm on Sunday.

Nevertheless, we had a very nice third-of-a-day.

Started with afternoon tea at the KLCC version of Ben's. All elements pretty good, but the highest marks go to the little scones.

Then two exhibitions at the Petronas Gallery. This is a great place, regularly producing interesting (and free) exhibitions. The current two feature prints ("Maestro") and ceramics ("Earthworks").

Some of the items in the former come with nakedness warnings, but at least the choice to view is left up to the discretion of the individual. All kinds of print techniques are included (wood-cut, silk-screen, lithography, offset), and there are some big, big names (Picasso, Manet, and Warhol, to name but a few).

Good. Inevitably, you don't like everything, but a regular dose of looking at art -- taking the chance to see things differently -- is essential for health, I feel.

On the subject of seeing things differently, the ceramics exhibition was quite a little gem. That's where the heads above and below come from. There were also leather bags, rendered in clay. Tennis shoes and shellfish, likewise. Familiar objects made curiously different.

Finally, to a concert at the Temple of Fine Arts, Jalan Berhala. Instantly exotic. The bright yellow of the on-stage shrine; the wafts of incense; the rustle of gorgeous saris; the long and flowery biographies of the performers...

The first part was sitar and tabla, and from those first evocative twangs, I was a sitar devotee. Such complex music, by turns meditative and urgent.

The second part was devoted to Carnatic singing. A mix of form and extemporization. The lead singer, who had an incredibly flexible voice, was accompanied by a violin (whose role is to dialogue with the singer in various ways); a tambura (whose strings are constantly swished to become a kind of drone); a mridangam (a kind of horizontally played bongo); and a ghatam (which looks for all the world like a clay vase). Fascinating.

Long, however... These songs belong to a more leisured time; they wend their lovely way through various ex tempore movements (including, for example, a long conversation between the drum and the vase). By 10 pm, people were already drifting away, and the singer was still taking requests... Sadly, we drifted too.