Lisbon Contemporary Music Festival

This is only the second festival of its kind in Lisbon, the two-year-old Teatro Luís de Camões. This year's event highlights the work of Edgard Varèse but there is a wide range of other 20th-century composers including Shostakovich, Bartók and Reich. As well as the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, the choir of the São Carlos national opera and leading domestic musicians, there are a number of distinguished foreign guest performers including Klangforum Wien.

Picasso: Working on Paper

The Museum of Modern Art uses newspaper as a ground material and subject to examine Picasso's work throughout his career. Early Cubist collages are shown alongside line drawings on broadsheet newspaper pages, photographs and an array of archive material. The show covers the period 1878-1963 and contains work never before seen in Ireland, or indeed anywhere. The exhibition has been curated by Anne Baldassari of the Musee Picasso in Paris, which has loaned most of the material.

Eating out in San Francisco

If you are still in the Embarcadero area, head to The Stinking Rose. This Italian restaurant "seasons its garlic with food", though it does offer a few less pungent items, denoted on its menu by a vampire icon. The Bagna Calda ($4), garlic cloves in seasoned olive oil served over a flame, is the perfect appetizer to spread on the to-die-for bread. While all the entrees I've tried are great, the Thick Cut Pork Chop pan roasted with a sweet garlic relish and caramelized apple ($15.50) is particularly scrumptious. Stay away from the garlic ice cream. The Stinking Rose is located at 325 Columbus Ave. and is open daily till midnight. Call PU1-ROSE for reservations (recommended).

Closer to SFMOMA is Scala Bistro, located near Union Square at 432 Powell Street. Priced similarly to The Stinking Rose, Scala offers a mix of Italian and California cuisine. While my fellow diners have never had a bad meal, I have to admit that I have never strayed from my tried-and-true, the salmon fillet with cherry tomatoes over mashed potatoes ($16). A well-made espresso drink after dinner will only add to the feeling that you are in some large Continental city, surrounded by the sparkling conversations of well-bred intellectuals while perched on a Kitchen Bar Stool. In a some ways you are, but in San Francisco, you never have to conform to the atmosphere.

The Champs

These modern masters of swing play together for two weeks in Barcelona: Ximo Tébar is one of the finest local jazz guitarists around, while Joey DeFrancesco is probably the best Hammond organ player of his generation anywhere in the world, and Idris Muhammed is an internationally known jazz drummer. When playing together, they prefer to call themselves the Champs, and they haven't had any complaints about the title so far. Make sure to book ahead for what promises to be a popular series of high quality sets.