Stepping out ... Shunt's Tropicana. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
1. Get to more movies. Writing a book over the past five years has severely curtailed my film-going. In the past year I saw little new except The Lives of Others (masterly), The Bourne Ultimatum (vacuous) and Sleuth (lethally funny, despite what the critics say). I feel particularly ignorant about recent non-Hollywood cinema, especially the exciting work coming out of Iran.
2. See more exhibitions. The problem is I loathe the experience of the big blockbuster shows where you have to jostle to see a single picture. My favourite current gallery is the one at Compton Verney (en route to Stratford-on-Avon) where there is space and time for contemplation of an individual work. Must get to more of the smaller, less frequented London galleries.
3. Explore modern dance. Over the last few years, thanks to the generosity of critics Zoe Anderson and Siobhan Murphy who have taken me to Covent Garden, I've pretty much kept pace with the Royal Ballet. I was even lucky enough to buy a ticket for Darcey Bussell's farewell in Song of the Earth. But I realise there is a world elsewhere and that, as Nick Hytner constantly reminds me, there is an important dialogue going on between contemporary dance and modern theatre.
4. Read more modern fiction, short stories especially. The richest reading experience I had in the last year was devouring Chekhov's short stories without which you can't begin to understand his plays. But there are plenty of tremendous living exponents of the form from Alice Munro to William Trevor. Richard Ford's new Granta collection of American stories is high on my "must read" list.
5. Generally, be open to experiment and innovation without succumbing to fashionable trendiness. This is the challenge both for the critic and any lover of the arts. You have to respond to the shock of the new without lapsing into open-mouthed acceptance of everything that is going.
