Seamus Heaney looked up and let out a breath upon which the words "oh no" quietly travelled.

What's up? I asked the poet. He nodded over my shoulder towards the source of his discomfort. I turned round.

And there grinning back at me was a photograph of Seamus Heaney, grey-haired and twinkly-eyed.

As informal portraits go, I thought it rather good. But the modest Irishman took no pleasure from seeing his image so prominently displayed.

He might have expected such a confrontation. After all we were in the Seamus Heaney Library at the Bloomsbury Hotel in London to discuss his friend and fellow poet, Ted Hughes.

Within a few hours Heaney would be giving the address at a service in the south transept of Westminster Abbey (otherwise known as Poets Corner), to celebrate the unveiling of a memorial stone dedicated to Ted Hughes.

Jazz fans are in for a treat with a series of monthly jazz nights in London. Radisson Edwardian hotels have teamed up with Jazz FM to host intimate evenings of fine dining and jazz. The Bloomsbury Set events will take place on the last Saturday of the month at the recently refurbished Radisson Edwardian Bloomsbury Street Hotel . The first event features jazz star Clare Martin , and April's event will have two headliners, Gwyneth Herbert and Sarah Gillespie .