Two birthday parties kept me away from the Albert Hall yesterday (though I'll confess that in the end I treacherously skipped the second and stayed glued to the TV's delayed relay). That, and a slight fear that the concert performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg from the BBC Proms couldn't match up to the original Welsh National Opera production of the decade.

Numerologists may have been fretting over whether Proms forces could match the apocryphal thousand of the mightiest Eighth Symphony's 1910 world premiere, which Mahler feared would turn into a "catastrophic Barnum and Bailey show". With nothing like 350 in the children's chorus, for a start, not a chance.

Within two bars of the overture starting, the first flashes could be seen. English National Ballet’s arena Swan Lake at the Albert Hall - they make no bones about it now - is intended for people who rarely go to the ballet. Actually it is in many cases for people who have no compunction about talking and taking pictures through the ballet quite routinely.

When I last saw Paul Weller at the Royal Albert Hall he was becalmed in the doldrums of his career – between the demise of the Style Council and the release of his “wake up and smell the coffee” album, Stanley Road. On stage, Weller was a sheepish figure who only sporadically sparked with enthusiasm for his music; it wasn’t much fun.

In their recommendations of the best of this year's BBC Proms, theartsdesk's music writers have been thunderously silent on the only event that will excite a certain section of the audience demographic. I refer, of course, to what will no doubt become the traditional Doctor Who Prom. Or Proms.

“If you feel like singing along... don’t.” Michael Ball knows his audience – I mean, really knows his audience - and only he could turn a rebuke into a well-timed gag. About that audience: the age range is a good half-century but at its heart are the hardcore Ballites, the mums and grandmums who adopted the fresh, smiley, dimple-faced, leading juvenile 25 years ago and have been on his tail ever since.