If you climb the steps of the Royal Academy and hand over your hard-earned cash this month, you will enter the Summer Exhibition 2008. Long running, often criticized and slowly evolving, the Summer Exhibition has become a national institution.

Here you will see a video of a woman using barbed wire as a hula hoop, amidst a painting of the M25, a flying lemon, and portraits of cats. Where else could you get such an eclectic selection of art or get proof of British eccentricity to such a degree? Possibly nowhere. But I still find this exhibition fascinating and well worth a visit.

Among my favourites were the cracked egg (a popular favourite) that beautifully reflects its RA surroundings, a book with a hole burnt through its pages, a map cut out to resemble arteries, tiny flags pinned onto a white background (Lost in Translation) and a painting of smiling jammy dodgers.

Red Road Arteries, Susan Stockwell

PJ Harvey, Miles

Transmission 8, Yoshimi Kihara

Centre: Lost in Translation/Colour of Departure, Chuya Ikeda

Zenith, Mimmo Paladino