Passing through a close off the Royal Mile the other day I came across three winos chewing the fat and overheard one declare "thae effin Poles are takin aw the guid pitches".

Now as we all know the recent wave of Polish immigration is composed entirely of hard-working and charming young people of good character whose presence has revitalised the Scottish economy and reinvigorated the Catholic church.

I understand that it's thae effin Romanians who are spoiling things for our industrious indigenous beggars, or is it the other way around?

For some time I've been laboriously scanning and cleaning up a batch of photographs that I took on holiday in Morocco in 1989. I've finished them at last and have linked the album to my Life of Brian website but they are also accessible from here:

Morocco89

Over the last several months these machines have been appearing at bus-stops throughout the city and now one has made it to my stop.
According to the Lothian Buses website they have been a great success and are very popular but so far I have not seen a solitary soul make use of them. I don't find that surprising given the list of things this machine does not do. It does not:

• take credit or debit cards
• take banknotes
• give change
• allow you to overpay by more than 20p
• dispense more than one ticket per transaction
• give a ticket for tomorrow or even much later today - get aboard in 40 minutes or else

Now I'm all in favour of off bus ticketing but it has to be a bit more sophisticated than this. Think of a family of four having a day out in Edinburgh. Currently that's nine quid but to get those tickets they have to assemble a bucketful of coins and conduct four transactions. Have the bus bosses never set foot on the continent?

Just wait till you are 60 folks, no problem then.

I have just received my first dollop of state pension. My old auntie, and many like her, enjoyed the thrill of going down to the post office every Thursday clutching her pension book to collect a sheaf of notes and a handful of shining shillings then running the gauntlet of muggers who hung about waiting to snatch the handbags of defenceless old ladies until she reached the safety of her council flat where she would stash the dough in a tin box hidden in the cupboard under the sink. Every so often she would grudgingly peel off a fiver or two and totter along to the gas board or whoever to pay a bill.

The gas board office has gone and it seems that the post office will not be far behind so it's just as well that I'm a fully paid up member of the electronic banking community. The pension will dribble into my account every four weeks and the gas bill will debit its way directly out.

Now along with the notification of first payment came a little leaflet (BR2215 12/05 for those who like precision) with an injunction to read it carefully. Naturally, not having a job to go to, I found time to do so.

Mostly it tells you about circumstances which you must report to big brother Brown's pension police. Now, although I suppose I might get married it seems unlikely that I will go into foster care. (I'm too old for that surely?). I'm happy to tell them if I have a transplant especially if it means I get the donor's pension added to mine, though if I end up in residential care I'll let the sods who put me there handle the admin.

But the leaflet also says:

Tell your Pension Centre if.......
you leave the United Kingdom(UK) for 3 months or more
The UK is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

elsewhere it says:

Tell your Pension Centre if.......
you intend to leave Great Britain for more than 4 weeks
Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales

So I can't live it up in Belfast for 29 days without letting on. Strange restriction in a free country.

Why do they want to know anyway? You kind of suspect an ulterior motive, like not giving you any money. So I sought clarification in the FAQ of the Pension Service website.

To quote (I've left out some of the fine detail) :

What happens if......

I go to live abroad or visit?
Contact The Pension Service as soon as you can to let us know you are going abroad.

You can continue to get your State Pension anywhere in the world. (deletions)

I go abroad for 3 months or less
If you have your State Pension paid into an account, this can continue. (deletions)

I go abroad for between 6 and 12 months
If you have your State Pension paid into an account, this can continue. (deletions)

I go abroad for 12 months or permanently
We can pay your State Pension straight into your overseas account in some countries. If this is not possible or if you prefer, we can pay your State Pension into a UK account (deletions)

So nothing changes then, unless it's in the Bermuda triangle between 3 and 6 months.

I suspect I shall save myself the expense of a stamp next time I set off for France.

Here's what you may feel is an unsympathetic review of two plays that I suffered through on Friday but believe me the guy is bending over backwards to be polite.

Unconvincing works fail to break the ice

A good news litter report for a change.

I came in the other afternoon through a heap of litter at the back door and made a mental note to clear it up when I went out in the evening. So a couple of hours later, armed with a plastic bag I headed out.

To my astonishment and delight the litter had gone.

After the festive season back to life with a bang yesterday at Scottish Ballet's Sleeping Beauty.

I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Apart from anything else the music and the costumes are both gorgeous. I was puzzled at the end of Act 1 that bows and arrows were being destroyed, but, dozy me, had forgotten and, dozier me, had failed to pick up from the action that Sleeping Beauty falls asleep in the first instance because the bad fairy's curse exposes her to danger from pricks. Plus ça change.

In the Rose Adagio Ashley Page's choreography makes things easier on the ballerina than the twirling on one point that I saw Darcey Bussell do on the tele recently and according to the Guardian review gives it the air of a brothel scene. None the worse for that say I.

Today I enjoyed recognising Edinburgh locations in Hallam Foe and I was entertained by the film as well, though it's an odd little tale that doesn't seem sure whether it's a psychological thriller or a romantic comedy. Perhaps it's two for the price of one.

After the film I rushed off to rehearse 4.48 Psychosis. This was our second rehearsal but the first to set out the blocking. Claire has devised an intriguing presentation combining classical statuary, clinical detachment and brooding menace. I hope we can find a way to deliver the text that lives up to her imagination. Speaking for myself "The hair might go but the dream remains".

I'm used to finding all sorts of litter when I come home but this is a bit out of the usual. Admittedly it's New Year. I'd just come from an excellent party given by Claire and Russell where we had fêted the season unrestrainedly and loosed rockets of terrifying beauty from Portobello beach into the upper regions of our lovely planet.

This was potentially a pain in the neck - ambulances, police, whatever. I checked his breathing - regular and as normal as you'd expect from someone asleep. I tried valiantly to wake him without success. I decided he was in a drunken stupor rather than on the point of death and left nature to take her course.