The widget that I put in the sidebar recently is providing me with a very varied selection of music. It's a bit tedious going through the process - not quite the one click and it's yours that you would hope for - but the end result is that I'm building up an eclectic little jazz collection featuring people I've never heard of. I dare say much of the rest of the world hasn't heard of them either and that giving away tracks is part of their marketing strategy. So far I've resisted the bait and have not bought.

I'm not always so strong-willed unfortunately. I went to KB last week, for what seems to me to have been the first time in more than 40 years, to a free lunchtime concert. Naturally the band were flogging a CD but I turned away despite having adored the music.

When I got home I looked on the web out of curiosity to see how much of a saving I had foregone by not buying the CD directly from the band. Only a couple of quid but I found that I could download all the tracks for only pennies more than 60% of the gig price. A CD to stick the downloads on runs at 20 or 30p so you'd be a fool to overlook such a opportunity to save money.

Listen to Haftor Medboe's New: Happy yourself and save.

I submitted my raffle conduct complaint but had to eat a slice or two of humble pie when I ventured into the coffee bar on Saturday night and saw that the prizes were all on display throughout the evening with full attribution to their donors. So they were getting publicity in spades.

But I stuck to the rest of my complaint and whether it had any impact or not I felt that the conduct of the reading out of the pre-drawn numbers on the Saturday was much livelier that it had been on Friday.

I still didn't win a prize though.

The fact that green 210 and not green 211 was a prize-winning ticket in the SCDA One-act Festival raffle last night has nothing to do with my displeasure at the way the draw was conducted.

If it was conducted at all. For instead of witnessing screwed up counterfoils being drawn by an innocent hand from a receptacle incapable of harbouring concealed compartments someone came on stage, informed us that the draw had already been carried out, that prizes could be collected from the coffee bar and read out a list of winning numbers.

I scoured the 249 pages of the Gambling Act 2005 this morning looking for rules on the conduct of draws but the closest I got was the duty of gambling licencees to adhere to codes of practice issued by the Gambling Commission for, inter alia, "ensuring that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way". Now the SCDA is not such a licensee and it seems escapes the need for any degree of openness under Part 14 of the Act that deals with "non-commercial gambling" and because its prizes amount to very little.

Should they mis-appropriate any of the raffle money however it's better done in Scotland since the punishment is six months in jail rather than 51 weeks for the same offence in England.

But leaving legal matters aside, for a drama organisation anything with less theatrical oomph and less entertainment value could hardly have been imagined. And if I had been a local business donating a prize I should not have been happy at the complete lack of publicity I got in return.

In fact I was very much in that position because the Grads donated two tickets to their next production which I am directing. The object of that donation being in large part publicise our show.

A stiff letter of complaint is required.

Thanks to a serendipitous switching on of Radio Scotland in the car this afternoon I became acquainted with this site.

If you've ever been curious about social kissing in France here's where to learn more. The map tells you how many pecks to give depending on where you are.

The "Statistiques détaillées" show the variation around the majority response in each department. The "Revue de Presse" contains an amusing video from Arte that adds a social class dimension to regional variation and in keeping with its Franco-German status sympathises with visitors from across the Rhine. Theres's also a link to a Guardian article that explores the ongoing development of British oscular habits.

You can even register your own customs. I was sorry to see that the Creusois were bottom of the league for number of respondents so as a part-time resident I registered my experience and was pleased to find myself in the solid block of department 23's 50% who maintain that two kisses make a greeting.

I came across a heavily armoured bunch of policeman and their paddy wagon underneath the North Bridge yesterday afternoon. They appeared to be assembling a pair of portable metal detectors. I simply couldn't imagine why.

By the time I left the Fruitmarket gallery dozens of teenypoppers were pouring out of the station in bumfreezers, frisking across the road, waltzing through the metal detectors and forming a disorderly queue outside a pair of large doors.

According to a constable I interrogated this is standard procedure and a necessary precaution for discoes aimed at the early teenage market. That struck me as terribly sad and also an extraordinary contrast to the laid back, open door, no check system employed at the school that I visit once a week and which surely some of those kids attend.

Listening to a phone-in show the other morning that tiresomely rehearsed well-worn arguments about Scots, its past and future the ether was brightened by a neologism rivalling bidie-in for humour and inventiveness. A modern Scots coining for sleeping bag - snorey poke.

Scots words can be heard aplenty in the co-op but it seems that a wider linguistic community shops in the branch at the bottom of the Walk. I was so surprised to see Sunday's El Pais there this morning that I bought a copy. They had one other foreign paper but I felt no need for a copy of the Irish Times.

But I did buy an Evening News, attracted by their headline about the Caltongate development which I will share with Alan who likes to know what's going on there. I found a couple of rather disturbing stories, one about a knifing 200 yards to the north of me and another about a murder attempt half a mile to the south but was reassured by this crime initiative from the Scottish Government.

On the day following the puff pastry find I checked the lift on my way out. No pastry. Following my “get fit for the Amazon” routine I walked down to street level. There balanced on the door-handle of flat 4 was a packet of reduced price puff pastry. On the carpet just inside the street door was another and on the step outside was a third.

Where are the other seven I wondered. I knew there were seven because I had noticed the price on the handle balanced packet was 45p and the receipt in the lift had been for £4.50.

I didn’t have long to wait before finding another outside the car-park level door when I returned. I thought at first that I was looking at the calling card of a particularly anaemic dog but realised that a packet had burst open. Another packet lay on the stair between floors.

Can this be territorial marking? Slightly less disgusting than peeing around the boundary or scraping musk glands along the carpet but definitely more animal than human.

Intriguingly flat 4 still boasts a packet on its handle tonight. Is the occupant away or is the flat empty or could this be the lift lunatic’s lair? I am scared to knock in case I am whisked inside, slaughtered, cut to pieces, stuffed into a Tesco bag and dumped. Where – where else but in the lift.

I haven't posted about the lift lunatic for a bit but he has not gone away and his latest offering reinforces my view that he is not a simple litter lout but someone with a problem.

Arriving home last night around 22:30 I opened the lift and there was a Tesco bag containing a number of packs that I took at first glance to be packs of pipe tobacco. In fact they were packs of puff pastry bearing reduced price stickers. A Tesco receipt for £4.50 for half a dozen packs lay on top of them dated 31/1/9.

If you were in your right mind would you buy half a dozen packets of puff pastry from the bargain shelf on Saturday and then dump them in a lift on Monday? I suppose the answer may be that he was out of his head when he bought the stuff and dumped it when he came to his senses.