Many things strike me as incomprehensible. Try this one.

I left home at 9.45 this morning and the postman came to my door at 10 with an item posted in London yesterday. It needed a signature so of course he had to take it away and leave me a card. The card told me that it would be returned to my delivery office. So far so obvious.

On the reverse of the card it said please leave X hours before trying to pick it up. X appeared to be 40. Now the delivery office used to be five hundred yards along the road but it's now further away. Not so far away as would make it seem reasonable that it should take 40 hours for the item to reach it so I decided that it must be a badly scribbled 4 that was really a 1.

I went to the delivery office just before it closed at 7 this evening (not quite 10 hours I know but I thought I'd chance it). To no avail. The item was not available and I was assured that 40 hours was really 40 hours so there was no use coming back before Saturday morning.

If I'd paid 41 pence first class postage it would have been put through my letter box less than 24 hours after it had been posted. But I paid £5.50 for special delivery and so won't get it till about 72 hours after posting.

If you've never really understood how the financial collapse of 2008 happened, or even if have, this is the film to see. Gasps of astonishment, guffaws and gales of laughter swept the Cameo yesterday afternoon as the sorry tale was told largely in the culprits' own words.

It should be compulsory daily viewing in Downing Street, Threadneedle Street and Business Schools/University Economics departments throughout the land.

There's a really nice little exhibition about Edinburgh trams past and future in the St James centre. The display contains pictures ranging from the earliest horse drawn trams of 1871, which ran from Haymarket to Bernard Street, to the last tram run in 1956. We are told that the laying of the lines for the cable hauled trams in the 1880s and later the electric trams was an enormous disruption and went on for years. Plus ça change.

You can find lots of tram pictures and pictures of all sorts of Edinburgh related matters on this site.

In the St James centre exhibition there is a large map of the network and I homed in on this section, close to my heart.The red lines indicate the early horse drawn tram routes. I don't know to which point in time the tram service numbers relate but it's fascinating to see that most of the same numbers are still in use and pass along the same routes today.

The railway line shown crossing Leith Walk is still in use but the goods yard is now the sought after residential development of Dicksonfield.

This lovely souvenir of a weekend in Fife last March is heralding the Spring on my balcony.

I shan't manage to see all of the ten films that have been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars but I have seen all the Directing nominees so I've been musing about where I would cast my vote.

It's terribly difficult to spot what the Director has contributed to a play or a film that has made it much better than it would have been without his/her involvement or under someone else's direction. So difficult that I think you have to judge every aspect of the work as being in the end the responsibility of the director. So for example, whether an actor is good or bad I'm likely to attribute 75% of the result to the director's work.

I complained in a previous post about Jeff Bridges' diction in True Grit. I'm sure he can speak as clearly as any man on the planet so either he was told to talk that way by the director ( in this case directors) or he invented it himself and it was accepted by the directors or they cobbled it together between them or horror of horrors they didn't notice. But leaving that aside (and I am, honestly) I rule True Grit out. It's a thoroughly well made and entertaining western but I don't see a quality in it that raises it above the well made and entertaining western that other competent directors could have produced.

The King's Speech is another fine film. It's a gripping story with a happy ending. It deploys fine British acting talent and what's more it's true. One of my neighbours received his DSO from the hands of George VI himself. He was understandably very moved by the film and even hard hearted republicans could surely spare a little sympathy for an afflicted fellow being. But is it more than a west end play with a movie camera stuck in front of it? I don't think so, despite its going outdoors for a mist swirling walk where speech therapist gets a temporary bum's rush. So for me it doesn't qualify for a film directing prize.

You might then think that I'd write off Black Swan straight away since it doesn't include a single exterior shot and could surely have been done on the stage. Should we not at least have seen the heroine staring moodily out of the bus window as it wended its way through rainy streets or her slow and thoughtful progress along crowded pavements as she choked back her fear of not getting the part? Maybe we did and I just don't remember. That's quite possible. But I do remember the close ups of weird bleeding, the magnificent feather sprouting pirouette and various other surreal bits and bobs that made it undeniably a movie. However the director didn't make me care one way or the other what happened to any of the characters so it fails.

That leaves The Social Network and The Fighter both of which induced in me very strong reactions to the characters. Interestingly enough in both cases my early dislike of some of them metamorphosed into a more sympathetic and nuanced appreciation. At one stage I was all for rushing home and cancelling my Facebook account but in the end I felt a bit sorry for the chap. I'd heard an interview with the director of The Fighter in which he said that the family portrayed had seen the film and were happy with it. By the end I could believe that, but was incredulous earlier that any family could be content to see themselves as the hopeless bunch of ineffective squabbling losers who appeared on screen.

The Social Network was fast-moving and tense. It cut through a fairly complicated story very clearly. It's characters were well drawn and multi-dimensioned. Everything about its physical being; costumes, settings, photography and so on was perfect. Until I saw The Fighter it had my vote for both directing and best picture Oscars.

But the magnificent fight scenes in The Fighter and what the director does with such unpromising human beings swings my judgement in his favour for the directing prize and despite the slightly sentimental tone towards the end (after all it's a true story and it's not the director's fault that there was a real life happy ending) I'd give it best picture as well, with the caveat that I haven't been able to judge all the contenders.

For best actor I'll swim against the cream of British acting talent tide and, even although I've only seen three of the contenders, award the prize to the chap who plays the Facebook chap. I'm not good with names but I'm sure at least one of them is called Jesse.

How's that for a 15 yard bunker shot, no more than 4 inches from the hole.

I idly wondered why the choir were sitting all over to one side with men and women slightly jumbled up and why it seemed below strength, but as soon as the music started I realised what a more than cursory glance at the orchestral forces onstage and a moment's reflection should have told me from the moment I sat down. They were being audience for the first half.

After the interval twice as many came in and organised themselves properly for singing. The band grew in size and added significantly to its noise making capabilities, not needed for Haydn but essential when you are about to give big licks to Brahms' German Requiem which has more crash bang climaxes than a triple X porn film.

They really gave it laldy and I could swear that at one point the conductor had both his feet off the ground such was his energic direction. But the piece ends in utter tranquility and Donald Runnicles managed to keep the audience silent for an impressively long time before relaxing his grip and allowing thunderous applause to break out.

It was a very full tenner's worth of music but £4.50 for a G&T was a bit steep for us in the cheap seats. Maybe if I could make it last for more than five minutes it would seem better value.

In the 1969 film True Grit John Wayne wears a patch over his left eye, leaving the right one in action, possibly as a wink in the direction of his political views. I don't believe he expresses any polital views in the film but I'm sure what he does say is clearly heard by the audience. His successor, Jeff Bridges, has his right eye covered instead and his mouth might well have been for all I was able to make out of his dialogue at times.

That apart I enjoyed the film. It looked beautiful: the heroes were rough and tough with hearts of gold; the baddies were properly nasty, and the girl who accompanies the marshal through the badlands in search of her father's killer is a splendidly forceful young lady. The Western is such a satisfying genre. You can rely on a good story with plenty of action and if not always a truly happy ending then a morally just one.

Morality gets an outing in Nixon in China to which the Metropolitan Opera did justice in their simulcast last night (tiny annoying sound transmission glitches excepted), not least in at last getting around to mounting a production nearly a quarter of a century after it premiered in Houston (Texas not Renfrewshire). It only took Edinburgh twelve months after all.

I've often listened to the music since that Ediburgh production but could remember only two or three scenes clearly so it was like seeing a new work, albeit depicting not the present day but a moment in history.

Can that moment when Nixon attempted rapprochement with China have helped turn the country that the opera portrays with its lauding of heroic peasants and soldiers into today's capitalist giant sucking up the world's resources?

If so he must be sitting in the afterworld echoing one of Chou En Lai's final lines from the opera - "how much of what we did was good?" - probably with the odd expletive deleted.

Ballet of a different order with Black Swan which I saw last night. I thought it was great entertainment, nicely tense and spooky, fast moving with an undercurrent of incipient violence throughout. And how did they do that wonderful sprouting of feathers as Natalie Portman spun around in the role of the black swan? Movie magic.

The Telegraph's review reflects my reaction exactly - "...delirious hokum, high-class trash...".

I paid particular attention to the heroine's bum throughout. Not dirty old man, peeping tom style but in an effort to substantiate a claim I heard on the radio (Woman's Hour I think) when an expert averred that although Natalie Portman's dancing was very convincing you could tell she was not really a dancer because she did not have a ballerina's bum.

I have seen quite a bit of ballet over the years but if pressed to identify a common characteristic of ballerinas I would have suggested that, unlike say opera singers, they tend to be skinny and small busted. It seems however that the defining characteristic is a muscular bottom; buttocks do not remain soft and cuddly under the rigorous regime of the dance class. Closer inspection than that possible from the back row of the cinema would be needed to verify the claim but I'm glad I tried.

The Palais Garnier was packed last night for a performance of Nicolas Le Riche's ballet Caligula but only a score or so of Edinburghers had been intrigued enough to come along to the Cameo for the simulcast.

Now my idea of Caligula is that he was mad, bad and dangerous to know; an impression reinforced by the bits of BBC radio's I Claudius that I caught recently. He loved his sister ( isn't that nice) and was so potty about his horse that it lived in bejewelled luxury and he proposed to make it a Roman consul (it didn't happen). He slaughtered thousands and was eventually done away with by the Praetorian Guard who tired of their mad, unpredictable tyrant.

Given all that you could be forgiven for expecting a Reservoir Dogs of a ballet. You would have been disappointed. According to the programme note "...Le Riche overturns clichés and embark (sic) upon an intimate exploration of a rich and complex personality."

This meant that his tyranny was reduced to giving some lads in black (guards, senators, legionaries?) a push from time to time and laughing hysterically at them. He danced lovingly with a couple of ladies, one of whom must have been his wife and the other the moon (another of his fixations) since both are named in the programme. By the way I almost never buy programmes but applaud managements like this one who give you a free A4 sheet of essentials.

He had a fit and twitched on the floor a couple of times to show us that he was ill not mad and every so often a chap in white came on stage accompanied by three others also in white but in flowing skirty garb rather than trousers ( well tights, this is ballet after all). These I took to be Mnester the famous pantomime actor (and said to be lover of Caligula) and his troupe. They didn't make me laugh.

I was particularly disappointed about the horse. Now the dancer did it beautifully, don't get me wrong and the close relationship between man and horse was tenderly portrayed but I was expecting a madman prancing about and adorning his horse with necklaces and sticking flowers behind its ears and a laurel crown on its head while putting to death the odd member of the gathered populace.

But it was all of a piece with the rest of the production, no blood and guts. I suppose I should have known from the start that it wasn't going to match my preconception since they were dancing to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. It's lovely music but isn't in the blood and guts league and dare I say it, is a bit over used.

So the great question arose in my mind, will this Caligula die peacefully in his bed or will he be assassinated as history demands? I don't know what Nicolas le Riche decided because my eyes took a rest as the ballet reached its end.

Now my next ballet simulcast is the Bolshoi with Don Quixote. I do hope that we will get some decent and vigorous tilting at windmills.

I'm having doubts about Laphroaig. Not the craitur herself you understand, which is as fine a drop as ever warmed a throat, but the all too convenient translation.

When I raise my glass and say "slainte" am I not wishing you good health? So if the name of a whisky had anything to do with health it would surely have a smidgeon of slainte about it.

I'm after thinking it's not a translation it will be but a marketing slogan (Gaelic sluagh-gairm war cry, from sluagh army + gairm cry).

What I liked about Courtney Pine and his band ( apart from the music which was wonderful and was being heard in public for only the second time) was that they got on stage promptly and played for a solid two hours dovetailing neatly with the Dunfermline/ Edinburgh bus timetable.

Cyrus Chestnut on the other hand, for all that he started on time, followed the traditional pattern of playing for about half an hour, having a short, verging on long break, playing for another half hour or so then disappearing briefly to shuffle coyly back on stage for an encore.

Not that I'm complaining about the music. Far from it. He was brilliant and endeared himself doubly to the audience when his mobile phone went off.

No, the problem was that this left me with 50 minutes to fill before I could get a bus. But as we know every cloud has a silver lining and in those 50 minutes I enjoyed a hauf an a hauf (non Scots drinkers check here) and improved my Gaelic to boot.

For the pub in which I sought refuge had a board advertising various whiskies and giving an English translation of their names. Now from TV advertising I knew that Glenmorangie meant "glen of tranquility" but the pub's translation "glen of great peace" made lots of sense for leaving aside "glen" which has passed into English most Scottish non Gaels will recognise that "mor" means "big". So now I know the Gaelic for peace. Could this be where Angie from Eastenders got her name?

Glenfiddich meaning "glen of the deer" could probably be guessed from the stag's head on their label and "big stone" for Cragganmore seems obvious but "healthy days" for my favourite tipple Laphroaig is welcome confirmation of how good it is.

Thursday's snow put me off from playing golf after my session at the range. I was relieved but not surprised when Friday dawned with only constant rain. Not surprised because I was going to Glasgow to lunch with a friend and it seems to me that it always rains when I go there.

I’d picked out a restaurant from a little 2010 Glasgow dining guide and had a look at the menus on their website and it all looks fine. Scottish recipes using local produce, family run and so on. When we got there the premises looked as though they’d been empty for years. Back home I had a closer look at the website and found they were now out in Houston (Renfrewshire not Texas!).

We had an excellent Chinese lunch just across the road but I was disappointed that a Scottish flavoured place had gone.

Because I was going on to Dunfermline later for an evening at the Fife Jazz Festival I decided to spend the afternoon in Glasgow and travel to Dunfermline from there. We went to the Scottish Caravan and Outdoor Leisure Show. I had a couple of reasons for that. I’m not in the least interested in caravans but I flirt from time to time with the idea of a camper van to trot around Europe with and I think betimes of a little log cabin that I could plonk down in France when our house there is sold. I had also been seduced by pictures of flapping sails on their site but the boats had sailed on leaving a row of big gas guzzling jet skis to cram into your caravan. It was a little disappointing but it kept me out of the rain.

The concert in Dunfermline was a bit of a challenge. I wouldn’t say that by the end I liked what they had played but my ears were a bit more receptive. Free improvisation they call it. Free seems to mean that they are not constrained by tunes or harmonies. Tonight I’m going to hear Courtney Pine whose music is bit more tuneful and then tomorrow an American called Cyrus Chestnut with a traditional piano, bass and drums trio. It’s a very diverse festival.

Bread quality forecasting skills sadly A1.

Many months ago inspired by a TV show or something I decided to try making some bread. So I bought the appropriate flour and some yeast and put them in a cupboard.

The other day I noticed that the flour was two months past its date of death so this evening I made the twisted looking loaf above. It doesn't taste too bad but I'm not sure that it won't deteriorate overnight.