On a day when we are promised paralysis in the public services in pusuit of a comfortable old age it was heartening to see one humble council employee sticking to his post and carrying out his normal duties with zeal and determination.

A view not likely to be shared by the owner of the vehicle I saw being ticketed this morning by one of Edinburgh's much loved parking attendants.  Hope it doesn't belong to a striker.

Happy St. Andrew's Day. 

I'm almost always up for something unusual in the theatre so when Claire invited a number of us to accompany her to The Little Match Girl Passion at the Traverse, described as a combination of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl and Bach's St Mathew Passion, my hand went up straight away.

In the event the invitor withdrew and the other invitees declined so I was alone (apart from the multitude of culture vultures behind me, for I was in the front row) in Traverse One last night for this spectacle.

A dimly lit area whose floorcloth of white tiles each decorated with a black fleur de lis (if memory serves) on which lay a randomly (or maybe carefully) strewn cable of linked light bulbs that glowed dull yellow presented itself on entry to the theatre.  Behind, a dull reddish wall bearing a couple of shelves strewn with unidentifiable bric a brac, above which a screen.  Standing right centre a low music stand, a stool and bathed in a gentle light resting on the stool a cello.

Fade to black and enter the cellist dressed in a mildly military looking silver buttoned grey blue coat to perform the curtain raiser or companion piece, The World To Come. He played for twenty five minutes or so while swirls in various shades of grey appeared on the screen behind him.  It was not quite a cloudscape nor yet a brain activity scan but somewhere in between.  The music was mournful and as I trudged up the staircase at the interval I thought that if that is the world to come I am not too anxious to be here when it arrives.

Everyone trudged up the stairs in fact because Theatre Cryptic whose work it was wanted the auditorium to be empty while they changed the set. I suppose they felt that the impact would be lessened were we to have seen it put together.  

It was not that different in fact.  The screen had gone and a dark void took its place.  The wall now had a flame relief that I don't think had been there before and a higher lighting level allowed us to see that the bric a brac consisted of vaguely scientific Victorian odds and ends; glass vessels, stuffed animal bits, animal skulls.....

That science like feel was echoed in the objects on a desk left centre on which stood also a little xylophone and music stand.  Up right by the wall was a big drum mounted horizontally on a wheeled frame and on the opposite side a set of tubular bells almost off-stage.

The piece opened with the other three actors/singers lined up behind the bass who was poised to whack the big drum, which he did.  They were all dressed in what I would loosely describe as early Victorian outfits though the mezzo's crinoline was drawn up at the front to reveal her garter and drawers in a manner that I am sure would have been deprecated then and the reason for which escaped me.

They sang, moved languidly here and there, sat, stood, grouped, ungrouped.  They played the bells, the xylophone, a chinese bowl, the big drum, what seemed to be a bicycle bell but which probably has a pukka musical name and a set of something or other.  They never smiled, but given that the libretto told the sorry tale of a little girl wandering barefoot in the snow and freezing to death that's hardly surprising. 

They never acknowledged one another nor the audience nor the white clad young woman in the void above, the eponymous match girl, who throughout threw herself hither and thither, whirled, bounced and walked about presumably in anguish.

It was beautifully done, beautifully sung, beautifully set and lit and well deserved the long appreciative silence and subsequent enthusiastic applause that greeted the final blackout.  It made the very pleasant modern dance performance that I had seen at the Festival Theatre the previous evening seem somewhat run of the mill. 

But it was weird.

I've been browsing the programme of Previously...., the Scottish History Festival which has just got underway. 

It's an inspired title and inspiration has not deserted the organisers in setting up events.  I imagine that the Beehive Inn will be stowed out for "Tits, Tassels and Ten Pound Notes", the story of striptease in Scotland.  

On the same night the Edinburgh Spanish Circle is hosting an illustrated talk on Cuba. The lovely lady with the PhD giving the striptease talk doesn't make it clear whether or not that is also illustrated, thus failing to resolve any prurient hispanophile's dilemma.    

This is the Spectator article that aroused my ire and here's my response.  The letter as written was somewhat more nuanced than the printed version, since KK for one took a fair bit of persuasion to demit office and Chiluba's hands seem to have been a bit sticky.

But the thrust remains.

A few days ago I was invited to join a Facebook group that has been set up for those with connections to Kitwe Little Theatre.  It is already populated with lots of interesting stuff for those of us who spent time and energy there.

I was particularily interested in photos of the interior of the theatre, taken not many years ago, showing the stage, the auditorim, the bars etc.  I think anyone can look at the group here although you have to be a member to post. 

Coincidentally in the same week I found myself defending Zambia's honour in the letter pages of the Spectator.  I can't give you a link just yet because they don't add items from the current edition straight away.

Hamlet opened last night and all went reasonably well.  One of the half dozen notes I had to play on the sax had a bit of a squeak to it but on the whole I was satisfied with my first public appearance as a musician.

A&R men in the audience should form an orderly queue and those who weren't there have three more chances since we run till Saturday at St Brides Centre, Orwell Terrace at 19.30 each evening.  Tickets on the door or from The Hub.

One of the things that annoys me mildly is having rung a telephone help line and picked my way carefully through the myriad button pressing options to get to the point where I can talk to a human being, is to discover that the helpline is experiencing unusually high demand.  Since this occurs at whatever time of day or night I ring I am tempted to think that it is a fib.

So congratulations to HMRC who run their operation so well that even at 10.00 on a weekday morning they are not experiencing unusually high demand and not all of their operators are busy.  It makes the business of paying income tax that bit less painful.

I walked down the Scotsman Steps the other day for the first time in years.  I suppose I was aware that some sort of reburbishment had been underway for a while but I was not prepared for the transformation that they have undergone.

Although occasionally smartened up and used for hanging pictures during the Festival they've generally lived in my consciousness as a dank, dirty thoroughfare pervaded by an air at once urine infected and somewhat threatening. 

But now, resplendent in a multitude of shades and patterns of marble, they are quite beautiful.  There are lots of lovely pictures on the Edinburgh Spotlight site and you can hear the artist whose work it is in this BBC clip.

The initiative for the project came from the Fruitmarket Gallery which is only a few yards from the foot of the steps and there is a more arty blurb about the project on their site and a video in which Martin Creed, the artist, sings a staircase song; not to be missed.