I enjoyed a super dance show the other night.  It is vividly described here so I won't say more except that one of the things I enjoyed about the first item was that I could almost imagine myself doing it despite my two left feet.

I didn't need to imagine myself doing Dr Faustus, which I saw the following day, because I had done it in the Fringe.  This was a recorded transmission of the Globe's production and it was terrific.  The whole thing was done with great verve and energy and inventiveness.  I've very seldom seen productions of plays that I've been in or directed and it's fun to see what other people have come up with.  Given the constraints within which we operate I think our production achieved a great deal but wouldn't it be nice to be able to produce something this.

Just down the road this week is happening the Edinburgh Independent and Radical Book Fair and I attended the opening event, a talk by Richard Gott about his new book Britain's Empire.  The Commonwealth and Empire Annual was a staple of my Christmases in the 50s and from it I learnt no doubt the history of the daring do Empire builders and the great good that the British had brought to the previously benighted peoples of our colonies at that time morphing into the Commonwealth. 

Gott's book focuses on an entirely different aspect of the story, the resistance and revolts of the colonised peoples against the coloniser.  It promises to be an absorbing read (I bought it of course).

What might be an absorbing parallel read would be those annuals of my childhood and some are available on Ebay so I'm tempted to get one and wrap it up for Christmas.