No need to worry about TV coverage of the Africa Cup anymore.  Zambia are out.  Last year's cupwinners they may be and may have featured in the later stages of the competition for over twenty years but this year it's OUT.

I was disappointed that Murray didn't do better yesterday but one good thing about the result was that he didn't seem too upset by it himself.

I missed most of the third set because I went off to play golf, but despite the snow having disappeared the course was still closed.  That was disappointing although I was then able to watch much of the rest of the tennis live.

Things come in threes and a third disappointment lay in wait.  That was Lincoln.  It's up for all sorts of Oscars but I found its pious goody two-shoes tone tedious, its shadow strewn cinematography unenlightening and its exposition confusing.  Now I'm totally ignorant of the history of the period so perhaps the latter is my fault but I was hard-pressed to tell one bewhiskered gentleman from another or to distinguish the niceties of their various positions.

When I got home I had a trawl through the reviews to try to understand the error of my ways.  The Guardian with its five stars didn't convince me nor did The Telegraph's four.  Happily I found that I was not the only doubter of the film's excellence and according to The Daily Mail its history was pretty much bunk as well. 

Since their reviewer, a Mr Tookey, so well echoed my reaction to Lincoln I broke my rule about not reading reviews in advance and took a peek at what he had to say about Zero Dark Thirty.  On that basis if I go it will only be for the free coffee on a Tuesday afternoon. 

Unlike the set of Django Unchained the Rod Laver arena was not splattered in blood when the battle was over but the struggle to come out the winner was just as intense and engaging for the spectator.

Just as you thought Murray had it sewn up in the fourth set Federer pulled a rabbit out of the hat and forced him into a final final showdown but found himself being blasted away.  Remarkably similar to the twists and turns of Tarantino's plot.

It was a great match and oh boy I loved the movie.  It's a good strong story beautifully filmed and naturally the effects (all that blood) are terrific.  There is tension throughout and it's full of cleverly (not to say over-) drawn characters brought to life by an accomplished cast.  I particularly liked Leonardo Dicaprio's nasty plantation owner. That's a part to die for, not from real bullets of course.

Well the BBC has dipped into its piggy-bank and added Murray's semi-final match against Federer to its miserly coverage of the Australian Open.  I expect they had that up their sleeve all the time.

Anyway it's good reason to get up before sunrise on Friday, otherwise why would you if you didn't have to.

Hard on the heels of my disappointment that there is no free to view screening of Australian Open Tennis matches other than the women's and men's singles finals came the news that Zambia will need to either win or come second in their Africa Cup group before I can see them play.

That's not entirely true in that I've seen two or three minutes of highlights from their drawn game against Ethiopia complete with Arabic commentary on some obscure website.  That was almost as unsatisfactory as listening to a Radio 5 commentary on an Andy Murray match in the wee small hours.

Anyone using Buchanan Street bus station in Glasgow is familiar with the work of the sculptor George Wylie whether they know it or not since the running man clock that they pass on the way out or in is his work. 

Although he had a sense of humour I don't think he intended the different faces to show different times.  That's somebody's poor maintenance.  As someone who travels by bus between Glasgow and Edinburgh relatively often I have noticed that the clocks on the buses seldom show the right time.  Not important in itself but it does make you wonder if the same lack of attention is paid to the bits that keep the bus functioning safely.

But that is by way of a digression or a little moan on the side.

A while ago I went to Glasgow to see an exhibition of Wylie's work but a gang of four lunch morphed seamlessly into an afternoon of conviviality and I never got to it.  Yesterday there were but two of us and we were determined on the exhibition.  Not so determined mind you as to remain in the first restaurant we picked on discovering that it didn't serve alcohol.

We went round the corner and enjoyed a responsible modicum of vino with, in my case, crispy pork belly on noodles with mango and chilli.  The noodles were stone cold but on enquiry I discovered they were meant to be.  It was a variation on sweet and sour I suppose.  But notwithstanding it was delicious and the chilli brought my belly up to the same temperature as the pig's.

The exhibition was excellent.  His sense of humour was well displayed with items like this rock music:

and his skill in bending metal as in this pipe band:

There was a lot about the straw locomotive and the paper boat that brought the social consciousness of much of his work to wide public attention in the 80s.  The exhibition runs until February 2nd and I recommend it but if you can't make it, go to Glasgow anyway just for the pleasure of gazing at the ceiling in the Mitchell Library.  It's magnificent.

The National Theatre's production of The Magistrate by Pinero was sent bouncing round the world tonight and I was lucky enough to be in the Cameo to catch it.

As befits a farce the action was fast and furious and the acting highly physical.  It hovered deliciously on the edge of going over the top and every now and then did so joyously, but miraculously managed to retain reality and truthfulness throughout.

The plotting is very clever.  I loved bits where the audience realised what was coming just before the characters were allowed to. There's lots of witty Wildean dialogue and the production team have added snappy G&Slike patter songs which are delivered by an enchantingly imagined Victorian minstrel troupe.

It goes without saying that costumes, make-up, music, sound and lighting are all wonderful but the pièce de résistance is the set - an astonishing pop-up book whose pages unfold to deliver complete rooms.

By Jove it's great. 

When I opened my diary this morning I read "11 a.m. Usher Hall".  Ah, I thought.  That'll be the  Sax Ecosse concert in the Emerging Artists series.  I've been looking forward to that.

So I got to the hall in good time, bought my ticket (only three quid), got myself a coffee (an extortionate two quid) and sat down to peruse the Traverse and Filmhouse brochures that I'd picked up on the way.

After a bit I glanced at my ticket.  It said "Jemma Brown".

I was nonplussed.  Who is she and what does she do?

From the free programme that I was handed as I went in I learnt that she was a mezzo soprano and that I was about to experience a recital of Russian, German and American songs.

For these morning concerts unless you are in a wheelchair you sit in the organ gallery so that the performers are not looking out onto a vast and thinly populated auditorium.  It would seem almost impossible in such a big venue but that orientation creates quite an intimate atmosphere and even a small crowd (which it usually is) gives body to the event.

I took my preferred position centre stage in the front row, read the blurb. contemplated the grand piano and waited for the emerging artists to emerge; they duly did and the show started with half a dozen Spanish songs set to music by Shostakovich and sung in Russian.

There was a teacher in Perugia who liked to declaim to we foreigners stumbling roughly through some simple utterance - "L'Italiano non è una lingua, è una musica."  I think Russian is the same, albeit in a darker and more melancholy register.  The songs and the singing of them, and don't let's forget the piano accompaniment, were lovely.

Then we had a Schumann setting of  My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose, some Brahms and a group of songs by Korngold.  The texts of those were by various people on the subject of parting and apparently when he wrote the music Korngold was being kept away from the girl he eventually married because of the disapproval of the proposed match by both families.  So they were not cheerful ditties unlike the three American songs celebrating flowers and the Spring that closed the programme.

I would not have chosen to go to this concert, and indeed I didn't, but I'm very glad I was there.  I enjoyed it thoroughly.

And Sax Ecosse?  They played last Tuesday.  A simple diary malfunction.   

Somehow or other I got the idea into my head that Gangster Squad would be worth going to see.  I must have misread or misheard or someone miswrote or misspoke because it's garbage.

I'll save my late night energy and let you read what Rolling Stone has to say about it, to which I will add a fervent hear hear.

This is better

The Diceman is a book that very much tickled my imagination.  The hero decides that his life should be governed by the throw of the dice.  The story is a little bit black since he tends to set up decisions of the type - "If I throw a six I'll kill my wife, otherwise I won't".

On New Year's Day we had a less unpleasant opportunity to let the dice guide us through a series of entertainments over the course of the afternoon.

You turned up at the museum, where incidentally I caught sight of an actor friend kitted out in as a druid or an Egyptian priest helping the public to take part in a moving about chanting activity wholly unrelated to the Lucky Day jolly that I was there for, were issued a pair of dice and threw them to determine where your first activity would take place.

I was despatched to Greyfriars where a ceilidh was in progress.  I didn't dance but watched and listened for a bit before throwing again to determine my next destination.  So it went on until I got to the Roxy where the queue to throw was so long that I abandoned the exercise and went back to the museum to drink coffee and people watch until heading for Buccleuch where Les Plasticiens Volants were to do their stuff and give us their version of the BIG BANG.

Thank God there was no wind and no rain so the event went off well and strange creatures floated through the sky and swooped down on the crowd.  An earlier post has some pics.  The show had a musical backing and an intermittent commentary in pseuds corner style that probably would have sounded better in French especially for those who didn't understand the language.

I've experimented with Youtube to create a little video listing all the things I did but it's pretty hopeless.  I may be able to do better but in the meantime:      

The mist over the Ribble valley has been my view for the past few days while I've been away with my saxophone in deepest Lancashire.  There were around 25 of us, some who had been playing for over sixty years and me the fresh-faced beginner with only three notches on his horn.  The host in between included a former clergyman who goes busking.

We had four sessions of music making a day interrupted by eating and drinking opportunities. Those anxious for fresh air had enough free time to take country walks in the afternoons but I held my fire in that respect making up for it today with a grand 18 hole hike on the side of the Pentlands.

The music varied from fast and furious to slow and stately and the ensembles from trios to massed choir.  I was all out of puff by the end of it but loved it all. 

Some Lucky Day visitors to Buccleuch Place last night.