That washboard takes some punishment as this band blast out a combination of newly invented New Orleans jazz and great old standards like Basin Street Blues.  They had feet tapping and bodies swaying in their seats in the Tron Kirk yesterday and I've no doubt a late night audience would have been up dancing.  I may check that out during the Fringe when they play some midnight gigs in a one time favourite nightspot of mine.

At the other end of the jazz spectrum trumpeter Sean Gibbs headed a quintet playing contemporary pieces, many being his own compositions.  It was an excellent set and sadly no CDs were available otherwise I'd be listening to it again.  But some previous pieces can be heard (and even purchased) here.

A different sort of music greeted me at the Fashion Festival runway show later.  Played insufferably loudly on top of a grinding throb throb throb I was so glad that I had earbuds in my pocket and could block out a fair bit of it.  I couldn't have stayed for more than ten minutes otherwise but no-one else in the room seemed in the slightest discomfited.  Either deaf already or going that way.  It can't be my sensitive ear.

The show itself was quite fun.  There were no seats.  The audience stood around a marked track through the gallery that the models followed and the numbers were low enough to ensure that everyone had a front row view.  Unfortunately I had only a phone camera and its out of focus, dim images caused me to quickly give up snapping.

It was adequate to capture this headful of hats amidst a small number of static displays though.

I voiced my admiration to the lady who makes them and expressed disappointment that she didn't do men's hats as well.  Sorry, she said, but depending on how flamboyant you were prepared to be you could wear one of these.  She must have had that quiet beige one in the top right-hand corner in mind.  If you're that flamboyant here's her website.

Passing Parliament Square earlier this afternoon I saw a wedding party having their photo taken against the imposing background of our old legislative chamber.

There were the bridesmaids in lovely long dresses clutching colourful posies.  That was surely the mother of the bride, the lady with the largest, flounciest hat I've seen for a while.  But where was the bride herself?

Showing just how not up to date am I with modern mores it took me a minute or two to realise that the two chaps in identical kilts, sporrans and Prince Charlie jackets were the happy couple.

When I got back from the North I headed for Muirfield on the last practice day of the Open Championship.  It's a good day to be there.  The crowds are much smaller.  You can get near to the play and the golfers are mostly pretty relaxed.  Some are even accompanied by wives, girlfriends or children as they go round and don't mind exchanging a few words with the spectators.  The weather was excellent as well so it was a nice day out.

For the competition days I sprawled out on a settee getting the best possible view from the telly.  I kept the balcony door open so as not to miss entirely the fine weather and did a bit of whooping, hollering and clapping to replicate the atmosphere.  Saturday was in my opinion the best day.  There was more tension and excitement than on the final day when Westwood's slide seemed pre-ordained as did Tiger's failure to catch up.

With the golf over I managed to get up and about a bit just in time to enjoy some treats from the Jazz Festival.  A new venue they've brought into use this year is the Tron Kirk.  It's an excellent space well laid out with a little stage in a corner, a bar along one wall and tables and chairs spread about.  The back door leads onto a little outdoor seating, smoking, drinking area perched handily on top of the Hunter Square public toilets.  You can judge how handy that is when I tell you there are no toilets inside the venue itself.

There are conventional gigs there in the evenings but an innovation is that you can lounge there all day supping a beer and nibbling on a pizza and enjoy four one hour sets from different artists all for a mere tenner.  The variety of music on the day I did that was great; big band, boogie woogie/ragtime  piano, vocalist singing standards with piano backing and a guitar double bass duo in the singer songwriter mould.

Looking forward to more of that and to seeing what the Free Fringe will put on there. 

Not many Shetlanders to be seen on the beaches last week.

I imagine many of them set off  to drown their sorrows here because the heatwave that has swept the country by and large bypassed the Northern Isles.

 Or settled themselves in front of a wee peat fire in the croft.

 Or even snuggled down in a comfy box bed ben the room.

Down in Orkney the Old Man of Hoy was unmoved however, despite the weather being even worse there.

And the Orcadians got on with the business of bringing home the bacon, or mutton in this case.

Great tennis over the last few days and what a relief to see our man get through.  It was the sort of sporting triumph that will ensure there will be dancing in the streets of Raith as well as Dunblane tonight.

Arty Anne is one of the brilliant set of shorts from the QMU degree show for which I've been able to find some trace on the web.  It's a lovely and moving documentary which like so many really good documentaries tells the story by letting the protagonists speak for themselves.  Arty Anne herself was sitting only a few seats away from me and seemed despite her poor vision to be thoroughly enjoying the show.

There was fiction as well as documentary and I loved a quirky little comedy that featured a young man who dressed up in the top half of a suit every morning and pretended to be a busy office worker while conducting an on-line flirtation.

And what about this juggling epic, isn’t it fun?
Back in the world to which I suppose most of those students aspire I saw Michael Douglas’s performance as Liberace in Beyond The Candelabra. It was a great performance, very convincing and quite out of what I would have imagined to be his comfort zone. He must surely get an Oscar for it. The film is a glorious riot of kitch with wonderful clothes and interiors to gasp at and bling that puts my one little silver ring firmly into the shade, although it’s ultimately a sad tale of love gone awry.

Things go awry for the characters in The Bling Ring.  It's a thin story about a group of Los Angeles teenagers who break into celebrities' houses while they're away and help themselves to clothing, shoes, handbags, jewellery, cash and in one case almost a dog.

It's said to be based on real events.  It seems barely conceivable to me that these well-heeled Angelinos wouldn't have had alarm systems connected to a response centre or at the very least that would make a loud noise, yet these kids burgle away to their hearts content for some time without being disturbed.

They have a whale of a time, post pictures of themselves and their booty on Facebook, do a lot of dancing, drinking, snorting and teen speaking till inevitably they are caught.  Not a lot of contrition is shown and the film ends with Emma Watson's character rabbiting on about the stress of being imprisoned next door to one of the celebs whose stuff she'd nicked.  I don't recall what the celeb had been banged up for.

Stick to Liberace if you fancy bling. 

It was an eventful week at Wimbledon and I'm glad to say I caught most of the major moments live on the telly.  Clearly that meant I wasn't outdoors all that much and yesterday when there was no play it was a toss up between breaking my duck at the Film Festival on its last day or taking the air.

I decided not to coop myself up in a cinema.  My first taking the air step was to take a coffee out onto my little balcony.  I settled down behind the window boxes with jauntily covered and protected pate to enjoy the sunshine.  The wind got up.  It buffeted my hat.  I clutched at it.  My coffee cup was jossled and coffee spilled all over me.  Shirt and trousers straight into the washing machine.

In fresh shirt and trousers (no jacket, no brolly) I later set out in the sunshine for a stroll.   As I reached the top of Leith Walk on my way home the rain came down and by the time I got home yet another set of fresh shirt and trousers was called for.

I should have gone to the pictures.