Upun my word if I weren't rehearsing tomorrow night I'd be heading west.

My recording device isn't clever enough to cope with a channel change so I didn't manage to see much of Murray's third round match but it seems to have been another confident and well controlled victory so the omens are set fair for next week.

I'll be sampling the delights of a Catholic girls boarding school on finals day so if Murray makes it I'll be reliant on recording but we can be pretty sure the entire match will be broadcast on one channel.  The girls have been sent home on holiday so will be spared the noisy efforts of the aspiring musicians attending Richard Michael's Summer Jazz School and vice versa.    

One well known Catholic girl (that's my assumption given her origins) made a surprise appearance with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in a packed Usher Hall last night.  Nicola Benedetti came on to play one number with the band (part of Wynton Marsalis's Blood on the Fields).  That meant that in the absence of Joe Temperley from the line-up we still had a Scottish element.  I was disappointed that Temperley wasn't there but at 84 a twenty gig tour even though it included his native Scotland is maybe a bit daunting and for all I know he's not too well.

Big band music is not really top of my pops so although I enjoyed the concert I liked best the encore when Marsalis came back on with the rhythm section and played absolutely divinely for ten or fifteen minutes putting his trumpet through all possible shades from squawk to lullaby. And isn't the Queen's Hall a much better fit for that style of music?  Yes, though it clearly couldn't have satisfied the demand for places.  

Adam House lends itself to many activities and currently houses a wonderful exhibition, The Poster Art of Modern China.  The material comes from the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Center.  You can see it all on their site but it's much more impressive in the flesh as it were.

Here's Mao the culmination of the Marxist Leninist ideal.  We can see his forebears Stalin, Lenin and Marx.  It looks as though Marx is there twice but I think one of them must be Engels.  Their ideas were the same but their noses are slightly different.

 I love this one of the infamous Gang of Four being done to death by a terribly young set of communist heroes.

This one, which celebrates the founding of communist China is fascinating.  It was first printed in 1952 and revised several times as political tides ebbed and flowed.  Gao Gang who was to the left of the bearded chap at the extreme right of the front row disappeared in this post 1956 version and during the Cultural Revolution Dong Biwn's face replaced Liu Shoaqui's (dark suit third from the left).  Then after the Cultural Revolution Gao and Liu were reinstated (both were dead by that time).  All this before Photoshop had been invented.

It would be a bit hyperbolic to call the tram route in from the airport scenic but it's very pleasant and the journey struck me as a good way for a visitor to arrive in the city.  It's not the fastest mode of transport, especially going round corners when you might call its progress stately if you were being kind but it's comfortable and there's plenty room for luggage.  What a pity the rails don't stretch that last 0.6 miles (says Google) to McDonald Road.

I suppose that yesterday's weather helped.  Edinburgh looked at her best in the warm sunshine.  I always think it's a bit of a bummer when coming back from holiday to find good weather.  Why did I spend all that money to go to the Mediterranean when I could have sunbathed happily at home?

Unfair I know and of course I wouldn't have seen this

Mount Etna was having a little eruption when we were in the area.  Indeed the airport at Catania was closed for a bit because of ash the day before we were due to fly out.  Thanks to the roof of a parked car I was able to keep the shutter open for a while without the fuzzing that would have resulted if I'd been holding the camera.  The picture was taken in Acireale which is about 25 miles away.

Some years ago I was playing golf somewhere with the Seniors des Quatres Ligues during the French Open Tennis tournament.  The TV in the clubhouse was showing the tennis and one of my fellow golfers was standing at the bar gesturing at the TV and sounding off about mon fils this and mon fils the other.

I was quite impressed at the thought that I was in the company of the father of a tennis ace.  It was some time, maybe even a few days, till I discovered he had not been saying mon fils but Monfils.

He's Murray's opponent today and I hope that the rain in Paris lets up sufficiently for the match to take place.  I've suffered from rain myself recently.  I went to play golf a couple of weeks ago not only for the first time this season, not only for the first time this calendar year but for the first time since Lothianburn went bust last Autumn.

I got as far as the 7th when I had to leave the course because of lightning.  The storm had clearly set in for a while so that was that.  This week the rain started when I reached the second tee, no lightning thank goodness.  It rained with increasing intensity till about the 9th then eased to a drizzle, taking up the attack again the 16th and holding its own until I came off.

I hope Murray and Monfils have better luck this afternoon or rather this evening since it doesn't look as though they'll get started before 6.30 French time.  That probably means we won't see all of the match today.