#Likes was performed on Saturday but didn't live up to its name as far as the adjudicator was concerned.  I thought too that the applause was polite rather than enthusiastic so the audience may have shared his opinion.  Disappointment reigned supreme until dissolved in alcohol.

Endgame at the Citz on the other hand was greeted with lots of applause.  It exhibited what might be thought of as contradictions.  It was both entertaining and incomprehensible.  I sought understanding in the reviews but found none.

Incomprehensibility was the order of the day though.  I was going on from Glasgow to a jazz event in Kirkcaldy before returning to Edinburgh but rail ticket pricing meant that I would save £10 by going back to Edinburgh before setting out for Kirkcaldy.  So I did.

The jazz was good.  Vocalist and fiddler Seonaid Aitken fronts a group called Rose Room who were joined by saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski and the Capella String Quartet and played a mixture of great tunes from Django Reinhardt's Paris and from the Great American Songbook.

Amongst great Russian piano concertos one of the best known, thanks to its prominence on the soundtrack of Brief Encounter, is Rachmaninov's 2nd which was given a rousing airing in the Usher Hall by Boris Giltburg with the RSNO.  He's back with them this week to bash through Rachmaninov's 3rd which I'm sure will be equally exciting.

In between those two giant concertos the RSNO played the pretty gigantic Symphony No. 1 by Vaughan Williams, known as A Sea Symphony.  There must have been over 100 musicians on stage and I counted a choir of around 130.  Together with baritone and soprano soloists those forces created wonderful music.  I can't say that it particularly brought the sea to my mind but I thoroughly enjoyed the noise and it somewhat dwarfed Debussy's La Mer which was presented in the same programme.

Back in the land of incomprehensibility, until you applied a little thought to it was the sub-prime mortgage and banking fiasco which was ably and entertainingly explained and illuminated through the lives of a number of participants in the movie The Big Short.  The film or the book it came from should be part of the school curriculum to help kids get wise to the big bad world of money.    

I've been busy rehearsing the one-act play that Claire has written for the SCDA competition.  It's called #Likes and is about current preoccupations with fame and celebrity.  The protagonists are two teenage girls who are simultaneously best friends and Youtube rivals.  I play their headmaster.  It's a Catholic school so I get to invoke the Holy Virgin from time to time.

In the professional theatre I saw a very enjoyable production of The Weir at The Lyceum.  It's a very gentle, poignant and profound picture of unexceptional lives in rural Ireland.  It was one of those productions in which everything seemed perfect.  There was an excellent set with a clever back wall that changed from see through to solid.  The characters were beautifully drawn and whenever I gave it a thought I was impressed by how skillfully and unobtrusively the director had deployed her cast about the stage to best effect.

The Dunedin Wind Band had a playaway day but because it took place on the day following a Burns Supper held in my flat I played safe and didn't put my name down.  It was the wise choice.  A late night and a belly full of haggis and drink would not have been a sound basis for a day of music making.

But this last weekend I've blown a lot of wind through my saxophone.  I was up in Edzell for the second year running for a couple of days playing and socialising.  Here's the group of happy campers.  I'm barely visible near the top of the stairs.