I moved on from the Greeks to the Romans by starting to read Robert Harris's second novel about Cicero and in parallel with it Mary Beard's Roman history SPQR.  Her first chapter covers the same ground as the first half of the novel, the Catiline conspiracy, and it's fascinating to see how the real events have been woven into the imagined.  Both books are absorbing and happily cost me rather less than the original hardbacks.

Before either of those civilisations flourished, way back in the pagan days, to judge by Stravinsky's Rite of Spring people made some very strange noises and I was intrigued to see the RSNO deploy a washboard to make some of them.  I don't know if that was their idea or if Stravinsky actually scored it that way but it gave me a little fellow feeling with the great orchestra for I once played the washboard myself.

I think once is the operative word for I can recall playing only one gig.  It was in the YWCA in Kircaldy back in the mists of time.  Of course it might be that the skiffle band went on to greater things without me, my playing having produced sounds too much like Rite of Spring for their taste.

Stravinsky appeals to my taste but so do lots of other things and I had a splendid evening at a concert dedicated to Cole Porter who wrote so many wonderful songs with great melodies and wickedly clever lyrics.  The polar opposite but equally pleasurable was the Arild Andersen Trio gig.  Andersen is a Norwegian double bass player and his trio includes our own Tommy Smith on tenor saxophone.  So the music was jazz but that's a broad church and there are lots of jazz fans who can't stand their particular sub-genre.  There's a website that lists 28 different types of jazz plus another dozen musical styles that it regards as jazz related and I searched around it to try to put a name to the trio's style.  Post Bop and Post Fusion Contemporary seem to be the most appropriate but what's in a name. The best thing is to listen so here's a tune that I think is a good example.

There was a lot of listening in The Grads production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.  It's a great play and this was an excellent production.  It got one of the most enthusiastic reviews I've read in a long time so rather than witter on let me direct you to IT.  The run's finished.  Too bad you missed it but check out our website for what's on in the Fringe.