Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham is not a household name in Scotland today but it should be.  Nicknamed Don Roberto from his years in Argentina he was adventurer, writer, politician, friend of both the great and the humble men of his day and well ahead of his time.  His great nephew Jamie Jauncey gave a sparkling talk about him at the Book Festival.  To everyone present's regret he hasn't yet written a biography but surely he will.

Former drama critic Robert Dawson Scott has written a most entertaining play.  The programme warns that Assessment is set in the future, but only just.  A pilot scheme called Pension Exchange is being run by a private company on behalf of the government.  This offers selected individuals the opportunity of commuting future pension payments into a large capital sum.  Alan McDonald, a man in his late seventies, is eligible because he has made a living will and declared that he would not wish to be resuscitated in the event of severe trauma.  The snag is that in return for the money he has to make a dignified exit and that he can't use the money himself only determine who gets it.

How did the company know about his living will?  Is that not a private matter?  His daughter, struggling to bring up two boys without a husband around and with grandad sharing their small flat has let the company know.

Very funny, with great characters and not without a thought provoking streak this has to be a popular choice for Scottish drama groups in future.  I've got my eye on the old man's part.

Another excellent show that combines fun and games with serious matters is Amy Conway's Super Awesome World.  Amy get the show rolling by telling us, quoting various research findings, that playing video games is good for us and describing her own back story of starting with a second hand Nintendo.  Then she gets the audience active.  She moves them about a bit, gets them flicking balloons towards her, reading cue cards in response to numbers appearing on a TV screen while she frantically performs some associated task dictated by a squeaky female voice coming from the TV.

She introduces the idea of the Samaritans for whom she says she is a volunteer and we become overhearers of telephone calls from those in need of listeners in between game playing episodes.  Subtly she turns into both caller and listener and finally poses enough questions to the audience about their experiences of feelings of inadequacy or depression or worse to end with everyone on their feet.

I finished the day in the Usher Hall with an orchestra and choir from Turin belting out Verdi's Requiem.  Very loud, very raw, very enjoyable.  I don't want to give the wrong impression.  They were belting it out, not me though I'd have liked to.