The long shadow of times past has hovered over town for the last couple of weeks in the shape of Previously..., Edinburgh's history festival.

Amongst the plethora of events I attended several. They both entertained and educated. I learnt that there is a Roman fort in Bearsden, that the Jacobites at Culloden were not wielding claymores but firing the same sort of muskets as their foes, that Napoleon's main problem was an inability to stop when the going was good and much more.

What I expected to learn at a talk about King Alfred was the truth about the cakes, but they weren't even mentioned.  I didn't dare sully the fairly academic atmosphere by raising the issue in the Q&A.

The talks were a bit like the Fringe audiencewise although the audience were never outnumbered by the cast (usually only one) when I was present though some came damn close.  The best attended event to which I'd say a hundred or so turned up was a double act with Alec Salmond and Tom Devine.

In the first half Devine probed Salmond's journey to and through his political life.  With many amusing digressions and comments on the political personalities he had come across on the way we heard about his grandad's influence, his reason for choosing to go to the not overwhelmingly Scottish university of St Andrews and his various electoral campaigns.

In the second half Salmond took questions from the audience and dealt supremely well with all of them.  He finished off with a hilarious impersonation of Ricky Fulton's Reverend Jolly that made me regret very much that I didn't see his Fringe show. He's clearly a comedian manqué.

He'll be back at the Fringe next year but this time in a more serious vein talking about some Scots who are not as well known as he believes they should be.  James Connolly and Thomas Muir are two amongst those he intends to discuss.  I'll definitely try to be there.

The other Salmond activity that has aroused controversy and that he stoutly defended is his RT interview series.  I haven't seen any of them but I've set up my TV to record them from now on.  The first one I should see will be the St Andrew's night show.  You could hardly choose one more appropriate. 

History of another sort hit the Traverse bar this evening with the launch of the Scottish Jazz Archive.  This is a project to gather and curate memories and memorabilia of the Scottish jazz scene from its earliest days (thought to be the 1930s) to the present day and beyond.  If you can fight your way through the adverts you can read a little more about it in this Scotsman article and a website will eventually appear because this is intended to be a digital archive rather than a physical one.