Some months ago it went out of business and has since been replaced by a restaurant whose husband and wife team come from loftier, more spacious eateries with well established reputations for excellence. All the indications are that they are carving out a splendid reputation for themselves in The Little Chartroom.
It took me a while but thanks to Siobhan I have now eaten there. We had their delicious and reasonably priced set lunch but true to form ramped up the bill with an equally delicious bottle of booze. We didn't ramp up the bill quite so much as the group of friends I bumped into hard by its door on my way home from a Dunedin Band playaway day. They had just rolled out after a celebratory lunch that had rolled on till nigh on teatime.
They prevailed upon me (effortlessly) to join them for a drink in The Black Fox but finding the wine list unexciting we repaired to my flat for a couple of jolly and sociable hours. I managed to scrape together some snacks to complement the wines and watched with a smidgeon of regret several lumps of my tasty home made salmon and spinach quiche that had survived the playaway day lunch slip down one particular guest's gullet. Let's face it, the portions at these fine dining places tend not to overfill the stomach.
I had another very pleasant lunching experience a few days later at Merchants where I don't think I've eaten before. This was the the U3A Group Leaders lunch which is apparently an annual tribute by the membership to the sterling work done by those who lead the multifareous interest groups that make up the organisation in Edinburgh. That meant that in addition to being eaten in sociable company and being excellent the food was free.
Perhaps that will soften me up into continuing my not so sterling efforts leading the Intermediate Italian group. I fell into the position by default of course. The former leader resigned and I was the least unwilling of an unwilling bunch of candidates to take over. I quite enjoy it, even the fact that I prepare all the material for our fortnightly meetings. Although that's a bit of a burden it has the advantage that I learn while doing so, which in itself is useful since most of the participants know rather more Italian than I do.
My post festive concert going got into its stride at the end of January with an SCO programme that featured Berlioz's Les Nuits d'Eté. That was fine but I enjoyed rather more the pieces by Gounod (Petite Symphonie), Debussy (Petite Suite and Danses sacrée et profane) and Tanguy (Incanto) that made up the rest of the programme.
That gig was conducted by the ebullient François Leleux who managed to combine conducting and playing the oboe to wonderful effect last season. He featured in a Sunday afternoon concert that I went to last weekend. It had some Mozart and stuff that was pleasant enough but the second half was magic. Classical music can struggle to be humorous but by combining the clarinet and the double bass Hindemith hit the button. Prokofiev's wind quintet, the other work in the second half, wasn't designed to raise laughs. I loved its dissonances and jagged qualities.
Passing over the RSNO's Bruckner which I'm sure was very well played but which did not stir my interest much (I kept wondering when it would end) we come to their much more enjoyable offering on Friday last. It started with some stuff by Thomas Adès that I gather comes from his opera about the Duchess of Argyle's sexual shenanigans in the 60s that I didn't much enjoy. The music that is. I wasn't an intimate of the duchess.
They gave us then an arrangement of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess which was lovely followed by the Scottish premiere of the violin concerto written by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis for Nicola Benedetti. She was there to play it. The piece is really a putting together of many elements of American music - jazz, swing, big band, blues, spirituals, gospel and ragtime. But not only American. There's a touch of ceilidh and tango as well. Maybe the most striking thing about it was the ending. The orchestra fell silent as Nicola playing more and more quietly slowly left the stage.
Jazz unalloyed with classical music has also been on my programme recently. A little festival of Belgian jazz has been in town and I went to three gigs, one of which I loved unconditionally, one I'm less enthusastic about and one I could have forgone although I admired the effort that had gone into it. I just didn't care for the result.
The gem involved two groups. The first was a Scoto-Belgian band whose Scottish moving force was Mark Hendry. He's a double bass player and composer who was a thrilling addition to last year's Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival. There's a Youtube video showing them putting things together in which Mark mentions never having written for bass clarinet before. He learned pretty quickly believe me.
The second group were wholly Belgian, the Mâäk Quintet. They were brilliant, especially their inexhaustible Sousaphone player. Enjoy them here.
I earned two bonuses from attending those gigs. Firstly I got into conversation with a Belgian classical flautist recently established in Scotland and who with luck may replace one of the two flautists leaving the SCO. She introduced me to the Nevis Ensemble with which she has been playing. It's a sort of flashmob orchestra that I'm surprised I didn't know anything about. I'm now on their mailing list.
Secondly I learnt that in the last weekend of May every year Brussels becomes home to a riot of free jazz indoors and out. That's now in my diary.
The V&A Dundee has been open for a few months now and their Ocean Liner exhibition is nearing its end so, having a day more or less free yesterday I went up. The building is impressive, maybe not entirely as gobsmacking as the Guggenheim in Bilbao but arresting nevertheless.
It may be our trip on one of the last ocean liners that is at the root of my interest in them or maybe it's my hotel connection but I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition which is substantially larger than a show about liners that I saw in Genoa a couple of years ago. It's really astonishing the degree of luxury that the first class passengers enjoyed on those ships. Our trip on the Asia wasn't in the first-class section but I don't think those passengers who were in it could have been quite as cossetted as is shown in the V&A show. Mind you the damaged deckchair and the section of highly decorative woodwork from the Titanic that are on show could dampen one's enthusiasm.
One of the exhibits that I most appreciated was a dress labelled as a "Salambo" dress designed by a famous couturier of the day, Jeanne Lanvin, and worn by an American socialite. Searching the web for a decent photo of it I came across an excellent post about the exhibition that is worth reading in the Historical and Regency Romance blog where I can assure you I don't normally hang out that has a picture of how it is displayed in the show.
Now next door to the V&A is the Discovery centre that I also visited. It's totally wonderful. I shall go again and may even think of an Antartic expedition myself some time, though I shall demand a greater degree of comfort than Scott and his companions enjoyed even if I don't rise to travelling first class. One of the most interesting features of the exhibition is a display of the current research station that we have in the Antartic. The contrast with Scott's day is like first class and steerage in the transatlantic liners.
