My U3A Italian class is underway for the 2019/20 session.  Waitrose couldn't fit us in on the day we wanted so I've moved the thing to the McDonald Road library which couldn't be more convenient for me.  Not so handy for everyone else but tough.

The Play, Pie and Pint Autumn season has kicked off as well and I went to see the first offering, From Paisley to Paolo by Martin McCardie.  It was an amusing and sometimes moving piece about friendship whose plot turned on the fact that one of the three protagonists was obsessed by Paolo Nutini to the extent that he had developed a close but fantasy friendship with him based on having been acquainted with him at school.  His mates had gone along with this for years but at a musical festival where Nutrini is performing they decide to call his bluff.  Other falsehoods fall away and there's a neat twist at the end.

Now Nutini as well as being a Paisley buddie is one of the many Scottish Italians whose roots are in Barga where according to Wikipedia 40% of the population have Scottish relatives.  John Bellany (not a Scottish Italian) had a home there.  Its jazz festival is pencilled into my mental diary for some future trip.

I've seen bits and pieces of the very popular TV show Fleabag and went along with Claire to see a cinecast of the original one woman Edinburgh Fringe show on which the series was based.  It was a very accomplished performance but I was no more excited by it than I have been by the TV show.  However because of some building work that was going on close to the screen in which it was showing Cineworld dished out compensatory free tickets so I've the chance of going to see something more to my taste at a future date.

Portobello has been blessed with a new bookshop which I browsed around when I went down on Saturday to the Porty Art Walk.  I wish the shop all success but refrained from buying a book on the grounds that I've got too many waiting to be read and on order from the library.  When I do need to buy a book I've promised myself I'll go down to Porty to get it.

This window wasn't part of the art offering but I think it deserves to be.

I had a good wander around but the only arty thing I lingered over was the showing of a film in what had been the site of the Victory cinema.  I was familiar with the art deco George cinema in Bath Street which was in operation until 1974 and whose slightly battered building is still there but didn't know that there had been another cinema further down the street.

According to the artist running the screening she had modified (artistically) a copy of the last film shown there.  Called John and Julie it was about two kids running off to see the coronation in 1953.  The modifications involved superimposing images, splitting the screen, distorting faces, changing voices and so on.  I don't feel competent to judge their artistic value but I did enjoy the pukka 50's accents and the appearances of various well known actors including Sid James, who was not sporting a cut glass accent.

There was a large crowd on the beach made up of supporters of the half dozen or more teams from  off-shore rowing clubs having an end of season regatta.  It had been going on all day but I only caught the tail-end.  Here's the North Berwick boat hitting the beach ahead of the fleet

Unfortunately for them their cox had to run up the beach, collect a wellington boot and run back to his boat to seal victory and someone ran faster than him.  It all looked great fun.  I loved the slogan on the back of one girl's hoodie

PS I came across this feasibility study for turning the George into a culrural event space.  I suspect that with the community takeover of Bellfield the likelihood of renovating the George is not high.