After the show was over; the show in question being Christmas at the Conservatoire in which the music theatre students strutted their stuff, loosened their larynges and belted out their ballads.  It was a fun entertainment after lunch with school chums on election day.

The other Christmasy offering I've been to recently was Scottish Ballet's The Snow Queen.  I enjoyed it well enough but felt it lacked the strength and punch that they injected into The Crucible in the Festival.  I can't say I know the story intimately and I was bit puzzled here and there, no more so than when the Snow Queen imitates Tosca and throws herself into the void at the end. Here's what The Guardian thought.

I missed the Dunedin's concert because of a prior engagement with Nicola Benedetti and the RSNO.  However with seven alto saxes in the line-up these days I can't imagine I was missed.  The RSNO gig was a treat.

My Italian group had its last session. I'd dragged up a jolly Christmas song on which to base an exercise.  You can listen to it below but I'll spare you the find the missing words exercise.  They're not missing in the video.  That was followed by a convivial lunch at Vittoria's. 


The Clydedale bank branch across the road closed down some months ago and recently people have been hard at work redding up the premises for some new endeavour.  Most likely another coffee bar thought I.  But no it's a British Red Cross shop.  Just what we don't need, another charity shop.  But it looks like one with a difference.  The gear in the windows appears to be brand new and although I haven't yet been inside from what I could see all the stock may be new.  If so that must be a first.

I'm feeling rather pleased with myself this afternoon.  One of my responsibilities as Secretary of the Dicksonfield Owners and Residents Association is the maintenance of our website (www.dicksonfield.co.uk if you fancy a look).

When I took it over I revamped it using excellent software called Webstudio that I'd used for years but when I had to replace a hard disk some years ago and tried to port the software I discovered that the company had gone out of business and no-one had taken over sales and support of Webstudio.  I found through a user forum a workaround but after a second problem when I had to replace my computer the workaround no longer worked.  So I had to buy new web building software and recreate the site.

That's worked well enough for the last three years and the UK branch of the software developer has helped sort out a couple of problems.  I don't need to update the site very often but I do add information and files after our quarterly meetings and set about doing so after our meeting this week. But the software won't run and the UK people tell me they no longer sell or support the product and advised me to take my problem to the US.  I've done so but they say "Who are you?  You're not on our customer records."  Well I won't be because I bought the thing from Argos, who will certainly be unable to help.  I suspect that a Windows 10 update will prove to be the culprit.  That happened before and the symptoms are similar.

So pending the Americans getting back to work on Monday and possibly helping me I set about some old-fashioned editing of the site pages using my tried and tested method of coding HTML and CSS.  That is to say copy, modify and paste; and glory be it's all worked perfectly.