Despite being incarcerated at Her Majesty's government's pleasure in a sort of medically approved house arrest I am getting about and enjoying a social life.  Almost entirely virtually of course but no less (well maybe a bit less) enjoyable for all that.

Certainly more enjoyable to my mind than running round your penthouse terrace as this lady spied from my bedroom window.

Today as the chill east wind that has blighted our beautiful blue skies for most of the week died down in intensity I had my coffee on the balcony and read a bit more of Havana Requiem, a Cuban cops and robbers tale.  The corruption of some of the cops in the story is straighforward compared to the intrigues unveiled in the wonderful radio series about cops, robbers and nastiness in high places, The Corrupted.

I'd heard episodes of this now and again (all set during Margaret Thatcher's time) but it was only this week that I discovered thanks to BBC Sounds that the story started in the closing years of the second world war.  There are in all about fifty forty-five minute episodes split into five series.  I am working my way through with all the enthusiasm and pleasure that Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul gave me.  It's been fascinating as the back stories are revealed in early episodes of characters and incidents that I knew of from having heard later episodes first.  The mixing together of real and imaginary characters and events gives a truly absorbing flavour not unlike that evoked by Hilary Mantel's trilogy about Thomas Cromwell.  Fortunately for G.F.Newman who wrote it, you can't libel the dead.

The internet has abounded with free screenings of plays, concerts, musicals and other entertainments and I've taken advantage.

From the National Theatre; One Man Two Guvnors, Jane Eyre, Treasure Island, Twelfth Night..

From Hampstead; Tiger Country, Amsterdam, Drawing the Line.

From The Royal Court; Cyprus Avenue.

From The Really Useful lot; JC Superstar, Phantom of the Opera.

From a pirate; Hamilton

From Curve Theatre; What the Butler Saw

From Northern Ballet; 1984

From the SCO; Various musical vignettes in a weekly email

From the RSNO; regular Friday night concerts

From the Berlin Philharmonic; free access to their archived recordings

From the BBC; iPlayer abounds with stuff.  I watched Wise Children first half only cos it didn't grab me.

From Mind the Gap; Zara

From the Scottish Jazz and Blues Festival;  The 2019 Blues Weekend gigs.

Some of these have been watched in virtual company through Zoom, meeting for a pre-show drink and then a post-show chat which has been most enjoyable.

Add to that a weekly blow with three other saxophonists from the Dunedin Band, my individual sax lesson, my on-line Japanese sessions and occasional social get-togethers leaving little time to bemoan one's fate.  Can I squeeze in U3A Italian?  We'll soon find out.

Out for my approved exercise I photographed Arthur's Seat through some foliage from Regent Terrace.
 

Wednesday would have been the opening night of The Venetian Twins which I was rehearsing with Arkle until the virus intervened.  Another excellent Goldoni play is The Servant of Two Masters which in its adapted form of One Man Two Guvnors appeared last night on Youtube as part of the National Theatre's contribution to relieving the boredom of the housebound population.  I can't say I'm in the least bored but more of that later.

I saw One Man... at the Kings when it was touring and loved it.  I'd forgotten much of the detail but after the opening scene was over and the action moved to Brighton it gradually came back. Brilliant characterisations, amazing slapstick skills, such fun.  If you were depressed by home incarceration that would surely have lifted your spirits.

Wikipedia lists 13 adaptations for stage and screen including Victor Carin's Scots version Servant O' Twa Maisters which I have also seen.  I'm not sure where or when but it is not impossible that I saw Tom Fleming's production in 1965 that opened the first season of the then new Royal Lyceum Company.

Lord Reith's succinct BBC mission statement "inform, educate, entertain" still governs what they and the other broadcasting organisations that have come into existence since the 1920s do.  Add to that the worldwide digital resources that we have at our fingertips today and no-one with a radio, a TV or particularly a broadband connection need experience a minute of boredom.  Perhaps the Chancellor should have added Corbyn's free broadband pledge to his support packages.

I've been making full use of my broadband connection.

I auditioned online for a Fringe play.  The play itself has now fallen foul of the festival cancellations but that's another tin of beans.  I'm having my sax lessons via Skype.  I've signed up for some online Japanese conversation.  I've watched ballet and theatre that I would not have been able to see live and which under normal circumstances would never have appeared on screen, and there is much more in store.  The RSNO are providing concerts to their subscribers and the SCO have been sending little musical treats to my inbox.

I've started getting some indoor exercise (the outdoors being mostly verboten) thanks to dance classes for the elderly being screened by Sadlers Wells and by Scottish Ballet.  There's not much actual dancing involved which is just as well and it's not that ultra vigorous jumping about to the accompaniment of uncomfortably loud music that is also on offer online.  Sedate stretching and bending is at its core.

Last but certainly not least have been social gatherings via Skype and Zoom.

Offline there's reading of which I have lots to catch up on and my CD collection.

I'm making infrequent trips to the supermarket and taking even more infrequent short walks.

I am not undertaking a thorough or even a cursory Spring clean.

Wellnigh deserted Leith Walk

Closed All Hours