Here's a poor delivery rider trying to read his phone to find out where he's got to struggle to next through the snow.  Luckily for him the snow only lasted for a few days.

Winter sports resorts throughout Europe and in Scotland as well have had buckets of snow this winter but thanks to Covid have made no money from it.  Competitions have continued but without spectators.  I've been watching the World Alpine Skiing Championships from Cortina which happens to be the last place I went skiing so I've actually skiied on some of the same snow.  Not so fast nor on the steeper sections but still.

I've also tuned in to the Australian Open Tennis.  There they had spectators (a fraction of the usual number) until a case of Covid turned up and the state of Victoria closed down.  

It's carnival time but most places have cancelled their usual festivities including Venice where friends of mine tell me the city is much pleasanter without crowds of tourists.  (There are still a few and shops, bars etc are open during the day).  I can sympathise with that view but on the other hand as a tourist I like the liveliness of crowds.  

My chums have been having some instruction in Italian from a school where I spent a week in 2015 and have discovered that I feature on the school's website.  

On-line theatre going continues.  We visited the Globe to see Two Noble Kinsmen.  This is a silly tale part written by Shakespeare but it's a jolly romp with lots of sparkling performances.  Two one-acts from Mull theatre were very good if a little serious.  

A tale of murder by the name of Traces set in Dundee was well told on BBC iPlayer and I owe some TV channel(s) or other thanks for The Post and for Snowden.  The former stars Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks and tells the story of the publication by The New York Times and more particularly by The Washington Post of what became known as The Pentagon Papers.  These revealed systematic lying by the US government about the Vietnam war.  I'd seen the fim before but it was well worth a second viewing.  

Snowden I didn't know.  Apparently it didn't do too well at the box office but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It tells the story of Edward Snowden who leaked classified information about mass surveillance by the US government to the press, The Guardian in fact.  Naturally the US wanted to prosecute him and naturally he tried to flee their juristiction.  They revoked his passport and he got stuck in Moscow en route to warmer climes.  The poor chap is still there.

The most ambitious and most unusual show I saw online came from the Manipulate Festival.  Called The End of TV it tells a pretty straighforward story of industrial decline and its effect on an old lady and a younger one whose paths intersect.  In short it's the death of the American dream I suppose.  It's well described and reviewed here.  I felt it was much more medium than message, too much more.

Since I last posted I haven't done anything quite as exciting as the walk I described then.  With a Covid 19 jag in prospect (mine is due on Wednesday) I've been keeping an even lower profile than before, thinking it would be more than annoying to catch it now.  The weather has helped.  It's been largely inclement so there has been little temptation to go out.  I shop infrequently and early.  That's a habit I'd like to keep going when life returns to normal but will it ever return to normal.

Fortunately entertainment and diversion has continued to be present in abundance and I've collaborated ever so minorly in Claire's latest theatrical enterprise by prompting at some rehearsals.  Roulette presents on-line dating encounters and it promises to be a fascinating show in which the sequence of events is determined by audience votes.

More conventional shows that I saw in January were:

Sunset Boulevard from The Curve in Leicester.  This was a beautifully presented Covid safe version of the Lloyd Weber musical, itself based on the Billy Wilder 1950 film, that the company had staged a year or two ago.  Billed as a concert performance this production was fully costumed and while basically performed in the round it took full advantage of The Curve's auditorium to expand the action outward from the central stage.

Swingin' the Dream from the RSC.  This was more truly a concert performance, and was what's more billed as a work in progress.  The original show of this name was a 1939 Broadway jazz infused version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Despite the strength of the cast and the music it folded after only 13 performances and almost no traces of it persist.  What the RSC, in collaboration with the Young Vic and New York's Theatre for a New Audience, are doing is putting together the fragments that we do have.  It was fun and I hope they get further.  The Guardian has an interesting article about it and an even more interesting photo of Loius Armstrong as Bottom surrounded by the fairies. 

L'École des femmes from the Odéon Théâtre de l'Europe. A modern dress #Metoo version of Molière's comedy about an older man raising a young girl to be an innocent and free from guile marital partner for him when she's just the right age.  Of course a young man crosses her path and the best laid and all that.  It's still available on vimeo with subtitles and worth the watch.  I first saw this play at the Avignon Theatre Festival in 1981 with Pierre Arditi playing the old man. I'd gone there with the theatre going group from Paris that I was member of.  They arranged group tickets for shows, fixed transport and hotel etc.  I think it was probably only for a long weekend but it was a great excursion.  I don't remember much about the production.  It took place in the courtyard of the Palais des Papes and involved a trapdoor.  That's all I remember. Pathetic.  Since then I think I've only seen Liz Lochead's version, Educating Agnes.  What I remember about that production was that it was not wonderful.  I don't think I've seen Kemp's version, Let Wives Tak Tent though I'd like to.  Molière seems to work well in Scots.

Dalloway from Dyad Productions.  A film of their Fringe production it's a one woman adaptation of Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel.  I thought it was excellent and I'm not a great fan of one person shows but Rebecca Vaughan portrayed the characters both male and female extremely well.  Subtle changes in the way she held herself and well controlled changes of voice brought the disparate protagonists to life.  I also enjoyed the text.  I haven't read the novel and I don't suppose I ever will even if I bring into action my retirement at 80 plan that envisages me doing nothing but read thereafter.  It's still available, click here.

I watched a handful of zoomy shows from the vast selection at Online@theSpace.  They entertained but haven't stuck in my memory in more than a fragmentary way.  What's new there I hear you say.

The National Library of Scotland have brought their talks online like so many organisations and I attended a couple but found them unexceptional, nuff said.

Claire organised an online Burns Supper which was great fun.  There was no actual supper.  I nibbled some bread and cheese and imbibed a fair swallie of usquebah.  We had a Scottish themed quiz.  I came last equal.  Siobhan sang a song.  I recited/read the Address to the Haggis and Tam o' Shanter.  

More Burns came in the shape of a book by John Cairney that Fiona sent me.  It's an account of the years he spent doing a show or rather shows as Burns around the world from it's beginning at the Traverse in 1965.  I devoured the book.  I enjoyed all his stories and was more than a little tickled at his account of meeting Brian Aherne in Geneva for it is to my mother's admiration of him that I owe my name.