This is one of the many, many monkeys to be found in Edinburgh zoo.  The fact that he's got himself slightly out of focus by hiding in a tree doesn't hide the fact that he's not the monkey I had gone to the zoo to see.  The Japanese macaque whose adoptive father I have been for ten months courtesy of a Christmas gift is it turns out domiciled at the zoo's Highland premises. 

Notwithstanding that disappointment we had a lovely afternoon, seeing the famous pandas and the zoo's newest acquistion, half a dozen giraffes as well as those old favourites the penguins.

 

 

 

 

 We finished off the day with platters and wine at Nótt.

The RSNO held their first Usher Hall concert since the pandemic struck.  The audience were very enthusiastic even though spread out socially thinly and masked; to the extent that the opening announcement was drowned out by applause.  

The main work was Stravinsky's Firebird ballet music and before the interval we heard some lovely cello playing in Tchaikovsky's Rococco Variations preceded by the very cheerful Festive Overture by Shostakovich and a short and appropriately celebratory fanfare called The Isle is Full of Noises by Scottish composer Mathew Rooke.

You can't beat a full symphony orchestra giving it laldy and we loved it.  It's a bit comical seeing the conductor's mask going on and off as he takes his calls but heh that's pandemics for you.

I also enjoyed another SCO concert, at the Queen's Hall this time.  Again we were all socially distanced and masked, though as at the Usher Hall the bar was open and there was an interval in which to patronise it unlike earlier more tentative gigs I've been to.

They played Bach, Mozart and Haydn which was all very fine but the piece that caught my ear was Die Schöne Melusine by Mendelssohn. Wikipedia tells me that 

The piece was written in 1834 as a birthday gift for Mendelssohn's sister Fanny In a letter to her of 7 April 1834, he explains that he had picked on the subject after seeing Conradin Kreuzer's opera Melusina the previous year in Berlin. Kreutzer's overture, writes Mendelssohn "was encored, and I disliked it exceedingly, and the whole opera quite as much: but not [the singer] Mlle. Hähnel, who was very fascinating, especially in one scene when she appeared as a mermaid combing her hair; this inspired me with the wish to write an overture which the people might not encore, but which would cause them more solid pleasure."[

Well I haven't heard Kreutzer's overture but I'm happy to take Mendelssohn's word for it since I enjoyed his so much.

There was more good music at Scottish Ballet's Starstruck, albeit recorded. This was a reworking of Pas de Dieux, a ballet that Gene Kelly choreographed for the Paris Opera in 1960.  It was a lovely thing to watch and seemed to me rather like a Broadway musical without the songs.  I didn't follow the plot other than realising that two chaps were squabbling over a girl - Broadway musical again.  Later consultation of the programme online enlightened me.  It was all about Aphrodite, Eros and Zeus.  Who'd have known.

There was an interesting post show chat with Kelly's widow and members of Scottish Ballet including their artistic director Christopher Hampton who choreographed Starstruck. 

Another stage work I've seen recently was The Enemy by The National Theatre of Scotland.  This again was a retelling, this time of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People.  

I very much enjoyed the presentation of the show, the combination of video and on-stage acting, the clever take off of publicity material, the twitter storm moments and more.  But I was less enthralled by the quality of some of the acting, a lack of dramatic tension and more importantly I'm not sure what the point of putting on the play was.

How exactly did they recast the play for the modern age?  They added a whiff of sexual misdemeanours and cast women as the main characters but I can't think of much else.  So was it just to point out that plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?  Maybe it was and maybe that's a good enough reason.

 

We fortified ourselves before the show by eating at Ong Gie.  Korean food was new to me.  Unsurpringly it bears a resemblance to Chinese.  The meal was delicious but when they say "spicy" be warned, they mean it.

On a lovely sunny day I went out for a walk in the West Lothian countryside and this is one of the things I saw.  An unusual sight you might think but not in that particular corner of West Lothian.  I was in Jupiter Artland which as well as having beautiful woods, fine views and a magnificent country house is also home to works of art such as this.

I ventured to Modern One for some more visual art, a much praised video installation about Frederick Douglass the American slave who gained his freedom and campaigned thereafter for abolition.  He was famed for his writing and his oratory and spent a couple of years based in Scotland.  The ten screen video installation was pleasant to look at but if I hadn't already known about Douglass or watched the "making of" video next door I don't think I'd have learnt much.  Does that matter?

Back to an art form I'm more at home with I went to the Traverse to enjoy their brief Play, Pie and Pint season.  Two of the three shows were excellent.  First Rose, about Rose Reilly.  Who she you ask.  As did I.  Played  international football for both Scotland and Italy,  named female world fooballer of the year, banned by the SFA who eventually saw the error of their ways.  It's a fascinating story and was brilliantly dramatised and performed.  Then A New Life which was a sparkling musical comedy with a tap dancing baby and a serious strand about post natal depression.  The third, which I saw first was called Celestial Body.  I thought it was mildly entertaing but the story of the entrapment of a gym going washing machine engineer by the parents of a child who had died in an accident caused (?) by him failed to set my dramatic sensitivites alight.

Musically the SNJO gave their first post lockdown concert, a celebration for their 25th birthday which treated us to a selection of pieces from their extensive repertoire over those years with a series of first class solos from a number of players, not least Tommy Smith himself. 

The SCO likewise presented their first post lockdown concert in which they played two suitably upbeat and exhilarating pieces, Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto and Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony.

Although the music has a Scottish feel to it none of it is scored for the pipes but I had the pleasure of visiting the National Piping Centre in Glasgow where the sound of the pipes is ever present in their little museum.  Not in their restaurant though where Andrew and I had an excellent lunch.  My traditional battered fish and chips was one of the best I've ever had and was washed down with a very tasty white Rioja.

I've had two more eating out experiences since I last posted.  Claire and Phil treated us to an end of summer barbeque leg of lamb of exceptional tastiness.  The taste lingered but not as long as the smell of woodsmoke has persisted in my jersey.  In a less domestic setting I had lunch in The Lookout on Calton Hill.  This is an offshoot of The Gardener's Cottage down below.  The views are of course superb.  The food was excellent.  The wines were winsome enough to encourage the opening of a second bottle.  The prices were outstanding.

After lunch I wandered down to the Mound Precinct where the Homeless World Cup had been being played and where the crowd were being entertained by the Fun Lovin' Crime Writers Band with Val McDermid on vocals.