This extraordinarily garish structure has been erected on the site of the northern gatehouse of the Roman fort of Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall to celebrate the 1900th anniversary of the start of the building of the wall. Luckily the intention is to take it down later this year rather than leave it there for another 1900 years so Hadrian can stop turning in his grave.
I've long intended to visit the wall and have at last made it. I spent a weekend in Hexham, which I found to be a charming town with some grand old buildings and a lovely park and decent places to eat and drink. There is a bus service that connects various points of interest aong the wall. I used it to visit two forts, Housesteads and Vindolanda and thoroughly enjoyed them both. Vindolanda has a terrific museum where I could have lingered longer than I did but didn't feel up to spending another two hours in it which I'd have had to given the bus timetable. (Greatly reduced over the years according to one of the custodians).
Should there be a next time I'll walk a section.
Ewan and I had a day trip up to the Highland Wildlife Park so that he could, inter alia, see the Macaques that he'd gifted me adoptive fatherhood of. We were extremely lucky in that respect because the monkeys were gathered en masse by the path that runs past their enclosure unlike when I was there before. We had an excellent day, seeing lots of animals.
It was the day after the first session of the photography course that I'd signed up to so I took lots of pictures trying to use the knowledge that I'd gained the previous day. Then and on the two subsequent classes I've attended it's been primarily, even entirely, learning how to find and operate a number of the multitudinous features that my little camera has. Others in the group have much bigger and more serious looking cameras but they'd be wasted on me at the moment.
Perhaps by the time I go to Japan next year I'll feel that I can handle one. I'm not now going there for the 19th World Saxophone Congress because after two postponements due to Covid, economic downturn, the war in Ukraine etc it's been cancelled. The International Saxophone Committee have been canvassing opinions about where to go from here. They make interesting reading. You'll see that it's not only me who is dismayed by the cancellation and anxious that a way should be found to continue the periodic worldwide gatherings. There's a mildly bright side in that I won't now need to be away in July so could be available to rehearse for the 2023 Fringe. I'm thinking about visiting at cherry blossom time instead.
The congress cancellation is not the only cultural blow to hit me. The charity behind Filmhouse, the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Belmont in Aberdeen has gone bust. The cinemas closed overnight and next year's film festival is in doubt. Just a week before Filmhouse closed I saw there Buñuel's "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie". A beautiful new print and an enjoyable film. Better people than me say it's a work of genius so maybe it is.
I went to the anatomy exhibition at the museum which didn't engage me quite as much as I had expected whereas I found seeing the Gutenburg Bible at the National Library gave me a little thrill. But the soup at the museum was excellent.
Nicola Benedetti who has just taken up the role of EIF director was playing with the SCO at the Usher Hall in a super concert that I thoroughly enjoyed unlike an RSNO concert that didn't really appeal to me. I'm not sure why I went to that one since it featured works on harpsichord and on organ neither of which instruments particularly appeal to me.
Theatrewise I've had a few wee treats. Rona Munro's James IV opened in Edinburgh. I found it mildly disappointing in comparison with the previous plays in the sequences which I remember (rightly or wrongly) as containing much more about the events and the politics of the reigns. I think the keynote line of the play which we heard at the beginning and at the end was "we were real" or something like it. So the focus was on the imagined personalities and relationships of both the real and the invented characters. I thought it was quite successful in that respect and I enjoyed the play but I regret the change of focus. Even the disaster of Flodden got a pretty cursory treatment though I suppose we may find that featuring as a foundation stone of James V when that is unveiled.
I came across a piece by Mark Fisher in which Rona Munro talks about her aims for the play which don't seem to include much about the events of the reign so suck boo to me.
Noises Off is a splendidly amusing farce that I saw on the last night of the Pitlochry Festival Theatre's summer season. It was a good trip. I enjoyed the play. I like what the theatre is doing to upgrade its front of house facilites and I had a very comfy sleep in the Backpackers Hotel - note not Hostal. Then there was Kenneth Branagh on the telly in the Billy plays that he performed in shortly after leaving drama school and which the BBC ran as part of their centenary celebrations. They were well worth the rerun.
Lastly The Satyricon from EGTG and Arbery Theatre. The play wasn't nearly as silly as my memory of it from a read-through suggested and I thought the production was terrific.
Finally here's another shot of Roman remains with a bit of lovely Northumbria in the background.
