Coping with being indoors during inclement weather means for me reading, listening to the radio and pottering about with software. Since I'm temporary custodian of some DVD's that constitute Connor's birthday gift to Ewan I've had a few hours entertainment from them as well.

The romantic/sexual adventures of the DVD boys (can't name them for fear that Ewan reads this before the gift is handed over) made me laugh, but perhaps not as much as the similar rich vein of relationship gold mined by Nick Hornby in High Fidelity. I really was helpless with laughter at some points. I could not have got onto my feet to run off had the house suddenly burst into flames. His work may seem far from Billy Connolly but in terms of its accurate and affectionate observation of people's frailties it reminded me of Connolly at his best.

One book I'm still reading that examines people's frailties in a wholly different context is The Middle Sea (A History of the Mediterranean) by John Julius Norwich. It may sound heavy but the text flows smoothly and deftly over the massacres of the Crusades, the venalities of the Popes, the plots of Kings and Queens and the almost always bloody rise and fall of empires. And I've only got up to the fifteenth century. Don't ask me any questions about it though. While it's an entertaining read it's a struggle to retain what I've learnt for longer than it takes to make a cup of tea between chapters.

Playing with the software I already have is never enough, although I'm quite pleased with these Majorcan triplets, so I've been downloading bits and pieces. With the pitifully slow connection that we have here that can take time. The last file I downloaded took four and a half hours. Best not to be in a hurry. More often than not I find that I can do without whatever joys the software offered and I get rid of it. However that can be easier said than done. They don't always want to go, or at least not entirely. I'm currently labouring to find out how to remove a harmless but annoying trace left by one piece of translation software. Keeps me happy while it's raining at any rate.

I found myself in the sports pages of the regional press this week. I'd like to tell you that it was as a result of some sporting triumph but that would strain your credulity as well as being bullshit. I took part in the regional heat of a national pitch and putt competition that was covered by La Nouvelle Republique. For some unaccountable reason the picture they chose to illustrate the event show me prominently in the foreground. Unusually you can't link to an individual story on the paper's website so here's a rather fuzzy picture I've pinched from them. (Well they didn't ask my permission to flash my photo round the world.) I've also copied the story itself which they do allow. If you should want to read it you can download from here the newspaper page it appears on. It's preceded by a football story so don't think you've got the wrong page. There are a few typos in it, notably wherever the reporter says "part" he means "par".

You may be surprised at the age of the winner.

Oh my God, prescient or what? It was glittering. Check the opening sentence of the news report.

Yesterday's rain drove me off the golf course after only four holes and home to an early bath and the exciting discovery that Claire's Fringe production had earned a FOUR STAR review on its opening night.

Further glory was bestowed on it by a commendation at a glittering awards ceremony in the Gilded Balloon last night. (I wasn't there to see but it was bound to be glittering because that's the way we theatricals like it).

What will today's rain bring?

Yesterday’s rain sent me to the cinema. Unfortunately I didn’t join the throng of adults and children queuing to see Pixar’s latest animation “Ratatouille” but, swayed by his reputation, went instead to Chabrol’s “La fille coupée en deux”.

I read the crits afterwards. Would it have made any difference if I’d read them first? That depends on who I would have believed. Many were impressed, Le Monde amongst them. Not so Libération which said “his latest film doesn’t add anything new to the body of his work. Even worse, it often lapses into caricature, gives off an air of déjà-vu, and dare one say it, is slightly dated and tacky.”

The most succinct crit that I read and every word of which I endorse came from a Le Monde reader who said “Badly acted, without interest, boring……avoid it.”

My failure to reach a podium place continued yesterday but I was happy that it did.

Yesterday's Terruzzi-Puthod competition prizes were very fine trophies which I'm sure cost Enrico and Carmen, the sponsors, a few bob. Anyone winning one would have a delightful and permanent souvenir of their achievement - provided they had an appropriate display space.

That's something I'm very short of so on those grounds alone it was a relief not to win something that would have to join my various copper plaques in the roof.

Now there is almost always a draw after the prize-giving. All the cards go in but anyone who has won a proper prize is barred from getting a second one. My card was the first drawn and I went home with a litre bottle of Campari.

I love Campari and it was tastefully wrapped as well. A case of the last shall be first, no?

There are no bishops in the French upper house, least of all bishops whose frocks are in the gift of a Presbyterian; but even such a robustly secular nation whose legal separation of church and state in 1905 was the culmination of centuries of wrangling, enjoys a Christian public holiday or three.

Witness yesterday's Feast of the Assumption. Civil servants left their desks, postmen put away their sacks, doctors closed their consulting rooms, dentists ignored cries of pain, car salesmen turned off the ignition, teachers would have put down their chalk but they were already at leisure; all in memory of a doubtful historical episode in which Mary went to Heaven.

For retirees public holidays tend to be a minor nuisance. Shops are closed just when you need them and the buses run less frequently. But we put up with them, knowing that they will soon be over and we can get on with the serious business of life without work.

Two days hard work in the garden deserved a reward I thought.

I had been dreading tackling that grass again but it turned out to be just within the competence of the lawnmower, albeit with occasional breakdowns and the need to do the whole job twice at different cut settings to get to the “domesticated field” state that is as close to a lawn as it will ever be under my tutelage.

At least I didn’t have to do a preliminary sweep with the brushcutter. I needed it only for particularly heavy patches and where mower access was difficult. “Brushcutter” by the way seems to me a closer translation for débroussailleuse and one that has a much more satisfactorily macho ring to it than “strimmer”.

Yesterday I weeded the rockery and cut back bits of undergrowth (and overgrowth) so at 17.20 having set up my deckchair and poured myself a glass of ice-cold white wine I was more than a little annoyed when it started to rain.

Looks like summer is as far off as ever.

Apropos the suggestion that I hie me to Kabul here’s something Simon Jenkins had to say in the Guardian the other day:

“A reputed 10,000 NGO staff have turned Kabul into Klondike during the goldrush, building office blocks, driving up rents, cruising about in armoured jeeps and spending stupefying sums of other people's money, essentially on themselves.”

To read the entire article go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2143787,00.html

Paddy Ashdown, whose name is taken in vain in the article replied thus: http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2145699,00.html

I was sitting quietly nursing a pint in the garden of the Dog and Shepherd near Brighton on Monday evening when I took a call from BT. I don’t know how they got hold of my mobile number but I’m glad they did. For the call was to tell me that they have agreed to refund me the 106 pounds and change that they charged me for connecting Dicksonfield to the wide world of telephony in October last. In addition they promised to provide me with excellent service in future. Does that mean they have turned over a new leaf?

This is the second bit of financial good news in almost as many days, for the car problem that threatened to prevent me from getting to Inverary fell within the tight constraints of my warranty so I’ll be refunded for that.

The car was fixed in time for me to get to the wedding, not without having to stop en route to buy a shirt, having forgotten to pack the one I intended to wear for the ceremony.

The Highlands were lovely and it was a brilliant bash. For Claire, who has had sight of the photos I took, the highlight was April’s shoes. I reproduce that picture here for the rest of the world to wonder at and may get around to making my other snaps available.

Claire’s interest is a validation of part of something I heard a female stand-up comic say the other day. For her act she dresses as drably androgynous as she can because otherwise, she claims, no-one will listen to her barbed wit. Instead the men will ruminate on the beauty of her knockers and the women will drool over her shoes.

Yesterday morning I rose at 4.45 and got to Barbansais around 18.30. It was a nice change to drive down from Dieppe but I don’t think I’ll make a habit of it. Traffic on non motorway roads can be abominably slow.

The grass is perhaps not as bad as it was when I arrived in May but the rockery is worse. Maybe I should take Ian’s advice (given in slightly slurred syllables at his son's wedding on Saturday) and head for the lucrative pastures of Kabul and leave the Barbansais garden to fester. NO chance.

More car trouble.

When I collected it on Saturday morning I felt it didn't pull too well in first but I just drove it home. Took it out yesterday for the first time since and had the same sensation. Coming back around 6pm from losing a few balls on Braids No. 1 it shook a bit and a wee picture of a spanner sprang up on the display accompanied by loud beeping and the text "Engine Fault".

This morning I should be en route to Inverary for April's wedding. Instead, after a restless night, I was at the garage before 8 o'clock demanding satisfaction (politely of course) since this cannot surely be the coincidental incidence of a fault just after it has left their hands.

If they don't fix it today, and they were not exactly optimistic about squeezing the job in, I'll have to hire a car or persuade the garage to lend me one and drive to Inverary tomorrow morning. No doubt the B&B will still want their money so this wedding looks like turning out to cost me more than my own did.

My car problem pales into insignificance however in comparison to David and Sally's.

They were en route to Barbansais on Sunday speeding along a Spanish motorway when one of their tyres went. The car left the carriageway and shot across the other one, turned on its side, ripped through a crash barrier and ended right way up in an oleander grove.

They stepped out essentially unhurt. Even their luggage was unhurt. Police and breakdown crew who attended regaled them with tales of recent fatalities and congratulated them on their astounding good fortune. Thanks to their membership of the Spanish equivalent of the RAC they were able to get back to Malaga where they are now keeping clear of cars for a while.

Their plans to spend August in France have been abandoned and Barbansais's fate is on hold again.

This has been an expensive week.

While I was away a recall notice arrived for my car. Some manufacturing defect or other had affected the front suspension of a number of Stilos of my car's generation and I should bring it in for a bit of free re-engineering. Being here I did.

But as forecast by Connor the garage suggested that some non-free work was needed. The car is of an age where the camshaft should be replaced they said. Has that been done? Check your records I said, its maintenance has been in your hands since new. It had not been done and dire warnings followed about the consequences of not doing it. Spend hundreds now to save thousands later is the mantra.

Warranty? Sorry, that's a serviceable item and its replacement at the manufacturer's recommended intervals is thus not covered. If you do replace it and it breaks then it's covered but if you don't it's not. We'll investigate that gearbox oil leak while we're at it.

Oh dear, we'll have to take the gearbox out and reseal it. You could run it for a few more months before doing the work but, well, you know....

Warranty? That's wear and tear, nobody covers wear and tear.

I saved myself twenty quid by refusing their offer to replace the missing hub cap. I'll blow that on lunch out with friends today.

I love my bus pass even more.

It was Hazel Irvine who presented the Open highlights on Sunday night though Allis crept in from time to time as footage of earlier commentaries was aired. It was a good round-up and I lost nothing by not staying at Carnoustie till the bitter end.

She must have been given the round-up as compensation for having, throughout the competition, to interview the players as they came off ( apart from when Gary Lineker was called upon to display the Spanish that he learnt when he played for Barcelona). He was pretty good and I believe he speaks Japanese as well.

Anyway Hazel is an enthusiastic and lively journalist but she drew the short straw there. How many ways are there of asking players how they feel about being well up the leader board or nowhere near the leader board? She found an extraordinary number and you have to hand it to the players as well for the number of variations on "I'm feeling just dandy" and "I'm totally hacked off".

On Sunday I suffered through going out without waterproof trousers but today it was a sun hat I should have had with me, at least for a couple of hours until the absence of rainwear made itself felt.

I sat in the sun for a couple of hours watching what was billed as the Dunedin Dancers 19th International Folk Dance Festival, or rather one of the six shows they are doing in venues ranging from Falkland Palace to Stirling Castle. This was in Holyrood on a stretch of grass more or less in front of the Scottish Parliament. There were groups from Austria, Lithuania and the Czech Republic as well as from Scotland.

It was pretty entertaining though I can't say that knee-slapping and yodelling is my thing. I preferred the energetic but elegant dancing of the Lithuanians and the comedy routines of the Czechs.

You can see what it looked like by clicking the picture below.

Folkdancing

Well that's the Open over. I was out of the door before 7 this morning in light rain that got heavier the nearer I got to Carnoustie. I had been wise enough to wear my hill-walking boots and my Goretex anorak but I hadn't thought to put on rainproof trousers. That proved to be a cardinal error. The rain that poured from the sky ran down my anorak and onto my trousers and soaked in. When I sat down in any of the grandstands I suffered the double whammy of thighs lashed by rain and moisture attack from below.

Add to that the fact that I'd had to bin my multi-coloured golf umbrella shortly after arrival when a couple of spokes snapped off and ripped through it in the wind. Just as well really. I was able to keep my hands relatively warm in my pockets rather than allowing them to freeze holding an umbrella. I simply never thought of gloves.

By lunchtime I was beginning to think of going home and watching the rest on the tele. The prospect of being exposed yet again to Peter Allis's dire commentary held me back long enough for an Arbroath smokie ingested under lightening skies to revive my spirits and I stuck it out till it was obvious that a four hole play-off, and possibly more, would be necessary. Sharing the last train with 50 thousand others didn't appeal so I snuck off.

I'll see the play-off in the highlights later tonight. With luck that will be commented by Gary Linecker and not the awful Allis.

The golf by the was thoroughly enjoyable and the course is even more beautiful than when I first saw it. If it weren't £115 a round I'd be a regular.

I've been a bit of a couch potato this week watching the final day of the Scottish Open on TV last Sunday and for the last three days the British Open. I'm off to see it in the flesh tomorrow and it looks like I'll have to wrap up warm and take a brolly.

I've also been keeping an eye on the French golf scene because two kids from the Dryades have been playing in the National Youth Championship this week. They got there by virtue of their performances in lower level tournaments. One more of our youngsters got as far as the regional competition but didn't do quite well enough to qualify for the national championship.

The format of the national championship is two strokeplay rounds and then a knockout matchplay tournament amongst the top 32 or 16 players for each age group. Antoine didn't make it past the qualifying in the 13 and 14 year old boys competition but Celia was third in the qualifying and made it to the semi-final of the 11 and 12 year old girls which is a brilliant performance.

Traditionally French presidents have pardoned a selection of criminals as part of the 14th of July Bastille day celebrations and the system has to some extent relied on this to ease the chronic overcrowding that exists in French jails as it does in English ones, but Sarko is made of sterner stuff. While the country braces itself for protests within the jails one prisoner made his own arrangements and helipcoptered his way out - for the second time would you believe.

On Saturday night though, we were celebrating, albeit belatedly, Siobhan's birthday rather than French democracy. We had an excellent meal at The Apartment. My dos de cabillaud was delicious and the yoghourt topped with ameretto and pistachio crumble that I had for pudding can only be described as mouth-watering - well up to French standards although at an exchange rate of one to one. Mysteriously Ross and I both ended up with tomato sauce like stains on our trouser legs although none of our party had anything to eat that could have caused that. Did the waitress overhear our opinion that she was a bit uppity and take revenge?

After the meal we lingered in the Caledonian Hotel bar waiting for someone else to pitch up before we went clubbing. They had a whisky menu listing dozens if not hundreds of 35ml doses of the hard stuff at various prices. Here's what 35ml of whisky looks like.

Would you pay £250 for it? That was the top price. I wonder how many they sell?

The clubbing was a bit disappointing. I had been a little shy of going, having only recently learnt to handle expressions like "mosh pit" without feeling silly but decided that I owed it to myself to experience the new. Well what I experienced was very much what I experienced at the Kirkcaldy YWCA in the late fifties (Heartbreak Hotel, Rock Around the Clock) and Edinburgh University Students Union in the sixties (These Boots are Made for Walking). I'm not sure that there was any music more up to date than that.

There was a floor show. The costumes were fine and the girls were pretty but at Kitwe Little Theatre their routine would have earned the traditional "don't call us, we'll call you". There was gambling of sorts with monopoly money that I never managed to get hold of - a measly little roulette table and a blackjack table squeezed into the corner of a marquee. I ran a better table myself in Nairobi in the seventies.

I'm sure my mistake was that I didn't realise that being called Vegas this clubnight was a tribute to the past rather than a harbinger of the future.

But it passed a pleasant and relaxed few hours and to underline the known fact that Edinburgh is a small city I bumped into some friends at 2.30 am on my way home.

I had a good run up from Barbansais to UK on Monday and spent a very pleasant couple of days in Brighton. As always I was well received and it was a bonus to see Sarah, last seen when she came to my production of The Sisterhood in Edinburgh in 99. She's not a lot more respectful of elderly friends than she was thirty years ago but I probably wouldn't like her so much if she were.

The Zambia charity golf match went well and Albert and André, respectively Sarah's husband and stepson were in a winning team. They kindly shared their hard won Jacob's Creek in the garden that evening.

I was up before 7 on Thursday and after nine and a half hours of tedious motoring made it to Edinburgh.

Notwithstanding its infamy as the headquarters of France's collaborationist government during WWII Vichy is a town well worth a visit. It was a fashionable spa during the Belle Epoque and the splendid parks and buildings of that era are beautiful. You can also still wallow in mud and sip sulphurous water if that's what lights your candle.

My recent visit was to meet up with my fellow golfers from the four leagues at the Sporting Club de Vichy whose English welcome page could do with a touch of teacher's red pencil. The effort of writing that page in English seems to have exhausted the webmaster since the rest of the site is in French. Perhaps that's just as well.

Thanks to their own or their partners' illnesses my clubmates intending to go cried off but I rendezvoused with Ernest, a genial and sociable Swiss, for a practice round the day before the competition and we wandered around the town a bit in the evening and enjoyed a good dinner at "L'Escargot qui tète" meaning "The Snail that suckles". Well for all I know they do.

Amazingly Ernest and the waitress found that they had a mutual passion in hunting. I say amazingly but that's probably because my statistical frame of reference for waitresses who hunt is UK biased and based on occasional accidental exposures to episodes of The Archers that included references to hunting.

He had I think hoped to find another mutual passion when he opened conversation with "Je ne suis pas drageur mais je vous trouve très.........." but he confided to me later that Viagra does not agree with him (something to do with being diabetic) so the result of that hunt might have been a disappointment to his quarry had he run her to ground.

The competition was fun but not crowned with as much success as the following Sunday's in which my laurels were gained for being the least bad third division player to have taken part in both rounds of the AGF competition. The laurels in this case being a magnum of jolly good plonk from their Bordeaux vineyards.

From her American exile a fellow KHS alumnus (or is she an alumna) was reminiscing in an email about wee Gordie. He was mocked apparently, by big girls like her, for the fact that when he visited his chum Murray Elder he was forbidden to pass through the Olympia Arcade. Those familiar with the Kirkcaldy of yesteryear will know that both his physical and his moral welfare were being protected by this prohibition.

Now I didn't know Gordon from Adam in those days, though in that good old Scots phrase "A kent his faither". I had left school by the time he started but clearly his name has become familiar to me since. And I also recognised the name Murray Elder. I put that down to the fact that Baron Elder of Kirkcaldy's former name had come up over the years in the context of Scottish politics.

But then it dawned on me that this must be (and I have since verified it) the wee lad who in his first year at secondary school had a crush on Fiona, then in her last year, and would follow her about with yearning eyes. Did he not even present her with flowers?

I shall think of her as the Baroness in future.

Having just posted the tale about Usque conabor I went off to correct the Wikipedia entry on KHS in that respect to discover that someone had got there before me. So I'm not the only one anxious to protect the place's reputation.

“Oh wud some pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oorsells as ithers see us!”

lamented Burns, and on Wednesday France Info became that power for the day.

They decamped to London to cover the changeover from Blair to Brown. Between 7 in the morning and 7 at night they had three two hour slots in which they reported the events of the day and looked at aspects of British society as diverse as; the changes in popular music over the Blair years, the City, immigration, binge drinking, and the structure and effectiveness of job centres.

There was lots of vox pop as well as the more familiar voices of those commentators who are trotted out regularly on French radio because they speak the language. I recognise Denis McShane’s voice for one, more readily when I hear him speaking French than English.

Looked at through French eyes then we appear to be an economic success with social problems. Not so different as being looked at through British eyes is it?

They broadcast Gordon’s touching wee reference to the old school motto but as it was overlaid with a French commentary I didn’t notice whether he said he’d strive to the “utmost” or to the “outmost”, discovering that controversy on various newsblogs later. But he said it in English, wi’ or wi’oot an archaic Scotticism, and I knew that our motto was in Latin although despite carrying it on my breast for six formative years I was damned if I could remember it.

So I hied me to the Kirkcaldy High School website and found “Usque conabor” which classical scholars amongst you will realise is a very satisfactory rendering of “I will try my ut/outmost”. Not being much of a classical scholar I realised it thanks to the internet. “Nisi google frustra” as they whisper in academe today.

But on the website is another slogan – “Working together to improve” and in the prospectus this appears to be offered as a translation of “Usque conabor”, a fact noted sneeringly on a number of newsblogs. I also found a website in a slightly sorry state of uptodateness as witness a page on which people are being welcomed back from their 2005 Christmas break and much more of the same.

Much concerned by such sloppiness in my alma mater I decided to take the school to task and was surprised to get an almost instant response, apologising for the state of the website with a promise to fix it in the hols and explaining that “Working together to improve” had been adopted as part of the process of fusing together KHS and Templehall on one site in 1993 and not as a replacement for “Usque conabor”.

I hastened to let The Herald, The Daily Telegraph and others know that KHS can tell a hawk from a handsaw but I wonder if Gordon can. Should he not have chosen that more collegiate slogan for his government of all the talents, or even the third slogan that KHS added to their armoury in 2005 when the current heid bummer arrived - “Only the best will do”?

Dropped in on some English friends this week to find that the two pet geese they had last year are now four. Not a case of natural reproduction but of what I regard as unnatural purchase.

The French with whom I had dinner that evening would certainly have thought so. Around here if you keep hens, ducks, geese, rabbits; really anything other than cats and dogs; they’re for the pot. There were eight of us, all acquainted through golf. It was a very convivial occasion. One guest delivered his party piece which he said was a poem in English. Well it could have been Chinese for all I understood of it, but I applauded along with everyone else before giving into temptation and taking the Mickey. No wonder he preferred Spanish at school.

Spanish and golf came together later in the week when Sally sought a second opinion on a translation. The one that amused me was where she rendered “en caso de duda tirar una bola provisional” as “in case of doubt throw a provisional ball”. I had to point out that golfers only throw their balls at moments of great distress when all doubt has gone.

Last night the Roches brass band did a tour of the villages to celebrate La Fête de la Musique (48 hours after the official date but so what). It’s a pity they look like a bunch of peasants on a low loader, even though that’s what they are, because they have quite a snappy maroon uniform. They look good in it and I don’t understand why they did this shindig in mufti. They and their entourage of following groupies (families I expect) far outnumbered the residents of Barbansais but we all turned out and Pierre the farmer supplied a couple of bottles for their refreshment after we’d been treated to sufficient oompah, oompah.

They call themselves l’Espérance de Roches. There must surely be a connection, linguistic or otherwise with the Band of Hope of yesteryear. I have meant to investigate this before, must get onto it.

A linguistic gem was my recent discovery that the French for hubcap is enjoliveur – something that prettifies. That’s just what Connor and I decided their purpose was when we were discussing my hubcap losses.

The week has ended on a low note. I have slipped back into the third division from whence I was promoted two years ago. A real ball-throwing moment.

It has continued to rain almost relentlessly since I last posted but we are not quite under water yet. This is not me in the Creuse but Ewan in the sea off the Maldives during his recent holiday there.

Tuesday afternoon turned out fine though and although I didn't quite break 100 I played my best round of the year so far.

Other than that the week has been domestic. I gave the barn a bit of a Spring clean and I got a plumber in to fix a persistent leak. That was not without its annoyances given that he didn't turn up for the first rendezvous. Had to go to a funeral apparently. Could be, but isn't that the adult version of "the cat ate my homework, miss".

A friend is going to do a bit of plastering for us and I did some preparatory work to fill in a rather large gap with plasterboard. As usual what looks like a rectangle turns out to be a complicated polygon so you spend ages shaving little bits off the plasterboard here and there to make it fit. The gap was so deep that I had to put in two layers of board so all in all I spent the best part of half a day at what at first sight would seem to be a half hour job.

I got another new tyre. That's not a new requirement but the final tidying up of the incident of 6th May. Why did it take so long? I refer you to "the cat ate my homework,miss".

In my capacity as Barbansais accountant Sally sent me some bank statements recently and I noticed that one of the local taxes (paid by DD in December) was substantially higher that it had been the year before. I had a vague memory of a plan to collect TV licence charges along with local taxes but we couldn't find the bill to verify this. So yesterday I set off in pursuit of the truth.

The truth was that we hadn't got the bill because they'd cocked up the change of address I gave them last year. It's an interesting debating point whether the fact that they hadn't changed the address on the other local tax bill counts as a cock-up or not.

Anyway it was indeed the case that we'd been charged for a TV licence so I've been in touch with the relevant authority. They were happy to accept my verbal assurance on the phone that we don't have a TV so the 2007 bill will omit it but I've had to write a letter to reclaim our 116 euros for 2006.

Maybe that will pay for the water that has leaked away.

Do you suppose it could be a pan-European gang stealing them to order? Two in two months can’t be mere chance. Fiat Stilo hub caps that is. At this rate my annual hub cap replacement bill will be twice my road tax. I shall have to borrow the “just in time” technique from industry and wait till I’m ready to sell the car before replacing any more.

My trip to Aurillac was lovely. I followed scenic routes in fine weather there and back and the town itself has a very attractive old centre. The golf course gave exceptionally fine views of the mountains of the Massif Central and was itself very pretty. My results were mediocre both on the course and in the prize draw but it beats spending the day at an office desk.

It’s a pity it clashed with the big screen showing of “Cold” at the Leith Festival but that’s life in the fast lane for you.

My grass lives in the fast lane and zoomed away during my absence. But after getting back from today’s regular Sunday golf competition (regular Sunday result) I razed it to the ground.

I’m playing competitive golf yet again tomorrow. This is the annual Château de Poinsouze campsite do where we all get invited to dinner afterwards. Should be a gas if last year is anything to go by.

Pressure’s off on Tuesday – 11 euro lunch followed by social golf.

Denied cinematic distraction in bad weather I often find myself web surfing. A recent exciting www discovery was that cinematic distraction of an above average degree of interest is available at Edinburgh Filmhouse on Thursday 14^th of June.

See the Napier University graduation movies on the big screen.

Let’s hear it for my top nominations: “Ladies Who Lunch”, “Tears of Milk” and “Staccato”.

Sunday’s golf competition was cancelled through lack of numbers so I could have gone to the flicks after all, but it was a nice day so I decided to potter in the garden. I weeded and hacked back vigorously, ran the mower through the grass again and finally sank into my deckchair aperitif in hand rejoicing that at last summer had come.

The competition was a Rotary sponsored event. They usually manage to get their troops out so I was surprised at the cancellation. The explanation I was given was that there was a clash with Mothers’ Day. I thought it was quite touching that so many preferred lunch with mum but a cynical friend suggested they were just making sure of their inheritance.

Pluvious Spring returned on Monday morning but I braved the afternoon’s mild drizzle to get my window boxes and doorside pots planted up.

They don’t look much as yet but I expect them to be riotous within weeks. Most of the plants therein should be able to be transplanted at the end of the summer to edge us further towards the target of a full rockery.

Whatever the weather I’ll give them a good doze of water tonight because I’m off in the morning to Aurillac to play at Le Golf de Haute Auvergne. Given that Auvergne is where almost all the best cheeses come from, the prizes will be worth fighting for and I play a mean hand in the prize draw.

Weatherwise May just ended has been the wettest and most miserable of the five that I have spent here. It didn't look like June was starting off any better so having discovered that at Aigurande, unlike Gueret, there is a cinema with weekday afternoon screenings I planned to shelter from the rain there yesterday.

Perversely the sun started shining about lunchtime but I decided to stick to my plan. When I rolled up to the cinema, admittedly ten minutes after the advertised starting time, the man was locking up.

He explained to me that the community had prevailed upon him to hold afternoon screenings for the benefit of old codgers who didn't like to go out at night but that during the week very few ever pitched up and that today no-one had. He'd obviously gone too far psychologically down the path of locking up to consider that here might be an opportunity to do his bit for the old codgers in the community because he offered me Saturday night at 20.45 or Sunday afternoon at 16.45 and turned the key.

Well 20.45 doesn't suit me because I usually have downed a modicum of wine with my dinner by then and in any case my lights point the wrong way. On Sunday at 16.45 I will be clapping politely as my fellow golfers step up to collect their prizes. So it looks like I won't see Jean de la Fontaine, Le Défi till it turns up at the Filmhouse, if I bother since no-one gave it more than two stars. I'll just read the fables.

One star weather returned in the evening.

La Fête départementale des sports de nature took place at Chateauroux over the Whitsun weekend. The départment being Indre where I play golf rather than Creuse where I live.

Although I take “de nature” to mean outdoor, of the 39 activities listed in the programme one or two seemed intrinsically indoor to me – basketball and judo for instance. Nothing to stop you doing them outdoors I suppose except the weather. And the weather was not kind on any of the three days.

The organisation was impressive. On arrival I reported to reception where I was issued with a natty sleeveless navy blue fleece embroidered with the event’s logo and a badge to wear round my neck. Next step was to collect my individual insulated picnic hamper. This little container held a tasty baguette, a slice of pizza, a brownie, an apple, a banana, an energy bar, a bottle of water and a coke. It’s eminently useful, in fact designed to be attached to your bicycle handlebars and has a transparent sleeve on top to slip your map into. This is the pre GPS model of course.

The setting was super. It was in a large park and the various sports were strung out around a central lake which was the venue for all the watery stuff.

Mind you on the Sunday you could have kayaked your way around the whole park such was the rainfall. That didn’t put off the youngsters who came to whack golf balls into the wild grey yonder. We had about ten mats laid out for people to play from and a sort of bouncy castle as a target. My job was to give basic instruction and supervise the punters. I was thoroughly drenched by the end of the day despite my umbrella.

Golf balls and clubs can be dangerous and in spite of our efforts at maintaining tight control one poor lad got a club full in the face. I believe what happened was that when he ran out of balls he bent down to pinch one from the guy next to him just as he swung his club backwards. He was hurt bad if the noise he made on the way to the ambulance was anything to go by.

The weather on Monday was better in as much as there was less rain but it was cold. Again the punters were not put off and right up to 5.30 when we closed there was an endless stream. By the end we were one of the few activities still running so people kept coming.

It was quite fun despite the weather. All the kids were very enthusiastic and some of them obviously sporty. Others might be better to concentrate on reading.

There were a few adults and one I was given charge of turned out to be a member of the départmental Olympic committee. He was probably not a man whose vote counts for much in allocating the Olympic games to anywhere but my teaching him golf seemed a bit of a cheek. However I suppose I am better qualified to do that than I was to teach the Old Tyme Music Hall chorus to sing and I got through that undetected. Next challenge brain surgery, though I believe that’s already been done.

My golf trip to Tours last week was a bit disappointing. It started off well. It was a lovely day as I drove up to Vierzon and then followed the valley of the Cher through pleasant countryside and picturesque little towns to Joué-lès-Tours, a rather undistinguished suburb of Tours where after a mildly frustrating search I found my hotel. My problem is that I can't hold more than the first two instructions that a direction giver imparts, sometimes not even that. So by the third junction I no longer know whether it's "keep right on" or "turn right". It often proves to have been "left" in fact.

I found the golf course in the adjacent and prettier town of Ballan-Miré very easily however. At least I found it easily on Thursday. On Friday I was spiralling round the town centre for ages.
It was late in the afternoon, very hot and I'd had a long drive so I decided against a reconnaissance round. I just strolled about and admired the magnificent course, had a drink and a chat in the splendid clubhouse and went back to Joué for a meal.

First disappointment; in Joué there are: a pizzaria, a couple of takeaway pizza joints and a snack bar that closes quite early but only one restaurant. I settled for a snack. I ate in the restaurant on the Friday night and by nine o'clock they had served exactly four people and two more arrived as I left. It's a wonder there is even one restaurant if that's a typical Friday night. My bill arrived accompanied not by a couple of mints or delicately wrapped sweets but by this lollipop. Somewhat incongruous in an establishment all done up in the traditional red and gold of fin de siècle splendour and sporting fine cutlery set on table-covers of crisp white linen.

Friday dawned warm and sunny. My tee time was not till one o'clock so I explored a lakeside park not far away, immaculately kept as all French public spaces seem to be, and then went on to the course for an early lunch on the château terrace and some gentle preparation.

We were on the fourth hole when the storm broke. As much thunder and lightning as you could ask for and buckets of rain. Play was suspended. We sheltered unsuccessfully emerging half-soaked when the storm's fury was spent. Play resumed after an hour. We were on the seventh hole when torrential rain poured from above and borne by wild winds smashed in from the side. Lightning was further away but we couldn't continue playing. We were near the practice area at the time so sought shelter under a tin roofed structure there. When the wind and rain eventually eased off, having heard no signal, we restarted but hadn't got far when someone came out of the clubhouse gesticulating and shouting that it was all over. The rain on a cold tin roof had clearly masked the klaxon.

A great disappointment because it's a lovely course and I would dearly like to have had my full round. I shall have to go again sometime. There was a minor recompense in that all the prizes were put into a draw and I carried off a bottle of very nice Chinon. I know it's very nice because I've already drunk it.

So on Saturday I went into Tours.

Not an unpleasant town by any means but not as immediately impressive as say Orleans. Here's a picture of the cathedral peeping through some trees. Inside the cathedral I found that the altar sheltered a rock. Now I could find no explanation but this must be, if not the entire stone, then surely a fragment of the one that was rolled away on the third day. Why else would you keep a great big rock in your church?

Why would you keep a fountain in your town? Well in the case of Tours it's to commerorate the work of the back-room boys of the American Expeditionary Force that came to Europe in 1917. Usually memorials are to the fighting men but this one celebrates the achievements of those who built a thousand miles of railway and innumerable bridges, who procured weapons and clothing, who delivered food and equipment to the two million men at the front. Tours was the headquarters of this Service of Supply.

I had a very nice lunch before I left, in particular a pudding that was described as raspberry crumble but not as I know it. The raspberry ran through the crumble like a ruby lode and the crumble itself was of a smoothness and delicacy akin to molten demerara. Yummy.

The storm didn't break last night so I got another cut done.

Now I can set off for Tours this morning light in heart.

I'd be even lighter in heart if the internet service we have here hadn't taken 20 minutes to get from the point at which I'd logged on to the ISP to the point at which I was able to start typing this post. It almost makes me believe that BT broadband is worth the money.

By dint of being very unFrench and working through the lunch-hour I got the rest of the garden beaten into submission before 3pm. Although I was cutting in straight lines I ended up with a final triangle of thick matted growth such as I haven’t come across in a long time. Yesterday’s tactic of skimming through with the front wheels in the air didn’t get me far and the alternative of driving straight at it on all fours and withdrawing just before the engine stalls wasn’t much better. I ended up trimming round the edges with only half the blade engaged until finally it was à poil.

I’d like to trim another inch or so off the whole garden this evening since otherwise it will be Monday or at best Sunday evening before I have another chance but the sky is blackening to the west and the atmosphere is close. Sure signs of an approaching summer thunderstorm. Maybe it will burst while still some distance away.

No doubt for a peasant hardened by working fifty years man and boy on the land, raking up 2000 square metres of grass cuttings counts as light duties. For a pen-pusher like me it’s tedious, back-breaking toil relieved by long moments of leaning on the rake thinking “*!!??*@#”.

Having mown the jungle down and got the cuttings cleared the grass was still too long, wet and tangled to operate the lawnmower normally so I found myself pushing it along with its front wheels in the air and the blade whirling wildly to snip off the tops, gradually lowering the angle of attack on repeated traverses of the same section until it was possible for the machine to chug along under its own steam with all four wheels on the ground. That mind you at the highest possible cut setting.

The only plus point of yesterday’s labour was that it gave me 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. On balance though I think I’d rather be interrupted.

Not that this job is finished. I’ve only got beyond the jungle clearance stage for half the garden and I’ve delayed my golf outing departure till tomorrow so that I can make headway on that half and re-cut the “almost lawn” a couple of notches lower. All that for fear of what four days untrammelled growth might bring.

Jungle with a hidden metre rule

Twixt jungle and field

Overgrown field – you can now see the metre rule

Finally by 8pm almost lawn.

On Sunday my car’s electronic information system told me that a brake light had gone so yesterday I verified that this was indeed true. I don’t have a great deal of faith in these systems ever since I failed to convince a Zambian policeman that my brake light could not be out of order since the Honda’s electronic warning system reported all OK.

Perhaps as a reaction to last year’s brakes problem and its aftermath I find myself anxious to sort out any failure without delay. So I consulted the handbook. It looked feasible DIY if I had a spanner of the correct size and type. Of course none of the spanners in the barn fitted the bill so I decided that I’d just have to pay for 15 minutes of a mechanic’s time.

That’s when I discovered that there is no longer a Fiat garage in Gueret. Part of the rationale for buying this particular car was the proximity of an agent. I’d have been better off sticking to Rover. They may be dead but their vehicles can still be fixed here.

However there is a man who reckons that he knows his way around a Fiat so I went to him. No problem, fix it in a jiffy – but hadn’t I noticed that the left front direction indicator was not working. Well no. It’s difficult to spot that from the driving seat and the all knowing electronics seem to have missed it. Shame that you need to dismantle half the car to get at that bulb. And disconnect the electronics. They told me it was Saturday 1^st January 2000 when I got the car back. He only charged me an hour’s labour but I’m sure it took an hour and a half.

I love my bus pass.

I got the strimmer back a few days ago. It was, as I suspected, the spark plug. Even I could have changed that - given the tools. Aye there's the rub. You can't do everything with a Swiss Army knife, and in any event I've lost mine.

I managed to get through chopping the grass to bits on Friday and Saturday and laboured for a couple of hours at ridding the fosse septique area of weeds. We planted cotoneaster there the first year we spent here based on my experience in Mountcastle where cotoneaster spread like wildfire and smothered everything that lay in its path. At Barbansais it has grown, but much more slowly and I had to hack away the weeds to reveal it. The smotherer smothered.

The grass cuttings now have to be raked up. My peasant friends tell me to let them dry off first but the weather is such that I can't see that happening fast and more grass is busy pushing its way up. As it is I'm not convinced that the result so far has brought the grass into a state that the lawnmower will be able to tackle. I can see myself having to attack it again with the strimmer.

Better results on the website front. Google now gets me. Googling "Kitwe Little Theatre" gave 66 references. My website and my Great North Road entry were on the second page. If you google "Hamlet" you get over 21 million references. If you then search for "Kitwe" within those results you get 670 references and my site is number three. For top listing google "Hamlet" then "Kitwe Little Theatre" and I'm first of three.

Why would anyone do that though?

But my GNR listing has brought me several contacts. No-one has yet come up with photos to plug the gaps in my record, that being the object of the exercise, but it has been fun hearing from "my old Kitwe home where all the dogs are called futsaak and no-one knows why" as the song neatly puts it.

My seniors golf outings will be a little less bright for a while. My chum Jean has suffered a hernia, will be operated on soon and then have to leave his clubs in the garage for a couple of months. That brought this coming week's gang of three down to two but now John's wife is ill so it's just me. There are others going but just for the day whereas we were making a wee holiday of it.

I got stuck in to knocking spots off the grass on Saturday but after an hour or so my machine developed a cough. I thought it was just fuel running low but despite filling it up I couldn’t get the damn thing to start. Having no suitable tools to take out the spark plug, the sooting up of which I suspect to be culpable, I had to abandon the job and take it down to Gueret on Monday.

I had to go there anyway because I’d managed to shred a tyre on one of the stones lining the rock garden as I swung left to get a bead on the hanger. The little Rover didn’t need so much room. Of course I’ve ended up buying more than one after being advised that the gendarmerie would not be satisfied by the state of two further tyres should they chance to run their fingers over them. Funny that the MOT fairy passed them a few weeks earlier.

While waiting for the tyres I had a stroll around the town centre and noticed that the rather good bookshop has gone, to be replaced by what seems to be the only growth industry around here – an estate agent, bilingual French/English descriptions of course.

Pending repair of the débroussailleuse I’m doing some gentle weeding of the rock garden.

Tuesday saw a downpour but with others I trudged valiantly over the golf course and earned myself three balls for having completed the round unlike so many fainter hearts who had given up partway. Didn’t altogether make up for those I lost but psychologically very satisfying.

On Thursday the weather was much better and Jean and I had a splendid day at Val de l’Indre; a very pleasant lunch in the clubhouse and 18 holes over a course in excellent condition. We’re playing there again in a competition on Sunday so this was in part a preparation and reminder of what the course is like. Its main challenge consists in avoiding the woods that line most fairways on both sides. If you are lucky enough to find a ball that you’ve carelessly sliced or hooked into the woods your problems have only begun. Threading it out between the trees can be a multi-shot adventure.

The big news on the way home was that T.Blair has at last told us when he’s going. Both French and British radio stations since have been delivering more or less qualified encomia. I was heartened to hear Dennis McShane this morning stoutly defending British public services in his impeccable French. The French tend to have an overblown opinion of their public sector, especially the health system, but did you know for example that there is a three month waiting list to get your eyes tested here. Anyway thank God the man has put us out of our misery and now we can get on with criticising Gordon Brown.

It doesn’t take long for new leaders to feel the rough side of the public’s tongue and poor wee Nicolas Sarkozy has already been castigated for his post election break on board a millionaire chum’s yacht in the Med. Shades of Tony and Cliff or Jack and Kirsty. Talk about mountains and molehills.

My postman, whom last year’s readers may well remember, has not been slow in giving me his opinion on the new president. “Hungarian” was his first comment, delivered in a tone that rather called into question what I took to be his attachment to his fellow man. He now sports a very Leninesque goatee but denies being a man of the left and declares himself a simple worker. Coupled with the “Hungarian” comment that makes me wonder which party best represents his ideas - must enquire further.

In our conversations I am cast as the Anglo-Saxon ultra liberal so I find myself looking for arguments to defend company bosses being paid a thousand or more times as much as their workers (a practice I suppose I deplore but that leaves me relatively unmoved – more fools the shareholders that let them away with it) or to support Sarkozy’s fanciful (it seems to me) idea that allowing people to earn untaxed overtime (at time and a quarter) will release a sufficiently large wave of buying power to revitalise the economy.

Recently, in order to publicise my Kitwe Little Theatre material and hopefully plug its photographic gaps I signed up to The Great North Road. (That’s a sort of Central African Friends Reunited.) There was some administrative delay but it has now come through and has already borne fruit. I got an email today from Barry Woodrow who was a prominent NKAS member in the 70s. In those distant days Ewan was friendly with a girl called Lynne who according to Barry is very keen to re-establish contact. I await with great interest how that develops.

The internet connection I have here is dial-up and is pitifully slow compared to broadband. My major use of it is for email and my Hotmail inbox has been taking an age to display so I spent literally hours today deleting 1000 emails, guessing that the need to marshall all that jazz has not helped display delays. Fingers crossed it’s helped.

I came across a rodent corpse last night. Perhaps he’s the greedy chap who guzzled his way through my poison grain. There’s also what one might delicately call some animal spoor in the barn. I expect properly experienced country people could tell at once the culprit but all I can deduce is that it was bigger than a mouse but smaller than a dog. That narrows the field don’t you think. Maybe the polecat/weasel creature who spent one winter in our roof decided to try more extensive premises this year.

I met a couple of chums for lunch and a game of golf today. A very tasty three course lunch plus coffee and wine for 11 euros put me in an excellent mood and my first strike of a golf ball for months reflected the carefree rapture engendered by the meal. It was a stotter. The succeeding 100 or so strokes were a mixed bag but I was not too disappointed at my performance on this first outing of the season.

When I got home I switched on my mobile for the sheer pleasure of seeing that little signal line for it seems that Vodaphone and Bouygtel have got their act together and my mobile can now be used at Barbansais. Lo and behold there was a message for me to the effect that a seat had fallen to the SNP at 1.17am. Well I had just heard on the radio that the SNP have won one seat more than Labour overall so things have clearly moved on apace since the early hours. Is there dancing in the streets now that the shackles of thraldom to New labour have been cast off? Is Jack demanding a rerun because of all those spoilt ballot papers?

I shall have to go online as soon as this lightning has gone away to get up to date.

I had a good run down to Dover although the traffic was nose to tail all the way. The Stilo is certainly a lot more comfortable than my little Rover and the radio is very good at changing frequencies to keep the same station coming.

Women’s Hour featured an item from Zambia about domestic violence. A number of ladies of a more traditional bent expressed the view that being beaten by your husband was a sign of his love for you – his desire to ensure that shortcomings were brought to your notice so that you would learn how to be a better wife.

I don’t suppose many of my readers will see it that way and indeed it is not how modern Zambia operates. Men are now being prosecuted for domestic violence and a refuge has been established. I remember when living there that women often got their own back. A favourite retaliation was to pour boiling cooking oil over the offender. That rather put his gas on a peep but I guess it’s not the modern solution.

I stopped only once and had a coffee from a Coffee Nation machine. That’s the machine whose manufacture was used to lure Connor south.

I made such good time that I caught an earlier ferry than anticipated. Norfolk Lines have bought a new boat since I last sailed with them. There was lots of comfortable lounging about space and I opened a book in eager anticipation of a good read only to realise that I had already read it. No problem really since I’ve no idea how it develops or ends, such is my power of memory. That’s just as well since it’s a detective story. Siobhan lent it to me and I think she must have recommended it to me before and that I read it on one of the occasions that I was staying at Craigmillar Park.

I hit the road after breakfast yesterday and had a smooth ride down to Barbansais apart from the crawl around Paris where the traffic is even worse than our motorways.

The house is in great shape and the countryside around is looking lovely. I nipped down to Gueret for some essentials via my favourite rural route. It was altogether delightful. Why sell?

As I said the house is fine if dusty and awash with dead insects. There is very little sign of rodent activity. One of the tasty piles of lethal grain I left has been devoured but the rest look untouched. The garden though is a jungle. Josette said that they had a fair amount of rain in March and a very hot April so grass and weeds have simply bounced up in glee.

There’s a rock garden hiding in here and this is what awaits my mower round the back.

Anyway it will have to wait a few days. I’ve been organising things inside today and tomorrow it’s golf so the grass and weeds have a stay of execution.

I listened to Ségolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy in their head to head debate last night. It lasted for 2 hours and 40 minutes. I can’t see the Scottish electorate’s attention span managing an equivalent event though I’m sure our politicians would be up for it. Nor do I imagine we have many citizens as committed as my neighbours Jean (late 80s) and Josette (late 70s) who are off to Paris on Saturday to vote in Sunday’s presidential election.

I’m looking forward to hearing all about the Scottish election tonight. I hope it’s an interesting result.

Bags packed, votes cast, off to France in the morning.

For the last wee while my regular tipple has been Rosso delle Marche, a nice little wine from Tesco. My belief that its quality belied its price (£2.99) has been confirmed. The sods have repriced it at £5.99. They may think that I'm hooked but they can think again. I've moved on already in the search for heavenly drink at earthly prices.

They have a weird way with sprouts as well. I bought some loose Scottish sprouts at 59p per kilo. I could have bought the same sprouts with outer leaves removed and wrapped in plastic for £1.62 per kilo. Or if I had been completely off my trolley I could have bought LUXURY sprouts, outer leaves removed, washed and polished, and wrapped in plastic for the modest sum of £4.97 per kilo.

I was quietly watching the Bahrain grand prix on Sunday afternoon when I got a call asking me to repond to a filming emergency. Rather than shiver in the cool of a vaulted cellar in the Cowgate some unprofessional extras had bunked off the set of Staccato to lounge in the sunshine.

Naturally I dropped everything, grabbed my collected works of Stanislavsky and headed for the location.

It would have been better if I'd taken a collection of cables and adapters. One was missing, rendering the camera unuseable. Boxes were searched and re-searched, but....nothing.

Sunday is not the best day for specialist cable purchasing so after a while a party set off to break into the film school. In fact they sweet talked their way past security and returned triumphant and we got started.

For the actors that meant official waiting time began. Shades of the old NHS.

For this film I was part of a crowd watching a Victorian freak show, shouting in German and throwing things at the freak. He was still in make-up and had been from mid morning but we didn't need him for the first couple of shots. When he did appear he was a cross between the Elephant Man and Quasimodo in a nappy. The make-up (which takes about three hours to apply) hid the man but he was being addressed as Nigel and I wondered idly if he he might be silent Nigel from the Caucasian Chalk Circle. It must have been the way he stood there that I recognised, because it was indeed he.

I thought the text being in German had to be a nod in homage to Fritz Lang especially since I had a vague memory of a crowd throwing things at a monster in M. In fact the director's beautiful sister explained to me that it was a device intended to hide an accent. And my memory of M was way off beam. There is a monster but he's not a physical monster just a monstrous serial child killer. Over intellectualised and wrong on all counts!

This film it turned out is more of a Beauty and the Beast story. The actress playing the heroine achieved the difficult feat of crying to camera on cue. But I suppose for a former circus performer turned burlesque dancer and student of Japanese that's small beer.

Anyway I was a crowd in fits and starts throughout the day and at one point discovered that you don't, despite the adage, need three to make a crowd since we were but two.

I caught up with the grand prix when I got home. What a driver this Lewis Hamilton is, bursting onto the scene like a Tiger Woods on four wheels.

You'd think you could get through all the crowd shots you'd need for a fifteen minute film in a day wouldn't you. You'd be wrong. It took most of Monday as well.

This is the mess a pair of magpies have been making to the baskets on my verandah. I assume that the coconut fibre makes the inside of a nest very snug. I've searched in vain for a child's windmill to scare the beasts so have resorted to disguise.
Let's hope the black plastic wrapping confuses them.

I think it's also an aesthetic improvement but I don't suppose they'll see it that way.

For the past couple of days the home page on my website has failed to display with something called an internal error 500. That's happened before but has not persisted because it has been due to a fault on the host's side of things that has been cleared up relatively quickly.

But it's been dragging on so I set out trawl their forums to see if anyone else was experiencing problems and to seek a solution. I learnt that pages are filtered for certain references and not displayed if those references are found.

Now you can understand that they might wish to exclude pornographic references or things that might indicate you were running a business (since they are hosting your site for nothing) but why do you suppose they added hotmail email addresses to the forbidden list? That's what the problem was with mine.

Someone else had their page stuffed because of a URL that contained the text "warmsnow". Well now I can only assume that frolicking in warm snow is disapproved of by Atspace.com. Can't say I fancy it much myself.

Alan was here for Easter and we filled the weekend with fun and frolics.

What used to be the Edinburgh Folk Festival but is now called Ceilidh Culture was on and we went to a couple of events. One was a bit crappy but the other was a great ceilidh band. In a pub basement they even managed to get us dancing.

We fitted in an entertaining lecture at the Science Festival by Raj Persaud on how to be irresistible to the opposite sex. Sadly there's no evidence yet that I've mastered his techniques.

We toured the galleries, put my new car through its paces on a day out in Fife, visited Newhailes House (a recent National Trust acquisition), did Dynamic Earth, enjoyed Il Caimano despite its lowly two star rating in the local press and finished off, thanks to free tickets provided by Claire, at the Whisky Heritage Centre where you get a dram at the very start of the show.

All in all a good weekend.

Overheard part of a conversation in the Portrait Gallery this morning that I've had myself from time to time. A chap was explaining to someone that he spent the summers in France and the winters in Edinburgh. She wondered if this wasn't the wrong way round.

He put forward the fact that in winter in his village snow covered the ground, unlike Edinburgh and that in the summer the sun shone and it was warm, again unlike Edinburgh.

I expect that he continued by pointing out that there is a lot to do in Edinburgh in the winter and not much going on in rural France.

QED