The little cafe that stood where the lane from Dicksonfield debouches into Leith Walk might have been dismissed by many as an example of the greasy spoon genre but it was a pleasant and friendly place that served a very decent fry up. Cordon bleu it was not.

Some months ago it went out of business and has since been replaced by a restaurant whose husband and wife team come from loftier, more spacious eateries with well established reputations for excellence.  All the indications are that they are carving out a splendid reputation for themselves in The Little Chartroom.

It took me a while but thanks to Siobhan I have now eaten there.  We had their delicious and reasonably priced set lunch but true to form ramped up the bill with an equally delicious bottle of booze.  We didn't ramp up the bill quite so much as the group of friends I bumped into hard by its door on my way home from a Dunedin Band playaway day.  They had just rolled out after a celebratory lunch that had rolled on till nigh on teatime.

They prevailed upon me (effortlessly) to join them for a drink in The Black Fox but finding the wine list unexciting we repaired to my flat for a couple of jolly and sociable hours.  I managed to scrape together some snacks to complement the wines and watched with a smidgeon of regret several lumps of my tasty home made salmon and spinach quiche that had survived the playaway day lunch slip down one particular guest's gullet.  Let's face it, the portions at these fine dining places tend not to overfill the stomach.

I had another very pleasant lunching experience a few days later at Merchants where I don't think I've eaten before.  This was the the U3A Group Leaders lunch which is apparently an annual tribute by the membership to the sterling work done by those who lead the multifareous interest groups that make up the organisation in Edinburgh.  That meant that in addition to being eaten in sociable company and being excellent the food was free.

Perhaps that will soften me up into continuing my not so sterling efforts leading the Intermediate Italian group.  I fell into the position  by default of course.  The former leader resigned and I was the least unwilling of an unwilling bunch of candidates to take over.  I quite enjoy it, even the fact that  I prepare all the material for our fortnightly meetings.  Although that's a bit of a burden it has the advantage that I learn while doing so, which in itself is useful since most of the participants know rather more Italian than I do.

My post festive concert going got into its stride at the end of January with an SCO programme that featured Berlioz's Les Nuits d'Eté.  That was fine but I enjoyed rather more the pieces by Gounod (Petite Symphonie), Debussy (Petite Suite and Danses sacrée et profane) and Tanguy (Incanto) that made up the rest of the programme.

That gig was conducted by the ebullient François Leleux who managed to combine conducting and playing the oboe to wonderful effect last season.  He featured in a Sunday afternoon concert that I went to last weekend.  It had some Mozart and stuff that was pleasant enough but the second half was magic.  Classical music can struggle to be humorous but by combining the clarinet and the double bass Hindemith hit the button.  Prokofiev's wind quintet, the other work in the second half, wasn't designed to raise laughs.  I loved its dissonances and jagged qualities.

Passing over the RSNO's Bruckner which I'm sure was very well played but which did not stir my interest much (I kept wondering when it would end) we come to their much more enjoyable offering on Friday last.  It started with some stuff by Thomas Adès that I gather comes from his opera about the Duchess of Argyle's sexual shenanigans in the 60s that I didn't much enjoy.  The music that is.  I wasn't an intimate of the duchess.

They gave us then an arrangement of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess which was lovely followed by the Scottish premiere of the violin concerto written by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis for Nicola Benedetti.  She was there to play it.  The piece is really a putting together of many elements of American music - jazz, swing, big band, blues, spirituals, gospel and ragtime. But not only American.  There's a touch of ceilidh and tango as well.  Maybe the most striking thing about it was the ending.  The orchestra fell silent as Nicola playing more and more quietly slowly left the stage.

Jazz unalloyed with classical music has also been on my programme recently.  A little festival of Belgian jazz has been in town and I went to three gigs, one of which I loved unconditionally, one I'm less enthusastic about and one I could have forgone although I admired the effort that had gone into it.  I just didn't care for the result.

The gem involved two groups.  The first was a Scoto-Belgian band whose Scottish moving force was Mark Hendry.  He's a double bass player and composer who was a thrilling addition to last year's Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival.  There's a Youtube video showing them putting things together in which Mark mentions never having written for bass clarinet before.  He learned pretty quickly believe me.

The second group were wholly Belgian, the Mâäk Quintet.  They were brilliant, especially their inexhaustible Sousaphone player.  Enjoy them here.

I earned two bonuses from attending those gigs.  Firstly I got into conversation with a Belgian classical flautist recently established in Scotland and who with luck may replace one of the two flautists leaving the SCO.  She introduced me to the Nevis Ensemble with which she has been playing.  It's a sort of flashmob orchestra that I'm surprised I didn't know anything about.  I'm now on their mailing list.

Secondly I learnt that in the last weekend of May every year Brussels becomes home to a riot of free jazz indoors and out.  That's now in my diary.

The V&A Dundee has been open for a few months now and their Ocean Liner exhibition is nearing its end so, having a day more or less free yesterday I went up.  The building is impressive, maybe not entirely as gobsmacking as the Guggenheim in Bilbao but arresting nevertheless.  

It may be our trip on one of the last ocean liners that is at the root of my interest in them or maybe it's my hotel connection but I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition which is substantially larger than a show about liners that I saw in Genoa a couple of years ago.  It's really astonishing the degree of luxury that the first class passengers enjoyed on those ships.  Our trip on the Asia wasn't in the first-class section but I don't think those passengers who were in it could have been quite as cossetted as is shown in the V&A show.  Mind you the damaged deckchair and the section of highly decorative woodwork from the Titanic that are on show could dampen one's enthusiasm.

One of the exhibits that I most appreciated was a dress labelled as a "Salambo" dress designed by a famous couturier of the day, Jeanne Lanvin, and worn by an American socialite.  Searching the web for a decent photo of it I came across an excellent post about the exhibition that is worth reading in the Historical and Regency Romance blog where I can assure you I don't normally hang out that has a picture of how it is displayed in the show.

Now next door to the V&A is the Discovery centre that I also visited. It's totally wonderful.  I shall go again and may even think of an Antartic expedition myself some time, though I shall demand a greater degree of comfort than Scott and his companions enjoyed even if I don't rise to travelling first class.  One of the most interesting features of the exhibition is a display of the current research station that we have in the Antartic.  The contrast with Scott's day is like first class and steerage in the transatlantic liners.
 

Christmas and New Year passed pleasantly and sociably.  I was given a set of DVDs of Breaking Bad, the American hit series which ran for five years from 2008. I was hooked from episode one as I was on The Sopranos one Christmas in Milan.

This time I worked hard at watching it in a disciplined manner rather than sitting up half the night.  When I got to the end of the 54th episode I was puzzled.  The ending seemed more of a cliffhanger leading onwards than a full stop, and a flash forward at the beginning of season five had not been fleshed out.  Internet investigation revealed that season five had been followed by "The Final Season", missing from my set of DVDs.

I set off for a week in Lanzarote having ensured that it would be in my hands shortly after getting back.

Lanzarote was excellent.  The weather was very pleasant, much like the dry season on the Copperbelt and my hotel was fine.  I had a good sea view from my balcony.  Here's the view in the evening:

And much the same view in daylight:

The promenade you can see at the bottom of the picture ran along two or three sandy bays for a fair distance providing a splendid route for a daily constitutional.  The coastline there and elsewhere that I went on the island was pretty flat unlike the ups and downs of the Tenerife coast that I'd walked on the previous year.  Much less arduous.

One of the reasons I chose to visit Lanzarote was to see the volcanic landscape.  It was absolutely stunning.  I took a bus trip through The Timanfaya National Park and was bowled over by the beauty of the place.  My photos don't do it justice, especially those that I had to take through a bus window.  The narrow winding road wasn't equipped with stopping places where you could get out but we did do better than private cars.  They can't travel on all of the tour route.

There is a large stopping area and a splendidly designed restaurant at a high point in the park that is accessible to both cars and buses and here you get to experience the heat that comes up from under the surface.  I don't know how far under but enough heat is produced to cook on.

And to produce zippy bursts of steam when a drop of water is poured down a tube.

Not far outside the park there is more splendid scenery.

The little lump of rock is Roque del Este, the most easterly point of the Canaries.








Other notable sights on that tour were underground in what are properly called volcanic tunnels but you and I might just say caves.  Here's one with a lake:

And here's one with a concert hall:

Emerging from the tunnel/cave you'd find a swimming pool:

I visited various other parts of the island.  Arrecife, the capital, is lovely.

   This is Playa Blanca with the island of Fuerteventura in the background:

Like other places in Lanzarote it has a splendid marina












Altogether a good choice for a winter holiday that whetted my appetite for winter 2019/20.

Since getting home I've been to the movies several times without feeling absolutely satisfied by any of the films.  The Favourite and Mary Queen of Scots were very well received by the critics and they were entertaining enough but I wasn't overwhelmed.  Determined to get full value from my French Institute membership I went to see Jalouse, this week's offering.  The story of a divorcee and her teenage daughter it was essentially a comedy that got to a happy ending via various contretemps such as the mother sneakily cancelling her ex's Club Med holiday with new wife in the Maldives - nasty.

The Lyceum with Bristol Old Vic and others took on the challenge of staging a mountaineering expedition.  David Greig has adapted Joe Simpson's book and the subsequent film Touching the Void about his ill fated climb of Siula Grande in Peru.

The staging challenge is very well met with a mobile suspended framework of interlaced bars and white tissue panels that Joe and his climbing partner Simon clamber about on.  The narrative challenge of a story in which one man crawls alone down a mountain is met by a very clever framing that uses Joe's sister as a goad and sparring partner in his imagination as he fights for survival.  Brilliant show.

There's an initial sequence set in the Clachaig inn (frequented by Joe Simpson and legions of other climbers) with Sarah (the sister), Simon and Richard (who was the non-climbing third member of the expedition) that serves to explain some climbing techniques and tries to address the question of  what attracts people to climbing.

I turned from tourism in Bilbao to tourism at home.  On a lovely sunny day last weekend I wandered by the Water of Leith to the Shore with vague thoughts of a glass of plonk and some jazz in the Shore Bar.  I was too early for that so had a stroll round the port.

Then lightning struck.  Why not a visit to the Royal Yacht?  It's been at Ocean Terminal for 20 years after all.  Visitors from a' the airts including visitors to my own home have been to see it but no me.  So I did and I loved it.  It's a fascinating glimpse into a priveleged lifestyle and an impressive example of marine engineering.  The route through the ship is well laid out and the audio guide precise and informative.  The fruit scones in the caff are first class too.

Scottish Ballet are doing a version of Cinderella by Christopher Hampton this Christmas which I saw and enjoyed.  It's in much more of a restrained classical style than the last Cinderella I remember seeing which was also by Scottish Ballet but choreographed by Ashley Page.  That was done with boldly coloured sets and extravagant costumes.  The press at the time called it "hip and stylish", "fizzing".  I don't think you could say that about Hampton's although it had some great moments - the parade of legs as the Prince hunts for Cinders for example.  But I confess Page's version was more to my taste.

On to the Traverse for two shows this week.  Mouthpiece centres on the unlikely friendship that springs up between a middle-aged writer who's lost her mojo and a troubled teenage schemie who has an artistic talent.  It segues into the appropriation of the miserable experiences of the most deprived in our society for the entertainment of the middle classes.  What a friend of mine descibes as "poverty tourism" or some such phrase.  As usual Joyce McMillan puts her finger on the strengths and weaknesses of the show.  Read her review.

The Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven by Jo Clifford is fundamentally a plea for the acceptance of people who don't fit society's norms, particularly gender norms.  Even in these irreligious days I think it's a brave script and one which quite gently exposes the irrationality of prejudice.  The Wee Review does the show justice but sadly as Kirsty McGrory points out the production is preaching to the converted when presented somewhere like The Traverse.  Less indulgent audiences should see it.

Finally a disappointment.  After months of waiting during which I had quite forgotten what caused me to order it in the first place a novel became available for me at the library.  After reading maybe a quarter I decided this satire on modern digital life wasn't working for me.  So it's going back and I'm now waiting for the only one of ever reliable Allan Massie's novels about Roman Emperors that I haven't read - Caligula.

December started in excellent style with a rum and coke at Edinburgh airport prior to boarding Easyjet's flight to Bilbao at teatime on the 1st.  Flight duration and time difference meant that we arrived at our Air B&B fairly late on Saturday evening.  But thanks to the Spanish way of life this was no impediment to finding a pleasant spot in the Casco Viejo to eat and drink.  Indeed we homed in on a delightful colonnaded square where given the mildness of the evening we sat outdoors.  Ross stripped down to short sleeves but I stuck to my warm jacket and bunnet.

The main objective of the trip was to visit the Guggenheim.  It fully repaid the effort.  It's an awesome building and from our lodgings it was a lovely walk along the river with a pitstop in a little cafe for breakfast. ( On the other two mornings we had breakfast in the Ribera market which is every bit as enchanting as La Boqueria in Barcelona.)

Here's a view along the river

First sight of the building.  The tall curved structures form outposts to the main building which you can see rising up beyond the bridge.

Closer to with a giant spider to the right

A view through the spider

 

Alongside with the Ibedrola (parent of Scottish Power) skyscraper in the background

Jeff Koons' puppy that stands guard over the entrance

And finally the whole building seen from the opposite bank of the river 

That's just the outside and however impressive and exciting it may be it's by the contents that it ultimately is judged.  Like most galleries, because in English usage it's a gallery not a museum, it has a permanent collection and temporary exhibitions.  For my money the large steel structures by Richard Serra are the stars of the permanent, or at least longterm exhibits: they promised him a twenty five year tenure.  You can see them here.

There was an exhibition of Giacometti sculptures on while we were there and one called Van Gogh to Picasso.  I've always like Giacometti's stick men and his out of proportion figures so I found this a real treat.  Photography was prohibited so I exercised my meagre sketching talent by drawing the piece I liked best. This is it here (not my sketch - the piece itself).

The Van Gogh to Picasso was also excellent.  I particularly liked early works by Picasso that I hadn't seen before which were naturalist paintings, done many years before he embarked on the abstract works that I most closely associate him with.

Bilbao is not just the Guggenheim.  There's another lovely gallery that we managed to visit and various museums that we didn't.  A pretty park with a lovely fountain, an arts centre in a converted wine warehouse and lots and lots of other things that meant that two and half days were completely inadequate.  Must go back.

From Brighton I went up to London.  David and Sally's spare room being unavailable because of works in the flat I had booked a room in a fleapit near King's Cross.  Fleapit is perhaps a little unkind: it was clean enough, the shower worked and the bed was ok.

When planning the trip I'd discovered that this was the opening weekend of the London Jazz Festival so had booked a few gigs.  The first, on Saturday night, was at the 606 club where a rhythm section backed five saxophonists who, solo and in various combinations, entertained us while we ate.  It was a lively and cheerful atmosphere, the food was good and the music was excellent.

I took a number of inadequate pictures of which this is one.

On Sunday morning I went to hear more saxophones, an unusual combination - an ensemble of ten baritones.  Tokyo Chutei Iki have done their thing all over the world and for forty minutes I enjoyed it but decided not to have too much of a good thing so didn't stick around to hear the second set.  They're  really good but less is probably more.

This is what they looked like

You can check the music out here.

The gig was in  a church in Bethnal Green. It was a nice day so I had a stroll around and took a few pictures.  This squirrel is one of my most successful wildlife shots

and I hadn't seen a copshop lamp like this since the good old days of Dixon of Dock Green so had to snap it.

Walking back towards Kings Cross for my next gig I came across Brick Lane.  Years ago Fiona and I were in London and somehow or other knew people who kept a pub in the street.  We went there and Fiona ordered a cider only to be told that the pub didn't stock cider because it was a popular mixer for the local meths drinkers.

The area has been gentrified a bit since then but it's clearly not been totally cleansed of roughness judging by the list of what musn't be done attached to a lamppost.

  Curiously ball games are not prohibited.

The gig near Kings Cross involved three piano players and was a bit too educational for my taste so I dozed a bit.  But it wasn't too long and afterwards I tubed up to Highbury to David and Sally's place for a wee cup of tea prior to going to our last gig at The Troubadour in Earls Court.

This was another eat while you listen venue.  The band were squeezed into a space behind the window giving onto the street and next to the door.  Incoming customers had to more or less walk through them.  Our table was bang in front of the band, which consisted as you can see of rhythm section and three front line players, two of whom were American visitors.  The drummer, Sebastiaan de Kron runs the group.  I've heard him play in Edinburgh with the SNJO.

They played straightahead jazz tunes, most of which I didn't know, with lots of inventive soloing.  It was a very satisfying gig and the food, wine, service and overall ambience were terrific.

That was it.  Onto the train home the following morning.  My other November highlight was reading Buddenbrooks.  Such a entertaining family saga.  It's up there with The Forsyte Saga.

Since I went to Keswick November has flown by.  I've had my usual dose of concerts and suchlike and a couple of visits to the cinema.  I saw quite a decent gangster movie called Widows, the usp of which is I suppose that all the baddies are women.  Then there was the rousing Outlaw/King about Robert the Bruce.  Decently entertaining, not as silly as Braveheart, didn't take too many liberties with historical fact, beautifully filmed and cleverly finished in 1304 leaving lots of room for a sequel to take us to Bannockburn.

The Grads presented the stage version of All About My Mother,  It was well done but a tricky show to stage because of the multiplicity of locations that are required and that the action moves amongst.

I saw another French film at the Institut but I've already forgotten what it was.  There's been a French film festival on as well in the Filmhouse and elsewhere but the only event I managed to squeeze into my schedule was a session of shorts at Summerhall.  I always enjoy short films which probably tells you something about my attention span, and this event was no exception, very enjoyable.  To distil a story or a situation into just a few minutes requires great skill and imagination.  Both were on show in these half dozen films.

I was a bit underwhelmed by Ballet Rambert's Life is a Dream but to be fair I dozed a little during the first half so am not really in a position to form a proper judgement.  

Given my poor sense of smell and insensitive palate I probably shouldn't bother going to wine tastings but I was persuaded by the prospect of good company to attend one at Valvona & Crolla,  Five wines/ports were to be tasted.  They were all sweet, some sweeter than others perhaps but I couldn't say that I experienced much difference between the £20 a bottle and the £80.  They were tasty though as were the accompanying cheeses.  The V&C man was clearly on an educational  mission.  He went on at length.

I didn't buy any wine but I splashed out a fiver on one of the cheeses.  It was a mixture of Gorgonzola and Mascarpone and may have been the cheese I have been searching for since I stumbled on what the shopkeeper in Cervinia in 1984 called Gorgonzola crema.  I liked it so much that I took a big polystyrene boxful back to Zambia.

I visited old friends in Brighton and although the purpose of the trip was to attend a meeting of the Zambia Society Trust that was cancelled at the last minute I enjoyed the visit and a little potter around the town.

 

The beach had as little sand on it as always

 But the pier looked good  

As did the Pavilion and the street where David and Kay live.

 

The bandstand had surely had a coat of paint since my last visit

and there was a new attraction on the front.  Well I say attraction.  It looks like a very thin factory chimney or a very tall concrete lamppost.  It is a tower called the British Airways i360.  A glass doughnut shaped pod slides up its 450 feet affording grand views.  It was not in operation when I was there alas.

I went off to Keswick for the weekend.  The town was stowed out with visitors as usual and as usual there was a bit of rain.  Not too much and what there was added to the autumnal beauty of the place.

Here are a couple of pictures I took on a stroll by the lake.  Lovely spot is it not?

I rushed back to Edinburgh on the Monday for band practice.  With a concert coming up in December and my difficulties with the pieces we are playing I can't afford to miss more practices than is absolutely necessary.

How wonderful it would be to play as well as members of the SCO, or any good orchestra for that matter.  Their concert this week featured a tremendous new work, a viola concerto by John McLeod.  This world premiere featured the SCO's principal viola player, Jane Atkins.  Called Nordic Fire it lived up to the monicker, hurtling flashes of energetic brilliance from the viola through a solid orchestral groundwork.

The concert started on a Nordic note with the very pleasant and tuneful Holberg suite by Greig and finished with an orchestral version of a Beethoven quartet.  Best left as a quartet in my view.

I went with Claire and Maddy to the NTS/Citizens production of Cyrano de Bergerac.    It was an evening on which a large proportion of the people I know in Edinburgh were also at the show.  It was very good though I thought some of the opening scene could have been done away with.  It's an English version by Edwin Morgan so it's a good text and the production was high-spirited and imaginative with the Lyceum's stage laid bare to its back wall and wings.  While wonderful to look at that vastness may have led to some of the lines floating up into the grid rather than out to the audience.

Since I went to India years ago the country has continued to hold a fascination for me so I was attracted to a talk at the museum called A Punjabi Jewel in the British Crown?  It was an excellent, rapid and sweeping review of relations between the East India Company (and later the British govenment and Queen Victoria) and the Sikhs in the persons of Ranjit Sing, his son Duleep and grandaughter Sophia.

I was familiar with much of the story though I'd forgotten rather a lot but wasn't at all familiar with Sophia.  She was a most interesting character, living an aristocratic life but demonstrating as a suffragette and working as a nurse in the first war.  I'd like to learn more.

In a bout of Francophilia a few weeks ago I joined the French Institute and today enjoyed the first fruits of my investment at a free screening of a super film called Les Grands Esprits.  Denis Podalydès plays a teacher at one of Paris's top schools.  At a cocktail do he propounds the view that what the poorly performing state schools in the banlieue need is an influx of experienced and highly competent teachers like himself.  Little does he know that he's addressing these remarks to someone from the Ministry of Education and finds himself being inveigled into putting his ideas into practice himself.

Of course it's not an immediate success.  His relations with the pupils are not good.  But this is a warm and delightful comedy in which a happy ending is inevitable.  So he brings the pupils round becoming a better person in the process.  I admit to having a tear my eye as the closing credits rolled.

This could be my Wednesday afternoon treat throughout the winter.  That would get my membership money's worth.  And it's not a bad place to eat.

Having saved this painting for the nation, admittedly not single-handed, I was happy to trot along to the National Gallery to hear a talk about it followed by a wee swally.

The talk was very interesting indeed so I followed it up enthusiastically a week or so later with Art and the Jacobites.  Not as it turned out nearly as interesting.  Frankly boring, but the evening was saved by scampi and chips plus some pleasant plonk with chums at the New Club.

Yet more art.  I squeezed in a visit to the Rembrant exhibition that had been running all summer just a day or two before it closed.  All that dark Flemish stuff is not entirely to my taste but they can work miracles with zones of light in the darkness and I do like portraits of which there were many.

I went from Rembrant to the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition which has just opened.  It's a spledid collection mostly of posters advertising the attractions of fin du siècle nightlife.  There are some scratchy recordings of the stars of the day to listen to.  I'm sure that in the right place at the right time they were a wow.

That scampi was not my only eating out experience this month.  I've eaten Swiss alpine dumplings in Leith - very tasty; had an excellent French lunch with former workmates; had a mediocre French lunch elsewhere and a pleasant Scottish pre-theatre dinner before Mathew Bourne's Swan Lake.  That's an absolutely wonderful show and so sexy. What an imagination and what thrilling and accomplished dancing.  A couple of the dancers walked past me as I waited for a bus the following morning and I was quite excited to see them.

I much enjoyed hearing Francois Leleux playing the oboe with the SCO last season so it was a pleasure to hear him again.  He played Haydn's oboe concerto which was fine but I actually enjoyed other works on the programme more, notably some Brahms.  More Haydn popped up at another SCO concert.  This time a chorale work, The Seasons.  It was grand.  The chorus sang their hearts out and the soloists were great.   

I heard Catriona Morison sing during the Festival and she was back in Edinburgh this monthe to sing Shéhérazade by Ravel in a splendid RSNO concert under their new Music Director Thomas Søndergård.  He's not a new face for Usher Hall audiences because he has been Principal Guest Conductor for a few years.  He swung into action as the boss with Mahler and Beethoven and followed that up with Grieg and Rachmaninov in the concert that featured Catriona Morison.  I enjoyed both those concerts and were I not nursing a cold in the hopes of it not spoiling my weekend in Keswick I'd be in the Usher Hall again tonight.

I don't know if I can blame my cold on the days I went without central heating while a new boiler was installed but those were cold days in contrast to the mild days that followed, on which the heating seldom came on.  Whatever, my various domestic bits and pieces are gradually reaching the end of their days and being replaced.  A groaning toilet cistern is next in line.

On one of those mild days I sat drinking in the sun with Andrew who happened to be in Edinburgh and was happy to chew the fat with me while Rosemary got on with the serious business of shopping.

I'm catching an early train for my weekend away and luckily I went to collect my pre-purchased tickets today because the machine went through all the motions and told me that it was printing them but disgorged no tickets.  I had to run around a bit to eventually get a man to open the machine and pull them out.  No way I'd have been at the station sufficiently long in advance of my train for that.

Spotted this splendid bird on the hunt for a snack in the Water of Leith.

 

In a mood of hexagonal nostalgia I joined the French Institute the other day.  I suppose I should say re-joined because I have been a member in the past though in my heyday of theatrical activity there in the 90s I don't think I was.  Anyway I toddled off to their celebration of European Language Day which was not too exciting. There was a little quiz, harmless enough, then half-hour taster sessions of a limited number of languages.  The only one that promised me anything new was the Polish one so I went and it was fun in a mild sort of way.

There were refreshments. A pale shadow of the feasts that used to be laid on in Randolph Crescent.  Has austerity accompanied the move to their new premises on George IV Bridge?  I left clutching a pile of leaflets hoping that there are better days there to come.

That same evening I went with Claire and Ross to see Manpower at the Traverse preceded by a delicious bowl of chicken livers at Nandos.  That nosh pleasure saw me through a tiresome show whose raison d'être was lost on me.  Fortunately Claire was reviewing it so now I know.  Generous as ever she gave it two stars.   Joyce McMillan was there as well and on the Scotsman website under her byline it gets four stars but no supporting text.  Very odd.

Also very odd by most measures and the very reason I went to it was a gig featuring the American saxophonist Colin Stetson.  Described as experimental he does all sorts of things with the bass

saxophone except perhaps play music.  The best I could say about it was that it was better than his support band.  To be fair some of his stuff on Youtube is listenable to and this video in which he explains what he's doing is interesting.

At least thanks to meeting a sax playing friend who had arrived early I got a seat.  The Dissection Room being on this occasion as on many others essentially a standing space.

One of the features of where I live that I never fail to be thankful for is the ready supply of buses that are available on my doorstep to whisk me to almost everywhere in the city that I ever want to go.

And I live in high hopes of the tram line being extended down Leith Walk within the next year or two to add a direct link to the airport.

Now that undertaking will entail some disruption to the bus services during construction of the line.  Current plans indicate that buses coming from town would no longer pass my door.  They'd go down Easter Road or Broughton Road.  Not a big inconvenience.  Indeed adding a healthy little walk.

However a new transport option has just been introduced that would overcome the problem and would be even more healthy.  Edinburgh now has a bike hire system with a docking station just round the corner.  I got all excited about it and kitted myself out with the phone app needed to use the system.  Rides were free on the first day but it was close to midnight before I was ready so I thought better of zipping down Leith Walk then.

I still haven't tried it out but I will.  What would be great would be for the conversion of the Powderhall railway into a cycle track to be speeded up.  There's bound to be an access point pretty near here so I could revive my long disused cycling skills more safely than on the roads, or even pavements.

The resolution got me out on the golf course again about a week later but weather and other things have conspired to keep me off it since.

One delightful other thing was a weekend making music at The Burn.  I've been to this lovely place a few times now but this was my first carless trip.  It required a train to Montrose then a bus to Stracathro hospital which is in the middle of nowhere, then a taxi to The Burn.

  
The journey was enlivened by a sprint along the platform and up and down a bridge over the tracks to catch the bus.  I needn't have bothered rushing because a fight broke out on the bus after a few stops.  The sane and sober passengers all got out and hung about till the next bus came along.  To our dismay a couple of the unsobers also got on but collapsed into the land of nod after exchanging a few unimaginative expletive undeleted curses.

The sound of a dozen saxophones playing fortissimo was tranquility itself in comparison.

Then the resumption of my U3A Italian ate into possible golfing time.  Not the class itself which is only a couple of hours every two weeks but I'm now in charge of the group which means I have to prepare materials for our sessions.  It's time consuming but quite fun.  Of course what we need is an actual Italian leading the thing not me but at least I can make sure that what we do is of interest to me if to no-one else.

It's a shame that in his 150th anniversary year Macintosh's art school should have burnt down but fortunately I went round it a few years ago and have visited other buildings of his in the past and this year have been to various celebratory exhibitions.  One of the things that tends to be displayed at such exhibitions is the design he (and his wife Margaret Macdonald) submitted in 1901 to a competition sponsored by the German publisher Koch for"A House for an Art Lover".  They didn't get a prize but the drawings were purchased by Koch and later published.

No house was built from his or anyone else's designs at the time.  I didn't know that a house based on those drawings had been built in Glasgow between 1989 and 1996.  On my most recent visit to that city to lunch with Andrew I had the great pleasure of going to see it.  It's lovely and what's more contains a restaurant that provided us with an extremely good and pleasingly affordable lunch.  Here's some pics

Exterior

Gable view

Dining Room

Music Room

Piano - visitors can play it!

For lots of information about the competition and the design click here.  The Glasgow realisation of the design is very lovely inside and out, but I'm not sure I'd be comfy living in it. Maybe I'm not enough of an arts lover. 

But I do love Chicago, the musical that is; I've never been to the city. The show has been the toast of Pitlochry this season so a bunch of  us took a train up, with fizz thoughfully supplied by Claire for sustenance on the journey.  After an excellent lunch we went to the show.  It merited all the plaudits it has received.  The play on which it is based was written (in 1926) as a satire on the corruption and bending of judicial processes that the city was famous for at the time.  The musical stays true to that except that it's such fun, the songs are so bright and catchy, the characters so engaging and we are so removed from the environment it is set in that the message has a hard time getting through.

Another show that deserved not only plaudits, which it probably has had elsewhere, but a decent sized audience, was Richard Alston's Mid Century Modern which played to a very sparsely peopled Festival Theatre last night.  The dancing was beautiful especially the last piece in which the dancers in various combinations and ultimately the whole company whirled and leapt to Brahms' exciting gypsy piano pieces.

The fine weather tempted me out onto the golf course this afternoon for the first time in many a moon.  I didn't fancy trailing along behind the party of four marshalling on the first tee so I took advantage of a gap elsewhere and set off from the tenth.

Given how long it is since I played last I was very pleased with my game.  I seemed to drive and putt as well as I ever have and my iron play wasn't totally shabby.  Mind you we are talking of a fairly humble level.  Best ever handicap 21 after all and all downhill since then, or I suppose I should say uphill given how the handicap system works.

It was good to get some fresh air and exercise.  I'll make a late summer resolution to play more often and see how long I can keep it up.

I've rather neglegted the Fringe this year and it didn't figure in my final flurry of activity over the weekend.  I went to a concert and two Book Festival events.

Mahler's Eighth Symphony - this is a large scale choral work which filled the Usher Hall stage and choir stalls.

I enjoyed it when it was loud and when it was pin drop quiet but got a bit bored by the bits in between.  People I spoke to afterwards complained that it was very loud.  I think my seat high in the Gods and well to the side reduced the impact.

Lost Countries - a Danish architect who walks the beaches of Europe and collects stamps added to those hobbies an investigation into countries that no longer exist.  He's produced a book called Nowherelands that gives us the rundown on about fifty of them such as Indian princely states swallowed up after 1948 and a country that existed briefly (long enough to issue stamps) under Laurence of Arabia's tutelage until it was snaffled by the Turks and others.  It was an interesting talk and it's a very pretty book but it strikes me as a mini coffee table book that if I bought I should only occasionally glance at.

Monsieur X - now here is a book that I probably will buy but I'll wait for the paperback edition due next March.  Hardbacks take up so much space as well as money.  Anyway it's the story of a French aristocratic follower of the sport of kings who took on the state betting behemoth and took them to the cleaners over a period of years.  His lifestyle as well as his betting was distinctly racy.  Alas he met his comeuppance, the exact nature of which the author did not reveal for fear of spoiling our enjoyment and his sales.

So that's the festivals done and dusted.  I don't think my strategy of not booking up Fringe events in advance worked out terribly well but maybe it was rain and lethargy to blame.

Today I went to a public consultation event about plans for the development of the waste treatment site at Powderhall now that the plant is no longer in action.

It proved to be a more immersive experience than I had anticipated.  Once I'd absorbed or at least looked at all the information on display I was asked to fill in a feedback form.  As well as asking for comments I was provided with coloured pencils and a diagram of the site and invited to map out what I thought should go where.

Blow me when I handed it in a number of cheery urban planners laid out my ideas on a model. It was great fun and my idea for a sculpture and/or a playpark echoing the site's past as a greyhound track and a speedway venue with some bin lorries thrown in raised a laugh or three.

The green is parkland and sports facilities, the orange is housing, the blue is retail and offices.  The white at the entrance to the site is my sculpture/playpark.  What fun.

The Sunny Side of Science - Michael Brooks and Tim Radford are committed to advertising the wonders and beauties of science to the widest possible audience and the Book Festival crowd reacted as they would have wished; with appreciation and pleasure.  Answering questions the speakers both emphasised the vastness of what we don't know despite the vastness of what we have created - Huddle telescope and Large Hydron Collider being but two examples.  Talk of black holes and multiverses reminded me of Donald Rumsfeld's known and unknown unknowns.

Des canyons aux étoiles -  described as Messaien's mystical celebration of the breathtaking natural marvels of Utah this work employed quite large forces including a wide range of percussive instruments one of which, the geophone, Messiaen invented specially for this piece.  There was a lot of sound to try to get your heard around, a bewildering variety in fact.  On my one and only trip to Utah the place seemed majestically quiet rather than noisy so I can't say that I saw a direct relationship but I guess all that could have been going on his head.  I enjoyed the first half hour or so but that was only a third of the way through.  My poor little brain tired progressively as time went on.

Home Truths - Robert Peston's distinctive delivery, mastery of facts and incisive questioning are amongst the joys of British political broadcasting.  He's written a book called WTF? in which he puts forward an analysis of what he thinks has gone wrong with Britain in recent years and why and what we might do to make things better.  He deployed all his gifts in racing through an invigorating and often humorous presentation and dealt succinctly with audience questions.  Politicians please copy.

Visions de l'Amen -  Messaien again but only two pianos and not quite as long as Des canyons aux étoiles and a very different reaction from me.  I thought it was absolutely wonderful, a thrilling high energy mountain range of gorgeous sound that finished with the Queen's Hall audience held in limbo while the last notes slowly faded to be replaced by tumultuous applause.  The first half of the concert had featured a sonata for two pianos by Brahms.  Pleasant enough at the time, it seemed old-fashioned, lumbering and dull once we had heard Messaien.

Rocio is back from her summer in Spain so my sax lessons have resumed, for which I am jolly grateful.

La Maladie de la Mort - I was pretty certain that my response to this show would prove shallow when more accomplished minds were turned to it. Sure enough what I dismissed as base metal Lyn Gardner deemed, if not pure gold then 19.2 carat.  Her successor at The Guardian, Kate Wyver was only slightly less enthusiastic. Flora Gosling however, in The Wee Review to which our own celebrated cmfwood contributes, came close to supporting my opinion, being just a tad too generous.

The English in Modern Scotland - Tom Devine, who must be every Scot's favourite historian, gave a sparkling talk at the Book Festival outlining what he argues in his contribution to New Scots, a book about immigrant communities here.  He reveals that from being a country of net emigration for centuries Scotland has in recent decades become a country of net immigration and that not surprisingly (perhaps?) most new Scots are English born.  They represent now (if I have remembered the figures correctly) a little under 10% of the population.  Contrary to some beliefs they are not all retirees buying up homes in the Hielands to the disadvantage of the locals but the vast majority are workers contributing significantly to economic growth.  He said that the university sector in particular owes a debt to them in achieving a position in which five of our universites are ranked in the top 200 out of a worldwide total of 26,000 institutions of higher education.