On a day when we are promised paralysis in the public services in pusuit of a comfortable old age it was heartening to see one humble council employee sticking to his post and carrying out his normal duties with zeal and determination.

A view not likely to be shared by the owner of the vehicle I saw being ticketed this morning by one of Edinburgh's much loved parking attendants.  Hope it doesn't belong to a striker.

Happy St. Andrew's Day. 

I'm almost always up for something unusual in the theatre so when Claire invited a number of us to accompany her to The Little Match Girl Passion at the Traverse, described as a combination of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl and Bach's St Mathew Passion, my hand went up straight away.

In the event the invitor withdrew and the other invitees declined so I was alone (apart from the multitude of culture vultures behind me, for I was in the front row) in Traverse One last night for this spectacle.

A dimly lit area whose floorcloth of white tiles each decorated with a black fleur de lis (if memory serves) on which lay a randomly (or maybe carefully) strewn cable of linked light bulbs that glowed dull yellow presented itself on entry to the theatre.  Behind, a dull reddish wall bearing a couple of shelves strewn with unidentifiable bric a brac, above which a screen.  Standing right centre a low music stand, a stool and bathed in a gentle light resting on the stool a cello.

Fade to black and enter the cellist dressed in a mildly military looking silver buttoned grey blue coat to perform the curtain raiser or companion piece, The World To Come. He played for twenty five minutes or so while swirls in various shades of grey appeared on the screen behind him.  It was not quite a cloudscape nor yet a brain activity scan but somewhere in between.  The music was mournful and as I trudged up the staircase at the interval I thought that if that is the world to come I am not too anxious to be here when it arrives.

Everyone trudged up the stairs in fact because Theatre Cryptic whose work it was wanted the auditorium to be empty while they changed the set. I suppose they felt that the impact would be lessened were we to have seen it put together.  

It was not that different in fact.  The screen had gone and a dark void took its place.  The wall now had a flame relief that I don't think had been there before and a higher lighting level allowed us to see that the bric a brac consisted of vaguely scientific Victorian odds and ends; glass vessels, stuffed animal bits, animal skulls.....

That science like feel was echoed in the objects on a desk left centre on which stood also a little xylophone and music stand.  Up right by the wall was a big drum mounted horizontally on a wheeled frame and on the opposite side a set of tubular bells almost off-stage.

The piece opened with the other three actors/singers lined up behind the bass who was poised to whack the big drum, which he did.  They were all dressed in what I would loosely describe as early Victorian outfits though the mezzo's crinoline was drawn up at the front to reveal her garter and drawers in a manner that I am sure would have been deprecated then and the reason for which escaped me.

They sang, moved languidly here and there, sat, stood, grouped, ungrouped.  They played the bells, the xylophone, a chinese bowl, the big drum, what seemed to be a bicycle bell but which probably has a pukka musical name and a set of something or other.  They never smiled, but given that the libretto told the sorry tale of a little girl wandering barefoot in the snow and freezing to death that's hardly surprising. 

They never acknowledged one another nor the audience nor the white clad young woman in the void above, the eponymous match girl, who throughout threw herself hither and thither, whirled, bounced and walked about presumably in anguish.

It was beautifully done, beautifully sung, beautifully set and lit and well deserved the long appreciative silence and subsequent enthusiastic applause that greeted the final blackout.  It made the very pleasant modern dance performance that I had seen at the Festival Theatre the previous evening seem somewhat run of the mill. 

But it was weird.

I've been browsing the programme of Previously...., the Scottish History Festival which has just got underway. 

It's an inspired title and inspiration has not deserted the organisers in setting up events.  I imagine that the Beehive Inn will be stowed out for "Tits, Tassels and Ten Pound Notes", the story of striptease in Scotland.  

On the same night the Edinburgh Spanish Circle is hosting an illustrated talk on Cuba. The lovely lady with the PhD giving the striptease talk doesn't make it clear whether or not that is also illustrated, thus failing to resolve any prurient hispanophile's dilemma.    

This is the Spectator article that aroused my ire and here's my response.  The letter as written was somewhat more nuanced than the printed version, since KK for one took a fair bit of persuasion to demit office and Chiluba's hands seem to have been a bit sticky.

But the thrust remains.

A few days ago I was invited to join a Facebook group that has been set up for those with connections to Kitwe Little Theatre.  It is already populated with lots of interesting stuff for those of us who spent time and energy there.

I was particularily interested in photos of the interior of the theatre, taken not many years ago, showing the stage, the auditorim, the bars etc.  I think anyone can look at the group here although you have to be a member to post. 

Coincidentally in the same week I found myself defending Zambia's honour in the letter pages of the Spectator.  I can't give you a link just yet because they don't add items from the current edition straight away.

Hamlet opened last night and all went reasonably well.  One of the half dozen notes I had to play on the sax had a bit of a squeak to it but on the whole I was satisfied with my first public appearance as a musician.

A&R men in the audience should form an orderly queue and those who weren't there have three more chances since we run till Saturday at St Brides Centre, Orwell Terrace at 19.30 each evening.  Tickets on the door or from The Hub.

One of the things that annoys me mildly is having rung a telephone help line and picked my way carefully through the myriad button pressing options to get to the point where I can talk to a human being, is to discover that the helpline is experiencing unusually high demand.  Since this occurs at whatever time of day or night I ring I am tempted to think that it is a fib.

So congratulations to HMRC who run their operation so well that even at 10.00 on a weekday morning they are not experiencing unusually high demand and not all of their operators are busy.  It makes the business of paying income tax that bit less painful.

I walked down the Scotsman Steps the other day for the first time in years.  I suppose I was aware that some sort of reburbishment had been underway for a while but I was not prepared for the transformation that they have undergone.

Although occasionally smartened up and used for hanging pictures during the Festival they've generally lived in my consciousness as a dank, dirty thoroughfare pervaded by an air at once urine infected and somewhat threatening. 

But now, resplendent in a multitude of shades and patterns of marble, they are quite beautiful.  There are lots of lovely pictures on the Edinburgh Spotlight site and you can hear the artist whose work it is in this BBC clip.

The initiative for the project came from the Fruitmarket Gallery which is only a few yards from the foot of the steps and there is a more arty blurb about the project on their site and a video in which Martin Creed, the artist, sings a staircase song; not to be missed.

For pretty much the first time I didn't feel totally overwhelmed at band practice last night, just inadequate.

I think that's a sign that I'm improving.

Yesterday I could have been back at the Fringe.

I started off with an excellent play at the Traverse; at least the production was excellent though I'm not sure that the text will stand the test of time.  The three actors switched instantly from one character to another with just a change of voice and stance where we lesser lights would have needed an hour's make-up and a new costume.  They were ably supported by a sometimes complex and and always faultlessly executed technical plot.

Then it was off to the Blackadder exhibition.  Judging by the videos shown there and by a radio interview I heard recently she's a lovely lady and the critics say she's a great artist but her vision is not mine although I wouldn't refuse an apron sporting one of her flower paintings.

Despite saying that she's not really interested in acting Tilda Swinton gets the job done well in We Need to Talk about Kevin which I saw next.  But for my money the actors who play the eponymous villain make the movie.  It jumps back and forward a lot in time which is no doubt a device to keep our interest alive since we've pretty well sussed out that it will all end in tears before bedtime by the time the title comes up.

If you go to see it pay particular attention to the final scene in which Tilda says very clearly "I just want you to tell me why". I just want you to tell me what her screen son replies since either my ears, his delivery or a passing jet liner robbed me of the pleasure.

There was no not hearing Prokoviev at the Usher Hall later nor the jazz quartet with which I finished the evening in Bill Kyle's splendid establishment.    

One of my multitude of summer golf prizes was a jar of gésiers de canard confits.  I had friends for dinner this evening and it seemed an ideal occasion to make use of them so I served up as first course a salade tiède made up of various leaves, slices of artichoke and the gizzards, for that is what hides behind the frenchified name of the duck bits.  The whole was doused in a dressing made from the confit in which the gizzards were preserved plus balsamic vinegar, moutarde de Dijon etc.

I did not announce to my guests until they had eaten the salad that they had just enjoyed "the thick-walled part of a bird's stomach, in which hard food is broken up by muscular action and contact with grit and small stones" for fear that it might put them off.   

I had a jolly little party on Saturday to celebrate 50 years of intermittent residence in Edinburgh and clearly overcatered on the scoff front.  I can see myself living on the leftovers for some time.  Not so on the drink front. Not everyone was drinking champagne but those who were got through a bottle each.  Just as well not everyone I invited turned up.

It was great fun to play in a 1500 seat theatre on Saturday; the swooping crane TV camera and the very enthusiastic audience compensating for the fact that most of the seats were empty.

Disappointingly we were eliminated but it's hard to know whether to feel aggrieved or not since we didn't see the other three entries and only heard them imperfectly over a dressing room speaker.  There was very little in the way of adjudication afterwards but according to the cameraman who filmed the judges deliberations it was all very close and opinions were heatedly expressed.  No doubt Sky are happy about that since universal agreement would make a very boring programme.

Niamh Cusack rang us up, presumably from her dressing room in the Old Vic, to commiserate and encourage us, having been told by her woman on the scene that we had done her proud.  She even extended an invitation to give her a ring to talk over any future acting problems we might be faced with.  What a nice woman.

No celebrations were cancelled and we probably rivalled the Trekkie convention that was taking place in our hotel for late night drinking.  I escaped being burnt to death, despite my room-mate giving up on trying to wake me, by the fact that the fire alarm that caused the hotel to be evacuated during the night was a falsie.

So it was back to Hamlet this evening to round off a great weekend.

The little scene from The Cherry Orchard that we are performing in Northampton on Saturday in the quarter final round of the Sky Arts Stagestruck competition ends with the words "senile decay".  Those words are uttered as an explanation of my character's behaviour and it seems that I'm living the part off-stage.

Waiting for a bus after a Hamlet rehearsal this evening I saw from the bustracker screen what bus was due and decided as I often do to jump on it, get off at the bottom of the Bridges and cross to the top of theWalk to wait for a bus going my way.  But before it arrived a 14 turned up and that one goes to my door so naturally I got on.

I'm sure you've guessed what happened.  Fortunately the lights were with me as I sprinted from the last stop on the Bridges, across Princes St. and on to the St. James Centre in time to get back on board the 14.    

Modern dance is always a bit of a challenge and never more so than when it's like jagged and jerky brownian motion performed to a backdrop of randomly flashing lights and a soundtrack that might be music or might not.

What's it all about?  What are they trying to tell us?  Is it meant to be the end of the world or what?  Such were the questions going through my mind at Wayne McGregor's Far at the Festival Theatre the other night.  I eagerly awaited enlightenment from the after show Q&A session led by one of the Grads' stars from 4:48.

But michty me and help ma boab, as my granny would have said, the dancers had no more idea than I had of what it was all about and some of them had been dancing since they were three years old so you'd have expected them to have a bit of interpretative skill would you not.

Well enlightenment turns out to be the name of the game when you read the blurb on the website.  I quote:
"Inspired by the controversial Age of Enlightenment, FAR mines an era that first placed ‘a body in question’. Ten incredible dancers confront the distortions, sensuality and feeling of the 18th Century’s searing contemporary sensibility....." and it was music: "....to a new, haunting score by the critically-acclaimed composer Ben Frost."

I was also hoping for enlightenment when the following day I went to see Last Year in Marienbad at the Cameo, the very cinema in which I saw it as the nouvelle vague swept over us in the early sixties.  The Village Voice, whose review I recommend, says "back in the day.....audiences had great fun pretending to be baffled...".  Let me say it out loud - I wasn't pretending.

Surely now with all the experience of life I've gained since, the then puzzling movie would be as an open book.  Perhaps not quite.  It is still definitely odd.  I now think (though I could be wrong) that there is no meaning.  It's just the filmaker, having somehow got the money together, having fun doing the oddest things he could think of with his actors and his camera.  And it looks absolutely gorgeous.

So the moral is probably that, just because something is seriously weird it doesn't mean it's serious.  I can't wait to revisit Hiroshima Mon Amour.
    

After three years and a reduction of one third in the asking price an offer has been made and accepted for the house in Barbansais.  Failing unforeseen complicatuons it will shortly fall into the hands of the young magpie's family and I will be forced into a change of life though I don't expect to experience any concomitant hot flushes.

I do have the possibility of alternative accommodation in the area but I am looking on this event as an opportunity to do other things.  I don't intend to spend more than a few weeks there next year (so that I can fulfill my golf competition winning obligation apart from anything else) and probably even less time thereafter.

Casting directors may care to note that I expect to be available for the 2012 Fringe.

Only naive and inexperienced Scottish supporters could have thought that even when we were eight points ahead we were going to win.  Glorious defeat is our speciality. 

It's always a relief to see the solution to something which has puzzled one.

The current UK vehicle registration number allocation system uses two digits to define the point in time in which the vehicle was first registered, thus 01 means the first registration period of 2001 and 51 the second.  I've often (well occasionally) wondered how they would cope with 2011, whose first period would clearly be 11 but whose second could not be 51 without confusion with the second period of 2001.

I need not have worried.  Indeed if I had only googled UK vehicle registration number system when first the problem entered my mind I would have found that the 61 I saw on a car the other day was a consequence of  the basic principle behind the system, which is to add 50 to the year digits for the second period.

Thus I would have been able to sleep soundly long ago, except that I'm now wondering what will happen in 2051.  Alas I may never know.

I find myself out of sorts, and out of tune with majority critical opinion, having missed out on two hours of September sunshine watching a childish waste of celluloid.  The Guard is a comedy thriller from which tension is totally absent and where although present the laughs are few and far between.

It has a naive style all of its own which we might christen unmagical irrealism and which I hope for the sake of this cinemagoer is not contagious.

PS I know they don't use celluloid nowadays but that's no excuse.

We are told that if the discovery of neutrinos travelling faster than light stands up our understanding of the time space continuum goes for a burton and time travel into the future or the past will become the new reality.

In the fast moving world of telecoms they are already there.  I got a text from Vodaphone this morning telling me that I had three days left in which to use some bonus they had given me as a reward for having topped up my phone.

Fifteen minutes later by the old Einsteinien  method of reckoning a second text arrived telling me that the bonus had now expired.

Where Vodaphone lead Skype cannot be far behind.  They've just sent me an email saying that a credit I have with them will expire in 30 days, so I suppose I had better get my skates on and make a call before lunch.