I put up a wall mirror in my spare bedroom a couple of weeks ago.  So what you may ask; nothing very special about a bit of DIY.  That's true so far as it goes but this is a mirror that I brought from Mountcastle when I moved into this flat getting on for thirteen years ago.  It has lain propped up awkwardly against the fuse cupboard in the hall all that time.  It makes the pavement fix that I blogged about last time seem to have been carried out at the speed of light.

I shall have to do better with the ingress of water that has turned a corner of the lounge into a mini swamp.  But I shan't be bringing my DIY skills to bear on the problem.  I first suspected the central heating but a plumber cleared that and subsequently a roofer traced the source or sources to balcony and eaves.  Easy to fix he said.  We'll see.  Looking on the bright side the thirteen year delay in laying a new carpet seems almost prescient.

Bob and Caroline were up in Glasgow recently so the old school chums gang convened for lunch there and the usual jolly time was had by all.  Not quite so jolly as Claire's birthday lunch which ended up for me with a drop of shuteye in a Portobello pub until I was gently persuaded into wakefulness by the staff and went home to resume my nap on the settee.

Thanks to my membership of the Friends of the Queen's Hall I enjoyed a free gig and glass of wine there after my Glasgow lunch.  The gig was jazz of an elegant kind from Tim Garland and his trio.  Wikipedia tells us that Tim's music blurs the lines between modern jazz and classical music.  That seems a sound judgement to me.  Judge for yourself here or here.  

I was back at the Queen's Hall to hear Rocio and her quartet who were guests in a concert by the Kevvock Choir.  I was there to hear the saxophones of course but I did enjoy most of the choir's  performance and was particularly engaged by their singing of Victor Johnston's arrangement of Pie Jesu.

My own musical activity this month included a playaway day with the Dunedin Band.  The practice is for us to lunch together on grub supplied by the members and this time inspired by the delicious biscuits I brought home from Cortina I made a bundle of Amarettis.  So easy and so tasty.  Could be a weekly treat at home.

This may look like an ordinary bit of pavement with a little building behind it, but behind the picture  is a wee story illustrating how sometimes rather than shake your head in despair you can get things fixed even if, as in this case, it takes time.

Some time ago, a year maybe, two, more (?) this pavement was dug up to do something related to the sub-station in the picture.  When the pavement was made good the knobbly paving slabs were not replaced.  Instead the whole sweep of pavement was tarmaced over.

Now the knobbly slabs are there as you undoubtedly know to warn the unsighted that they are about to walk into a road.  (They are also quite handy to all as a helpful foothold in slippy conditions.) 

So I contacted Scottish Power whose sub-station it is.  A charming lady responded to my report and assured me that the matter would be drawn to the attention of the appropriate department.

Well nothing happened and then nothing happened again and so it went on until one day a man rang me.  He had taken over the part of the business in which reports such as mine were housed and was trawling through them to tidy things up.  Had my report been acted on he asked.

Over the next couple of months he rang me periodically firstly to establish what had happened and exactly where, and then to let me know how getting it sorted out was progressing.  Then lo and behold last week it was fixed.  Well done that man.

And well done Scottish Ballet and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra.  Both have given sparklingly entertaining performances recently.  The ballet double bill celebrating SB's 50th year opened in the Highlands and here's what they thought of it.

The SNJO also gave us a double bill.  Led by American jazzman Bill Dobbins who had arranged the material and with Brian Kellock starring at the piano they played music by Fats Waller in the first half.  Solid stuff with impeccable big band backing but my feet didn't do a lot of tapping.  After the interval I couldn't keep them still.

In a complete change of style with on vocals Irini Arabatzi (who couldn't keep any part of her body still), Mario Caribe on vocals and guitar and Tommy Smith on tenor they headed to Brazil and the music of Jobim.  This was a delight and brought warm sunshine to the half empty Usher Hall.  They included a number of well loved melodies like Desafinado and The Girl from Ipanema.

Bill Dobbins had written a beautiful flute solo to introduce one of the songs (I can't remember which) that took me right back to my first day in Copacabana a few years ago when a flute was playing in the background as we took coffee by the beach.

I went with eager anticipation to see Loro, a fictionalised biopic about Silvio Berlusconi but after some thirty minutes of cocaine snorting and bonking, on screen that is, I left.

Rafiki which I went to simply because it was a Kenyan film was quite sweet.  I hadn't registered beforehand that it was a story of two girls whose fathers are political rivals getting it together in a sort of coming of lesbian age drama.  It was apparently selected for Cannes last year but can't be shown in Kenya because of the subject matter.  The Guardian's review is worth reading.

I had a lovely lunch with a rafiki at L'Escargot Bleu recently.  It's astonishing how easily a £15.99 fixed price lunch can end up costing £45 a head.

A walking tour of Warriston Cemetery was just the thing for a sunny Saturday afternoon.  Since it was under the auspices of the National Gallery the focus was on artists and architects buried there with an additional nod to some of the pioneers of photography.

I confess only one name was familiar to me, the artist Robert Scott Lauder.  The architects I knew none of  but I'm familiar with many of their buildings; the McEwan Hall, the University Medical School, the Portrait Gallery etc. etc.

The grandest monument we came across was not to an artist but to one Robertson Mclean from the island of Coll who when his father died was taken off with his siblings by his mother to Australia where they made lots of money and moved to New Zealand where they made even more money.  Some of it was eventually used to pay for this:

He appears in his brother Allan's entry the New Zealand biographical dictionary.

Leaving the cemetery and en route to a birthday party in Leith I passed eight fine tennis courts in Goldenacre which at 4pm on a sunny Saturday were devoid of life.  No wonder we are short of Wimbledon champions.

When the party venue door was opened to me a toddler rushed down the long corridor and more or less threw herself into my arms.  "Oh" said her dad "She must think you are someone else."  How cruel is that?

The fine weather persisted into Sunday so I went out for a walk mid morning and satisfied an urge I've had for a while to examine the Collective Gallery's new home on Calton Hill and the new restaurant that's up there now.  I hadn't been up literally for years and wondered how my aging legs would cope with the steep path up from Royal Terrace.  They coped fine though I needed to stop to draw breath a couple of times but I probably had to do that even when I was a lot fitter.

The refurbishment of the observatory is excellent though I didn't think much of what the Collective was showing.

I skipped a film about sex workers in favour of a display of colouful clothes hanging on a line.  A light projects their shadows onto a wall. You are invited to listen to a vinyl (no doubt a critical element) record of odd music with a voice saying something over it (no doubt another critical element).  Here am I doing just that thing and looking suitably stern or is it puzzled as I do so.

The restaurant, called for good reason The Lookout, is a relatively unobtrusive modern building that in a couple of hundred years or so will fit in nicely with the existing buildings.

I'm generally late in getting to exhibitions that run for a long time and the robot show at the museum has been no exception. It's been on since January but I've only managed to get to it ten days before it ends.

I really enjoyed it especially the modern stuff and my total favourite unsurprisingly was the Thespian Robot who does a great little show.

Reassuringly for actors in fear of losing their jobs a caption tells us that acting ranks 210th in a list of 366 jobs at risk of automation.

My favourite tree in a corner of the grounds at Gartmore House where I spent a very pleasant Easter playing the saxophone with other enthusiasts.  There were breaks to enjoy the sunshine and even one session playing out of doors but the main business was some twenty hours of blowing indoors in various groups from duos to our full complement of over twenty players.  It was great.

A quick rundown of activities between Cortina and Gartmore to remind me when dementia strikes.

Ross's birthday lunch at Aurora, a lovely little restaurant in Great Junction Street the most unexpected of locations.

Big Band Divas at the Queen's Hall which thanks to the birthday lunch wine I dozed through.

Another saxophone afternoon at the Big Blaw after which I went to Glasgow with Rory to hear Bob Reynolds.  The music was super but it was standing room only in the tiny cellar venue with an hour cooling our heels before the band turned up.

It's only taken ten years but I've at last had a light installed in my hall cupboard and a few more electrical improvements such as replacing the jet turbine extractor fan in my bathroom with a quieter model.

A lovely piece of modern music by Anna Clyne was the filling in a sandwich of two Mozart violin concertos played by Nicola Benedetti and the SCO.

I loved Pepperland, Mark Morris's tribute to the Beatles Sergeant Pepper album on its 50th birthday.  The score was not a straightforward rendition of the album but what the Guardian called "an idiosyncratic reinvention".  The costumes were bright as a bunch of Spring flowers and the dancing as buzzy as swarm of bees.

Connor took a few hours off from mountain biking in the borders to come up to Edinburgh and take me out to eat at the ever tasty Vittoria's.

Another excellent SCO gig whose centre piece was Ravel's Piano Concerto in G.  That and Variaciones Concertantes by Ginastera put Beethoven's Symphony No. 4,  somewhat in the shade for me and I count myself a Beethoven fan.

The Grads did a show called Hand to God which must be one of the best productions I've ever seen them do or been involved in myself.  The review points to inadequacies in the script which I must say I didn't really pick up on entirely because of the superlative quality of the production.

One of the Grads longtime members, indeed I think she was a founder member, died recently.  Joyce had been living for the last few years with her son down south but he organised a memorial service for her here and quite a few of us attended.  I liked her a lot and was in a number of shows with her.  The service was not a particularly sad occasion (she'd made it to 89 after all) but rather a good opportunity to meet up with people I hadn't seen for some years.

Heat and Dust is one of the wonderful Merchant Ivory movies that I've enjoyed over the years of their partnership.  It's based on a novel of the same name which earned Ruth Pawer Jhabvala the Booker prize.  The screenplay brought her a Bafta in 1984.  The film is set in India both in the present day (1970/80s) and in the 1920s and handles two intertwined romantic dramas.  The Guardian like me admired its reappearance in cinemas and found perhaps even more depth than in the first time around.

Cora Bisset is a consummate theatrical and what's more she went to school in Kirkcaldy.  Her play What Girls Are Made Of was a hit at last year's Fringe.  I regretted missing it so was keen to see the revival currently touring.  I was I have to say a little disappointed.  Maybe it's just that I never had ambitions to be a pop star despite my washboard playing at the YWCA circa 1956 or that the popular music of the 1980s was not all that popular with me.  It's a slick show terribly well performed and the events portrayed were clearly seminal for her so I'm not knocking it.  I just wasn't personally much engaged by it.

I was the first person to enter the departure lounge at Innsbruck Airport this morning after sailing through security etc. Mind you the check_in desk was so unprepared for their first customer of the day that they had no boarding cards or luggage labels in their machines..

Now the long wait for the Edinburgh flight after a lovely week in lovely Cortina.

I was accosted in the street yesterday afternoon by a Mormon missionary lady who asked what had made me happy that day.  I replied shamelessly yet truthfully - "drink".  Taken at lunch with some former workmates in a sufficent but not excessive quantity.

Many other things have made me happy in the last couple of weeks.  Scotland's amazing recovery in the Calcutta Cup match for example. Technically a draw but it felt a lot better than that.  Contrast our footballers in Khazakstan.  They need to bring in Davie Robertson from Real Kashmir to sort them out.

Ewan was here for a few days en route to ski in Austria.  While he was here we went to see the new stage musical version of Local Hero.  It was fun, if a trifle long but this was its very first performance so it will probably be trimmed.  According to Ewan the scene set in Houston needed a few stetsons and cowboy boots to give it a more authentic air.  He had various social engagements but the one pleasure he unaccountably missed was hearing my daily saxophone practice. Surely not intentionally.

As a measure of how long it had been since my last cinema visit, when I went to see Capernaum all the adverts except one were new to me.  It's a wonderful film.  Read the review I've linked to and go see it.

Another lovely film was Born Bone Born or Senkotsu in its Japanese title which is the custom that lingers on in some small islands of a family gathering together to wash the bones of a dead relative a few years after the death once most of the flesh has fallen away.

That sounds pretty grim but it was a delightful and frequently humorous family drama, and it made the bone washing ritual a respectful and dignified ceremony that one might like to experience.

In comparison to those films The Aftermath was a more familiar story of a couple whose marriage is on the slide.  There's a bit of extra-marital rumpy pumpy naturally but it ends happily.  The particular circumstances, their different feelings about the death of their child and the setting, the British administration in Hamburg at the end of the war are what gives it its flavour.  Not an unentertaining film but accurately valued by the critics at two stars.

I think two stars is what Claire has awarded Beauty and the Beast in her mind given her reaction or lack thereof to the performance at the Festival Theatre last week.  I thought it was better than that though I can't raise the delirious applause of the Telegraph's Ballet critic.

The SCO gave an interesting concert last night and as a woodwind player I could only marvel at how clarinettist Max Martin softly pulled long, low, dark notes from silence. Astonishing playing.  And he was only one (if perhaps the best) of a talented body of players.

A splendid musical weekend at The Burn was rounded off by this lovely snow scene yesterday morning.  Concerns were raised over possible travel problems but by mid afternon the snow had vanished not only off  the dykes but from the entire landscape.

I took a couple of pictures from indoors as well, of which here is one.

One of the talks I enjoyed most at last year's Book Festival was by the author of a book called Monsieur X.  I decided against buying the book at the time in favour of waiting for the paperback edition to come out.

Well now it's out and I've read it.

It's the tale of an upper class Frenchman who took on the might of the French state run betting organisation, the PMU, and made a killing, several killings in fact despite the PMU wriggling around to change its rules and the financial police sticking their noses in in an attempt to find proofs of his other little sideline as an illegal bookie to the toffs.

Now I've no interest in horse-racing or gambling but I loved the book.  It's a great story.  The author, no doubt with sales in mind, didn't reveal how Monsieur X's adventures finished and nor shall I.  It would spoil your pleasure if you read the book.

I've also just enjoyed one of last year's hit shows on the Fringe.  The good ones often come back in a reversal of the bad penny trope.  It was in Traverse 2 for the Fringe but was selling out in the much larger Traverse 1 last week.  Ulster American is a brilliant comedy in which an Catholic Irish American egotistical, over-acting, recovering alcoholic, Oscar winning filmstar has been persuaded by what he declares to be the best script he has read in a decade to come to London to appear in a new Irish play.

His meeting with the director and author is the setting.  He overwhelms the director with his intensity and physical presence driving him to declare that if Jesus held a gun to his head he would rape Margaret Thatcher with the caveat that horrible woman though she was she didn't deserve it.

When he discovers that not only does the author maintain that she and her play are British not Irish but that the hero he is to play is a Protestant bent on exterminating the Fenians, who he now discovers are Catholics he wants to abandon the whole project.

The director is equally upset by the author's insistence that the play is British and doubly upset when she admits to being a Conservative.  And he's desperate to placate the pair of them and keep the show alive.

It was brilliant and the denouement gasp provoking with an exceptionaly funny curtain line.

Manchester had the pleasure of my company for a weekend for the first time in years at what was styled a jazz workshop.  Organised by an outfit called Jazzsmart and led by Andy Scott, a well known player, composer and educator in the saxophone world there were about 20 of us.

On the Saturday we worked our way energetically through various pieces and all had a go or two at soloing.  The session was followed by a few drinks and a meal in Chinatown.

On the Sunday it all happened again (minus drinks and meal) with the very welcome addition of a rhythm section.  A couple of industry reps were in attendance with shiny new saxes for us to lust after and try. No sales were made as far as I could see but a number of appetites were obviously whetted.

We finished in time for me to catch an earlier return train than I had booked so I made my way briskly to Piccadilly only to find that the earlier train had been cancelled.  Indeed most trains to and from Manchester airport (where my booked train would originate) were being cancelled so I decided to get further up the line to hopefully connect with a London train.

I ended up in Preston with a London train connection some hours away, sipping a Leffe beer after casting aside the barman's warning that it was very expensive until my originally booked train arrived with my reserved seat intact.

Back home I had one of my periodic trips to Glasgow where I had a good lunch with Ian and Andrew at the Italian Kitchen followed by a tour of Tennent's Brewery.  The strange thing about the brewery was that no-one seemed to work there despite claims that millions of cans and bottles leave the place every week.  None of those millions were whizzing round the bottling lines which we were told were under maintenance.  Naturally we ended up in their bar supping the pint included in the tour price.

A couple of days later I had another pleasant lunch this time at the French Institute with Esther and Andy here for an astronomical conference.

James MacMillan is often described as Scotland's greatest living composer and to celebrate his 60th birthday the SCO programmed a concert featuring two of his compositions conducted by the composer himself.  The percussion concerto, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel is a great piece for anyone who enjoyed growing up banging toy drums and that must be everyone surely.  The choral piece, Seven Last Words from the Cross, which I hadn't heard before was lovely.

The Grads featured in the SCDA One Act Competition with a very amusing play called The Actor's Nightmare.  They did well enough to win a place in the next round. It's also at the Churchhill and if I go again I shall avoid the tempranillo which was dreadful.  Stick to G&T there is my advice.

Following on from the recent jazz weekend featuring Belgian jazzers we've had a Blues weekend.  I got to only one gig.  It was at St Brides, which incidentally was looking good.  I haven't been there for ages.  Anyway the gig was excellent though it was a bit of a slow burn for me.  I wasn't too excited by the first half but after the break there was a great band led by singer Nicole Smit.  She came on accompanied by drums and guitar and was joined as the gig progressed by the two musicians who had played in the first half.  I liked them much more as band members than as solo artists.  

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.