The Traverse fringe programme was announced this morning and for once I'm ahead of the game.  Not only that but I'm saving money by booking preview performances.  However it does mean two marathon days.  Five plays on one day starting at 11 am finishing at 10pm and four on another starting at 10am finishing at 9.30pm. 

Since my record for Fringe shows is seven in a day it shouldn't be that overwhelming but don't expect me to remember much about them afterwards.    

It was a lovely afternoon yesterday and I set out enthusiastically to play golf.   My enthusiasm gradually wasted away as the number of golf balls in my bag decreased.  The last two ended up somewhere in the gorse lining the 18th fairway.

Making idle conversation whilst enjoying tonsorial attention the other day I offered the information that I was holidaying in the islands of Orkney and Shetland this summer.  "Is that near Stornoway?" I was asked.  On learning the true whereabouts of my holiday destination and being given as a bonus  the name of the island group sheltering Stornoway the barber lady generously absolved her geography teacher of responsibility crying mea culpa and swearing to peruse a map over her tea that evening.

I hope she did.

I was crying mea culpa myself as I left a performance of Sutra.  I chose to go, nobody forced me.  Did I think that I would get a lot out of 70 minutes of Kung Fu like prancing and grunting or what?  I grant you it looks lovely and it's very athletic and I'd never have thought you could do so much on a stage with a couple of dozen coffin sized boxes but it didn't float my boat.  Others thought much more highly of the work.

I felt similarly negative about This House.  Maybe I'd have enjoyed this story of the internecine battle between Labour and Tory whips in the period 74 to 79 if I'd seen it in the theatre rather than as a satellite transmission to a cinema, but I'm not sure.  I think the political and social changes that took place during that time are better deserving of a theatrical airing than the struggle to get members through the lobbies.  Others thought differently.

I shan't bother comparing my opinion of the RSNO's performance of Elijah with what anyone else thought because I know it was great, especially the off-stage children's choir.  Ethereal is the only word for that.

The costume design and construction students from Queen Margaret University have been showing off their creations.  It was marvellous stuff.  I think the girl who did our excellent Tempest costumes a few years ago came from that course.

Their Costume Showcase was held in the debating hall of what used to be the Men's Union but is now called Teviot Row House. The building had quite a few bars in my time but seems to have even more nowadays including this rooftop one which I'm sure wasn't there in the 60s.

It's been going since 1984 but 6 o'clock this morning was when I heard of it for the first time.  No doubt all my tweeting friends had already been up for hours celebrating international dawn chorus day.  I hope to hear some of them in the new BBC "Tweet of the day" series starting at 05.58 tomorrow.

Birds of a different feather were plentiful in a surprisingly interesting and moving film that I stumbled across yesterday.  I'd spent the better part of the day helping with the Forth Bridge paintingish task of clearing and tidying the Grads store in Home street and popped into the Cameo for a revivifying coffee.  I took it into The Look of Love which was just starting.  A biopic about Paul Raymond seems an unlikely cesspit in which to find a diamond but the performances were excellent, the evocation of the times masterly and the central drama of his relationship with his daughter altogether affecting.

Raymond may have been known as the king of smut but he's outdone on the screen this week by Almodovar's I'm So Excited.   Is it funny? Yesish, but it's like Frankie Howard with the innuendo replaced by direct action.  Those who suggest it's a metaphor for the state of the Spanish nation are over intellectualising a money making romp.

There was an unexpected amount of romping in Zinnie Harris's version of A Doll's House, a revival of which has replaced the play that featured in the Lyceum's brochure published almost a year ago.  It surprises me that such forward planning fails so infrequently but in this case the replacement is a very satisfactory show.  I enjoyed it a lot.

Chinese dumplings replaced pies in the A Play, a Pie and a Pint mini series that is currently running.  The two shows playing in Edinburgh are at the Bedlam and while the Traverse generally fills up for these lunchtime shows there could not have been more than 25 in the house to see Secrets, and most of them seemed to have a connection with the Confuscius Institute which is sponsoring the Edinburgh performances.  That's a shame because it was an intriguing little play in many ways.

Not least in that there seemed nothing particularly Chinese about it.  A man turns up at the house of a woman he had abandoned eighteen months earlier.  She is now married and has a child.  He thinks it might be his.  He suggests they go away together.  After an emotional struggle she agrees because she is still in love with him.  He then hums and haws, says he didn't really mean it and anyway he's getting married next week to his boss.  She throws him out and sits down in tears.  Chinese women have it as bad as any others, eh?

The only tears at the Grads' reading of Julius Caesar (to be performed in November) were tears of laughter.  Not particularly appropriate for a tragedy you'd think but due to the random allocation of roles made on the hoof amongst the inadequate number of people present.  At one point I could hardly read for the tears in my eyes as I grappled with a conversation amongst three characters all being played by me struggling to differentiate them with a range of funny voices.  At least I wasn't being addressed as "girl" as was one hefty male Grad.

All that indoor entertainment was balanced by a glorious summery day on the golf course.  Imagine, short sleeves at last, winter is over, the thump of willow on ball is in the air etc etc.  Alas for one day only.  Maybe it will come again next week or next month or .....