Blink and you'll miss it is not generally true of the display of major art works but almost invariably I find myself doing a last minute rush.  So it was no surprise to find that I was kissing goodbye to Rodin's chunk of marble on its last day in Edinburgh.

En route to the gallery I passed through St Andrew Square and discovered that lights were being planted.

The planter told me that the lights would be switched on the following night so after band practice I wandered home via the square and pitted my little camera phone against the darkness, no doubt to the amusement of those with seriously big cameras on tripods. 

Here's roughly the same view with the lights on:

It's not wildly exciting I admit but you're not getting the full picture. Yet.

Tonight I was at the National Library listening to a talk in which much lyrical prose and poetry was spilt in praise of Arthur's Seat and Calton Hill.  One speaker expatiated on the landscape and drew a picture connecting the mythological beliefs associated with the hill to the progress of enlightened and radical thought exemplified by its various monuments.

He found it particularly interesting to think of how the statue of James Clerk Maxwell gazing from the end of George Street to the hill on which he had played as a boy stood for that continuity and progress.

Now far be it from me to rudely, self-importantly and childishly correct a distinguished speaker (and I didn't) but I was pretty sure that James is looking the other way.  And indeed he is as I verified on my way home.

However I might just pass this information on to the distinguished speaker since it strikes me as an even better story to describe him as turning his back on the old beliefs and truths of his childhood to venture out into the brave new world of electromagnetism that underpins the modern age.

Handily I was at the St Andrew Square end of George Street and even more handily I had a camera with me (pre-planned I confess) so I wandered through the lights and took a few snaps, not really much better than the phone snaps in fact, but then it struck me that the perfect spot to get the whole picture would be Harvey Nicks.  So I whizzed up to the bar/restaurant on the fourth floor (wittily called the Forth bar) and here's the result.

Naturally I felt impelled to justify my presence and mitigate the sin of displaying a John Lewis plastic bag by making a small purchase so I had a glass of a rather tasty Gewurtztraminer.  It came all the way from Chile which is not really surprising given the large part that Germans played in the European settlement of the country.  Indeed my Chilean friend of Danish ancestry was educated at a German school.  But it's the first Chilean that I've tasted.  Not likely to be the last.

If you want to know more about the artist behind the light you can buy his book at Harvey Nicks for a mere thirty five quid or a mini book for a little less than half that.