Oh for the self-discipline of a Tony Benn and his like who wrote up or dictated their diaries nightly before bed, not to mention Pepys with his quill pen in candlight or Cicero with one of those dinky  little oil lamps.  With every modern tool at my disposal I can't keep my blog up to date.  Must do better.

So a whirlwind tour of the last month.

It kicked off with Jo Butt's funeral.  A longtime member of the Grads he was in the first full length show I directed for them and we appeared together in a couple of shows, once as an old cogers drunken double-act which was much fun to do.

One of the periodic dinners with former colleagues at FI where I am the token man, and very happy to be him, took place in a restaurant new to me.  Badgers in Castle St. is so named because Kenneth Grahame once lived in the building.  I played Mr Badger in Toad of Toad Hall so I await a plaque on the wall recording my having dined there.  The food was excellent by the way.

More eating out the following week with lunch in the National Gallery restaurant with another former colleague who hadn't made it to the dinner and with one who had.  Again the food was excellent.

A local councillor has been helpful to us on a couple of occasions so when she organised a litter pick in the streets around here I felt obliged to turn out.  I also publicised the event on the Dicksonfield website, via my Dicksonfield mailing list and by posters on all the noticeboards in Dicksonfield.  This effort brought forth zero residents.

They missed a pleasant stroll in the Saturday morning sunshine, convivial chat with the small crowd that took part and cold drinks and doughnuts at the end.  They might  also to have earned some brownie points that may stand us in good stead with the aforesaid councillor when we need her.

Over the doughnuts I had an interesting and informative chat with a man from the council's waste department about their collection experiment with bin sensors and collection methods.  Our bins are now being emptied on some apparently random cycle and only full bins are actually tipped into the bin lorry .  I guess this is part of the experiment.

There's been a Spanish film festival.  I saw an absolutely fascinating documentary about a Catalan bandleader who enjoyed a rags to riches life in the States.  His life was extraordinary and the film did it justice with wonderful archive footage and personal reminiscence. Here's Wikipedia's biog and you can catch his music on Youtube.

I also enjoyed  An Autumn Without Berlin and a session of eight short films but while I found The Bride (a version of Lorca's Bodas de Sangre) lovely to look at, those phallic termite mounds were a bit unsubtle as was a rearing black stallion tearing across the desert.  The playing too was rather over melodramatic for a phlegmatic Fifer like me but on the whole it's a film worth seeing.

As is The World Goes On as a Spanish cinema period piece and The King of Havana as an example of what's called" dirty realism".  I enjoyed the former but not the latter.

Before heading off to Pitlochry to enjoy the final week of the Festival Theatre's summer season I went to the Lyceum for the opening show of their season.  It was The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus in a version by David Greig, the theatre's new artistic director.  Claire has written an exceptionally fine appraisal of the production, much better than some of the professional reviews I've read (which is quite appropriate).

In Pitlochry I stayed in a very comfortable and well appointed hotel frequented in overwhelming measure by old people, as I'm afraid was the theatre.  Still, absence of sniveling brats and moody teens is no bad thing I suppose.

I throughly enjoyed all but one of the productions which is a pretty good score.  Thark, a 1920s farce by Ben Travers was to my mind a terminally feeble script although for most of the audience that seemed be offset by the company's excellent set, costumes and performances.  Or maybe, heaven forfend, they thought it was good material.

Carousel, a lovely musical despite its rather twee toying with the hereafter.  Then three good Ayckbourns under the umbrella title Damsels in Distress, This Happy Breed by Coward and a dramatisation of Hard Times by Dickens.

In between shows I toured around in the rain, played a round of golf, visited the Museum of Country Life in Blair Atholl (highly recommended but you'll have to wait till it reopens in the Spring), visited the Atholl Palace Hotel museum (also recommended and open all year round) and bought some bargain price breeks and bunnets.

Scotland's other Nicola justifiably packed the Usher Hall for the first Edinburgh RSNO concert of the season but its a shame that not so many of those eager punters turned out a couple of weeks later to hear Janine Jansen play Sibelious's violin concerto.  I confess that I was there only because I've had to swap dates because of a clash with a trip to London but I'm very glad to have heard her and the piece.

Scotland's other orchestra, the SCO, gave a brilliant performance of L'enfance du Christ by Berlioz in the same hall.  To my knowledge I've never heard this before.  I loved its delicacy, the ethereal off-stage choir and their re-incarnation back on-stage.  I was close to the front which made me feel practically alongside the soloists. I could feel every breath they took and see every quiver of their lips.  The bass was magnificently strong as Herod and in the closing moments you could feel rather than hear the tenor as he exhaled the closing words.

It was terrific. At one point and most unusually the conductor turned to the audience after what I believe is known as the shepherds' farewell and said "I suggest we play that again" and they did.

Music of an entirely different sort was provided by Allegro's production of Sunshine on Leith.  I was there in support of a young man who was in our Fringe show and enjoyed it quite a lot.  No wonder groups like Allegro do only one show a year when you consider what's involved.

I've just come back from Shed 36 in the Port of Dundee but more about that later and perhaps a word or two on the twice yearly Play, Pie and Pint season which is with us again.  I'll leave Claire to describe the supremely talented Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.