The castle lit up in blue for St Andrew's day last night.

Their lights were working.  Not so for The Street of Light which is what I had gone up town to have a look at.  As part of Edinburgh's Christmas festivities a section of George Street has been given over to a series of arches through which you can wander gazing in awe at the pretty lights while your ears are bathed in music from the likes of the RSNO or Blazing Fiddles.

Last year it was in the High Street but I only ever caught a glimpse while going up the Bridges.  I decided to have a closer look this time.  It's a free event but the publicity advised that it was necessary to obtain a ticket on-line.  Since when you get there you can wander along the pavement beside the construction and there are no barriers to prevent you popping into the body of the kirk I can only surmise that this is an elaborate ploy to harvest email addresses and phone numbers.  I hope to have given them the slip by unticking the boxes that would have given Underbelly and its "carefully chosen partners" permission to junk bomb me.

This is what it looked like when I got there.  A brave little saltire above a part illuminated castle like trellis.  Bear with us a loudspeaker said.  We've got a wee problem and hope to get underway pretty soon.  This mantra was repeated at intervals until finally they said the show was cancelled but they'd play the music.  So I wandered along while a choir sang and lights flashed on and off in sporadic spasms.  

 

Spasms are challenging for a digital camera to cope with.  Click when the lights are on and by the time the electronics have reacted it's dark again. This is about the best camera and photographer managed to achieve.

After a while a pre-recorded message announced that things were over, enjoined us to leave carefully since exits might be crowded etc. but added that we were welcome to stick around to enjoy the lights (whose then state is shown in the photo above) since they would stay on till half past seven.  Could have done with a mind at work there.

I went on from the lights to the Grads production of Beachy Head.  There is some very fine acting in the show and its multimedia challenges are well handled but its structure cries out for it to have been a film not a stage play and it scratches at several surfaces without penetrating them deeply enough to reveal much of what lies beneath.