Looking Back Over My Shoulder - two novels that without being overtly biographical spring from family connections with the British Empire, in one case (Dignity by Alys Conran) inspired by tales of her granny's days in India and in the other (The Wild Wind by Sheena Kalayil) a childhood spent between India and Africa.  Both explore identity, the notion of home and of belonging.  The stimulating discussion in the spiegel tent has added them to my growing list of books to be read.

Before the End - my first and only visit to Summerhall this Fringe provided a delicate and thoughtful work.  Centred on the final moments of his life Catherine Graindorge performs a loving tribute to her father, a prominent left wing Belgian lawyer.  She uses a mix of music, spoken reminiscence, recordings of his voice, family photos and documents, video footage of news reports and private videos to convey both his admirable and humane attitude to life and her love for him.  The performance ends with a beautifully caught moment of home video.  The family are disposing of his ashes in a little country river and are disturbed by some riders.  As the riders move off a child's voice is heard saying "the horse drank some of grandad".

Bull - I saw a production of this earlier and expected this older, more mature cast to inhabit the characters more convincingly than the younger set I'd seen.  To an extent they did but gave a rather more austere and clinical performance than I think the play requires.  The actors playing Tony and Mr. Carter were too similar physically, and to a degree in their performances, for my taste.  I'd have liked a much more venomous Tony.

Inverkeithing Community Big Band - several of my saxophone chums are in this band and they all played terribly well.  As did the entire band.  They were absolutely together and accomplished that most difficult of tasks - playing quietly when required to.

Scotland's Role in Slavery - this billing is somewhat more extensive than either the event or the book being presented deserves.  It's a most interesting and informative study but focuses on one man, Lord Seaforth, a Highland estate owner who became governor of Barbados and a cotton plantation owner in Dutch Guiana.  The author, Finlay McKichan, argues that Seaforth was an exception to the general run of slave owners in that he was concerned for their welfare and to a degree for their legal rights from both a humanitarian and a commercial point of view.  He had, it is argued, displayed the same qualities in how he treated his Highland tenants.  While admitting that Seaforth's attitudes and behaviour were not always consistent McKichan pointed out that we live in complex and complicated times today and that the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century period in which Seaforth lived while different, was probably just as contrary.

Remembrance of Things Past - it was a chastening experience to be in a full to bursting spiegel tent to hear an author of whom I had never heard.  I believe myself to be reasonably culturally aware and what's more a francophile yet was clearly one of the very small minority in that tent who wasn't there to endorse the proclamation of Annie Ernaux as a modern day Proust and her novel Les Années as a more than worthy successor to A la recherche des temps perdus.  It was a delightful session and while I've never managed to finish Proust (even the graphic novel version) her book is half the thickness so there's a chance I'll redress my cultural lacuna.

Perchance to Dream - wandering around the festival bookshop I lingered over The Nocturnal Brain by Guy Leschziner wondering why with my interest in the brain and in sleep I hadn't picked that out.  In fact I had.  It was the next session I was going to.  The author runs a sleep disorder clinic at Guy's hospital and his book deals with a number of case studies at the extreme end of the spectrum, from the woman whose sleepwalking includes riding around on a motorbike to the man who falls asleep and collapses when he laughs too much.  Extraordinary cases and so far to go in understanding their causes.