My U3A Italian group is up and running again on Zoom.  A few people decided not to continue from dislike of Zoom or other reasons so I've cleared my waiting list and have slightly improved the diversity index by now having a third man in the group.  I've unfortunately had to discipline two of the three new members but I'll say no more.

Work on Claire's Zoom play has got underway and an outline schedule for the rebirth of The Venetian Twins established.  That was before the recent retightening of Covid restrictions with the fear that they may go on for six months. If that happens the Twins will be dealt another and possibly final body blow.

I was at the Edinburgh SCDA AGM via Zoom and that was a sad sort of meeting.  Festival cancellations done in 2020 and the likelihood of at least the February dates going the same way in 2021.  No replacement for the wonderful Susan Wales in the secretary's chair and someone needed to take over the website.

One tightening has already affected me.  My sax lessons have moved back from Polwarth to Skype.  I don't really mind too much.  It means I don't have to go out in the cold and wet.

Forcing their way through the cold and wet were a couple of lovely days last week and I took full advantage of them.  I had a nice stroll in Comely Bank one day and did a good deed while I was there by donating my old sax to the City of Edinburgh Music School.  It was becoming an embarrassment lying around to no real purpose so I'm glad to have passed it on.  I intend for my other instruments to go there in the fullness of time.  

On the second lovely day I went to Stirling where I believe it was even lovelier than it was in Edinburgh thanks no doubt to being beyond the influence of the North Sea.  I had booked a ticket to visit Stirling Castle, which to my shame I had never been to before.  Not every apartment in the castle was open to visitors, not having been yet made Covid safe but there was enough to see to keep me busy for over two hours.  The castle rises magnificently out of the surrounding countryside so there are splendid views as well, and refreshment was on hand in the café.  I steered clear of the gift shop.

The town too has some interesting buildings so I passed a while wandering around before getting a bus home.  I'd normally go to Stirling by train but because of the Union Canal having burst its banks in the recent bad weather the train service had been disrupted.  A benefit of the bus ride is that it gives you pretty good views of the Forth for part of the journey.  Had I been in a car there was one spot where I'd have drawn up to admire the bridges with the Queensferry Crossing in the foreground, an aspect I don't believe I've ever seen before.  It's beautiful.  I also spotted a couple of very fine old villas in Bo'ness that lie by the river and speak to past industrial wealth.  And on the M9 you pass the wonderful Kelpies.

When I got back to Edinburgh I headed straight to the Filmhouse for my first taste of Covid safe movie-going.  Only one entrance open and a lady at a little desk behind a perspex shield confronting you as you enter.  I guess one of her jobs is to throw you if you've arrived before the arrival time specified on your ticket, which you have of course purchased in advance although there were other perspex protected staff at the usual counter so perhaps you can turn up on spec.  No lingering in the bar though without a reservation.

My film was in Screen 3 and yet another perspex shielded deskman checked my ticket and advised me that I must sit in the seat prescribed on my ticket.

You can get an idea of how it's set out from this photo.  Screen 3 has 77 seats but only 15 of them were available to sit in.  You can't pay many perspex shielded employees with that revenue and on that particular occasion not all 15 were occupied.

The film was Il Traditore, a dramatised treatment of the life of Tommaso Buscetta, a Sicilian mafioso whose testimony for the state at trials in 1986/7 led to the conviction of his former associates.  The magistrate Giovanni Falcone who led the drive against the Mafia at that time and with whom Buscetta collaborated paid for his work with his life but Buscetta lived on in the States as a protected witness and died in his bed as he had wished.  It was a good film.

With the Thursday evening theatre watching group I saw Missing People again and enjoyed it just as much.  Everyone else admired it too so I'm glad to have suggested it. With the same group I watched User Not Found from the Traverse.  It was an online version of a play they did in a café a festival or so ago.  A man is sitting in a cafe staring at his phone thinking about his late partner, or rather former partner - they had split a couple of years before, who had appointed him his "online legacy executor".  His responsibility is to decide how to deal with all the digital traces of his partner: Facebook posts, Tweets, Instagram pics etc etc.  He has the help of an organisation called Fidelis Legacy Solutions who have the partner's passwords and will organise the deletion or leaving alone of his digital traces.  He ruminates on the relationship and going through the digital assets brings back memories good and bad.

It was a good show and I think that Fidelis is a brilliant idea.  You were instructed to watch it on a smartphone wearing headphones which I did.  But that was really more of a gimmick than anything else. I watched it again on a laptop without headphones.  It was much better.

Two more screen entertainments.  The Elephant's Graveyard is a true story of how the elephant from a travelling circus was lynched in Tennessee in 1916.  It turns out there was a reason for the lynching though cooler heads would surely have thought better of taking out on the elephant the thoughtless act of a human being.

Anyway the play based on the incident was quite entertaining. It was really a series of monologues from all the circus people and town residents involved.  It was nicely presented with the actors in sepia tones and period costumes filmed against black and white period location photographs. 

Us I saw on iplayer.  It's a four part dramatisation of a novel by David Nicholls.  A couple are about to see their son leave home to go to college.  A family holiday has been planned for the three of them to tour Europe, their last holiday together before the family changes.  The mother reveals to unsuspecting husband that she thinks it's about time she left as well.  They decide nonetheless to go ahead with the holiday.

Of course things don't go smoothly.  Truth to tell things have not gone terribly smoothly between father and son as he grew up.  Anyway lots of things happen.  It's a clever mixture of comedy and seriousness with flashbacks to the beginnings of the couple's relationship and points within the family's history.  Entertaing and moving and with a happy ending and lots of lovely cityscapes in Paris, Amsterdam, Venice, Sienna, Barcelona and Sitges.

Made me think of happy travelling times.