Last summer a couple of Spanish friends made a brief visit to Edinburgh.  They said that they hoped to come again this summer but for a longer period.  In anticipation of the possibility of long conversations I decided to give my very rusty Spanish a brush up and enrolled on a short City of Edinburgh adult education course.  Imagine my surprise when I turned up at Craigentinny community centre not a ten minute busride away to find this imposing castle.  The classrooms are actually in a single level extension but the community council meets on the top floor.  For the building's history visit this site.   The class unfortunately is not as imposing as its setting.  I comfort myself with the thought that you can always learn something.

The girls at Grangewood School learn lessons for life in the Grads production of Daisy Pulls It Off.  This is a delightful parody of  the boarding school genre of children's fiction exemplified by the Chalet School series, The Jennings books, Billy Bunter, the Malory Towers series and so on.  Our local critic found much to admire as did I.  Another company are doing it in the Fringe this year but you'll have to get up early to see it, start time 09.25.

At the more civilized 19.30 I saw two shows recently.  Windrush at The Lyceum is about the palm tree that had to be cut down prior to the renovation of the plant houses at the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh.  An unusual subject but presented delicately (some critics said elegiacally) in speech and song by Karine Polwart.  

Baby Mash-up, What Are You Doing at the Traverse was mystifying.  The presentation was super and the performances were excellent but what was it all about?  An absurdist view of  one person's life in Northern Ireland?  If I'd stayed for the post show discussion and asked piercing questions I might have found out but I left Claire and Ross to do that and so far they haven't enlightened me.

I was recommended the film L'Etranger, a new adaptation of Camus' novel and liked it a lot. It happened to be on at Filmhouse and I happened to see it on the first of May and happened to pick up a copy of what was on over the month  The reult was a lot of visits to the cinema but I'm only going to mention three.

According to the British Film Institute Akira is "One of the most influential anime films ever made, Katsuhiro Otomo’s dystopian cyberpunk film introduced the western world to the cinematic spectacle that anime has to offer."  After 40 years or so this cult masterpiece is back with us.  I missed it the first time round and only wish I'd missed it this time as well. To be fair I suppose the look and feel of the film is impressive but for me outweighed by my total inability to follow the plot.  Lots of people rushing around shooting other people for incomprehensible reasons.

A Japanese film much more to my liking was Kokuho.  It's a somewhat melodramatic story about two men who are both colleagues and rivals in the world of kabuki where they are "onnagata", men playing female parts.  One is the son of a famous kabuki actor and the other the son of a murdered gangster who is taken in by the actor and brought up and trained with his own son.  The film features several kabuki scenes which are ravishingly beautiful. 

The Guardian called Eagles of the Republic a seductive thriller.  It both seduced and thrilled me.  The story concerns an Egyptian actor, an idol to his public, who is persuaded/bullied into taking a role in a presidential vanity biopic project.  Things go awry in a number of ways and our hero sees heads roll and fears for his own.  Gripping stuff. I read that it's the third part of a trilogy so I must try to see the two earlier films.

The world of nature is well covered on TV but while the inimitable David Attenborough still thriving at 100 is a brilliant presenter and programme creator there is an army of fine cameramen who merit our attention as well.  One of these is Gordon Buchanan who gave a talk at the museum this month. In introducing his talk he said he'd been inspired by another Scottish cinematographer, Doug Allen, and like him aspired to work underwater but in the event became closely associated with big cats.  They were the main focus of his talk.  He showed many fine slides and video clips of his work.  Much of the talk was a repetition of material I'd seen on TV which was a bit disappointing but it was good to hear the man in the flesh.

The U3A organised a talk this month by an Edinburgh history teacher about the First World War actions in Africa.  It's not an aspect of the war that is terribly well known. The speaker had a wealth of detail and commentary and his talk was well illustrated with photos and maps.  Many of the latter from German sources.  Two intrtiguing facts to take away from the talk were that the first shots of the war were fired in west Africa and that the war finally ended with the surrender of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck on November 25th 1918 at what is now Mbala in Zambia. 

I went to a wine tasting last night.  It was very sociable but it confirmed the pointlessness of my going to these events because the floral notes and all that stuff escape me.  I can't tell one wine from another.