So far, this June has been the wettest and most dismal of the ten that I have spent in France. It seems to have rained without intermission. If the weather during the last third of the month is as poor then I shall be heartily glad not to be here.

Of course all things are relative and I have not been swept to my death in a flash flood as many people have been in the south so it’s not been all bad.

The big question is whether or not there will be an interlude of dryness between now and Sunday lunchtime to allow me to cut the grass before I go. I’ve just been on-line to look at the forecast for this area but Météo France tell me that in view of the prevailing weather conditions their site is currently saturated and will I please try later.

I assume the saturation is from information seekers like me but I wouldn’t put it past that pesky rain having permeated the French bits of the world wide web.

Have you heard of Glen Baxter? I don’t believe I had until I came across an appeal for 100 ukulele players in the window of a music shop in Poitiers.They were required, and probably still are, in connection with Baxter’s historico-gastronomic tour of Poitou-Charente which starts today and continues until 12^th September. He is described in the pamphlet I picked up as a living legend of British nonsense.

Having looked at his website I cannot disagree.

We all know that black pudding is made from blood. But I often think when I eat a Scottish black pudding that the pig who provided the blood must have died of a heart attack, given the amount of fatty matter that is included.

Now that may be more natural for a pig than to be slaughtered but from my selfish viewpoint I prefer the sort of black pudding that I ate in Poitiers the other day. It could have contained nothing put pure healthy blood that had been harvested as it gushed from a neatly sliced throat. Accompanied by a delicious portion of mashed potato and half an oven baked apple it was a lunch to die for. And my thanks to the pig who did.

I was in Poitiers on a rest day between rounds of golf at a very pretty golf course in Vienne, where incidentally I can heartily recommend the golfers’ lunch. Fifteen euros will get you three tasty courses, a glass of wine and a coffee. The second time I lunched there my main course was wild Scottish salmon. How come I can’t get that in Edinburgh for 15 euros by itself never mind as one course out of three? Should you wish to brighten up your mashed potato by the way try mixing in some purée of split peas.

As I write this I am hearing of the death of Egon Ronay. His life is over but his work is not yet finished.

After the golf yesterday I set off with my prize of a bottle of red to the little village of La Celle Dunoise to attend a birthday barbecue. It was a lovely setting in a garden leading down to the river from a rather splendid 1920's residence. Unfortunately it rained intermittently and rather more on than off.

I stayed relatively dry myself not only because I had a drive of around 30 kilometres ahead of me to get home but in an attempt to balance my intake at the two social events that I had attended in my own village earlier in the week.

These were crowned late on Thursday evening by a substantial tumbler of Laphroaig served with a remark about how being Scottish I must like whisky and so on. Now as it happens I do like whisky and Laphroaig is one of my favourites so it would have been churlish to refuse.

But it would have been wise.

After a second round score of 73 Celia was still first equal but I'm sad to say she put in a disastrous 82 today and has ended up in 4th place. Not too bad for your first excursion overseas I suppose but disappointing both for her and for her supporters at Les Dryades. She's back to France tomorrow for another competition this weekend so let's hope that goes a little better.

I've at long last heard what part I am going to play in the Grads production of The Tempest in the Fringe. I shall impersonate Alonso, King of Naples. He is one of those who were instrumental in the usurping of Prospero. He seems a bit of a wet fish so I shall be acting against type (given how I see myself anyway).

Here's the venue - the good ship Mary of Guise - handily placed for drinkers opposite The Shore pub and restaurant with a number 22 bus stop only yards away. Come in your millions.

Keeping my flat warm this weekend have been the golf ace from Les Dryades, Celia Mansour, and her dad.

Celia, who attends a special school for France's elite young golfers, is playing this week at Gullane in her first overseas golf competition, the US Kids Golf European Championship, with her dad on the bag.

Naturally I'm keeping my eye on the results and am delighted to see that in the 14 year old girls competition after the first round Celia with a score of 75 is first equal out of 17 competitors.

I only wish that my golf skills had gone even infinitesimally in the same direction as Celia's since I first played with her about 5 years ago.

I played in my first competition on Sunday and although I didn’t do as well as I have been doing in informal games it wasn’t a total disaster.

Over the post game refreshments the conversation turned to Erse.

The initial capital will have alerted you to the fact that we are not talking bottoms here but language. It seems that in French crossword puzzles erse generally means Scottish Gaelic. (There is also a French word erse whose meaning need not detain us here.)

I maintained that this was nonsense and that Erse is Irish Gaelic. Later investigation via the OED, Chambers, Collins, Marian-Webster, Britannia and Columbia revealed that the origins of the word go back to Old English “Irisc” and/or Old Norse “Irskr” meaning Irish.

Point proved you might think but not quite. Various quotations show that Erse was applied to Scottish Gaelic in the past, often on the basis of its supposed derivation from the Irish(or its true one for all I know). But the authorities are pretty unanimous that currently its use is restricted to Irish Gaelic.

So I’m counting that a draw and suggesting to my French buddies that their crossword compilers need a boot up the e**e to bring them up to date.

My postman was born and spent his early years in Chile and this winter took three months leave of absence to visit his former home and travel in Chile, Peru and Ecuador including Easter Island and the Galapagos.

Thanks to the miracle of digital photography he was able to record this trip in some detail. He promised to share the joys of the journey with me and last night together with some neighbours we gathered in my kitchen for this treat.

Now we all know that the pleasure of viewing other peoples’ holiday snaps has its ups and downs so to cater for the downs I had laid in some nibbles and a few refreshments. The downs were immediately apparent when he turned up with four DVDs and announced that he had 4000 photographs. My heart lightened somewhat when he said we could skip quickly over many of them and lightened a lot more when it proved impossible to read his DVDs on my machine.

I was all for making polite expressions of regret, refilling my glass and tucking into the nibbles but in view of his obvious disappointment (he has been waiting since February for a means to show the neighbours his pics) I felt impelled to ask if he still had the flash memory cards. Indeed he did so dashed off home and returned with camera and cards.

Then came the tedious job of transferring them to my PC. After some false starts we had 5 gigabytes of pictures loaded with 3 to go. We were now an hour and a half into the proceedings and hadn’t seen a single photo except for when they lumbered past during the transfer.

So we started to view. Now some of the pictures were really interesting and a number were lovely and with a slideshow of say 25% of the total Jean might have stayed the course. But he is in his 90s after all. He was the first to go – no I tell a lie – that was Alain who was glad of the excuse of the non-readable DVDs, downed his pastis at that point and fled. Josette followed Jean an hour or so later and I was left showing the postie out some five hours after his arrival with his cheery promise to return to show the remaining 3 gig at a future date ringing in my ears.

Since the old lady across the road died some years ago her house has stood empty despite the fact that her son Alain has declared from time to time his intention to do the place up and move in. To be fair to him he has kept the plot in reasonable trim and has occasionally shown signs of activity, such as stripping out the byre a couple of years ago.

But now serious work is underway. The house has been reroofed since I saw it last in October and Alain or one of his many chums is here most days beavering away.

This has proved to be to my advantage. I got my strimmer on the go a couple of days after my arrival and had done the driveway and the strip alongside the road and had started on the jungle that was the garden when Alain wandered over and opined that I was never going to manage. I retorted that I’d done it often enough before and that tedious and back-breaking work though it was I’d have it done in a very long jiffy. No way, he said. If it doesn’t rain this afternoon I’ll do it. He has of course an industrial scale mower and he was as good as his word.

So all I’ve had to do is rake up the cut grass, and believe me that was tiring work that took a few hours, and trim the edges and corners that he couldn’t get at.

Shall I drop the news casually that I’m away in July and August in the hope that he’ll volunteer to keep the grass tidy?

I fell foul of the French obsession with lunch within minutes of landing on Monday.

My usual travel pattern was disrupted not by ash but because I went to see Fiona's excellent production of The Hired Man in Woking on Saturday and stayed over. So I found myself driving off the boat around 1 pm local time and thought I'd just nip into the Carrefour that's on my route just a few miles from the ferry terminal and buy some essentials for my tea and Tuesday's breakfast.

But I forgot. All good Frenchies are lunching at that time. Fortunately the petrol pump is automated otherwise I'd have had to twiddle my thumbs for an hour. So the only harm done was that I had to pay motorway prices for my victuals.

I'm so glad the return of the volcanic ash spared Newcastle yesterday and allowed me home to spend the night following the election. What fun it was and continues to be - and such great graphics.

I thought Gordon Brown was about to propose a government of national unity a few minutes ago in his Downing Street statement. What a marvellous prospect that would be. The uneasy relationship between Gordon and Tony would pale in comparison with Gordon and David. But for the moment he's holding out enticing titbits to the Libdems in the hope of putting David Cameron in difficulty in his talks with Nick Clegg and getting his own claws on Nick.

We'll see what the three little piggies get up to over the weekend.

The spammers who have been trying in vain over the years to entice me into enhancing my manhood have changed tack. Their spies have been out and realised that I am an ageing gentleman and may well be suffering from droopy manboobs. Hence their latest offering:

"BareLifts - The Invisible Solution For A Naturally Perky Look

BareLifts are completely strapless and will help lift your breasts while ensuring a naturally perky look in virtually ANY outfit. With BareLifts, you can lift your breast and realign your nipple to a higher position...."

I'm tempted.

What the world in general, and my little bit of the world in particular, does not need is another branch of Tesco. But I have learnt that some of their three billion profit is being spent on buying up the Co-op at the bottom of Easter Road.

Shame on them and more shame on the sell-out by Scot Mid. This is a blow to consumer choice and a wound in the side of the co-operative movement, imbued as it is with camaraderie and solidarity, not to mention its superior selection of wine.

To paraphrase a famous king whose name I have forgotten - "Who will rid me of this troublesome supermarket?"

Volcanic ash didn't keep me away from St Andrews this morning. The prospect of an hour and a half on a rainy beach did. So I have missed out on seeing what sounded like an interesting production of The Tempest.

But I may be affected by the ash all the same. My saxophone teacher is in Amsterdam and may still be there when it's time for my lesson on Tuesday. Siobhan's dinner chez moi will get cold if she's still in Portugal on Wednesday. And in the slightly longer term what about my flight to Barcelona in ten days time?

The great British public have decided that, last night at least and for the time being, the fairest of them all was the man with the manifesto packed with fair phrases.

So is the wind set fair for Downing Street for Mr Clegg? I doubt it but I suppose his party's vote may increase to give him some influence over whichever of the other two parties comes out on top. He'd be wise to hammer on about voting reform to give him some chance of forming a government in his own right next time around. Brown has promised reform but I doubt that he would give it any priority. There's always the excuse of having to save us from ruin first. I mean further ruin of course.

But Clegg had an easy job. Don't scratch your bum, look human, just allow Brown and Cameron to slag each other off and appear as the relaxed voice of reason. And since you have to be a bit of a political nerd to have seen him before he was for most people the new kid on the block. How many hopefuls have appeared who were gloriously exciting or at least not an immediate turn-off on day 1 but revealed a few defects in the longer term?

So I fear it will be with Nick and his uncle Vince, but let's give them a chance to bask for a bit before we turn and bite.

Now that the main parties' manifestos are out I've been trying to pick a winner.

An animated cartoon video in black and white slightly redeems the dullness of Labour's document. Its risible cover that looks like a Chinese communist propaganda poster (before the introduction of the one child policy clearly) at least spares us another thousand words. The HTML or downloadable pdf versions that are the only options for getting at the content are densely printed, only relieved now and then by coloured text and by coloured pages that separate the sections and bear logos in a style akin to lavatory signs.

It looks like they are appealing to the low-end computer user.

The Tories are definitely going for the high-end. Their document can be read on-screen in black and white text only but the downloadable pdf is packed with propaganda posters in an agit-prop style, with diagrams and with photographs, though the text is pretty dense and black. Some photos like those telling you that Glasgow and Brighton are great places for one reason or another don't seem terribly relevant but hey. You can even download a high definition version presumably so that you can print it with the photos in their full glory. But you don't have to print your own because they offer you a means of buying a printed version for a fiver. And they have large print for the poorly sighted, braille for the blind and easy-read for those with learning difficulties. If being on-line is your thing though there is a Flash version that's very well presented and you can listen to an audio version. When you have get on your bike or take the bus the audio version can go with you on your mp3 player. If you can't be bothered with the whole thing there are various little related videos.

No reason not to get the Tory message then.

The Libdems' manifesto offering gives you more or less the same options as the Tories; without braille but with a better Flash version and with a pick and mix video iphone app. Their webpage looks better and where they score heavily is on the presentation of the document itself. Labour's pages of dense text and the Tories' strident posters are banished in favour of well laid out pages with a good balance between text and pictures and well thought out, clear highlighting.

For me it's the winner.

But what about the content? I conducted a little experiment. Labour's document is entitled "A future fair for all" so I said to myself, as I often do, "mirror, mirror on the wall who's the fairest of them all?" and searched the documents for instances of "fair", "fairer", "fairest" and "fairness".

Here the Libdems are streets ahead with 94 occurrences. Labour come second with 61 and the Tories a poor third with only 9. Draw your own conclusions.

The experts came, saw, were defeated. A superior expert arrived on April Fool's Day, made a diagnosis and retired declaring that the necessary parts should not be long in arriving.

A week may well be a long time in politics but it's even longer in a house with broken central heating. Fortunately I have some alternatives to fall back on but I am still boiling kettles to provide hot water for cleaning pots and pans, dishwashers being notoriously ineffective in that respect.

But the weather is brightening up and life in the stair will also brighten up if the underpants tastelessly draped on a flat's door handle last week constitute the lift lunatic's dying flourish. Not that he's any closer to death than the rest of us as far as I know but I spotted a note on the dashboard of a parked car declaring the driver to be a new resident of the flat that I suspect to be the litter lunatic's lair. The note begged indulgence for not yet having a parking permit but failed to melt the heart of officialdom (what does?) for a ticket had been clapped onto the windscreen. Normally I would be sympathetic but it seems that having lost a lift lunatic (I fervently hope) we have gained a car park lunatic for he was straddled across three spaces at a little less than 90 degrees to the normal direction of parking.

But people do the strangest things. How to explain for example why a man in black tights and a wig standing facing a group of people should declare "Sunbeds Regulations Act 2010" to be followed by a similarly clad chap who had his back to the audience spinning round to face them with the words "La reine le veult".

Easy you say; all part of the prorogation ceremony that took place in the Lords the other day. Now I've seen the state opening of Parliament with Black Rod having the door symbolically slammed in his face before being admitted to the Commons to summon the lower orders to the house of peers to listen to the Queen's insipid delivery of a string of miracles the government is going to achieve in the next session but I didn't realise that there was an equivalent at the end.

Black Rod did the business as before but this time no Queen. Another of those chaps in wigs, this one wearing a cloak instead of tights, read a letter from HM saying how sorry she was that she was detained by pressing business back at base and had entrusted the assenting to divers acts and the proroguing of Parliament in this the 57th year of her reign to some loyal and well beloved chaps and chapesses who she was sure would make a good job of it.

The five said chaps and chapesses sat below the woolsack dressed in red robes and comic hats and one of them read out a speech in identically insipid tones to HM listing the miracles that the government had achieved during the session. I expect a number of the audience might not have counted all these achievements as miracles, or even as achievements but there was no heckling.

This was followed by the two man GB wigtight team reading out the names of acts and assuring us that the Queen veulted them. There was a speciality turn from the veulter at the start when in a long stream of Norman French the Queen remercied her loyaux and ben aimed sujets for having provided her with enough pocket money.

The whole thing was awfully polite and at various points the two red-robed chaps did some synchronised doffing. The ladies did not participate. Their funny hats were a different shape not well adapted to doffing but I expect that in time feminist pressure will succeed in opening up synchronised funny hat doffing to female competitors.

The final event in the Lords was the naming of the day that they should all meet again. Now we all know that there is going to be an election on May 6th and that the new parliament will assemble on May 18th but because this ceremony is taking place a couple of days before parliament is officially dissolved HM, in the person of her red-robed well beloveds chose April 20th as their next date. Let's hope they all understood this mad fiction.

After that the commoners trooped back to their little chamber and the Speaker read out the whole list of bills to which we had heard the Queen's proxy graciously assenting not fifteen minutes earlier. This presumably for the benefit of those members who had not been able to squeeze into a space within hearing distance in the Lords since they don't actually get to sit down on the red benches or even get very far into the chamber. Emails no doubt will go out to the several hundred MPs who, like the PM, weren't there at all.

How reassuring to see democracy in action. Had Sadaam seen it he would no doubt have declared this to be the mother of all parliaments.

I was being facetious when I conflated the arrival of summer time with the arrival of summer itself but the central heating system has taken me at my word and stopped. With snow forecast over the next few days this is not good news.

Applying my limited understanding of these things and consulting the manual I increased the water pressure, which had certainly fallen below the recommended level, and bled all the radiators but to no avail.

I'll give it twenty-four hours to come to its senses then I'll call out the experts.

I called for expert help recently by emailing a BT support service with a query. The reply was from one Garry Watson who had clearly not devoted much time to reading my question. The advice was to ring a helpline.

A few days later I had worked the thing out for myself and in a spirit of goodwill towards men I sent an email saying "I don't need your help any more thanks". I got a reply from this same Garry Watson saying "We understand you are having problems with BT Vision. If this persists please ring ......".

Calling a computer Hal led to all sorts of trouble. Calling one Garry Watson seems at least to do no harm even if it does no good.

I called my central heating system all sorts of names this morning but I shall just call it Garry Watson in future.

It's astonishing how many things needed to be moved on an hour today in celebration of the arrival of summer:

Bedroom clock
Wristwatch
Mobile phone
Central heating
Lounge clock
Telephone
Kitchen clock
Oven
Microwave
Car
Camera

These ones sorted themselves out automatically:

Laptop
Set-top box
Kitchen radio
Hi-fi radio
Bedroom radio
Mondo wi-fi radio

I have watched the bids mounting on the pasta machines that I picked out on Ebay.

If you buy one of these in the shops you can pay up to forty quid or so but you can get the same model brand new on Amazon for £33 including postage. So it strikes me as strange, not to say perverse that anyone should pay £35 for a second-hand one on Ebay. But that's what two of those machines went for. The others fetched a slightly more reasonable £27 and £25 but I'd be looking for a better discount on the new price than that.

My good spirits on returning this evening from the RSA where I had not only enjoyed the art and a glass of wine but bumped into some old friends were dissipated on discovering that the lift lunatic is back at work.

The severe talking to he got from the fire brigade at New Year (for I am sure it is the same jerk) must have worn off. What to do?

The items I put up for sale on Ebay attracted exactly one bid each. No cut throat competition there then.

When I went to post the ink cartridges the cost was about 40p more than when I'd taken the package in to price it (the added weight of the address?) and I forgot to include the padded envelope in my p&p charge, so what with that and Ebay's cut I suspect it cost me more to sell them than to throw them away.

I saw a couple of one-act plays at the weekend that were entries to the English equivalent of the SCDA festival. They were quite good but what impressed me most was that they were performed in a little theatre (100 odd seats and a bar) that belonged to the amateur group doing the shows. Oh that the Grads had had that sort of vision rather than hanging onto the coat-tails of the university for the last fifty-six years.

I also saw a professional production in Harrogate's Victorian theatre where the ornate decoration has been delightfully restored and the entire building refreshed. The show was Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends. It's one of his superb dark comedies and I enjoyed it very much. I played in it once myself but could remember only that my character got a jug of cream poured over his head and that he had to smoke a cigar so the play unrolled before me like something entirely new.

Had the production been in Scotland the actor could not have had a cigar but English legislation allows smoking on stage. A notice in the foyer warned us that "..... this play contains instances of profanity and that due to artistic integrity there will be smoking on-stage." At least we can still enjoy the profanity up here.

I was staying with friends I had made in Italy and Ron was extolling the joys of making your own pasta having recently bought a machine in a deli's closing down sale. I don't know about the joy of making it but I enjoyed watching Brunella do it many years ago and I certainly enjoyed the fruits of her labour.

So I must try it and am now on Ebay again in the more familiar role of buyer keeping an eye on four pasta machines, ready to strike at the last minute and reel in a bargain.

The helium balloons used in the show have been decorating my lounge ever since and are now showing signs of deflation. Particularly the red one which initially flew as high as the other.

I'm interested to see how long it takes for the pair of them to bite the dust.

I switched on my computer with some excitement this morning eager to see how the bidding was going on the items I put up for sale on Ebay yesterday. The results so far are at least better than on the one and only previous occasion on which I tried to sell something on Ebay. Then my ad was found to be in contravention of the railways act and was removed. This time the ads are still there but no-one has bid.

So if you want a barely used beard trimmer or some printer ink the way is clear.

Here are some pictures taken at our technical rehearsal -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11113367@N08/

They give a good idea of costume, a glimpse of the set and a hint of the chaos that is a tech when all you have is an hour. It's a shame we could not have got a full frontal shot in performance of the set in all its glory.

So that's the SCDA over for another year. The upside of not being a prizewinner is that we don't have to drag ourselves and the set to Grangemouth next month and I don't have the hassle of trying to find dates that suit everyone for a few rehearsals for the next round. But I do regret not having the opportunity to compete to take the show to Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

I thought the adjudicator's assessment of our production was absolutely fair but I can't say that I agreed with his decisions on the winners. I might have placed Livingston Players' "Womberang" amongst the first three for its energy and entertainment value but neither "Trifle" nor "One Day I Met Myself Coming Home" struck me as particularly good productions and how Trifle merited Best Stage Presentation is beyond me. There were at least two other shows, leaving my own out of contention, that were much more effectively presented than that recycled set last seen in an appalling piece about a paintball experience.

Claire has a nice set of pictures taken in the dressing room and at the after show party on Facebook and one of Umi's friends took some shots at the technical rehearsal which I hope to get hold of.

It's taken me four years to get this play on the stage and despite the lack of success in the competition I'm very pleased to have got there in the end and with a lovely team of players and backstage stars. Apart from the enduring memories of the production I've got this adorable set of cufflinks as a gift from the cast and crew. But I need to invest in a few more shirts with appropriately fashioned cuffs to fully enjoy them.

I'm trying not to stay up half the night watching the Olympics but it's tempting. Now that I've returned my DVD recorder I have to watch live although there is in fact very good highlights coverage during the following day.

I was glued to the ladies Snowboard Cross this afternoon even though I'd seen it all last night. The leaps and jumps they do are breathtaking and gloriously elegant in slow motion repeats. Having perfected what a friend described as my survival skiing technique which consisted in getting down the run in one piece with no trace of elegance and not necessarily always upright, I never had the motivation to try repeating the process on a board. But watching those girls and the men the day before I wish I had. Mind you I'd have been limited to jumps centimetres high compared to their metre high ones.

One of the things that makes it a better spectator sport compared to most downhill events is that, at least in the later stages, you are watching a race and not one individual competing against the clock.

Britain didn't have a single competitor in the men's event but in the women's Zoe Gilbert finished a very creditable 8th and would have done even better if she had not injured a knee in the later stages. British snowsport athletes have an uphill struggle when it comes to training and preparation and now the funding organization has gone bust.

Drambuie used to sponsor Scottish skiers, maybe one of the off-shore financial outfits that operate out of the Isle of Man where Zoe comes from could spare a few bob from their bonuses. Unless the fact that she was sporting a Poker Stars bunnet was not a personal fashion statement as it is when I wear mine on the golf course but an indication that she's already spoken for.

We're reaching the crunch point with the play. The set was moved into St Serfs yesterday and we are down there this evening for our technical rehearsal. One hour on the stage trying to make everything hang together for the first time is woefully inadequate but I suppose it's the same for everyone unless they have rehearsal facilities far superior to our own. Like NKAS for example but they are far away in time and distance and have nothing to do with this competition.

Performance is on Friday and fingers crossed I think it will be, if not excellent, then jolly good. I'm pleased with how it will look and sound and with the performances. The whole thing is about as close to the ideas I had in my head as it is reasonable to expect. But I'm not rushing to offer myself as a director again very soon if ever. Unfortunately I have some ideas and may not be able to resist for ever which is what I swear I would prefer to do.

Here's the latest manifestation of oddity on the stair. Is the lift and litter lunatic now revealing himself as a closet practitioner of witchcraft? When we get chicken entrails rather than a carnival mask perched on the wall light I shall start to get really scared.

Tonight may well be the first time that I have been inside the Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline. That seems a shocking admission for someone born and bred not much more than 10 miles away from it. But for we Langtonians Dunfermline was another country. Occasionally we had a family trip to Pittencrieff Park and visited the Abbey. I was bussed over for swimming lessons when I was at primary school and for a year I changed buses there when travelling between home and my Dollar Academy lodgings. But that's the extent of my intimacy with Scotland's ancient capital.

The hall doesn't look as though much has been done to it since it was built in the thirties. The interior reminded me strongly of the Adam Smith hall before it was transformed into the swish theatre that it is today though I think the Adam Smith was much more austerely decorated. I was struck by the orange tinted Gents clock above the auditorium right emergency exit. These were ubiquitous in the cinemas and theatres of my youth and one usually passed under one to get to the gents but I don't think the pun was intentional. I have a feeling that the Playhouse still sports one.

Of course I didn't go to the Carnegie Hall to look at the clock or the decor or to raise ancient memories but to a Fife Jazz Festival concert. I wasn't in the event wildly stirred by the Norrbotten Big Band nor by Ulf Wakenius and his quartet but I did very much enjoy the home-grown talents of Brian Kellock and Julian Arguelles to the extent that I succumbed to temptation and bought a CD. Who living in the shadow of the Pentlands could resist an album called The Nine Mile Burn Sessions?

PS You can catch the latter lads at the City Halls in Glasgow on Saturday 6th and at The Lot in Edinburgh on Sunday 7th.

I caught the tennis in dribs and drabs over the weekend. I saw the first set and a bit of the final before I went out in the morning and then managed to watch more after I came back from six hours set building. Tantalizingly I had to go out to a rehearsal at 11 points all in the third set tie-break. I had to quickly prevent someone there from revealing the result. But the result came quickly enough when I switched the recording back on - five minutes maybe.

A disappointing result but I'm sure that I can work hard at improving my groundling technique in time for the French Open. Scotland's next sporting disappointment will surely come on Sunday. I'll be set building again otherwise I might have been tempted to fly down to the Dryades for a "journée conviviale". A 9 hole scramble in the morning, lunch and Scotland versus France on the big screen in the afternoon.

The flashy DVD player/recorder that I bought primarily to see the tennis was nearly taken back to the shop on Monday because of a severe defect that caused it not to record as instructed and to scramble up the picture on a number of channels. Mysteriously it seems to have cured itself so I'm hanging on to it for a few more days to put its various functions through their paces and to record Scotland's defeat.

I suffered a little defeat of my own last night when I lost my rag with one of my cast. I had been determined to smile at all adversity throughout this production but alas a lass undid me.

So he's through to the final. Thank goodness I took a chance on it and bought a recording device yesterday because I'm set building on Sunday. I had to go out during the Cilic match this morning so it has already come in useful. The trick will be to get to the recording of the final without having learnt the result.

I was sorry to see Nadal go out in the way he did even though Murray was clearly going to win. But it suited me well in those pre-recorder days since had it gone the distance I would not have got to lesson one of Learn To Sing.

The primary school groaner fights back.

Through in straight sets. Well done Andy. Good luck against the bum scratcher.

When I down-sized my dwelling a few years ago I took zillions of books to a titled lady's cellar in Dublin street for the benefit of Christian Aid. Amongst them was a copy of War and Peace that had lain unread for decades. If I am ever motivated enough to read it I can always get a copy from the library could have been my excuse for ditching a major literary classic. Or maybe I thought I should hold off until I was in a position to read it in the original.

Heroically I held on to my copy of Ulysses (still unread at today's date although there is a postcard some tens of pages in so I may have made an attempt) thinking perhaps that while War and Peace is a story of far off foreign folk that would mean little to me Joyce's tale takes place just across the Irish Sea where 75% of my genes came from and so must speak to me.

I had the luck last night to check out what lessons I might learn from Tolstoy's epic without going to the bother of reading it thanks to the combined forces of Scottish Opera, the RSAMD and the Rostov-on-Don State Rachmaninov Conservatoire, who together mounted the world premiere of the original version of Prokofiev's operatic treatment of the story.

The Theatre Royal in Glasgow was not full to bursting which seems a shame for an event that one presumes is pretty significant even though it's a pro-am effort. I thought the ams were every bit as good as many pros I've seen and heard but as is not infrequent for an operatic experience I appreciated the production rather more than the material. Having said that there are some nice tunes and choruses and the death scene duet is magnificent.

The presentation is very much on the pro side with a versatile two level set, superb lighting, a large cast whose disposition in the space creates wonderful pictures, costumes to die for, efficient and intelligent flow from scene to scene, clever business - everything my own little production strives to achieve. Singers can't always act and actors can't always sing but I had little fault to find in either department. Mind you conscious of my own musical inabilities I'm quite generous when it comes to less than perfect singing even when my ears recognise its deficiencies. My man of the match award goes to the young man who played Napoleon for both his rich baritone and his convincing characterisation. Keep an eye and an ear open for Alexy Gusev in years to come.

And what of Tolstoy's tale? Well it's a fun blend of human interest and global politics. I might even read it one day.

I set my alarm for early this morning only to find that Andy Murray had already won his third round match. It's my incapacity to calculate what day and time it is here given what day and time it is there that's to blame. I'll have to triple check my calculations for the next round.

At least there is a next round which I hope he gets through because then he's up against Nadal who always gives a great performance. I wonder if he still scratches his bum for luck before he serves?

I've always assumed he does it for luck anyway, but I suppose it could be medical - must check the Nadal fanzine.

At long last the Post Office has got around to introducing self-service posting machines that have been common if not ubiquitous in continental Europe for some years.

The one I used in St James Centre on Saturday had all the necessary bells and whistles; large/small letter gauge, weighing machine, touch sensitive screen with all the postal choices you can think of, a coin slot, a note tray, a credit card slot, a stamp printing only facility and all done in a jolly red and white livery.

The only obstacle to postal paradise was a small boy playing drums on the touch sensitive screen but I made short work of him; not in an unkind Giles Coren manner, more in the manner of a traditional ogre.

Another machine that has tickled my fancy this week is my second internet radio. I got fed up moving the first one from bedside to lounge given all the crawling under the bed to unplug it and trailing cables here and there. So I've invested in a little gadget hardly bigger than half a cucumber that sits tidily on top of my hi-fi, is permanently connected to it and brings the world to my ears.

It's currently streaming a station called Barcelona Jazz that may very well wean me away from TSF.

It's not often that I find myself on a bus at 7.30 on a winter's morning. There has to be a good cause involved. The good cause in this case being Marivaux's "Arlequin Poli Par L'Amour" which his departed soul is no doubt looking forward to seeing in the SCDA One-Act Festival next month under its snappy local title of "Polished by Love".

I've yet to see the whole cast make it to a rehearsal but last night we had almost a full set, one of whom must be classed a trouper for having turned out, and the evening was enormously enjoyable. To say the work is rough around the edges would be an act of kindness akin to complimenting Gordon Brown on his charisma. But deep down and glimmering weakly is a little flame.

The challenge is to cajole that little flame into growing into the bonfire that blazes in my imagination. This is such a darling little play and I'm so pleased with the physical shape of the presentation, the look and the sound of it, and there is such potential in the cast that I've just got to strain every sinew to make it as perfect as I possibly can.

So to the bus. Two streets away there's a wood yard from which I ordered material for our set. They agreed to deliver it to our workshop this morning and that entailed someone being there from 8am to accept delivery. I offered to walk round and ride shotgun on the lorry but they wouldn't play so I had to take the bus to Tollcross and hang about until it arrived not long after ten.

While hanging about I got in some saxophone practice and by observing learnt a little about erecting scaffolding. The first stage of the statutory repairs that are going to set us back three grand was getting under way as I arrived.

Peoples' inability to read an email or to turn over a bit of paper to read what is on the other side (even when the first side says Page 1 of 2 and at the bottom of page 1 it says See Overleaf For More Information) never fails to amaze me.

It's almost as amazing as not bringing your script to a rehearsal or having a script in your possession for four weeks and signally failing to read it or more amazing still to decline a script on the basis that you will print your own and reveal four weeks later that you don't have a script because you've had no ink in your printer.

Then there is the amazing fact that the day you are chased up for an explanation as to why you have not appeared at rehearsals turns out to be the very day that you were going to send an email resigning from the production.

Next time it's animation and CGI for me.

What does it mean?

1. No entry for pregnant women

2. Hands off it's too late

3. No thanks I've got got more than I can handle already

The beauty of the carpark has not been enhanced by the addition of a double bed mattress, an ugly fabric covered bookcase and various odds and ends.

I suppose this is a small price to pay for the fire brigade's success yesterday morning in enforcing the statutory notice. They have helped keep us safe from an inferno but I wish they had frogmarched the mattress malefactor down to the dump at Craigentinny to dispose of it. Had they done so and had I been there I might have encouraged him to do the honourable thing and leap into the landfill skip to save us all from future distress.

For although the ground floor is now clear of rubbish I fear that the game is not over since some has found its way to the first floor where it is leaning cheekily against the lift door. I dare say it would have been inside had the lift not been out of order.

Perhaps it is a cry for help and we should call NHS24. With luck they would treat him with dignitas.

As for the smoking homeless intruder. All I can tell you is that he was taken away for possession of a controlled substance and is not homeless though thankfully he does not live here.

Event piled upon event.

I was invited/persuaded to go to see Avatar this afternoon. It is complete nonsense of course but an absolutely wonderful film. Reportedly 1000 people worked on it and given the time it took to roll the credits I can believe that. There is no Best Boy credited but that's because this is an entirely different sort of movie. Instead we have a roll call of animation chappies, virtual studio heads, visual whatsits and performance capture TDs. It seems unlikely that Irish parliamentarians were involved so TD must mean something else in this context.

After the film we met Ewan and had a few drinks in the Blue Blazer where we were lucky enough to be picked out to sample three beers from Stewart Brewing. Delicious stuff that I can heartily recommend.

Those beers plus a pitstop at Greyfriars Bobbie on the way home may well have contributed to the slide that floored me outside the Deep Sea Fish Bar though the uncleared pavement must take the major part of the blame. According to Mr. Deep Sea it was the greedy people further up the Walk who had filched all the road salt that he would otherwise have scattered in front of his premises. What's wrong with shifting the snow with a shovel I thought as I lay there recovering my breath, but charitable as ever I held ma wheesht.

100 yards further down the road I realised that Leith Walk was out of focus not because of my having over imbibed but because I was no longer wearing my specs. I retraced my steps and found them undamaged outside the Deep Sea.

I got home after only one more fall and was unsurprised to find that the statutory notice has had all the impact of a savaging by a dead sheep.

Maybe there is something in the homeless smoker after all. The police have just carted off someone from my block.

And am I entirely wrong to suspect who I do? Was it a homeless smoker who dragged the mattress and other junk into the stair?

If I learn more I'll post it.

I was being mildly rebuked last night for having maintained blog silence since before Christmas. Harold MacMillan would no doubt have replied "events, dear girl, events - there haven't been any".

So nothing to write about. But now....I was raised from my bed at 7 this morning by the continuous sounding of a fire alarm that on investigation proved to be the one in my block. Further investigation revealed the presence of a fire engine outside and a couple of firemen inside.

Were they beating back a fierce inferno or at least turning off the alarm? No. There was no inferno, no flame, not even the smell of smoke, no apparent cause for the alarm to have gone off. I engaged them in conversation and through the fingers that were pressed into my ears heard with some astonishment that they were unable to turn off the alarm, lacking the necessary key.

Discussion turned to the reason for the alarm having gone off and I was told that the occupant of one flat had suggested that a homeless person had been smoking in the stair. Leaving aside the absence of the smell of cigarette smoke and the question of how a homeless person had got in (and where he had fled to since the stair was deserted ) the fireman remarked that the presence of a mattress in the stairwell was a cause for concern since a homeless smoker might easily set it alight. Smokers with homes are no doubt more careful.

Ideally he said the mattress should be outside. Indicating the clipboards on which he and a colleague were scribbling he added that that would have avoided all this paperwork. He continued completing a statutory notice under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 Section 93 later served on all the occupants of the stair notifying us that we were failing in our duty "to keep the common property free of (a) any combustible substances or (b) anything which might obstruct the way out from and access to the property in the event of fire." and giving us 24 hours to get back in line.

The thought did pass through my mind that if they really wanted to avoid paperwork then the two hulking firemen could easily lug the thing outside. But thanks to a story that Fiona had told us just the other night of how she had had to flutter her eyelids and use her helpless little woman routine to melt the hearts of two dishwasher installers and thus persuade them to step beyond the bounds of their remit and disconnect the old one I knew that voicing the thought was pointless.

So I focussed on getting the noise stopped. I roused the poor factor from his bed and he in turn roused a technician who came out and by 8.30 the alarm was off and had been re-jigged so that in future a key is not needed to turn it off. I had a chat with the technician about what could have set off the alarm. He thought it might have been weather related. If temperature changes can disrupt Eurostar trains after all. Could that also be why the lift has broken down again?

I have darker thoughts.

The mattress which worried the firemen has been joined by a growing pile of other junk over the last couple of weeks and for several days I have been on the point of serving a non-statutory notice on the person I suspect of being responsible for putting it there. Strangely enough this is the person who came out with the homeless smoker story.

So my hypothesis is that the junker (who may well have previous as a lift lunatic and stair candle lighter) got tired of waiting for someone fed up with the mess to get rid of his junk for him and thought of the cunning ploy of engaging the services of the fire brigade. Had two less conscientious chaps responded to the call maybe it would have worked.

The question now is will he break under the threat of the statutory notice.

Amongst the Christmas cards that have fallen on my hall carpet this week was a billet doux from the NHS that may have been 17 years en route. For it says that having passed my 50th birthday I have become entitled to have my bowel screened for cancer.

This free offer will lapse when I am 74 so let's hope that when I've popped the clever little sampling kit in the post it covers the road and the miles to Dundee rather more quickly than it got here.

No sign of irritable bowel syndrome from this happy chappie who was brightening up Princes Street yesterday.

Season's Greetings

I was most impressed this afternoon by a lady who, making instant judgements as one does, I would have stigmatised as probably belonging to the littering classes.

But not only did she walk 25 yards down the road in sleet and rain to put her paper cup into a wheelie bin but she picked up other people's discarded junk and disposed of that too.

I was so impressed that I almost forgave her for smoking in a bus shelter.

You may not have noticed that Johnny Hallyday is unwell although it has been in the papers a little. Googling "Johnny Hallyday health" produces 88,100 hits in English in the past week but the equivalent French search produces 726,000 references.

Not only that but the English reports are very restrained in dealing with the doctor whose alleged errors in a recent slipped disc operation on the star in Paris have led to his hospitalisation this week in Los Angeles. The French press on the other hand list numerous events in the doctor's chequered past from insurance fraud to judicial condemnations for medical malpractice.

Johnny's fans were not so restrained either. Two of them beat the doctor up a couple of nights ago.

I don't believe that in the UK he would still be practising medicine, so if that's the much vaunted French health system I don't want it thanks. And you have to ask yourself why a rock star with millions at his disposal would place himself in the hands of someone with such a record.

A couple of snaps from this afternoon. I would not want to be in either the crane basket or the wheel. Would Sir Walter?

What did I say about low energy light bulbs?

Farming Today is often informative and entertaining.

The information I gleaned from them this morning is that a single malt whisky has now emerged in Norfolk from its qualifying three years in oak casks.

The distiller surely hopes that Norfolk whisky will replace the morning cuppa by describing its taste and qualities as more characteristic of a "breakfast whisky" than an "end of the day whisky".

Perhaps NHS Lothian has had an early sample. This might explain why a letter confirming an appointment at the dental hospital was swiftly followed by another bearing the same date, the same reference number and the same signature threatening to pull all my teeth out for not having made an appointment.

When I'm up early these dark morning I have to switch on so many energy saving bulbs to get a decent level of illumination that I can't be saving any energy at all.

Despite, or maybe because of having all the time in the world this morning I missed the bus I was aiming to catch. But I caught a more interesting one.

Halfway along Princes St the 25 I was on stopped and a little old lady stepped aboard. I missed the first few lines of dialogue and then heard a stentorian voice declare "X25! If you're no the X25 what the hell are ye stoppin here fur?" The driver's more muted tones explained that the plain 25 was also enjoined to stop here.

This did not satify the old lady so the driver got out of his cab, stepped onto the pavement and pointing to the bus-stop indicated politely that both the 25 and the X25 were listed. He then got back into the bus and said "I will accept your apology". More than once he said it but no apology was forthcoming. The old lady screamed and shouted again to the driver's "I will not take this."

She then stormed off fuming quietly to herself. Before pulling away from the stop the driver addressed the passengers roughly in these terms - "If you think I am being hard just take a look at that bus-stop. It's for the 25. It's always the same. Every time she gets on a bus she starts shouting at someone. I will not take it."

I found it quite amusing but I suppose if you are abused day after day it must get a bit much and clearly that was the case for our driver because when he stopped in Shandwick Place he spent some time bending the ear of a controller about it via his radio.

Round about this time every year a pile of Yellow Pages directories appears in the stair. Almost no-one picks one up, although I always take one. They lie there for a few weeks until some busybody like me decides that their hour has come and consigns them to the re-cycling bin.

Putting the new one in its place I noticed that it was somewhat thinner than last years. Indeed it is 220 pages thinner. Now one might surmise that this is an effect of the recession, that 220 pages worth of businesses have gone to the wall in the Edinburgh area over the last twelve months.

But although Zinc & Zinc Alloy Products, Consultant Actuaries and Quad Bikes & All Terrain Vehicles have bitten the dust the explanation seems to lie in a decrease in the size and weight of the font used. Entries which were difficult to read last year are now verging on the impossible for those with less than 20/20 vision.

I think Yellow Pages are shooting themselves in the foot with this move. It is already much more convenient to do a quick Google rather than plough through their directory. If in addition you can't actually read the damn thing it must surely go bust.

My theory that the best before date is not synonymous with the toxic after date was put to the test this evening when I uncorked a bottle of best before May 2008 soda to add to my pre-dinner Campari.

Some hours later all is well.

So if best before does not equal toxic after does theatre equal fun and games. Check out Allotment.

Princes Street has been clear of tramworks since early on Sunday morning. I had determined to be there at 5 am, the time scheduled for the re-opening, but fortunately didn't make it because the re-opening was delayed a couple of hours by leaves on the line or heavy rain or another reason selected from the list of the usually suspected excuses.

But it looks great and if I had not been closeted at home working on a script this afternoon I would have taken advantage of the lovely bright frosty weather to bring you a sharply focussed, beautifully composed photograph of the street stripped of her protective wire fences.

I am slightly perturbed by the over-sized lamp-posts that you would be able to see on my pics if I had taken them. I assume these are part of the tram power supply. They look as though they will be as aesthetically unacceptable as the line of pylons that it is planned should stretch from Beauly to Denny.

But can we turn back the tide? No chance. The next campaign must be to waken the Council up to the sensible suggestion that the tramline be replaced or augmented by an underground railway system stretching to the outermost bounds of Fife.

They've done it - taken away the conker as well as the advert. How am I going to stop foaming?

Maybe I can track it down. It would look lovely in the garden at Barbansais.

I've been mildly following the case of The Hand of Frog in the French media. Opinions are split but a great many, including politicians, admit to being ashamed of qualifying for the World Cup in this manner. Raymond Domenech, the manager, comes in for a lot of stick; what football manager doesn't? But this time as well as being castigated for poor management he's accused of teaching his players that a win at any cost is what counts.

I've heard players (not just in France) say that of course they would do something similar but in the expectation of being sanctioned by the referee. So it's his fault for not spotting the infringement. Other commentators lay the blame on football's move from sport to big money business.

I commend them all to take a lesson or two from professional golf. That's a big money business if ever there was but the players don't rely on being spotted by a referee for an infringement of the rules. They don't deliberately break the rules in the first place of course but a golfer who accidentally moves his ball in a situation in which a penalty would be imposed acts as his own referee and reports the fact, even if it makes a difference of a million dollars or so.

I thought Health and Safety had been up to their mollycoddling tricks when I noticed that a barrier had been erected around the giant conker that I had caught sight of recently from my passing bus.

So today I got off to investigate, foaming at the mouth at the stupidity of what I presumed to be over-protection of the public.
It turns out that it's an advertisement. So now I'm foaming at the mouth at the desecration of the newly public space in St Andrew's Square by the forces of Mammon who are already well represented in the surrounding buildings.

I will only cease to foam if they take the advertising fence away and leave the lovely conker.

I'm not sure if Friday 13th has really been unlucky for me. After all I came across the beard trimmer that I was sure I must have left in France. There it was wrapped in a facecloth and tucked neatly into a little corner of the bookcase in the hall. Why there for God's sake?

Maybe Thursday 5th is the new Friday 13th because that's when I bought a replacement.

Where today was definitely not unlucky was at the Traverse lunchtime show - The Moira Monologues written and performed by Alan Bisset. It was sheer dead brilliant. In the first story he played two dogs, two women and a man - effortlessly, convincingly and hilariously. And unbelievably the show got better and better.

The public face of the National Library of Scotland has changed out of all recognition since I used to occasionally broach its forbidding portals as a student. I expect the staff were just as nice people in those days as they are today, but the atmosphere of serious and silent scholarship that was, with its overtones of exclusion, has since been lightened. They have welcomed the general public with open arms to their exhibitions and talks for some years now and they have a super website but they have topped it all with the installation of a bright and cheerful visitor reception point cum cafe cum shop. There is even a pavement section to their cafe.

Perhaps the reading room maintains a more dour tradition but I am unlikely ever to find myself poring over a dusty volume therein in place of watching the world go by on George IVth Bridge while sipping a coffee.

Last night the Scottish Government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Anne Glover was at the NLS delivering an entertaining and stimulating talk about what had inspired her to become a scientist in the first place and had kept her at it. From stories of prodding earthworms as a toddler, seeing The Fantastic Voyage at ten (I remember the trailer though I never saw the film) and watching a school mate have his trousers whipped off his hurdies when they burst into flames as a result of his having pocketed some sodium in a science class, to being captivated by bio-luminescence during a midnight swim, her enthusiasm for science was catching.

I left the talk thinking that if I were 50 years younger and a girl there would be no stopping me.

It was gratifying to see a Kirkcaldy man doing well on University Challenge last night. One of the subjects he knew all about was Machiavelli. Perhaps he should offer some advice to that other Langtonian who is struggling down south.

If you ever have occasion to be looking for Glasgow University Concert Hall be aware that's it's a wee bit tricky.

I went over a few days ago to attend a lunchtime concert and when I got to the university I dutifully followed the signs that led me round a few corners, up a stair, round a few more corners, through their pretty cloisters (you've probably seen them on the telly cos it's a great academic location) and through an opening where a grand staircase carpeted in royal blue led upwards.

On the landing to the right was the entrance to the Hunterian museum (I'm not sure if that's Hunter author of The anatomy of the human gravid uterus or his wee brother, but one day I'll find out). Opposite was an imposing set of double doors that I breeched. Within stood a trio of chaps and chapesses of whom I enquired whether this was the Concert Hall. They replied to a (wo)man that indeed twere so but that it was in use for a function. They expressed astonishment at my belief that there was a concert scheduled for ten past one. Was there another concert hall I asked. They shook their heads in acknowledgement of their lack of knowledge and suggested I try reception.

Well the man at the gatehouse knew nothing and in the way of janitors everywhere was short on customer service skills so I found my own way to the music department where after some battering on doors I roused the staff. They were helpfulness personified and after some discussion realised that the hall that I had been informed was the Concert Hall by the chap(ess) trio was not. It was they believed a hall called the Bute Hall which sits atop the Concert Hall.

So I scurried back and found that if you duck behind the imposing, blue-carpeted staircase there is a hidden hall: a very gracious hall: a concert hall: in fact THE Concert Hall.

And the concert? Well it was splendid. Bill Clinton loved Sax Ecosse and so did I.

My Amazon tale is now on Caramel's website in both English and French. You can also read the accounts written by other crew members of earlier stages in the rally or just look at their pictures if your French is a bit shaky.

Your French is probably not as shaky as the newsreader's English who in reporting yesterday the death of a soldier in Afghanistan announced that he was from the Royal Logistical Corps and pronounced the last word as corpse. A bit ghoulish I thought.

At quite a few of the golf events I go to the starter hands you a little gift of some sort as you prepare to play; a ball, some tees, a pitch repairer or suchlike bearing the sponsor's logo. I was a bit surprised though to see a pressie on the table in front of me as I took my place at the Ministry of Justice's consultation exercise.

It looked like a whiteboard marker that you could clip on to your shirt pocket. It was logo free but should perhaps have had NHS stamped on it, being a handy alcohol free hand sanitizer allegedly effective against H1N1. I suppose with 100 or so people milling around the conference centre at the Pollock Halls, any one of whom could have been consorting with pigs, it was a wise protection. I'd have felt happier if I'd had it on Wednesday when my neighbour in the Spanish class declared that he had just risen from his bed of swine flu.

The other nifty gadget we were issued with, but not for keeps, was an electronic voting tablet to hang round our necks. The crowd were split into tables of about ten for discussion which a young person armed with a laptop tried valiantly to keep pace with. These sessions were skilfully led and were generally preceded by a video to set the scene. At various times slides of multi-choice polling questions appeared for light relief. We all then pushed our favoured tablet button and the poll result rolled onto the screen. The man in charge invariably thought the result interesting. It's a shame he couldn't have found a few different ways of saying so. Why don't they send us all one of these gadgets instead of a polling card and we could get a general election over with in five minutes.

With the rain pelting down outside this afternoon I turned to television instead of doing something outdoors and virile. I watched the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Despite having been a cheering bystander at the East African Safari Rally, having been to Ingliston on occasion and having regularly attended the Beveridge Park road races as a first-aider in my youth I'm not really a motor racing fan. There's a lot of hanging about hoping you won't go deaf, catching sight every so often of you're not sure who flashing past and not having a clue who's winning.

Television changes all that. You see the race overall. You are in the cockpit. You are backstage in the pit lane. You meet the rich and famous as they mill around on the grid before the start. Someone tells you what's going on. I really enjoyed it and the tussle for second place in the last couple of laps was nearly as exciting for the viewer as it was for the drivers.

I don't know what it takes to be a good racing driver but from one thing I saw you don't have to be too bright. When they pull into the pits and the team swarm around the car changing wheels and filling it up in seconds there is always a man who holds out a large lollipop in front of the car. He takes it away when everything is done. I saw one that read BRAKE - NO THROTTLE when the car pulled up and was turned over as the operation neared its end to read 1ST GEAR - THROTTLE. He must have been the guy who drove off in an earlier race with the fuel pipe still attached.

But what about the circuit! Magnificent. Built from scratch in 22 months. Get that project team over here and we could have the trams for Christmas.

A parliament spokesman said: "Following a minor incident last week, Lothian and Borders Police erected barriers to ensure people [are] kept at a safe distance from the ponds. The parliament already has planned improvements to the pond edges in place and will discuss if any additional action needs to be taken."

That appeared in The Scotsman on March 2nd 2006.

The discussion of additional action has clearly been thorough since it has taken until October 2009 for the Parliament's Facilities Manager to be able to say in response to my recent complaint: "I am pleased to advise you that after a public procurement exercise (to ensure value for money) a contractor has been appointed to undertake additional perimeter security works. As part of these works there will no longer be a need to have these barriers in the ponds."

Security! Health and Safety's big brother. My heart sank as I visualised a screen of concrete blocks modelled on the WWII anti tank landing precautions that we still see on some of our beaches or possibly Gauntanamo type double fences topped with razor wire. Our very own green zone.

But reassurance came later: "Careful consideration has been given to the design to take account of the iconic status of the Parliament buildings."

That's all right then. When will it be done? - "..and be completed around mid March 2010." That's four years since the tourist stepped into the pond.

But didn't Gordon say last week that there are only 50 days left in which to save the planet? Best not give the job to MSPs then.

Doubtless I am not the only person who associates Marks & Spencer with floral print frocks and sensible underwear so I was not a little surprised to find myself buying an internet radio from their on-line store a few days ago. I'd have been even more surprised to have found myself buying a floral print frock but that's by the way.

When I was a wee boy one of my greatest pleasures was to lie in bed fiddling with the radio trying to make out what was struggling out of the little box from faraway places through a cloud of crackles and whistles. Actually the boxes were quite big in those days but again that's by the way.

I've never lost my taste either for radio or for things foreign so the opportunity that broadband gives to sit down in Scotland and hear with perfect clarity Radio Moscow's propaganda broadcasts to Latin America is for me one of the twenty-first century's greatest boons.

That, coupled with the demise of Jazz FM as a digital broadcaster here, commercial radio's complete absence of jazz and the pathetically minute proportion of their output that the BBC's five or six music stations devote to the genre has made the computer an essential listening tool. One of the best jazz programmes that comes from the BBC comes from Radio Scotland, not one of their music stations, but once more that's by the way.

But the computer, even when it's called a laptop, is not ideal; with its tiny speakers, its keyboard and its mouse - especially when you are lying in bed. So the internet radio, or computer in disguise, has long been on my wish list and now I've got one that ticks all my boxes. It has DAB and FM as well as the internet. It can play music that's stored on my computer. I can connect it to my hi-fi or I can have on my bedside table.

That's where it is now. I went to sleep last night listening to TSF, a jazz station that I used to listen to via steam radio in Paris. The machine has a sleep button of course. That's an essential for me. It also has an alarm but I can live without that.

And this morning I got my news from Europe 1. I'm leaving Moscow for a special treat, although I believe their propaganda effort is a pale shadow of its former self.

You can see how it would be quite easy to misplace an electricity cable in this lot.

The spindoctor has moved on to better things so my complaint will have to get to TIE by the front door. I'm thinking of complaining to Glasgow School of Art as well. Having paid £5.75 for a tour of the building (and that's a concession price) I wasn't allowed to take any photos of the inside. No doubt this was to encourage me to spend twenty or thirty quid on a fancy book full of plans and pics but I didn't even buy a postcard. Lovers of CRM shouldn't miss it though.

Fortunately there is no restriction on taking pictures of other architectural splendours and here's one of Edinburgh's newest.

Indeed it was the trams. Here's most of the council's reply:

"These Bustracker signs were removed and reinstated by the public utility diversion Contractors working on the tram project. Re-connecting the signs to a suitable power connection has proven to be a problem. Unfortunately I have no direct control over the project but I am aware that the next phase of tram works are (sic) due to begin on Leith Walk in the new year, so there could be further disruption and bus stops may be moved again.

I have asked again for all outstanding Bustracker works to be completed as soon as possible, however, I suspect that at least some Bustracker signs will be out of action until completion of the next phase of tram works."

I love the statement about the connection to a power source proving difficult. Does that mean that in moving the electricity cables they've lost them? I'm having lunch tomorrow with the father of a tram spindoctor so shall get him to pass on my complaint.

In the meantime as the council man went on to say, I can get real-time bus info here and if ever I have a wap-enabled phone I'm sure to make use of their mobile facility till the arrival of the trams makes it all unnecessary.

But hey, nobody's perfect. I turned up for an appointment this afternoon exactly 168 hours late.

Pursuing my public-spirited inclinations I have in the last few days complained to Lothian Buses about the continuing absence after more than a year of this gadget from my stop and to the Scottish Parliament about the continuing presence of these ghastly railings after a period of what seems like several years.
The railings were put up because some careless sod fell into the decorative pool but that was yonks ago and whatever you think of the building these crowd control railings do not add to the aesthetics of the site and it is surely time that some nifty, beautiful and inspired architectural solution was found. Is there a new Miralles around?

The Parliament has acknowledged my complaint and promised a full and frank reply within 20 working days.

Lothian Buses have gone one better and given me their full and frank reply already. It seems, surprise, surprise that it's all to do with the trams. But something I didn't know is that it is the City Council that's in charge of bus trackers not LRT. The bus man suggest that the council have decided to leave reinstatement of the Shrubhill bustrackers till the rails are laid. I don't know why Shrubhill should suffer when other affected trackers are back in working order but we shall see what the Council have to say for the busman has forwarded the correspondence to them.

When the Lahore Pipe Band were refused visas to come to Glasgow to compete in the World Pipe Band Championship earlier this year I was flabbergasted by the absurdity of it.

No doubt a suicide bomber could have stuffed his bagpipes with explosives and blown the assembled pibroch lovers sky high as he hit the top notes of "Gordon's Lament for Lives Lost in Afghanistan". But they could have been obliged to perform behind concrete blocks or some more subtle technique employed to keep us safe. After all if you've seen "Tunes of Glory" you'll know that there are ways of making sure that things are as they should be even when concealed under the kilt.

So I seized upon the chance to help future foreign pipers and the like by signing this petition. Am I becoming public-spirited or just bolshie in my old age?

After lunching together yesterday Siobhan and I came across a crowd in Hanover Street. The street was closed to traffic and there were several cops on motorcycles hanging about. It was not at first obvious what was going on but almost immediately a car flying a royal standard pulled up so there was clearly a benefit claimant in the offing (what else can one call the beneficiaries of the civil list?).

A royal protection chappie came out of a building and stationed himself by the car and was followed by Princess Anne who waved cheerily at her mum's subjects, got in the car and was whisked off. Interestingly the building she came out of is occupied in part by Kelly Office Services so maybe she was looking for a real job.

Siobhan declared herself neither shaken nor stirred by this incident but Anne's continuing loyalty to Scottish rugby despite its indifferent results rather endears her to me in spite of my anti-monarchist tendencies; mind you given some of the presidents one has seen around I'm inclined to be anti-republican as well. So I was disappointed that I had once again broken my rule of never leaving the house without a camera and thus didn't get a snap. I'll have to change my phone for one that's got a camera built in.

A further and more bitter disappointment awaited me. I'd popped my saxophone into a repair shop when I got to Edinburgh to get the crook screw fixed and collected it shortly after not taking a picture of the princess. The guy told me that he had replaced a couple of leaking pads as well as fixing the screw. That's not quite double dutch to me. It means a couple of holes are not being fully closed when they should be so some sounds are not quite right.

Anyway whether as a consequence of this or because it had been two weeks to the day since I'd last blown the thing I was horrified at what came out (or didn't) when I tried to play it yesterday.

A fearsome regression I fear. When will I get away from square one?

Multitasking as we know is a female attribute so it is not surprising that disaster struck when I was revising a script in the lounge and grilling my tea in the kitchen. I just wish it had been the script that suffered rather than the meal. Charred Cheddar is not a nice taste even when washed down with Australian plonk, but I had spent an hour or so on the sophisticated blend of potato, onion, bacon, egg and cheese so I wasn't going to throw it away.

Tempus fugit and all that. Already it's Friday. Monday's nine hour drive from Dover started off in miserable conditions but once north of London the weather cleared and I sailed along, periodically passing through stretches of cone filled motorway where occasionally work was going on. More often the reason for the cones escaped me.

The flat was in great nick thanks to Connor's ministrations. The only reason that he will not be nominated for the Nobel domestic service prize is a singular failure to iron the shirts that I left in August.

Since then I've been picking up the traces; drawing up lists of things to do, a bit of culture here and there, a Grads meeting - and, I renewed my acquaintance with television last night. I was so pleased to see a Kirkcaldy man do well on University Challenge.

I've found time to finish the book I was reading, a John Le Carré spy novel in which I didn't expect to find a joke that would made me laugh out loud. Let me share it with you.

"This morning, still drunk, he had called Strelski to warn him of a new form of AIDS that was afflicting Miami. It was called Hearing Aids , Pat said, and came from listening to too many assholes from Washington."

My fiddling about with the washing machine has uncovered innate engineering skills. It did not leak when I did two large batches of washing yesterday morning.

There has been something of a focus on clothing events this week. The clothes that I dutifully washed were mainly those soiled during my golf outing which I had of course brought back with me. Alas I didn't bring back all the clothes that I had taken.

I blame the French health service for that.

You see our original lodging plan for this outing was to stay with Ernest, a Swiss golfing chum who lives in that area. At his invitation I hasten to add. But at the last minute he and his wife were both given dates for hospital procedures that made having four Dryades stay with them even more of an imposition than it already was.

So we had to go to a hotel and by then all the cheaper places were full and we ended up in a relatively swanky one. Swanky to the extent that we each had a sitting room as well as a bedroom. Now normally I just live out of my travel bag but here I thought I would act the gent and spread my gear over the various wardrobes and cupboards in my suite. Unfortunately I failed to check them all when packing up. Goodbye a rather nice sweater, a pair of shorts and assorted bits and pieces. Thank God none of the bits and pieces had frayed elastic and that the socks had no holes.

Now being a hotelier's son and grandson I've made a few beds in my time and normally would place a guest's folded pyjamas under the pillow or on top of the made up bed. In winter when I went round with hot water bottles I would turn down the top sheet and place the pyjamas on the exposed pillow. But that's not how they do things in this swanky spot. Here's how I found my pyjamas when I came back to the hotel.I'm now in a much less swanky Premiere Classe but they treat your pyjamas with respect and you get free wifi. Apart from using it to write this post I've done a bit of surfing and came across this petition. I almost never sign petitions but the New Vic as it was then is where I first saw South Pacific. I signed and urge my readers to do likewise.

I'm off to the spa town of La Roche Posay for three days this week. I'm not taking the waters but playing in the last SG4L competition of the year. As well as the game there will be an AGM and a dinner which is usually quite jolly.

As a result and because I'm leaving a day earlier than planned, to have dinner and stay overnight with friends en route, I've been busy these last few days redding up the place for winter. I've transplanted some window box and pot plants that I think have a chance of surviving and done my final grass cut. We've decided that since investing in keeping the grass tidy over last winter brought no dividends in the form of a purchaser we'll let it grow. I know I'll regret that decision when I'm faced with the initial backbreaking task of getting it into order in the Spring. Somehow I'll have to get David down here before me.

Cleaning up inside caused me to wonder how much spiders need to eat. We get flies and other insects coming into the house but unless one fly feeds a hundred spiders for a week I don't see how the vast population that lives with me survive. Mind you I did read somewhere that a mouse needs only one crumb of bread a week (I find that hard to believe but...) so a spider probably only needs to lick a fly to gain nourishment equivalent to our three square meals a day.

Sod's law was at work yesterday when I used the washing machine. When I went to check on it I found the bathroom floor that I had scrubbed earlier in the day was inches deep in dirty water. Nothing like the devastation in Manila but even that wee drop demonstrated just what a mess water can cause. The leak came from a weak point in the seal around the door. I've fiddled with it and reset a plastic band that looks as though it plays a critical role but I'm not too excited at the thought of trying it out with the large amount of washing that I'll have to do on my return from La Roche Posay. There is a launderette in Gueret but there's a lot of dead time involved in using that. I may just have to take my dirty washing to Edinburgh.