At last a point shaved off my handicap and a bottle of champagne gained to boot.  Not only champagne but a jar of foie gras and several of gelatinous fluids containing various bits of duck anatomy.  These will make delightful tit bits for those enjoying my Red Army choir DVD at Christmas.

These trophies were won at Aubazine, a lovely little spot in Corrèze where I've played a few times in the past.  We had excellent weather and lots of jollity including, for half a dozen of those spending the night on site, a post dinner hack around their nine hole pitch and puttish course where I put down a marker for the following day's competition by scoring nothing but pars till light stopped play.

Play stopped before the light vanished at Trent Bridge on Wednesday.  I had the Radio 4 ball by ball commentary on throughout although I only sat and listened attentively in bursts.  But as England swept vigorously to victory in the evening I found myself unwilling to leave the game to attend one of the infrequent entertainments going on in Châtelus that I'd had in my diary for a couple of weeks.  I musn't be distracted tonight though but make the 21.00 double bill curtain up.  I don't know either of the plays being performed and hope to be tickled pink.
 

The American professor who blogged about seagulls and refuse sacks in Edinburgh's New Town has had a European adventure.

My regular email from the Cameo tells me that not only am I missing Senna for the second time but I won't see Life in a Day either.  I've got a little bit of personal interest in that one since the cameraman on A Lifetime uploaded some footage of its filming as part of his day.  I'd love to see whether any of that has survived the distillation of the 4500 hours submitted down to the 95 minutes being screened.  Though I won't be surprised if it's been bumped in favour of the animal slaughter the Cameo warns us that the film contains.

The director of Similar Lily, one of the student films I worked on a month or two back, had some distillation done for him when someone stole the camera with the last day's footage in it.  Despite what must have seemed at the time to be an artistic bodyblow the remaining footage has been edited into a coherent and entertaining short film that you can watch here provided you have or are willing to open a Facebook account.

A treat for anyone visiting me around Christmas was plucked from the Lions Club golf competition scorecards at Sully-sur-Loire on Saturday.

Prizes for those displaying prowess on the course included computer printers, golf paraphernalia of all sorts, cases of wine and other costly goods but still left a handy 30, 000 euros or so (not all from that one day) for the children’s cancer charity the Lions were supporting.

For the less successful with club and ball  there is always the leftovers draw and the innocent hand doing the dipping pulled me out a sleeve of three golf balls (always useful) and Jeane Manson and the Choir of the Red Army’s 2006 Christmas DVD.  There’s a medley of carols and Ave Maria and a French version of A White Christmas amongst other goodies that will have my friends vying for an invitation to my flat over the festive season.

Though further encouragement to come over is hardly needed, let me tell you that not only did Jeane Manson (an American resident in France since the seventies) represent Luxembourg in the 1979 Eurovision song contest but was Playboy’s playmate of the month in August 1974.

Perhaps inspired by a need to avoid such excitements I turned in a score of 36 Stableford points at home on Sunday to qualify as a proper prizewinner and, this being a competition enjoying Spanish sponsorship, was rewarded with a bottle of Ribera del Duero and a pound of Manchego cheese.

Mentioning the Forsyte Saga TV series in my last post piqued my curiosity about how it's various stars went on in life and art. I found this excellent website. Although it's not actually up to date having been put together ten years ago it gives a good idea of the impact of the series as does the Guardian's obituary of Nyree Dawn Porter that it points you to (the Times obit isn't there).

I missed the notice of her death when it happened since it didn't cause much of a stir in Egypt. I must sometime have a look at the 2002 remake by Granada. That didn't make much of a stir wherever I was then either.

When I went on holiday recently I bought three books for the price of two to take with me but I feel that I ended up with one book for the price of three.

The translated from the Italian cops and robbers novel was about as boringly predictable as it could be and only cussedness led me to complete it which I did at an early stage.

My second choice was The Forsyte Saga. It was satisfactorily thick and long lasting and enjoyable and sealed the bond of affection for the story and characters that the black and white 60s TV adaptation had engendered.

Thickness is an important criterion in holiday reading so despite my lukewarm appreciation of science fiction I took Dune whose 596 pages include a map, four appendices and a glossary. After all one must keep an open mind and this novel has won prizes and according to the blub is the finest and most prescient science fiction novel ever written.

Well God preserve me from its lesser competitors. I didn’t get round to it when I was on holiday and started it the other day. My favourite condemnatory word for works of art that don’t appeal is tosh. For Dune let me spell that TOSH. Now I don’t deny it’s imaginative and the author has gone to a lot of trouble to make up funny objects and funny words and to harness genuine or near genuine Arabic and other terms to delight our eyes and ears and it’s a lovely map. But what TOSH, and I’ve only read 10% of it. That’s when I decided my prejudice against science fiction was in fact sound literary judgment and gave up reading the book.

Let me give you a wee flavour or two. Here’s a definition from the glossary:” Poling the sand – the art of placing plastic and fibre poles in the open desert wastes of Arrakis and reading the patterns etched on the poles by sandstorms as a clue to weather prediction.” Now that, while akin to reading tea leaves at least makes some sort of sense. Unlike “ CHOAM – acronym for Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles.”

And here’s a bawdy song sung by the player of a nine string baliset (?) whose multipick (?) is going like the clappers: “ Oh-h-h, the Galacian girls/ Will do it for pearls,/ And the Arrakeen for water!/ But if you desire dames/Like consuming flames/ Try a Caladanin daughter! “ What could Rabbie Burns not have done with that raw material.

And this is where I hope one of my female friends can help me out. “A skinny girl the colour of bronze, her body tortured by the winds of puberty..” I don’t recall flatulence being a problem of male puberty. In fact there’s nothing a young boy likes better than a good fart.

I had a bellyful of young boys and girls this afternoon and it was nothing to do with puberty since these were about nine years old. The occasion was a kids golf competition for a couple of classes from the local primary who have been coming along to the course during the year and learning the rudiments. This competition was their end of the year treat. Several adults were called upon to provide some supervision.

In France you don’t have to be proved innocent of child abuse to do that sort of thing but by the end of the afternoon my thoughts were well past abuse and moving rapidly towards slaughter. I’ve done this and other child and golf activities before and enjoyed it but the six I had charge of today were the most ill-disciplined and obstreperous lot you could hope to meet. I earned my free pint I can tell you.

Life in the country can be crude and rude. The various village ducks and hens that forage around our property don't rush back to their coops when taken short but relieve themselves on our land. Their lavatory of choice in recent days has been the doorstep. Fortunately the dog who occasionally comes by to do business prefers grass to granite.

I expect zombies can be crude and rude and I'm sorry to be missing the chance to meet up with them on my other doorstep in the Brad Pitt blockbuster to be shot in Glasgow in August. For those who are free here's the call for extras.

Here's a humorous reflection on the effect of the recent Spanish protests that a friend sent me a few days ago. I've just been able to watch it courtesy of the bandwidth available in Gueret chez

You don't need much knowledge of the language to appreciate the plight of the little girl whose parents are too busy to talk to her.

The ball bashing I slogged away at over the winter has not so far brought the enormous improvement in my game that I had hoped for, but I am slightly encouraged. Two shots in particular in yesterday's round gave me heart though I don't think that either was the result of winter work.

I sank an extremely long putt, at least as long as any fish that ever got away and had a brilliant wedge shot out of a greenside bunker to within six inches of the hole. That was in the annual Chateau de Poinsouze competition where their merry campers, mostly Dutch, join us for golf and we go off to the campsite (where there actually is a chateau) for an excellent dinner afterwards. They serve some jolly nice wine with it but one of the penalties of country living is that you can't risk more than a glass for fear of repercussions on the road home.

One of the penalties of having too much to do in my last week in Edinburgh was that I didn't manage to squeeze in seeing Senna. It looked super from the trailer and all the press reports I had read raved about it. My friends here didn't seem aware of it and I'm not surprised. It came out in France in late May but even had I been here I'd have had to travel to see it because it was only screened in four cinemas.

Could that conceivably have been a post mortem incidence of the old rivalry with Alain Prost?

It's very nice to be back in France -such lovely countryside and quiet, albeit pricey, motorways and reasonably priced wine (see below). And don't let's forget their weekday jazz slot on the equivalent of Radio 3 and related weekend bonanzas. Not to mention the musical treats at the Parc Floral. Those I haven't been able to enjoy since I left Paris but I like to know that they're there.

You think Edinburgh is a village but here it's the same. I stopped off at a supermarket in a town half an hour's drive away to buy something for my tea and bumped into a couple who play golf at Les Dryades.

The drive down from Dunkirk was relaxation in spades compared to yesterday's run to Dover. At some point my wipers failed and I had to choose between risking my life in the thunderstorms that pursued me almost all the way or missing my boat. I don't recommend crawling along the M25 trying desperately to keep your vehicle between the white lines that demarcate the slow lane while huge pantechnicons thunder along on your right hand side casting waves of glaur onto your windscreen. After that bungee jumping holds no fear.

My neighbour Alain had kindly cut my grass in expectation of my arrival but unfortunately he expected me last month so it's grown a bit since. I shall have to grovel.

The house is in good order but the spiders have been busy over the winter so I shall have to put my shoulder to the wheel tomorrow and hoover their works away, not to mention getting to grips with the grass. Fortunately I have fortified myself this evening with a wee steak and the best part of a bottle of Bourgogne. That was reassuringly expensive at five euros and something compared to the run of reds at two to three euros a throw.

My support for the SNP's minimum pricing for alcohol strategy is undimmed. The French are not the Scots and the Scots in France are not the Scots either.

I thought I'd get up to speed with local matters before setting off for my summer quarters and have learnt that the Creuse has had an abnormally sunny and dry Spring thus earning headlines of the type "Creuse farmers threatened by drought".

Just as the pound strengthened against the euro immediately after I transferred my Summer funds I foresee floods getting underway from Thursday next.

This fine painting, or at least a print of this fine painting, now hangs on my wall as a souvenir of Cuba.

The original hangs in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Havana where there is a magnificent collection of Cuban art from the conquest to the present day. It is the work of Mario Carreño whose pictures have sold for millions. My investment in his work was more modest. I spent substantially more on getting it framed, 13 times more in fact.

If your Spanish is up to it you can read about him here, or if not just enjoy the pictures of which there are a dozen or so. If you like them you can order copies in oils from this site where there is a bit of biog in broken English. They it seems will copy anything you like so a Titian in the toilet is within reach of us all.

No doubt like me you absorbed with your mother's milk stories of hospital patients being roused from slumber by officious night sisters in order for them to take their sleeping pills.

So you will appreciate my irritation as a resting partygoer at being shaken awake around five this morning to be told (by it has to be said an employee of our national health service) that it was time to go to bed. He promptly took over the spare room, where I imagine he is snoring his head off as I write, leaving his hostess and myself to continue dozing as best we could on the settee. An hour or so later she gathered enough will power to wriggle free from the sofa and shuffled off towards her own sleeping quarters.

My sleep now broken twice I left her applying a late but no doubt essential coating of cold cream and struck out up Easter road dreaming of breakfast. Tesco being unaccountably out of fresh croissants at 6.20 on a summer Saturday morning I am toasting some stale bread as I inhale the wholesome odour of fresh Cuban coffee.

Good morning and good night.

Can I stand the strain of watching Andy Murray play again? He's just won the scrappiest match, admittedly in straight sets but each set and indeed each game followed a crazy paving path that had me screaming at the TV in disbelief.

STV launched an Edinburgh focused daily news broadcast at the beginning of this week just as the Guardian is folding up its Edinburgh local web offering. I haven't tried the STV programme yet but I was a daily visitor to the Guardian site for an encapsulated view of what was happening in the big wide city that surrounds Spurtleland.

I shall henceforth have to have an early morning dip in the Edinburgh Reporter to set me up for the day.

The BBC are giving tennis lovers a treat with their continuous coverage of the French Open on the pretty little red button. Yesterday I saw the young English girl Heather Watson become the first British lady since who knows when to get past the first round. She won convincingly against an opponent who simply lost heart in the second set. The monetary reward for reaching the second round is $45,000 so even if she goes no further she can pop home to mum and dad in Guernsey with her head held high and her pockets bulging.

I had to go out just as Andy Murray came on court this morning and have just watched a recording of his match. Given that the guy he played is well over a hundred places lower than him in the rankings I expected him to slaughter the poor chap. But in fact he struggled here and there in a way that I don't think either Nadal or Djokovic would have done so I don't rate his chances of getting past the semi-final but I'll be pleased if he does.

There was an absolutely cracking match later when Isner took Nadal all the way to the wire. Five sets of very exciting tennis which should fire Nadal up for the rest of the tournament.

It would seem that in my case the effect of jet lag increases as time goes on. Not only did I drop off around tea-time yesterday causing me to be late for a drinks appointment but last night I slept for an unprecedented nine hours.

In between I stayed awake for the Grads production of A Comedy of Errors. This is all about the mistakes and confusion provoked by the arrival in Ephesus of a master and his servant each of whom has an identical twin in the city.

The Grads original twist on this story is that their sets of twins are not exactly identical. Although that may seem daft I found it quite helpful in following the plot and since the other members of the cast behave as though they were identical the farce rolls along with the fun and games that Shakespeare had in mind unimpaired.

Any of my readers thinking of mounting a production of Laurel and Hardy should rush along. There is a perfect Stan on display and with a bit of fattening maybe an Ollie as well.

It's nice to be back in fresh-aired Edinburgh but the music of Cuba is still in my ears.

I was a bit disappointed by Pina the other day. Some of the dancing was certainly impressive and I gasped at one dancer's leap and nosedive but thank goodness it was in 3D. It would have been a bit flat otherwise.

Nor did I learn much about Pina herself. She seems to have been a lady of few words. One dancer said that Pina's only comment about her performance in 20 years was "you must search harder". She didn't even say what the poor girl should be searching for.

Memory of Water on the other hand, in which two of my chums were appearing, was terrific. The script was very strong, the production was first-rate and the performances, especially Caroline's were super. If you think jokes about death are in bad taste maybe you won't enjoy it but the tango swaying pall bearers could be the thing to change your mind.

It's a profit sharing venture of course like so much work by small theatre groups. They are getting great houses, albeit limited to about 50 by the space they are playing in so if there is a profit at the end of the week it won't be anywhere near what they deserve.

Fingers crossed the saga has ended.

Looks like this broadband is settling down to be a saga. After running ok since the miraculous resurrection yesterday it collapsed at some time late this morning and has been poorly, not to say comatose ever since.

It seemed this morning that I had praised BT too soon for when I switched on about 10.30 to check my email there was no broadband.

The phone was ok so I set to to complain. After various button presses I found my self off-shore and explained my problem and its background. We then went through various restarts and examination of sockets and filters, all of which I had either already done or felt pointless but he would not be gainsaid. Then a line test. I had to swear that during the ensuing 15 to 20 minutes I would not make a phone call or answer one until he called to say he had completed the test. A bit of a problem to know which call to answer you might think but I helpfully suggested he call my mobile when the job was done.

So he did, only to explain that the end of his resources had been reached and that for further help and ultimate satisfaction he would have to pass me on to another department. He explained this to me several times and assured me several times that he would explain my problem very carefully to his colleague. We parted with mutual declarations of esteem.

His colleague came on the line saying I understand your problem is X. Wincing a little I said that it was in fact Y and delivered the entire back story. This chap seemed to be but a facilitator for his contribution was to tell me that he would advise engineers who would rush to my assistance no later than next Wednesday while he "took ownership of the problem". There was it seemed a fault. No kidding. He thanked me for my patience. Mutual esteem being the order of the day I assured him of my delight and rang off.

I kid you not, within 10 seconds the previously missing broadband light flickered briefly orange and settled to a healthy steady blue which it has maintained ever since. So aren't BT marvellous or what?

Telephone and broadband service restored in less than 24 hours. Well done BT.

I've just spent four sunny days on location at an Edinburgh bowls club with a group of very well organised ECA film students. The shoot finished bang on schedule and we then played bowls for an hour under the expert guidance of a champion. The director (he with a knee missing from his jeans and the tea-cosy on his head) is hooked and left swearing to take out membership and bring the club's average age down a decade or three.

My broadband was out of action when I got home and investigation revealed a cock-up by either BT, Talk Talk or both. My number has been given to someone in another flat in the block. Currently the phone rings in both flats but neither of us has broadband on the line. Thanks to a long ago flirtation with FON I have an alternative, albeit open to all comers.

So till it's sorted out, and with a holiday weekend almost upon us who knows when that will be, I am having unprotected web access. It calls to mind when STD meant subscriber trunk dialling.

I spotted a number 12 bus the other day whose destination board declared that it was going to Seafield and serving the Eastern General Hospital. Since the Eastern closed in 2007 and the bus was heading in the opposite direction my immediate reaction was to damn Lothian Buses for incompetence. Then I remembered that the Science Festival was in town and realised that it must have been a demonstration of the strange nature of space and time.

The two talks I've been to so far, Science, Sex and Theatre; A Potent Brew and The Science of Wine and Cocktails, dealt entertainingly with some of my interests and I've another one in view about music. I shall have to try some of the novels and plays of Carl Djerassi who gave the first talk. He's credited, inter alia, with being the main man behind the oral contraceptive but he's also a writer of what he calls "science in fiction" , which he characterises as being about real, proven, imminent or at the very least plausible science as opposed to science fiction. He didn't seem the sort of chap who would write in too worthy a manner, except I suppose in a scientific paper, but I shan't rush out and buy them all at once just in case.

Rona Munro is a playwright whose work is not in the least worthy in tone and whose latest play, Pandas, is given a sparkling production at the Traverse. It is a cleverly constructed tale in which the lives and loves of six characters are linked to great comedic effect. The play is well served by a simple, attractive and cunningly designed set, great sound and lighting, and the cast act their little socks off.

Much the same could be said of Edinburgh Theatre Arts production of A Fistful of Mondays in which a cast that included a number of my friends and acquaintances gave a packed house an evening full of laughter, with the occasional pause for tears, culminating in a splendid line dancing number.

Given the respective resources of the two companies you couldn't put a fag paper between the results of their work.

I found myself sipping non-alcoholic beer and discussing football in the Blue Blazer around 10 this morning after responding to an emergency call for an actor. To make sure my little scene has a chance to reach the big screen answer this appeal.

This photo is for Andrew as are these.

In this post I regretted the demise of Jazz FM as a national broadcaster. Well eighteen months later it has ventured out of its metropolitan heartland into the airwaves above Edinburgh once again. I have my three DAB sets tuned in and I wish it every success. Pity about the ads though.

No ads at the Camino café last night where I betook myself for an hour or so to hear a fellow thespian's debut performance as a singer. She was very impressive although I thought her KT Tunstall numbers didn't suit her voice as well as the other songs she sang. There was a sweet young man on the bill as well who disarmingly apologised profusely for forgetting the lyrics of one number. Someone should whisper in his ear to just doo la la the next time.

I wandered home down Leith Walk around 10 find Edinburgh's bon viveurs still sitting out at café tables profiting from April's unusual weather. But were those hedonists not heedless of the law? Don't we have some daft rule that insists such tables should be swept away by 9pm?

I got home in time to see Rory McIlroy take a leaf out of my golfing book, poor lad.

I managed to avoid spending any money at the Scottish Golf Show on Friday, no thanks to the dozens of exhibitors eager to do me the deal of the decade, and after a pleasant lunch accompanied by even more pleasant conversation window shopped and basked in the sun for a bit before getting home in time for the RSNO.

It's not often that I go to a concert and thoroughly enjoy every piece played but this was an exception. I had gone primarily to hear Beethoven's 4th piano concerto which has been one of my desert island discs since I heard it in the Festival Hall when I was a student visiting London in search of gainful employment. I don't remember who played it then or even the name of the orchestra but those opening piano notes and the orchestra's reply instantly evoke the sense of warm wonder that flooded through me on that first hearing.

The programme included a charming Haydn symphony and works by Kodaly. His Hary Janos Suite, originating as music for a comic opera, used a huge band with the esoteric (to us if not to the Hungarians) cimbalom, several lusty trombones, other booming brass and a satisfyingly large percussion section. For the most part it's loud, tuneful and jolly; all characteristics that make for happy listening. For the orchestra it called for vigorous playing and even athleticism from one of the marimba players who had to dive sideways at one point to still the reverberations of a set of tubular bells.

The audience went home most cheerfully.

I had to consult some records this evening and learnt to my astonishment that I have been at this address for five years.

I've profited from the Cameo's enlightened pricing regime to visit the cinema on two afternoons this week. Submarine was an entertaining account of adolescent angst with a few original touches that was well worth seeing, but Essential Killing was the sort of killingly inessential viewing that appeals to only a select few.

One of last summer's activities enters the public arena.

It's not only phones that are dumb.
The bins in the left and right stores were emptied less than 24 hours before this picture was taken. There is a reason (not a very good one) why the binmen didn't empty the middle one, but that's rather beside the point.

Imagine the scene. A member of homo sapiens sapiens leaves his flat with a bag of rubbish. He approaches the bin stores and ponders "which bin will I but my bag in?".

He ponders anew "I can surely sqeeze it into that middle one" and opens the gate. Then discovers "Oh, I can't get my bag in. There's no room. I'll just put it down where the vermin can get at it."

And finally, no doubt having been born in a field as all good parents used to say, he shambles off leaving the gate open.

I bought a new phone recently. I don't know if it advertises itself as a smart phone (it was probably too cheap for that) but given the dumbness it has just exhibited there is no way it could avoid prosecution if it did.

It has lots of nice features, like a radio and a music player. It also has a diary function and I've been using that in an attempt to wean myself from a paper diary. I've entered numerous engagements up to late September this year.

This weekend I had lots of timepieces to move an hour forward but not my computer and not my new phone. They smartly moved themselves ahead.

But the phone also dumbly moved every future entry in my diary one hour ahead. That is not dumb it is just plain stupid.

We were filming in a care home this weekend. It was a nice, relaxed and friendly place so I mused on putting my name down for it while I was there. But I didn't. It's much too soon.

Seeing a picture on the wall of Sean Connery visiting the place I thought he must have been sussing out a spot for himself. He is after all a good bit older than me and he'd surely love to be back in the old country away from the stress of Carribean living for his final years.

But it was only a sentimental tour through the scenes of his youth for the care home stands on the site of North Merchiston Primary School, his alma mater.

Who should sit down next to me at the Traverse this evening but the census man. The show was called Smalltown. How appropriate is that?

I was being hurled about Dumbiedykes in a wheelchair at lunchtime yesterday but thanks to the iplayer caught up with the Movie Café this morning. There was even less of the band playing than I had anticipated but we did survive Liz Taylor's death and learn about the Rank gong.

It was found in a junk shop in Greenwich yonks ago and some years later given as a wedding present to the couple who run the Dunedin Wind Band. Not a terribly exciting story but illustrative of how things turn up in the least expected way. Just as on Wednesday night the man who turned up at my door with a census form was a theatre friend I hadn't seen for four or five years, earning an honest crust while hawking himself around the drama school audition circuit. He's living a few streets away from me in the same street that was lived in by another young actor who played in a production of mine a couple of years ago. Unlikely to be the same flat but how spooky would that be if it is.

The first day of shooting "Similar Lily" went well today and as a plus it introduced me to a lovely little park that I didn't know existed just off the Pleasance. I'd have uploaded a photo had it not been for the fact that dressing the set involved spreading litter all over the place.

The big movie news of the day was Liz Taylor's death. I'm not especially sad but may be crying about it soon. I've been eagerly awaiting the Dunedin Wind Band item due to be broadcast on BBC Scotland's Movie Café tomorrow but have been warned that it may be bumped in favour of an obit for the dear departed.

I had a harrowing afternoon. No, I didn't watch the rugby. I went to the cinema.

Today's Cameo double bill consisted of Touching The Void and 127 Hours. I couldn't watch much of the arm cutting in 127 Hours, daft when you know it's not real. You can only get a body double to do so much after all. But it was gruesome.

Before the the cutting itself the director has to find ways of filling up the five days that poor Aron Ralston was stuck there with his arm wedged against the canyon wall by a huge boulder. So we see the chap's various failed attempts to free himself, his near drowning in a flash flood, his camcorder ramblings and bits of flashback and hallucinations. But although my attention was held throughout it's a bit thin, so I had some sympathy for the guy whose loud snores told that he for one had not found the film totally engrossing.

Much more happens in Touching The Void so in a way the director's task is a lot easier, but the demands of recreating the climb and its aftermath are colossal. I saw a making-of about it once and the achievement by camera crew and actors struck me as immense. Seeing the film itself for the second time I was squirming in my seat in empathetic fear and trembling most of the time and couldn't keep my eyes off the screen. The inter-cut matter of fact commentaries by Joe Simpson and Simon Yates (and their non-climbing companion) are I think a masterstroke.

What a great film.

The gong in this picture is a papier maché artefact but there was a real gong that made the noise that introduced J Arthur Rank movies. It's a Chinese instrument and its proper name is a tam tam. There will be an edition of Radio Scotland's Movie Café programme broadcast at 13.15 on Thursday 24th March that deals with this instrument and its history.

So what, you may say and why should I care? Well that tam tam now belongs to the Dunedin Wind Band for reasons which will no doubt be explored in the programme and I am a member of that band. I will be making my broadcast debut as a saxophonist in the programme.

I sat right in front of the gong during the recording so you will need to have a fine ear to pick me out but should you detect a wrong note during the 30 seconds of Pirates of the Caribbean that's likely to be broadcast that's very probably me.

No excuses now. If you are not able to tune in for the broadcast there is always the iplayer.

I was, as they say, privileged to take part in a ground-breaking production of The Tempest in last year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe in which the central role of Prospero was played by a female actor.

Now Hollywood has followed suit and I was eager to see the results. So were many of my colleagues but Edinburgh's cinemas made it difficult for them by scheduling very few screenings and almost all of those at times when good little boys and girls should be tucked up in their offices. Thus only two of us made it, a pensioner and a public servant.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Apart from shifting Prospero's "such stuff as dreams are made on" speech to an earlier point in the story (where it makes a fine reflective soliloquy as Prospero looks fondly on the satisfactory conclusion of her matchmaking) and adding what seemed to me an unnecessary bit of back story involving a husband for Prospero, here called Prospera, the film resists the temptation to rewrite Shakespeare's play.

Not everyone speaks their lines as well as Helen Mirren. At times Caliban has an attack of the Jeff Bridges and much dialogue is blown away in the initial storm scene (perhaps that is intentional naturalism) but by and large only the most exigent Shakespearean verse devotee could have grounds for complaint.

I appreciated the efforts of all the actors to incarnate their characters. We had suitably romantic young lovers, a delightfully bumbling Gonzalo, nasty villains and loveable rogues plus a gentle sad eyed Ariel who is a shimmering animation bursting out of pools and flashing across the sky as a swarm of bees to do Prospera's bidding. That, the fire breathing black dogs and whirling zodiac sign filled heaven all reinforced for me the magic elements of the story though it seems that not all critics liked them.

The locations on the volcanic wastes of Hawaii gave superb cinematographic opportunities and absolutely appropriate settings for the tale. The final image of Prospera casting her magic rod into the sea was lovely but I'd have liked the long shots of the sailing ship being tossed around in the storm to have been more convincing.

My only major disappointment was that the film wasn't shown at the Cameo for half the price.

What can I say about Girl X?

I'm sure they meant well but that's as far as I can go.

The Price Marking Order 2004 has been a boon and a blessing to us all. Since it passed into law (thanks to the EU) it has not been necessary to carry a calculator on shopping trips to work out whether a 450gm jar of jam on sale for £2.37 is or is not a better buy than a 385gm jar of jam on sale for £1.99.

Now the unit price must be displayed making comparison a piece of cake, though sometimes (and perhaps in contravention of the regulations) one sees a price per 100gm against one product and a price per kilogram against a similar product. The unwary or those unable to multiply/divide by 10 can get burnt.

I reflected on this as I shopped for coffee today. Amongst the brands on offer was one in a 250gm pack at £3.53. That's a unit price of £1.41 per 100gm.

For those who find it tedious or challenging to measure out their coffee the same brand's range also included packs containing three sachets of what they described as microground and instant coffee at £1.45. Of course you have to pay for the convenience of being able to rip open a sachet and empty the contents into your cup instead of going through all that messy and potentially inaccurate spooning.

Thanks to the Price Marking Order 2004 you can see how high a premium that convenience carries because coffee bought in this packaging costs £21.02 per 100gm. To be fair it's not exactly the same coffee in both cases but it would have to be some super duper coffee to warrant a price multiple of nearly 15.

Putting it another way, and I confess to using a calculator to work this out, the convenience premium per cup is about 40p. The inconvenience premium of having all that packaging to dispose of is incalculable both for the consumer and the planet.

We had more wind than usual at band practice last night when we were joined by a piper. She made more noise than the other 30 of us put together.

Many things strike me as incomprehensible. Try this one.

I left home at 9.45 this morning and the postman came to my door at 10 with an item posted in London yesterday. It needed a signature so of course he had to take it away and leave me a card. The card told me that it would be returned to my delivery office. So far so obvious.

On the reverse of the card it said please leave X hours before trying to pick it up. X appeared to be 40. Now the delivery office used to be five hundred yards along the road but it's now further away. Not so far away as would make it seem reasonable that it should take 40 hours for the item to reach it so I decided that it must be a badly scribbled 4 that was really a 1.

I went to the delivery office just before it closed at 7 this evening (not quite 10 hours I know but I thought I'd chance it). To no avail. The item was not available and I was assured that 40 hours was really 40 hours so there was no use coming back before Saturday morning.

If I'd paid 41 pence first class postage it would have been put through my letter box less than 24 hours after it had been posted. But I paid £5.50 for special delivery and so won't get it till about 72 hours after posting.

If you've never really understood how the financial collapse of 2008 happened, or even if have, this is the film to see. Gasps of astonishment, guffaws and gales of laughter swept the Cameo yesterday afternoon as the sorry tale was told largely in the culprits' own words.

It should be compulsory daily viewing in Downing Street, Threadneedle Street and Business Schools/University Economics departments throughout the land.

There's a really nice little exhibition about Edinburgh trams past and future in the St James centre. The display contains pictures ranging from the earliest horse drawn trams of 1871, which ran from Haymarket to Bernard Street, to the last tram run in 1956. We are told that the laying of the lines for the cable hauled trams in the 1880s and later the electric trams was an enormous disruption and went on for years. Plus ça change.

You can find lots of tram pictures and pictures of all sorts of Edinburgh related matters on this site.

In the St James centre exhibition there is a large map of the network and I homed in on this section, close to my heart.The red lines indicate the early horse drawn tram routes. I don't know to which point in time the tram service numbers relate but it's fascinating to see that most of the same numbers are still in use and pass along the same routes today.

The railway line shown crossing Leith Walk is still in use but the goods yard is now the sought after residential development of Dicksonfield.

This lovely souvenir of a weekend in Fife last March is heralding the Spring on my balcony.

I shan't manage to see all of the ten films that have been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars but I have seen all the Directing nominees so I've been musing about where I would cast my vote.

It's terribly difficult to spot what the Director has contributed to a play or a film that has made it much better than it would have been without his/her involvement or under someone else's direction. So difficult that I think you have to judge every aspect of the work as being in the end the responsibility of the director. So for example, whether an actor is good or bad I'm likely to attribute 75% of the result to the director's work.

I complained in a previous post about Jeff Bridges' diction in True Grit. I'm sure he can speak as clearly as any man on the planet so either he was told to talk that way by the director ( in this case directors) or he invented it himself and it was accepted by the directors or they cobbled it together between them or horror of horrors they didn't notice. But leaving that aside (and I am, honestly) I rule True Grit out. It's a thoroughly well made and entertaining western but I don't see a quality in it that raises it above the well made and entertaining western that other competent directors could have produced.

The King's Speech is another fine film. It's a gripping story with a happy ending. It deploys fine British acting talent and what's more it's true. One of my neighbours received his DSO from the hands of George VI himself. He was understandably very moved by the film and even hard hearted republicans could surely spare a little sympathy for an afflicted fellow being. But is it more than a west end play with a movie camera stuck in front of it? I don't think so, despite its going outdoors for a mist swirling walk where speech therapist gets a temporary bum's rush. So for me it doesn't qualify for a film directing prize.

You might then think that I'd write off Black Swan straight away since it doesn't include a single exterior shot and could surely have been done on the stage. Should we not at least have seen the heroine staring moodily out of the bus window as it wended its way through rainy streets or her slow and thoughtful progress along crowded pavements as she choked back her fear of not getting the part? Maybe we did and I just don't remember. That's quite possible. But I do remember the close ups of weird bleeding, the magnificent feather sprouting pirouette and various other surreal bits and bobs that made it undeniably a movie. However the director didn't make me care one way or the other what happened to any of the characters so it fails.

That leaves The Social Network and The Fighter both of which induced in me very strong reactions to the characters. Interestingly enough in both cases my early dislike of some of them metamorphosed into a more sympathetic and nuanced appreciation. At one stage I was all for rushing home and cancelling my Facebook account but in the end I felt a bit sorry for the chap. I'd heard an interview with the director of The Fighter in which he said that the family portrayed had seen the film and were happy with it. By the end I could believe that, but was incredulous earlier that any family could be content to see themselves as the hopeless bunch of ineffective squabbling losers who appeared on screen.

The Social Network was fast-moving and tense. It cut through a fairly complicated story very clearly. It's characters were well drawn and multi-dimensioned. Everything about its physical being; costumes, settings, photography and so on was perfect. Until I saw The Fighter it had my vote for both directing and best picture Oscars.

But the magnificent fight scenes in The Fighter and what the director does with such unpromising human beings swings my judgement in his favour for the directing prize and despite the slightly sentimental tone towards the end (after all it's a true story and it's not the director's fault that there was a real life happy ending) I'd give it best picture as well, with the caveat that I haven't been able to judge all the contenders.

For best actor I'll swim against the cream of British acting talent tide and, even although I've only seen three of the contenders, award the prize to the chap who plays the Facebook chap. I'm not good with names but I'm sure at least one of them is called Jesse.

How's that for a 15 yard bunker shot, no more than 4 inches from the hole.

I idly wondered why the choir were sitting all over to one side with men and women slightly jumbled up and why it seemed below strength, but as soon as the music started I realised what a more than cursory glance at the orchestral forces onstage and a moment's reflection should have told me from the moment I sat down. They were being audience for the first half.

After the interval twice as many came in and organised themselves properly for singing. The band grew in size and added significantly to its noise making capabilities, not needed for Haydn but essential when you are about to give big licks to Brahms' German Requiem which has more crash bang climaxes than a triple X porn film.

They really gave it laldy and I could swear that at one point the conductor had both his feet off the ground such was his energic direction. But the piece ends in utter tranquility and Donald Runnicles managed to keep the audience silent for an impressively long time before relaxing his grip and allowing thunderous applause to break out.

It was a very full tenner's worth of music but £4.50 for a G&T was a bit steep for us in the cheap seats. Maybe if I could make it last for more than five minutes it would seem better value.

In the 1969 film True Grit John Wayne wears a patch over his left eye, leaving the right one in action, possibly as a wink in the direction of his political views. I don't believe he expresses any polital views in the film but I'm sure what he does say is clearly heard by the audience. His successor, Jeff Bridges, has his right eye covered instead and his mouth might well have been for all I was able to make out of his dialogue at times.

That apart I enjoyed the film. It looked beautiful: the heroes were rough and tough with hearts of gold; the baddies were properly nasty, and the girl who accompanies the marshal through the badlands in search of her father's killer is a splendidly forceful young lady. The Western is such a satisfying genre. You can rely on a good story with plenty of action and if not always a truly happy ending then a morally just one.

Morality gets an outing in Nixon in China to which the Metropolitan Opera did justice in their simulcast last night (tiny annoying sound transmission glitches excepted), not least in at last getting around to mounting a production nearly a quarter of a century after it premiered in Houston (Texas not Renfrewshire). It only took Edinburgh twelve months after all.

I've often listened to the music since that Ediburgh production but could remember only two or three scenes clearly so it was like seeing a new work, albeit depicting not the present day but a moment in history.

Can that moment when Nixon attempted rapprochement with China have helped turn the country that the opera portrays with its lauding of heroic peasants and soldiers into today's capitalist giant sucking up the world's resources?

If so he must be sitting in the afterworld echoing one of Chou En Lai's final lines from the opera - "how much of what we did was good?" - probably with the odd expletive deleted.

Ballet of a different order with Black Swan which I saw last night. I thought it was great entertainment, nicely tense and spooky, fast moving with an undercurrent of incipient violence throughout. And how did they do that wonderful sprouting of feathers as Natalie Portman spun around in the role of the black swan? Movie magic.

The Telegraph's review reflects my reaction exactly - "...delirious hokum, high-class trash...".

I paid particular attention to the heroine's bum throughout. Not dirty old man, peeping tom style but in an effort to substantiate a claim I heard on the radio (Woman's Hour I think) when an expert averred that although Natalie Portman's dancing was very convincing you could tell she was not really a dancer because she did not have a ballerina's bum.

I have seen quite a bit of ballet over the years but if pressed to identify a common characteristic of ballerinas I would have suggested that, unlike say opera singers, they tend to be skinny and small busted. It seems however that the defining characteristic is a muscular bottom; buttocks do not remain soft and cuddly under the rigorous regime of the dance class. Closer inspection than that possible from the back row of the cinema would be needed to verify the claim but I'm glad I tried.

The Palais Garnier was packed last night for a performance of Nicolas Le Riche's ballet Caligula but only a score or so of Edinburghers had been intrigued enough to come along to the Cameo for the simulcast.

Now my idea of Caligula is that he was mad, bad and dangerous to know; an impression reinforced by the bits of BBC radio's I Claudius that I caught recently. He loved his sister ( isn't that nice) and was so potty about his horse that it lived in bejewelled luxury and he proposed to make it a Roman consul (it didn't happen). He slaughtered thousands and was eventually done away with by the Praetorian Guard who tired of their mad, unpredictable tyrant.

Given all that you could be forgiven for expecting a Reservoir Dogs of a ballet. You would have been disappointed. According to the programme note "...Le Riche overturns clichés and embark (sic) upon an intimate exploration of a rich and complex personality."

This meant that his tyranny was reduced to giving some lads in black (guards, senators, legionaries?) a push from time to time and laughing hysterically at them. He danced lovingly with a couple of ladies, one of whom must have been his wife and the other the moon (another of his fixations) since both are named in the programme. By the way I almost never buy programmes but applaud managements like this one who give you a free A4 sheet of essentials.

He had a fit and twitched on the floor a couple of times to show us that he was ill not mad and every so often a chap in white came on stage accompanied by three others also in white but in flowing skirty garb rather than trousers ( well tights, this is ballet after all). These I took to be Mnester the famous pantomime actor (and said to be lover of Caligula) and his troupe. They didn't make me laugh.

I was particularly disappointed about the horse. Now the dancer did it beautifully, don't get me wrong and the close relationship between man and horse was tenderly portrayed but I was expecting a madman prancing about and adorning his horse with necklaces and sticking flowers behind its ears and a laurel crown on its head while putting to death the odd member of the gathered populace.

But it was all of a piece with the rest of the production, no blood and guts. I suppose I should have known from the start that it wasn't going to match my preconception since they were dancing to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. It's lovely music but isn't in the blood and guts league and dare I say it, is a bit over used.

So the great question arose in my mind, will this Caligula die peacefully in his bed or will he be assassinated as history demands? I don't know what Nicolas le Riche decided because my eyes took a rest as the ballet reached its end.

Now my next ballet simulcast is the Bolshoi with Don Quixote. I do hope that we will get some decent and vigorous tilting at windmills.

I'm having doubts about Laphroaig. Not the craitur herself you understand, which is as fine a drop as ever warmed a throat, but the all too convenient translation.

When I raise my glass and say "slainte" am I not wishing you good health? So if the name of a whisky had anything to do with health it would surely have a smidgeon of slainte about it.

I'm after thinking it's not a translation it will be but a marketing slogan (Gaelic sluagh-gairm war cry, from sluagh army + gairm cry).

What I liked about Courtney Pine and his band ( apart from the music which was wonderful and was being heard in public for only the second time) was that they got on stage promptly and played for a solid two hours dovetailing neatly with the Dunfermline/ Edinburgh bus timetable.

Cyrus Chestnut on the other hand, for all that he started on time, followed the traditional pattern of playing for about half an hour, having a short, verging on long break, playing for another half hour or so then disappearing briefly to shuffle coyly back on stage for an encore.

Not that I'm complaining about the music. Far from it. He was brilliant and endeared himself doubly to the audience when his mobile phone went off.

No, the problem was that this left me with 50 minutes to fill before I could get a bus. But as we know every cloud has a silver lining and in those 50 minutes I enjoyed a hauf an a hauf (non Scots drinkers check here) and improved my Gaelic to boot.

For the pub in which I sought refuge had a board advertising various whiskies and giving an English translation of their names. Now from TV advertising I knew that Glenmorangie meant "glen of tranquility" but the pub's translation "glen of great peace" made lots of sense for leaving aside "glen" which has passed into English most Scottish non Gaels will recognise that "mor" means "big". So now I know the Gaelic for peace. Could this be where Angie from Eastenders got her name?

Glenfiddich meaning "glen of the deer" could probably be guessed from the stag's head on their label and "big stone" for Cragganmore seems obvious but "healthy days" for my favourite tipple Laphroaig is welcome confirmation of how good it is.

Thursday's snow put me off from playing golf after my session at the range. I was relieved but not surprised when Friday dawned with only constant rain. Not surprised because I was going to Glasgow to lunch with a friend and it seems to me that it always rains when I go there.

I’d picked out a restaurant from a little 2010 Glasgow dining guide and had a look at the menus on their website and it all looks fine. Scottish recipes using local produce, family run and so on. When we got there the premises looked as though they’d been empty for years. Back home I had a closer look at the website and found they were now out in Houston (Renfrewshire not Texas!).

We had an excellent Chinese lunch just across the road but I was disappointed that a Scottish flavoured place had gone.

Because I was going on to Dunfermline later for an evening at the Fife Jazz Festival I decided to spend the afternoon in Glasgow and travel to Dunfermline from there. We went to the Scottish Caravan and Outdoor Leisure Show. I had a couple of reasons for that. I’m not in the least interested in caravans but I flirt from time to time with the idea of a camper van to trot around Europe with and I think betimes of a little log cabin that I could plonk down in France when our house there is sold. I had also been seduced by pictures of flapping sails on their site but the boats had sailed on leaving a row of big gas guzzling jet skis to cram into your caravan. It was a little disappointing but it kept me out of the rain.

The concert in Dunfermline was a bit of a challenge. I wouldn’t say that by the end I liked what they had played but my ears were a bit more receptive. Free improvisation they call it. Free seems to mean that they are not constrained by tunes or harmonies. Tonight I’m going to hear Courtney Pine whose music is bit more tuneful and then tomorrow an American called Cyrus Chestnut with a traditional piano, bass and drums trio. It’s a very diverse festival.

Bread quality forecasting skills sadly A1.

Many months ago inspired by a TV show or something I decided to try making some bread. So I bought the appropriate flour and some yeast and put them in a cupboard.

The other day I noticed that the flour was two months past its date of death so this evening I made the twisted looking loaf above. It doesn't taste too bad but I'm not sure that it won't deteriorate overnight.

No need for tranquillizers this morning. From the beginning of the second set, a few rallies excepted, the result was not in doubt. Djokovic was amazing and certainly deserved to win. Better luck next time for Andy Murray. He played hard, took his defeat well and doesn't give the impression of settling for second best so there's no need to consign him to history just yet.

I was celebrating one of Scotland's established champions last night at a Burns supper. It was a most entertaining evening, my toast to the lassies went down quite well and John Kelly delivered one of the best recitations of Tam O'Shanter that I ever expect to hear. I've made a mental note of some aspects of his performance and will unashamedly copy them should I have to do it myself sometime.

What a stressful morning I've had. I shall need to have a box of tranquilizers beside me when he takes on Djokovic on Sunday morning. Two boxes if it goes to five sets.

I was complaining to one of my French friends once about some nonsensical legal requirement. He agreed it was nonsensical but offered the explanation that with two buildingsfull of politicians in Paris with nothing else to do but pass laws some chunks of fool's gold would inevitably appear amidst the pure nuggets of sensible legislation. (He has a great sense of irony.)

A recent chunk (or nugget, depending on your point of view) is the requirement that, as of 1/1/11, a property cannot legally be offered for sale in France in the absence of a "Diagnostic de performance énergétique". By handing over €110 to an expert we have got four copies of a colourful five page report that tells us all sorts of things, some with unbelievable precision. Three of those copies have gone to agents who would otherwise have been obliged to take us out of their windows and delete us from their websites.

Mind you we've been in their windows and on their websites for two years without result so maybe a "Diagnostic de performance vente" should be demanded of them.

So on a scale from A (économe) to G (énergivore) of annual energy consumption required for heating the building and producing hot water we are in band G. Well a cursory look at our ancient building would tell you it's not in the snug and cosy league, even in summer. On the positive side though it takes so much energy to heat the place that there's none left over for global warming. On a similar scale dealing with the emission of greenhouse gases we're only at B.

It then gives you a whopping great number of the kilowatt hours needed per annum and tells you to the nearest cent what that costs and rounds off by estimating costs and return on investment for various ways of improving the energy performance of the building and tells you about the tax breaks available.

All very impressive but I don't think it will be an encouragement to prospective buyers.

A nice example of commentator's blight. As Murray and Dolgopolov warmed up yesterday the commentator was waxing lyrical about Murray's serve. What he particularly found impressive was that when Murray missed his first service the ball was going out rather than smashing into the net. This showed, according to him, that the ball throw was just right, that Andy was stretching and getting his elbow up and hitting the ball on a desirable upwards trajectory.

Then on the first point of the first game of the match Murray serves a double fault straight into the net. No comment from the commentator.

I got the recording organised perfectly last night and enjoyed Murray's game when I got up this morning. The one little disappointment was that I forgot not to switch on the radio when I woke and so heard the result before I got to the recording.

That rather drained the match of tension. But our man won. Roll on the next one.

Still having trouble recording the tennis. I set the machine to record channel 301 but but when I got up 301 was showing highlights of the previous day's play. I thought nothing of it, assuming the match would start after the highlights but then the highlights started all over again.

I discovered that behind my back the BBC had switched Murray's match to BBC2. Half an hour after the match got going I had to go out so I hit the record button. To no avail since not only hadn't they told me but they hadn't told the EPG which thought it was recording Pinkie the Perky Pig or some such kiddie programme and stopped recording when that finished - round about the end of the second set.

It's 2 love to the Beeb so far. Will I make a comeback in the second week?

It's not only bankers who can afford little luxuries in these straitened times. I clocked one of the labourers re-laying the pavement in Chambers Street this morning puffing on a 9 inch cigar as he worked.

I sat up late last night watching Days of Wine and Roses which I had recorded from its transmission in the middle of the previous night. My memories of the film had dulled over the nearly 50 years since I first saw it but I knew it was about the demon drink, that brandy Alexander was chief baddie and that Jack Lemmon played a stormer.

All of that was borne out by the re-viewing and although some of it seemed mightily melodramatic it was a story that could put the fear of death into you if you were sipping while you watched, even moderately. I had to cough furiously not to feel ill at ease about my hot toddies.

I toyed with the idea of watching another film to bring me up to 4.20 when Andy Murray's first match was due to start but decided to record it. It will be on the red button the BBC website said so I found red button on my channel guide, set the time and went to bed.

Morning came but no Murray. The recording was blank. I was I believe a victim of red button interactivity, which seems to be defined as splitting the activity between channels 301 and 303. Too bad if you plump for the wrong one.

I've hardly moved out of the house this week in an effort to shake off my cold. It's been a good opportunity to get stuck into reading some of the books that came my way at Christmas. For a short time I'll be able to talk knowledgeably about Tom Morris's role in the development of golf, an 18th century French expedition to the Amazon to establish the shape of the earth, and the banking meltdown as seen in fictional form.

But that knowledge will sink more or less slowly and more or less completely into the pulped fiction and non-fiction sludge from the hundreds of other books I've read and forgotten that constitutes my cultural capital.

There has also been some excellent snooker to watch, culminating today in an all Chinese final between the self-confident and articulate Marco Fu and the shy and tongue-tied Ding Junhui. I am looking forward to that as the second best treat of the week.

Top treat was Connor's moist and tasty homemade gingerbread.

And the cold? The treatment has been successful. I shall be fit for normal life tomorrow.

You know those cinema drink ads full of good looking people in fashionable clobber having a whale of a time in up market bars where the final frame entreats you quietly in a corner to be responsible and drink in moderation.

Well the financial services industry, no doubt full of remorse at the part it played in the crisis of the last couple of years, has followed the drinks industry's lead. I got a replacement credit card in the post today and there was a little sticker on it with a message in block caps - "PLEASE SPEND RESPONSIBLY".

It was easily peeled off so if they genuinely want people to hold back they need to get a bit more hard hitting with a permanent reminder on the card. How about a range of Dickensian affinity cards? A picture of a debtors' prison or of Mr Micawber reciting his famous mantra. That would surely do the trick.

I'm self medicating at bedtime this evening with a brace of hot toddies against the pesky cold that has plagued me for the past two weeks.

I've managed to ignore it and get on with whatever but I was sorely tempted not to struggle out across sheets of ice and under driving rain tonight. However the siren call of St Cecilia was too strong to resist.

For tonight was the first meeting of the new session of the Dunedin Wind Band within whose ranks I am determined to blow my horn. I am testing their announced welcome to all ages and abilities. They were in fact very welcoming and didn't seem to mind that for most of the time I didn't play because I was totally lost.

It looks like their system is based on the well known chuck him in at the deep end principle and I was pretty pleased that there were a couple of numbers where I managed to keep afloat for more than the first few bars. We'll see if I can make a better fist of it next week given that I'll have time to try some of the music at home. I say some because there is a lot.

In case enthusiasm wanes and I am tempted to backslide I paid all the dues for the four month session straight away.

British, and more particularly English, musical history is replete with traditional observances. One thinks of the candlelit va et vient of the Sally Gardens, of Malcolm Sargent's adoring promenaders, of Glynebourne's picknicking middle classes, of Elgar and the three choirs festival, of Britten and the Snape Maltings. But no musical hero has so marked our British inheritance than did Herr Händel.

His Messiah is a towering work of genius and the fact that it first saw the light of day in Dublin only endears it more to the British audiences who have made it their own over the ensuing 268 years.

I thoroughly enjoyed the performance that I attended this afternoon and was only momentarily thrown when at one point a man in the front row of the stalls rose to his feet before the notes of the section just finished had died away. Could you not have waited a moment, I thought, before dashing out for a pee? But he stood ramrod still and to my astonishment the entire audience followed his example. I rose with them not wishing to be remarked upon as a heretic. The singers then burst forth into the Hallelujah chorus and as it ended and we sat back into our seats my neighbour pondered whether George the third had needed to stretch his legs and that was why he had stood up at this point.

That alerted me to the fact that we were here observing a tradition. Now I am informed by Google that it was in fact George the second who stood up, and I have no reason to doubt that it was. Especially since I know that the mad one was George III.

What Google is less positive about is why he stood up at this point. Far be it from me to adduce a reason. Let me only entreat that should you attend a performance of Handel's Messiah you rise reverentially and with a straight face at the self same point to honour and maintain an important British musical tradition.

For those of you inspired by the haikus written by prominent Scottish literary figures and projected in words and pictures onto a screen on the side of the RSA building yesterday contrasting in a very haiku like manner with the music emanating from the stage alongside here's how to do your own.

Remember that Basho said that each haiku should be a thousand times on the tongue so don't rush into print before you've tested it thoroughly.

幸有れ