Coping with being indoors during inclement weather means for me reading, listening to the radio and pottering about with software. Since I'm temporary custodian of some DVD's that constitute Connor's birthday gift to Ewan I've had a few hours entertainment from them as well.

The romantic/sexual adventures of the DVD boys (can't name them for fear that Ewan reads this before the gift is handed over) made me laugh, but perhaps not as much as the similar rich vein of relationship gold mined by Nick Hornby in High Fidelity. I really was helpless with laughter at some points. I could not have got onto my feet to run off had the house suddenly burst into flames. His work may seem far from Billy Connolly but in terms of its accurate and affectionate observation of people's frailties it reminded me of Connolly at his best.

One book I'm still reading that examines people's frailties in a wholly different context is The Middle Sea (A History of the Mediterranean) by John Julius Norwich. It may sound heavy but the text flows smoothly and deftly over the massacres of the Crusades, the venalities of the Popes, the plots of Kings and Queens and the almost always bloody rise and fall of empires. And I've only got up to the fifteenth century. Don't ask me any questions about it though. While it's an entertaining read it's a struggle to retain what I've learnt for longer than it takes to make a cup of tea between chapters.

Playing with the software I already have is never enough, although I'm quite pleased with these Majorcan triplets, so I've been downloading bits and pieces. With the pitifully slow connection that we have here that can take time. The last file I downloaded took four and a half hours. Best not to be in a hurry. More often than not I find that I can do without whatever joys the software offered and I get rid of it. However that can be easier said than done. They don't always want to go, or at least not entirely. I'm currently labouring to find out how to remove a harmless but annoying trace left by one piece of translation software. Keeps me happy while it's raining at any rate.

I found myself in the sports pages of the regional press this week. I'd like to tell you that it was as a result of some sporting triumph but that would strain your credulity as well as being bullshit. I took part in the regional heat of a national pitch and putt competition that was covered by La Nouvelle Republique. For some unaccountable reason the picture they chose to illustrate the event show me prominently in the foreground. Unusually you can't link to an individual story on the paper's website so here's a rather fuzzy picture I've pinched from them. (Well they didn't ask my permission to flash my photo round the world.) I've also copied the story itself which they do allow. If you should want to read it you can download from here the newspaper page it appears on. It's preceded by a football story so don't think you've got the wrong page. There are a few typos in it, notably wherever the reporter says "part" he means "par".

You may be surprised at the age of the winner.

Oh my God, prescient or what? It was glittering. Check the opening sentence of the news report.

Yesterday's rain drove me off the golf course after only four holes and home to an early bath and the exciting discovery that Claire's Fringe production had earned a FOUR STAR review on its opening night.

Further glory was bestowed on it by a commendation at a glittering awards ceremony in the Gilded Balloon last night. (I wasn't there to see but it was bound to be glittering because that's the way we theatricals like it).

What will today's rain bring?

Yesterday’s rain sent me to the cinema. Unfortunately I didn’t join the throng of adults and children queuing to see Pixar’s latest animation “Ratatouille” but, swayed by his reputation, went instead to Chabrol’s “La fille coupée en deux”.

I read the crits afterwards. Would it have made any difference if I’d read them first? That depends on who I would have believed. Many were impressed, Le Monde amongst them. Not so Libération which said “his latest film doesn’t add anything new to the body of his work. Even worse, it often lapses into caricature, gives off an air of déjà-vu, and dare one say it, is slightly dated and tacky.”

The most succinct crit that I read and every word of which I endorse came from a Le Monde reader who said “Badly acted, without interest, boring……avoid it.”

My failure to reach a podium place continued yesterday but I was happy that it did.

Yesterday's Terruzzi-Puthod competition prizes were very fine trophies which I'm sure cost Enrico and Carmen, the sponsors, a few bob. Anyone winning one would have a delightful and permanent souvenir of their achievement - provided they had an appropriate display space.

That's something I'm very short of so on those grounds alone it was a relief not to win something that would have to join my various copper plaques in the roof.

Now there is almost always a draw after the prize-giving. All the cards go in but anyone who has won a proper prize is barred from getting a second one. My card was the first drawn and I went home with a litre bottle of Campari.

I love Campari and it was tastefully wrapped as well. A case of the last shall be first, no?

There are no bishops in the French upper house, least of all bishops whose frocks are in the gift of a Presbyterian; but even such a robustly secular nation whose legal separation of church and state in 1905 was the culmination of centuries of wrangling, enjoys a Christian public holiday or three.

Witness yesterday's Feast of the Assumption. Civil servants left their desks, postmen put away their sacks, doctors closed their consulting rooms, dentists ignored cries of pain, car salesmen turned off the ignition, teachers would have put down their chalk but they were already at leisure; all in memory of a doubtful historical episode in which Mary went to Heaven.

For retirees public holidays tend to be a minor nuisance. Shops are closed just when you need them and the buses run less frequently. But we put up with them, knowing that they will soon be over and we can get on with the serious business of life without work.

Two days hard work in the garden deserved a reward I thought.

I had been dreading tackling that grass again but it turned out to be just within the competence of the lawnmower, albeit with occasional breakdowns and the need to do the whole job twice at different cut settings to get to the “domesticated field” state that is as close to a lawn as it will ever be under my tutelage.

At least I didn’t have to do a preliminary sweep with the brushcutter. I needed it only for particularly heavy patches and where mower access was difficult. “Brushcutter” by the way seems to me a closer translation for débroussailleuse and one that has a much more satisfactorily macho ring to it than “strimmer”.

Yesterday I weeded the rockery and cut back bits of undergrowth (and overgrowth) so at 17.20 having set up my deckchair and poured myself a glass of ice-cold white wine I was more than a little annoyed when it started to rain.

Looks like summer is as far off as ever.

Apropos the suggestion that I hie me to Kabul here’s something Simon Jenkins had to say in the Guardian the other day:

“A reputed 10,000 NGO staff have turned Kabul into Klondike during the goldrush, building office blocks, driving up rents, cruising about in armoured jeeps and spending stupefying sums of other people's money, essentially on themselves.”

To read the entire article go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2143787,00.html

Paddy Ashdown, whose name is taken in vain in the article replied thus: http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2145699,00.html

I was sitting quietly nursing a pint in the garden of the Dog and Shepherd near Brighton on Monday evening when I took a call from BT. I don’t know how they got hold of my mobile number but I’m glad they did. For the call was to tell me that they have agreed to refund me the 106 pounds and change that they charged me for connecting Dicksonfield to the wide world of telephony in October last. In addition they promised to provide me with excellent service in future. Does that mean they have turned over a new leaf?

This is the second bit of financial good news in almost as many days, for the car problem that threatened to prevent me from getting to Inverary fell within the tight constraints of my warranty so I’ll be refunded for that.

The car was fixed in time for me to get to the wedding, not without having to stop en route to buy a shirt, having forgotten to pack the one I intended to wear for the ceremony.

The Highlands were lovely and it was a brilliant bash. For Claire, who has had sight of the photos I took, the highlight was April’s shoes. I reproduce that picture here for the rest of the world to wonder at and may get around to making my other snaps available.

Claire’s interest is a validation of part of something I heard a female stand-up comic say the other day. For her act she dresses as drably androgynous as she can because otherwise, she claims, no-one will listen to her barbed wit. Instead the men will ruminate on the beauty of her knockers and the women will drool over her shoes.

Yesterday morning I rose at 4.45 and got to Barbansais around 18.30. It was a nice change to drive down from Dieppe but I don’t think I’ll make a habit of it. Traffic on non motorway roads can be abominably slow.

The grass is perhaps not as bad as it was when I arrived in May but the rockery is worse. Maybe I should take Ian’s advice (given in slightly slurred syllables at his son's wedding on Saturday) and head for the lucrative pastures of Kabul and leave the Barbansais garden to fester. NO chance.

More car trouble.

When I collected it on Saturday morning I felt it didn't pull too well in first but I just drove it home. Took it out yesterday for the first time since and had the same sensation. Coming back around 6pm from losing a few balls on Braids No. 1 it shook a bit and a wee picture of a spanner sprang up on the display accompanied by loud beeping and the text "Engine Fault".

This morning I should be en route to Inverary for April's wedding. Instead, after a restless night, I was at the garage before 8 o'clock demanding satisfaction (politely of course) since this cannot surely be the coincidental incidence of a fault just after it has left their hands.

If they don't fix it today, and they were not exactly optimistic about squeezing the job in, I'll have to hire a car or persuade the garage to lend me one and drive to Inverary tomorrow morning. No doubt the B&B will still want their money so this wedding looks like turning out to cost me more than my own did.

My car problem pales into insignificance however in comparison to David and Sally's.

They were en route to Barbansais on Sunday speeding along a Spanish motorway when one of their tyres went. The car left the carriageway and shot across the other one, turned on its side, ripped through a crash barrier and ended right way up in an oleander grove.

They stepped out essentially unhurt. Even their luggage was unhurt. Police and breakdown crew who attended regaled them with tales of recent fatalities and congratulated them on their astounding good fortune. Thanks to their membership of the Spanish equivalent of the RAC they were able to get back to Malaga where they are now keeping clear of cars for a while.

Their plans to spend August in France have been abandoned and Barbansais's fate is on hold again.

This has been an expensive week.

While I was away a recall notice arrived for my car. Some manufacturing defect or other had affected the front suspension of a number of Stilos of my car's generation and I should bring it in for a bit of free re-engineering. Being here I did.

But as forecast by Connor the garage suggested that some non-free work was needed. The car is of an age where the camshaft should be replaced they said. Has that been done? Check your records I said, its maintenance has been in your hands since new. It had not been done and dire warnings followed about the consequences of not doing it. Spend hundreds now to save thousands later is the mantra.

Warranty? Sorry, that's a serviceable item and its replacement at the manufacturer's recommended intervals is thus not covered. If you do replace it and it breaks then it's covered but if you don't it's not. We'll investigate that gearbox oil leak while we're at it.

Oh dear, we'll have to take the gearbox out and reseal it. You could run it for a few more months before doing the work but, well, you know....

Warranty? That's wear and tear, nobody covers wear and tear.

I saved myself twenty quid by refusing their offer to replace the missing hub cap. I'll blow that on lunch out with friends today.

I love my bus pass even more.

It was Hazel Irvine who presented the Open highlights on Sunday night though Allis crept in from time to time as footage of earlier commentaries was aired. It was a good round-up and I lost nothing by not staying at Carnoustie till the bitter end.

She must have been given the round-up as compensation for having, throughout the competition, to interview the players as they came off ( apart from when Gary Lineker was called upon to display the Spanish that he learnt when he played for Barcelona). He was pretty good and I believe he speaks Japanese as well.

Anyway Hazel is an enthusiastic and lively journalist but she drew the short straw there. How many ways are there of asking players how they feel about being well up the leader board or nowhere near the leader board? She found an extraordinary number and you have to hand it to the players as well for the number of variations on "I'm feeling just dandy" and "I'm totally hacked off".

On Sunday I suffered through going out without waterproof trousers but today it was a sun hat I should have had with me, at least for a couple of hours until the absence of rainwear made itself felt.

I sat in the sun for a couple of hours watching what was billed as the Dunedin Dancers 19th International Folk Dance Festival, or rather one of the six shows they are doing in venues ranging from Falkland Palace to Stirling Castle. This was in Holyrood on a stretch of grass more or less in front of the Scottish Parliament. There were groups from Austria, Lithuania and the Czech Republic as well as from Scotland.

It was pretty entertaining though I can't say that knee-slapping and yodelling is my thing. I preferred the energetic but elegant dancing of the Lithuanians and the comedy routines of the Czechs.

You can see what it looked like by clicking the picture below.

Folkdancing

Well that's the Open over. I was out of the door before 7 this morning in light rain that got heavier the nearer I got to Carnoustie. I had been wise enough to wear my hill-walking boots and my Goretex anorak but I hadn't thought to put on rainproof trousers. That proved to be a cardinal error. The rain that poured from the sky ran down my anorak and onto my trousers and soaked in. When I sat down in any of the grandstands I suffered the double whammy of thighs lashed by rain and moisture attack from below.

Add to that the fact that I'd had to bin my multi-coloured golf umbrella shortly after arrival when a couple of spokes snapped off and ripped through it in the wind. Just as well really. I was able to keep my hands relatively warm in my pockets rather than allowing them to freeze holding an umbrella. I simply never thought of gloves.

By lunchtime I was beginning to think of going home and watching the rest on the tele. The prospect of being exposed yet again to Peter Allis's dire commentary held me back long enough for an Arbroath smokie ingested under lightening skies to revive my spirits and I stuck it out till it was obvious that a four hole play-off, and possibly more, would be necessary. Sharing the last train with 50 thousand others didn't appeal so I snuck off.

I'll see the play-off in the highlights later tonight. With luck that will be commented by Gary Linecker and not the awful Allis.

The golf by the was thoroughly enjoyable and the course is even more beautiful than when I first saw it. If it weren't £115 a round I'd be a regular.

I've been a bit of a couch potato this week watching the final day of the Scottish Open on TV last Sunday and for the last three days the British Open. I'm off to see it in the flesh tomorrow and it looks like I'll have to wrap up warm and take a brolly.

I've also been keeping an eye on the French golf scene because two kids from the Dryades have been playing in the National Youth Championship this week. They got there by virtue of their performances in lower level tournaments. One more of our youngsters got as far as the regional competition but didn't do quite well enough to qualify for the national championship.

The format of the national championship is two strokeplay rounds and then a knockout matchplay tournament amongst the top 32 or 16 players for each age group. Antoine didn't make it past the qualifying in the 13 and 14 year old boys competition but Celia was third in the qualifying and made it to the semi-final of the 11 and 12 year old girls which is a brilliant performance.

Traditionally French presidents have pardoned a selection of criminals as part of the 14th of July Bastille day celebrations and the system has to some extent relied on this to ease the chronic overcrowding that exists in French jails as it does in English ones, but Sarko is made of sterner stuff. While the country braces itself for protests within the jails one prisoner made his own arrangements and helipcoptered his way out - for the second time would you believe.

On Saturday night though, we were celebrating, albeit belatedly, Siobhan's birthday rather than French democracy. We had an excellent meal at The Apartment. My dos de cabillaud was delicious and the yoghourt topped with ameretto and pistachio crumble that I had for pudding can only be described as mouth-watering - well up to French standards although at an exchange rate of one to one. Mysteriously Ross and I both ended up with tomato sauce like stains on our trouser legs although none of our party had anything to eat that could have caused that. Did the waitress overhear our opinion that she was a bit uppity and take revenge?

After the meal we lingered in the Caledonian Hotel bar waiting for someone else to pitch up before we went clubbing. They had a whisky menu listing dozens if not hundreds of 35ml doses of the hard stuff at various prices. Here's what 35ml of whisky looks like.

Would you pay £250 for it? That was the top price. I wonder how many they sell?

The clubbing was a bit disappointing. I had been a little shy of going, having only recently learnt to handle expressions like "mosh pit" without feeling silly but decided that I owed it to myself to experience the new. Well what I experienced was very much what I experienced at the Kirkcaldy YWCA in the late fifties (Heartbreak Hotel, Rock Around the Clock) and Edinburgh University Students Union in the sixties (These Boots are Made for Walking). I'm not sure that there was any music more up to date than that.

There was a floor show. The costumes were fine and the girls were pretty but at Kitwe Little Theatre their routine would have earned the traditional "don't call us, we'll call you". There was gambling of sorts with monopoly money that I never managed to get hold of - a measly little roulette table and a blackjack table squeezed into the corner of a marquee. I ran a better table myself in Nairobi in the seventies.

I'm sure my mistake was that I didn't realise that being called Vegas this clubnight was a tribute to the past rather than a harbinger of the future.

But it passed a pleasant and relaxed few hours and to underline the known fact that Edinburgh is a small city I bumped into some friends at 2.30 am on my way home.

I had a good run up from Barbansais to UK on Monday and spent a very pleasant couple of days in Brighton. As always I was well received and it was a bonus to see Sarah, last seen when she came to my production of The Sisterhood in Edinburgh in 99. She's not a lot more respectful of elderly friends than she was thirty years ago but I probably wouldn't like her so much if she were.

The Zambia charity golf match went well and Albert and André, respectively Sarah's husband and stepson were in a winning team. They kindly shared their hard won Jacob's Creek in the garden that evening.

I was up before 7 on Thursday and after nine and a half hours of tedious motoring made it to Edinburgh.

Notwithstanding its infamy as the headquarters of France's collaborationist government during WWII Vichy is a town well worth a visit. It was a fashionable spa during the Belle Epoque and the splendid parks and buildings of that era are beautiful. You can also still wallow in mud and sip sulphurous water if that's what lights your candle.

My recent visit was to meet up with my fellow golfers from the four leagues at the Sporting Club de Vichy whose English welcome page could do with a touch of teacher's red pencil. The effort of writing that page in English seems to have exhausted the webmaster since the rest of the site is in French. Perhaps that's just as well.

Thanks to their own or their partners' illnesses my clubmates intending to go cried off but I rendezvoused with Ernest, a genial and sociable Swiss, for a practice round the day before the competition and we wandered around the town a bit in the evening and enjoyed a good dinner at "L'Escargot qui tète" meaning "The Snail that suckles". Well for all I know they do.

Amazingly Ernest and the waitress found that they had a mutual passion in hunting. I say amazingly but that's probably because my statistical frame of reference for waitresses who hunt is UK biased and based on occasional accidental exposures to episodes of The Archers that included references to hunting.

He had I think hoped to find another mutual passion when he opened conversation with "Je ne suis pas drageur mais je vous trouve très.........." but he confided to me later that Viagra does not agree with him (something to do with being diabetic) so the result of that hunt might have been a disappointment to his quarry had he run her to ground.

The competition was fun but not crowned with as much success as the following Sunday's in which my laurels were gained for being the least bad third division player to have taken part in both rounds of the AGF competition. The laurels in this case being a magnum of jolly good plonk from their Bordeaux vineyards.

From her American exile a fellow KHS alumnus (or is she an alumna) was reminiscing in an email about wee Gordie. He was mocked apparently, by big girls like her, for the fact that when he visited his chum Murray Elder he was forbidden to pass through the Olympia Arcade. Those familiar with the Kirkcaldy of yesteryear will know that both his physical and his moral welfare were being protected by this prohibition.

Now I didn't know Gordon from Adam in those days, though in that good old Scots phrase "A kent his faither". I had left school by the time he started but clearly his name has become familiar to me since. And I also recognised the name Murray Elder. I put that down to the fact that Baron Elder of Kirkcaldy's former name had come up over the years in the context of Scottish politics.

But then it dawned on me that this must be (and I have since verified it) the wee lad who in his first year at secondary school had a crush on Fiona, then in her last year, and would follow her about with yearning eyes. Did he not even present her with flowers?

I shall think of her as the Baroness in future.

Having just posted the tale about Usque conabor I went off to correct the Wikipedia entry on KHS in that respect to discover that someone had got there before me. So I'm not the only one anxious to protect the place's reputation.