Having flown in that day from two weeks in Poland and Germany a young American told me she assumed her linguistic problems were over but that proved to be only half true when the first thing she did was to go to the Lyceum to see The Guid Sisters.

I've neither read nor seen the play in its original French (Canadian) but its Scots version is a delight to the ears, though a definite challenge to visitors. My memories of the production I saw on the Fringe in the early nineties are dim to say the least but if it sparkled as this one did it's a shame that it has taken 20 years for the play to appear again.

Two and a half hours of argument, bickering, bitching and downright vituperation; all of it entertaining and served up with both humour and poignancy.

It culminates in the protagonist being stripped of her every possession by the so-called guid sisters so it is surely ironic that the play ends with the cast singing A Man's a Man for A'That.  But then perhaps it illustrates in a different way from the poet's intention that we are all equal in that, as my young American playgoer remarked, there's a beast in all of us.

This little chap is Rob Roy MacGregor standing guard near the Albert Halls in Stirling where I attended a meeting the other day. Doesn't look much like Liam Neeson does he?

It often surprises me how unwilling people can be to accept that they have got a wrong number when they make a phone call.  It seems that applies to text messages too.  I got one signed Charlotte that clearly was not for me and out of the kindness of my heart I replied "wrong number".

Instead of "sorry" or "thanks for letting me know that I made a booboo" I got "It's me Charlotte, I have got you (sic) chair darling x" to which I felt obliged to make a more forceful response clarifying the situation.

"I do not know any Charlotte.  I am not expecting a chair. I am not your darling. You have got the wrong number."

Silence has reigned since.

I ordered something from Amazon France yesterday, chose the cheapest delivery option and the parcel popped through my letterbox this morning.

This is where I've been for the last few weeks, far from the madding crowd and making only sporadic use of my host's computer to check email (not wanting to abuse my status as guest).  So no posting.

It's not exactly where I've been because Jean's house is hidden behind the church and castle.  Exactly where I've been is here.

 My main reason for going was to fulfil my obligation as winner of the 2011 Robert Demay Trophy to organise the 2012 edition.  I'm happy to report that it went jolly well.  We managed to get 30 players organised into groups of three consisting of a good, a medium and a not so good player, at least one of them being a woman.  Michel lent me his place which I absolutely love - just look at it -

for the reception and we laid in lots of grub and drink.

The Bingo, Bango, Bongo format needed a bit of explanation but eventually everyone got the idea.  One or two didn't like it much though by the time they had had a few drinks afterwards they decided they'd enjoyed it after all.  Except that is for one guy who when I bumped into him in the locker room after playing told me he would not after all make it to the reception.  I expressed my sorrow that we would not have his company and hoped that he had had a pleasant afternoon.  At that point, to use a French expression, he farted leadshot.

There had he said never been a worse or more stupid way invented in which to get around a golf course.  The game indeed was anti-golf.  What's more the people he'd played with were hopeless players (true but hey it was for fun) and what's even more he'd laid out 40 euros for someone to look after his kids.  Now if only he'd come to the reception he'd have won a St Andrews Old Course golf cap with built in magnetic ball marker for having the highest Bingo score but no show no go.

The three who got the caps were delighted and Luc appeared on the course wearing his proudly the following Sunday.  The other prizes went down well. Bernard enjoyed his tin of sweeties, telling me later that his only problem was to stop digging in to them once he started and Jean adored his big box of shortbread.  I'm not sure that the whisky first prize went to the right person but she can always regift it.

In a stroke of great good luck these antlers which I've been keen to get rid of ever since I got them in a sort of a lucky dip the first time this competition took place and which I awarded as the booby prize went to someone who loved them.  She knows exactly where she's going to hang them.

It's only the man charged with fixing them to the wall who was less enthusiastic.

Lots of people around me at Fresh Cuts were snapping away with big fancy cameras but all I had was my phone and it produces pics of this doubtful quality so I contented myself with watching the show.

It was great fun and there were even some clothes that looked wearable.

The models were of course ultra skinny and it wouldn't surprise me to hear that one or other had something in common with the protagonist in Mess.  Cleverly, entertainingly and amusingly presented, Mess dealt nonethless with the serious matter of anorexia.  Its moving last moments left us to ponder on the possibility or not of a happy ending.

There was no happy ending to The Intervention although the actor sobbing on the floor clutching a waste binful of alcohol as the lights dimmed bounced up pretty quickly with a big grin on his face to take his call.  A moment of sobriety to allow the audience to reflect on the game of who's to blame for Zac's downfall that we had all just seen would not have gone amiss.

But enough moralising.  That's my festival going finished.  I don't have time to follow up the recommendations specially prepared for imminent channel crossers so till the next time, ciao.       

I've never read Angela Carter's novel so I don't know how true Nights at the Circus is to either its narrative or its spirit but I do know that the dramatization of the book by Fourth Monkey is worth an hour or so of the fringegoers time.

It's a lively rumbustious piece in which the young actors bring convincingly to life the characters and animals of the circus.  The clowns are suitably tortured behind their jolly masks, the tigers pad around their wary watchers and arouse amazement and fear in equal measure when they dance on their hind legs, the chimps chatter as they swing their bodies along arms trailing close to the ground and the ringmaster struts and bellows pet pig under his arm.  There are lovely production moments; from the opening in which the clowns pop up out of the portmanteaux strewn around the stage to the rail crash in Siberia.  What's it telling us?  I don't know.  I'll try reading the novel to find out.

Thanks to my fellow theatregoer I know that Morning  is a portrayal of disaffected modern youth in all its self-obsessed, antisocial and unempathetic glory.  Well I guess if you go off to the woods with your chum and your boyfriend, the two of you toy with him, you batter him to death and then pop round round to his house to see his mum you are all of those nasty things and more.  Great production though.

You couldn't describe Karl Lagerfield as disaffected although he certainly comes across as a weirdo, albeit a loveable one, in a film running in the Fashion Festival that shows the last few days of the build up to a catwalk show in Milan. It's joyous and controlled mayhem around Karl the queen bee sitting stock still and occasionally flourishing a black leather demi gloved hand to condemn an outfit to oblivion or to produce a sketchy sketch that must be turned into a heavenly garment overnight.

He's unperturbed by the turmoil since, as he declares, he has the temperament of a professional killer.  What a hoot and what great fun.

I fought on the French side at the Battle of Agincourt tonight thanks to a brilliant show called Midnight at the Boar's Head that combines Shakespeare, music, drink and party poppers.  One couple of party poopers crept away during the battle but the rest of us stayed and enjoyed the fun.

That followed hard on the heels of a red-hot production of The Erpingham Camp in which a lively company of excellent young actors handled both the physical and verbal demands of Joe Orton's little satirical gem to devastating effect. 

If you've ever seen Alan Bisset's The Moira Monologues in which amongst other characters he plays two dogs you will not be surprised that in The Red Hourglass he counts four different types of spider amongst his roles.  It's clever, witty, funny and a performance to wonder at. 

Another excellent multi-character portrayal is Miriam Margoyles Dickens' Women.  She moves from one character to the next with seemingly effortless ease and gives us some insights into Dickens the man on the way.  His favourite number we learn was 17, sweet 17.  

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and Proof were good, solid, well acted productions from Arkle that did Edinburgh amdram proud with in the former a delightful piece of work from Bev Wright.

Not everything I've seen this week has been delightful though.  Despite its having won the Sir Michael Caine award for new writing I thought Visiting Time was a pretty feeble play whose script did not display anything in the way of literary merit. 

That Old Noir Magic is a pleasant enough late night entertainment in which a dozen jazz numbers are played and sung against a background of short clips (sometimes only a couple of words) from black and white film noir movies, the whole being linked by the singer who is at times a protagonist in the story he weaves and at times a narrator.  I'm sure it was a lot of hard work putting the show together but it all seemed a bit incoherent and led nowhere.  I'd rather have watched the movies.

I dipped my toe into the latest addition to our gallery of festivals by going to a talk at The Fashion Festival.  Dressing The Self: Art, Fashion and Neuroscience was delivered by Ludovica Lumer who is a philosopher turned neurologist/physiologist/biologist as those really bright people cross boundaries in a way that we mere mortals can only wonder at.  She's busy putting people through MRI scanners to try to work out the relationship between the brain and beauty.  At least that's my nutshell view.  If you want a more extended discussion try here  (Italian required) or read her book (Italian also required).

The joint after-show party was going well as I dragged myself away at 2am, an early departure occasioned by my commitment to a day's walking with visiting Spanish friends.  I arrived at their cottage near Kippen at a relatively early hour and after a coffee and a catch-up on several years' news we set off for Callander and Balquidder.

We did a couple of lovely walks beside and above Loch Voil.  Coming back into the village we spotted a magnificent stag in woods by the lochside.  We were a couple of hundred yards away from him but I was nonetheless surprised at how unfazed he was by our presence.  He watched us for a fair while and then got back to the important business of grazing.  We continued on our way to some grazing of our own on scrumptious baking in the local tearoom.

Leaving Edinburgh for the day did not isolate me from all cultural activity since there was a concert in Balquidder church in the evening.  A duo from the Passacaglia Chamber Music Group  had brought a handful of flutes and recorders and a harpsichord 500 miles in the back of a van to set the Highlands on fire with some sparkling baroque pieces.  My image of the recorder as a squeaky tube was quite overturned by some lovely playing but I still can't warm completely to the harpsichard.

Before pitching up to the last performance of Dr Faustus I took in Edinburgh Theatre Arts production of Macbeth in Scots.  It wasn't an easy listen all the time and that venue gets tiringly hot but it was a very well presented production and although I dropped off now and then in the first half I saw enough to say that congratulations are in order.

That's not how I feel about everything I saw last week. I walked out of one dire production but they had had the good sense not to charge for admission so I'll return the compliment by refraining from naming and shaming.

A show that did have a name and star reviews to go with it, but which gave rise to a reaction no more exciting than boredom in me was And No More Shall We Part.  Someone a few seats away put my cold heart to shame by weeping as the play slowly ground through the business of  grappling with suicide in the face of the prospect of a certain and agonising death.

Blink and you'll miss it, which would be a shame because it's a great little play beautifully set and dressed and acted to perfection by a couple of young and talented performers.  It's a strange tale of how a relationship comes into being in a virtual sort of way and how it pans out in the physical world.

How things might pan out after Britain is destroyed by a nuclear attack is the subject of The Letter of Last Resort.  The four identical copies of the eponymous letter are held by the commanders of Britain's nuclear subs and contain the prime minister's instruction as to what whichever submarine is lurking in the depths at the time should do; retaliate or slink off to Australia and pretend it never happened.  The script has a lot of fun in a Yes Minister type of dialogue between the PM and a Sir Humphrey figure over the composition of the letter, for which alas a template does not exist.

That's paired with Good With People which I had seen in it's earlier appearnce in the A Play, A Pie and A Pint season and which I was delighted to see again.  There's a bit of a nuclear connection between the two plays because of GWP's Helensburgh setting and references to Faslane but the more important connection is that these are two excellent pieces of writing by contempory Scottish plawrights. 
 

Lots of Festival activity got underway this weekend and I sampled some on Saturday.  It was a lovely day and my attention was caught by huts, marquees and crowds in St Andrew's Square so I wandered in to investigate.

It turned out to be a marketing event for East Lothian tourism not a festival event.  There were various stalls advertising the delights of The Museum of Flight, Port Seton Holiday Park etc.  There was a family friendly farm showing off their pigs and goats and providing donkey rides.

A sandpit for toddlers had been set up.   It seemed to me a pity they'd fenced off the pool so no paddling was possible.  In imitation of Paris Plage I'd have made it a proper toddler's beach. 

One young man assured me that the large plastic fish he was carrying around was his day's catch and had it not been for his mum's well timed intervention he'd have returned it to the water from whence he claimed it had come.

Adults had not been forgotten.  Glenkinchie distillery was there extolling the virtues of their product and may have been giving away samples as they do when you visit though I didn't check.

However that visit was incidental to my festival going.  I saw a clarinet recital in St Giles which was pleasant if unexciting and a filmshow I'd rate similarly.  But these at least were free and I saw another free show in a cellar bar in Broughton Street that was excellent.  Billed as Andy and the Prostitutes - The Musical it was disarmingly introduced as not being a musical but some music and a bit of a story.  The story purported to be the eponymous Andy's life from his disappointment at realising that his father was not a Gedi knight through the travails of love and drugs and crime.  We were assured from time to time that it was just a story and the whole was punctuated by amusingly scurrilous songs and lively music played energetically on banjo, violin, guitars and a combination seating unit/ethnic drum.  Add to that a wildly dressed musician's friend in the audience banging rhythm sticks together.

I don't remember how Walt Disney came into the story but they sang a song whose refrain was Uncle Walt was a paedophile.  At the end of the show a guy came up to congratulate them saying "I live in California and I always thought uncle Walt was a paedophile".

Then a fairly feeble comedy, Lingua Frank, for which I paid good money but with a friend in the cast it was worth supporting.

Finally a super show advertised as a 60 minute history of the Blues starting with the quietly sad strains of a plantation harmonica building up through developments of the 30s and 40s on to rock and roll and beyond.  The later music wasn't entirely to my taste but I couldn't fault the band.  They were first class and their presentation was faultless.  Go see the show.

And why not the Grads shows which opened last night. After playing in tonight's performance of  Dr Faustus I'll be seeing Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us.  I loved when I saw it at the Traverse a few years ago and I'm sure Claire's production will be excellent.

Transport For London have thanked me a few times this week for "continuing to avoid the busy parts of the transport network at the busiest times and helping us keep London moving"

I'm not sure whether or not to tell them that from 400 miles away it was no bother at all.

In the aftermath of my disaffection for the Olympics opening ceremony I found myself asking what the Jazz Festival was for.  I'd bought tickets for ten gigs and of course I can't blame anyone else for what I'd picked but it did seem pretty much the same old.

Now I like a sentimental tune and a foot-stomping melody and a Latin rhythm and a bit of modern as well as the next man.  But doesn't a festival have some responsibility to look forward as well as back?

Only at my tenth and final gig did the festival really come alive for me.  This was a band of high energy, high octane brilliance that took us off into a thrillingly different soundscape.  There was a clear debt to mimimalism in some of the work, a great sense of humour and a parallel to the interactive audience daftness at St Andrews.  The audience were instructed to start talking after the bass and drums had got a few minutes through a slow peaceful number.

You can get a bit of an idea of their music from this youtube video but it's no substitute for a live performance.   I hope to come across Marcin Masecki Profesjonalizm again.

As an addendum note that although you see them with sheet music in front of them in the video they played yesterday almost without stopping for an hour and a half with no such aid.

I couldn't watch the Olympics opening ceremony.

I had to switch off the pre-opening studio interviews and looks back at previous triumphs.  Thank goodness the gushy presenters and uncomfortable superstars bedecked with multiculturally tinted malteser on stick microphones had less than a hundred years full of shaky images to enthuse over.  Think of the fun they could have inflicted on us with flickering pics of that poor old Greek doomed forever to compete in the pushing a rock up the hill race.

The opening ceremony, or what I saw of it, I thought was ludicrous.  The press has almost universally enthused, throwing in eccentric, surreal,bizarre and idiocyncratically British as approving epithets rather than coded disapproval.  One daring commentator went so far off message as to suggest that it became a bit too much like Saturday night television but I seem to be alone in laughing at it out loud.  Noble doctors and nurses throwing one another around the dance floor while their cute little patients bounce up and down on their beds.  I ask you, and that from the man who directed Trainspotting!

I was in bed before the athletes appeared (I had been up since 5a.m.) and so missed what I hear was a thrilling and moving parade and an amazing cauldron lighting moment as did the large number of British athletes who didn't think it worthwhile leaving their Portugese training camp to participate.  But it led me to ask what on earth this opening ceremony is in aid of.

Would it not have made a lot more sense if the Queen had just cracked a bottle of the sponsor's tipple over the Olympic logo and wished good fortune to all who would run, swim, kick a ball........over the next two weeks.  That would have proved we couldn't outdo Beijing without spending 27 million in the attempt.  

The explanation offered shortly before the event by Radio 4 was that Martin Creed had chosen that time for bells to ring out all over the UK because 8.12 was 12 hours before 20.12.  Is that an explanation that explains anything?  Maybe to a Turner prize winner it makes sense.

But I had no wish to be curmudgeonly so at the 12th minute of the 8th hour of the 27th day of the 7th month I rang the nearest thing I had to a bell, my phone.

I'm a bit puzzled by an Olympic news item I've just heard.  Radio Scotland announced that there is to be a bell ringing throughout the country at twelve minutes past eight and that we are playing our part with an event at the Scotsman steps.  It seemed an odd time but after a moment's thought 2012 popped into my head.  Ah that's it I thought, but then the radio said it's this morning not this evening.

So what's it all about?

I got myself a black belt yesterday.

Don't be fooled by Olympic fervour into thinking it had anything to do with judo.  It was a straightforward cash transaction at the 2012 Merchant City Festival.  This shindig has quite a full programme of entertainment over the weekend but on opening day the only entertainment on offer was a wander through three or four closed off streets lined with stalls at one of which I bought my belt.

Most of the stalls were selling food and a vast variety of national delicacies was available.  I fell victim to a stall full of Italian cakes and biscuits excusing my greed on the grounds that the Italian lunch I had just finished had not included a pudding.

Further exposure to Italian goodies later in the afternoon resulted in the consumption of two Peronis so when I got back to Edinburgh I judged it wise to take the bus to rehearsal.  Afterwards at a jam session in the Jazz Bar the day's international flavour continued and I used up my entire Bemba vocabulary in a brief conversation with the Kitwe girl sitting next to me.

The amplification was well under control in an excellent concert celebrating Oscar Peterson.  Some of the quieter numbers allowed us the added pleasure of hearing the rain battering the tent roof.

And talking of battering I sometimes question the wisdom of giving rhythm section drummers the luxury of a lengthy solo even when in this case the drummer in question had played with Oscar.  Just my prejudice.

We were blessed with two dry days at the weekend, neither of them "whew what a sizzler" except in comparison to the dismal days that preceded them.  But at least we were in our thousands able to enjoy the open air music in the Grassmarket, on Princes Street and in the gardens.

 In the Grassmarket I enjoyed the singing of Nikki King's daddie Freddie and a handful of New Orleans style groups.  On Princes Street there were bands of all stripes except white; pipe bands, accordion bands, brass bands, who knows what bands and a Chinese dragon that didn't play any instrument that I could see.

 I had another Chinese encounter later at a farewell meal for Andy and Sue Ellis who will be sorely missed by the Edinburgh amdram community, especially Grads, but before that I went to a Jazz Festival gig.

This was in George square which is covered in artificial turf.  I suppose that protects us from mud.  The area is nicely set out with three spiegel tent type performance spaces, a couple of bars, some food buying options, deckchairs, benches and tables and a sprinkling of patio heaters those indispensable adjuncts to alfresco activities in a Scottish summer.

After the first two numbers I moved to the back of the venue for a glass of plonk and to rest my ears from the twanging of over amplified electric guitars.  At the break I went out for a breath of air and stayed there for the second half where I heard and enjoyed every note without putting my eardrums in danger.  I just wish I hadn't bothered to buy a ticket.  

It's raining tonight so I hope they've got the decibels under better control.

When I read the jazz festival programme I was intrigued by one of the opening concerts.  A trumpet and piano duo playing jazz improvisations on Italian operatic themes seemed worth a punt.

It was in the Queen's Hall this evening but not too many people were as intrigued by the idea as I was.  I don't think there could have been 150 in the house.  I'd like to say that the unintrigued missed a wonderful evening but I didn't enjoy it very much.

The unintrigued had bet on another show and thousands of them were teeming out of the Festival Theatre as I passed on my way home looking as though they had had a great evening with Maggie Bell & Blues N' Trouble.

Earlier in the day I saw Killer Joe having been intrigued by the trailer a few weeks ago.  It was entertaining enough but not quite as rewarding as I had expected.

The best thing I saw today was Tiger Woods' final shot of the day out of a greenside bunker and into the hole.  In his post round interview he said it wasn't as difficult as it looked but believe me don't believe him.

Sunday the congress closed.  There was a meeting in the morning where votes of thanks were offered to the many hard working individuals who had put the show on the road and kept it there so efficiently.

Then those who had been nominated to serve on the international committee said a few words on what they could bring to the organisation and a deal of friendly confusion surrounded the business of voting.  There was a lot of multilingual explanation and counter explanation but eventually voting papers in the form of unsold day visitor passes were scribbled on and collected.

The next item of business, while the votes were being counted, was to be a presentation by the various cities vying to hold the next congress.  Understandably there was not the same razzamatazz as accompanies an Olympics bid presentation and since there was only one bid the razzamatazz level was further reduced.

But it was a lovely presentation.  Although the rules say the new committee has to be in existence before a decision on the location can be made, in the light of continuing delays in sorting out the votes the rules were bypassed and Strasbourg was confirmed by acclamation.  Amongst the many interesting possibilities for Strasbourg was the suggestion of opening out the participation to amateur saxophonists and community groups. I'll be keeping my eye on the website and honing my skills in anticipation of that coming to pass. 

We then repaired to the foyer at the invitation of the Strasbourg team for a glass of champagne in celebration and at some point the voting results were announced over the hubbub of wine slurping and conversation.

Next up was a concert made up of the director's choice of what we might have missed or would like to see again.  He'd invited a couple of dozen acts and given them 5 minutes each.  Every item was a gem from the guy who does a sort of combination of Mongolian throat singing and tenor sax playing to a brilliant electronic spot combining tenor and recorded voice castigating the media for its failings.

But the ne plus ultra had to be the combination of the Strasbourg ensemble and a Costa Rican bongo and sax band playing Philippe Gleiss's Klezmer Salsa that had the congress organisers dancing on stage and the audience dancing in the aisles.   

Philippe is a teacher, composer and brilliant instrumentalist who will be heading the organisation of the Strasbourg congress which I think guarantees it will be a gas.

A more formal closing concert featuring the SCO and three eminent sax players each playing a significant work from the classical repertoire was the final event.  Unfortunately I had a Faustus rehearsal to go to and although I could just have made it after the concert (that's what I had planned) there was the annoying fact that I had forgotten to take my script to St Andrews so done no work on the play and this was to be the first off the book rehearsal.

I needed at least an hour to make minimum preparation so I went home cursing my forgetfulness and savouring the memory of every glorious minute of the week just gone.