Children should be seen and not heard?

THE KIDS FESTIVAL?  SOMETIMES....

My last post, harking back to events in August, reminded me of another thought I had at that time and it still feels worth sharing.

Anyone who knows me well will be aware of my paedophobic tendencies.  I have spent most of my life trying, where possible, to avoid the company of small children (or even large ones).  They simply make me feel uneasy, that's all, in much the same way dogs or cats or spiders do to other people.  So I certainly don't pretend to be an expert of the subject of bringing them up.

But, despite this, I did notice that the Edinburgh Fringe seems to be catering for the needs, and entertainment, of children more and more.  This year there seemed to be far more shows advertised that were aimed at a younger audience, and lots of street acts too.  It would seem easy to find something for your child to enjoy, and the Fringe is making itself as family friendly as possible.

Although even I can see that there must be some limitations.  Making your way through densely packed streets is sometimes bad enough for someone my size, so I imagine it might hold occasional moments of terror if you're only two feet tall.  If you're going to 'do' the Fringe than you have to be willing to brave the tidal flows of Festival-goers in their many thousands.

Some adapt to this in their own way.  I have heard a comedian tell of, and seen for myself, parents who use their pram/pushchair as a form of weapon, a battering ram to carve a path through the hordes, expecting that people will fall aside when confronted with the magic they wield.  Like I said, I'm no expert, but is that approach in any of the myriad childcare manuals?

Of course the parents have come to Edinburgh to enjoy a bit of culture themselves, not just to see their kids entertained, so they want to see something a bit more grown up than three puppets in a plastic boat.  But where do you find child care in a city that's in the throws of hedonism?  This is not a question some of them seem to have asked before they turn up.  Which brings me to the two incidents which inspired this wee rant.

Phill Jupitus is a bit of a TV star now, but began as a street poet, and each year at the Fringe he reincarnates himself as Porky the Poet.  Although it's on around five o'clock it is emphatically not a kids show.  It isn't advertised as such, there are no grounds for suspecting that it might be.  So when a couple brought their twelve year old along and plonked themselves down in the front row it wasn't quite what Mr J was expecting. He was, as you'd expect, pretty decent about it.  He asked the kid how old he was, he asked the parents if they knew what kind of show he was about to deliver, he gave every kind of hint you might ask for.  When there was no sign of them moving he told the kid he'd be learning some new words and concepts that none of his schoolmates would know about yet.  And still they insisted on saying.

Personally I'm glad they did. Because Porky then proceeding to rip the piss out of said parents at frequent intervals during the following hour.  Which he seemed to enjoy, and the rest of the audience did, and maybe even the kid.  Well, the bits he understood.  As for the parents?  Who cares....

Our final Fringe show of 2014 was a Glasgow comedian called Janey Godley.  If you don't know here then check her stuff on YouTube.  Very funny.  And very sweary.  The show was just getting going when a woman came to the door with a small child.  Janey went over, told her this wasn't a good idea, and she had the sense to recognise the wisdom in this and turned back.  Which prompted Ms Godley to relate the tale of a less readily convinced punter she'd had in a few days earlier.

Two parents with a small girl.  Janey did the same as above, went over and explained that this really wasn't a show that was suitable for children.  The parents argued that it was up to them as they'd paid for their tickets.  The Godley voiced was raised in volume so that all could hear. "Why would you want to bring in a wee kid in to see a woman who says 'cunt' a lot?"

They got the point.  They left.  Now that's my kind of show.

Not the 2014 Review it should be

IT'S REVIEW TIME, ISN'T IT?

This is the time of year when world, dog, and dog's granny are all looking back at the preceding twelve months and attempting to crowbar some sense of order and narrative on to their own randomised lives and the mixed up storyline that is humanity.  And this isn't one of those.  It is, however, a review, even if a little on the late side.

Last year I posted a list of my favourite ten shows from the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe.  I did so about four weeks after my city had sighed it's relief at the annual ending of the world's largest arts festival.  Sufficient time had passed to give me some perspective on what I'd seen, near enough for it still to have some sense of relevance.

This year I had, really, intended to do the same.  But (insert your own choice of lame, half-arsed excuse here) and that's why it didn't get done at the time.  However, never let it be said I don't deliver eventually, despite my Adamsesque attitude to deadlines.  Better late than never?  Probably not, but here it is anyway.

As with last year's effort, I present these in no particular order.  We managed to see sixty shows in little more than three weeks, and trying to reduce that to a favoured ten was hard enough without trying to pretend that one was better than another.  I'll start with the acts who made this list last year.  There were six we saw again, three are back here this time, and I'll begin with the same man I did last September.

Cuckooed is a one man drama telling a tale of treachery, espionage, and the exercise of naked power.  It shows Britain's largest arms manufacturer, BAE, spying on a small group of activists who are trying to bring said company's disdain for human rights to the attention of a wider world.  The cuckoo in question is an old friend of most of the activists who has been bribed into betraying his fellows.  The one man telling the tale is, of course, Mark Thomas.  Which means that the show is slick, the narrative compelling and fast paced, the emotions often raw, and frequently hysterically funny.  Particularly mention has to be made of the staging, which sees various talking heads pop out of filing cabinets on screens to give their side of the story.  Very effective.  Thomas is an astonishing stage presence and never fails to be both informative and hilarious.

Jennifer Williams was one of my favourite discoveries of 2013 and she was back again with another one woman performance (assisted, in the background, by her brother providing music and sound) and another quirky story to tell.  The Cold Clear Elsewhere is based on factual events and tells of Grace, an Australian war bride, who married a British sailor, and eventually sailed half way across the world to start a new life with a man she could, by then, hardly remember.  With a few props Jennifer creates several scenes in differing places and times, her acting skills well up to playing a wide variety of characters along the way, yet never leaving the audience in doubt about who they were watching, or where, or when.  By the end it was hard to believe that an hour had passed, so absorbed had I been in the action.  It was a shame that this was probably the smallest audience I was part of all month, only just breaking double figures, and I hope she can find her way into a more central venue next year.

And finally, in my repeat trio, Mr Aidan Goatley.  Once again he performed 10 Films With My Dad, and my comments of last year still stand on second viewing.  There was also 11 Films to Happiness (there may be a theme here....) which was equally entertaining, silly, charming, funny and simply enjoyable.  Aidan is just such a lovely, lovely man that it's hard to imagine him not being fun to watch.

In "10 Films" Mr G has roped in a few of his mates to help with some of the cinematic sequences in his show, and we went to see one of said mates doing his own stand-up thing.  Oft times there can be a sense of disappointment at seeing a comedian live after seeing him or her on the telly.  This man had been on Mock the Week, but I wasn't going to hold that against him.  Romesh Ranganathan is Funny.  You know the kind of comedy where you come out unable to repeat a single joke and barely remember what it was all about, except that your chest hurts because there was hardly a second when you weren't laughing?  The sort of comedy where you have to remind yourself to keep breathing?  That's Mr R.

Oh, and he helped make my night, albeit indirectly. He asked me if I thought I was a good husband.  I suggested I wasn't the person to judge and that he ask Barbara sat next to me, so she was requested to give me marks out of ten.  And there am I thinking "Maybe a five?  A six would be good....".  And she say "Eight and half".  Eight and a bloody half!!  I'm still not sure what I've done to deserve anything that good, but I'm not about to forget it (or remind her when it seems 'appropriate').

Another stand up comedian, of sorts.  An American in a weird, scarlet, bulbous onesie who worked his audience into the act.  If you don't like participation then this wasn't for you.  It was teasing, testing, terrifying, timeless.  If at times it verged too far towards the simplistics of the Self Help 'Industry' it fully redeemed itself with the opportunities it provided for thought and the sheer funniness of the words and actions on stage.  The show is called Red Bastard and I will say no more, for it is something you have to experience to understand.  Would I go back?  Maybe....

Away from the stand up, but sticking with comedy, Austentatious is certainly an act you easily view several times, for every performance is different.  Six actors improvise a comedy drama based on title suggestions from the audience, all in the style of Jane Austen.  That could so easily go wrong, but these guys all know each other so well, and have such a great sense of timing, that the result is laughter making throughout (sometimes for the cast as much as the audience, the corpsing serving to make the performance even funnier).  I'll be back.

Another comedy drama, Spilt Decision, but scripted this time.  Partly in verse, which highlighted the unreality of the action and the satirical intent.  The characters portray a drunken husband, a domineering wife and a non-combatant marriage counsellor.  The battle lines are clearly drawn and the script, written by local comedian Keir McAllister, wears it's heart proudly on it's sleeve.  With the sharp end of that heart pointing strongly towards a Yes vote in the then upcoming Scottish Independence Referendum.  I can't tell you what it would have been like for a neutral, or even a No supporter, but they were preaching to the utterly converted in me and I enjoyed it hugely.

Three to go, and I'm going to cheat a wee bit.  This event was advertised in the Fringe programme, but was also selling tickets as an independent theatre event.  It was also held outside Edinburgh, in adjoining Musselburgh, so I'm stretching the definition a bit.  This was a last minute decision too.  We'd had tickets to see James Rhodes (one day, one day), but illness had forced him to cancel at short notice.  Was there a music gig that would replace it?  Cue mad phone calls to get tickets and we were off to the far East (Lothian) that evening.

It's been a few years since I last saw Blazin' Fiddles and the line up had changed considerably, but the format remains the same.  A rhythm section of guitar and keyboard, and four of Scotland's best fiddle players up front.  Some fabulous music, some terrible jokes and a lot of silliness.  Best of all, sheer energy coming off the stage and infecting the watching crowd.  The line up kept changing, with solos and duos and trios, and then the full band again.  There was virtuosity and sheer bloody joy out there.  Impossible to leave without a grin.

Even more of a cheat for this one, for two reasons.  The event was in the International Festival itself, not the Fringe.  And it was actually three events, but as an experience deserves to be treated as one.  You may have read about (or even seen) the James plays.  Three new works, each based on the lives of the first three kings of Scotland called James.  We saw all three in the one day, enjoying the sense of continuity and overriding narrative that opportunity provided.  All three made powerful individual statements, with James 1 the most complete as a drama, 2 it's slightly weaker cousin, and 3 falling somewhere in between.  The presentation of 3 in a more modern setting took some getting used to, and the first half was more 2 than 1 in dialogue quality.  But the second half saw Sofie Grabol, of Killing fame, deliver an astonishingly powerful and commanding performance which demanded that Scots and Scotland take a good hard look at themselves.  Historic, important, unforgettable.

And finally.  Not necessarily the funniest, or cleverest, or most dramatic show I saw, but perhaps the most memorable.  Have you ever heard of Tourettes Hero?  If not then shame on you, because you should.  Jess Thom has tourettes, which makes her say Biscuit rather more often than you'd hear it said after spending a day in McVities.  Penguins and hedgehogs feature on a regular basis.  And she hits her chest a lot.  All of this is, of course, involuntary and a by-product of her condition.  A much misunderstood condition and Jess has made it her role in life to dispel the myths and encourage understanding as much as one person can.  And she's very, very good at it.  So much so that she created a stage show to show to anyone who cared to come along to see what tourettes involved, how it affected her life, and just what an instinctively funny person she is.

The show was called Backstage in Biscuit Land and in it Jess, aided by an excellent actress also named Jess, tells us what having tourettes is like for her and those involved in her life, how the wider world sometimes reacts and what that feels like for her.  All the while making the whole explanation wildly entertaining.  Unpredictably so for all concerned because, as she explains at the start, her condition makes her incapable of sticking to a script, and some of the unplanned outbursts are even funnier than the original lines.  (Plus, at the show we were at, she had a couple of friends with tourettes in the audience, and one of them added some great punch lines of his own!)  Simply lovely.

And that's it, out of my system at last.  Still not sure how I've been forced to leave out Jo Caulfield, Chris Coltrane, The Nualas, Bruce Fummey....

Maybe next year I'll be back to doing this in September?

'Twas the move before Xmas

THE WRONG WAY TO MOVE

No, this isn't about my attempts to dance at a Xmas night out.

It's been several weeks since I last posted anything here and that has almost entirely been down to one thing - we've been moving home.  Again.  It's said to be an experience almost on a par with bereavement for stress levels. That always sound a bit OTT to me, but it certainly isn't one of the more relaxing ways to pass the time.

But we thought we had a way to make life easier for ourselves, take some of the pain out of the process, give ourselves a bit of time.  For reasons I won't go into here we were in the unusual situation of being able to stay in our old flat for a while after we had been given the keys to the new one.  So, we thought, let's do a staged move, and not actually settle into our new home until it's been made habitable.  They're little more than a mile apart, so shuffling back and forward won't even take much time. Will it?

And now, one month on, I can give you a solid recommendation should you ever find yourself in a similar position:

DON'T

DO

IT

Just don't. Go on the traditional path of enduring one day of extreme harassment followed by days and days of living amongst the boxes.  In the end it will be quicker and less effort, and you won't look like total plonkers to the rest of the word.  Trust me.

We'd bought the flat fully furnished (that too is another story....) and spent the first three days rearranging the items we were keeping and moving most of the others down to the garage. Day four and our old stuff arrived from storage where it had dwelt these past four months. An episode straight from a seventies sitcom (with me as Terry Scott) as we tried to remembered why we'd wanted to keep all these....things. Endless things of limited use was how it appeared. More things to stick into that garage.

So we now had an overstuffed flat that looked more warehouse than penthouse. Ah, but we had that 'luxury' of not having to move in and live amongst the cardboard, did we not?  And therein lies the problem.  Because instead of working every available hour to make the place habitable we'd wake up somewhere that already was, and return there in the evening.  And there would still be food shopping to do, meals to make, a social life to lead (why not?).

So the days passed in this fashion. Empty a few boxes, fill up the wardrobes, move furniture around, return home ('home'?) weary and ready to eat, watch TV and have a good sleep. And maybe a lie in, since it was tempting to do so. Progress was slow.  But then the moment arrived when the decision had to be made about actually 'moving in'.  Prompted by that most essential element of modern life - when the broadband account switched properties.  Suddenly it doesn't feel like home any more without a fast internet connection....

Which means moving all those bits and pieces that made one home feel like home into the other home to make that feel like home, so that the first home wouldn't be home any more, which it wasn't without that broadband connection, even if I (there were a few days when I was left to my own devices) was still sleeping in the home that wasn't any more.  I think.

No vans this time, no strapping young men to shift the heavy stuff, just a hatchback and us. And a new block of flats that has a lot of doors and distance to cross.  There's nothing like a suitcase/box obstacle course to improve the temper.  That operation began about, oh, six months ago maybe.  Or is it really just six days?  A short drive across, yes, but why has it come to feel like a commute?

But we are in, and have slept here. Several times.  There is still more 'stuff' to come, but if we live without it for long enough maybe it will fade away from memory.  There is, just like in a normal move, one room decorated with wall to wall cardboard boxes, so there was no advantage there either  In fact the only positive I can come up with isn't for us, but for any neighbours who might have chanced to watch.  (Not that I've seen any net curtains twitching, it's not that sort of neighbourhood.)  They may have enjoyed a few comedy moments from two not-so-young people trying to move cases and boxes and oddly shaped items through rain and wind - carrying back the empty boxes for another load is a particularly good way of turning into a Marcel Marceau impression of a rudderless Cutty Sark.

And that's how not to do it.

But at least I can start blogging again.

EU Referendum? Oh, alright then.

WIN OR WIN?

Until recently I considered the idea of having an In or Out of the EU referendum to be a vast waste of public money and totally unnecessary.  The only people who really consider this to be a major political issue are usually suffering from Daily Fail-itis, a condition that induces irrational fear of benign situations.

But that ailment is now gripping several of the leaders of the main UK political parties, so that instead of showing some sense of direction they have ended up following a misbegotten bandwagon.  If Milliband had said, after his conference speech, that he'd left out the deficit and immigration because they aren't the major issues we face in the real world, and are largely constructs of a self-interested mass media, he might have won my admiration.  That would have been proper leadership.

Similarly for the EU.  It's a far from perfect institution, particularly in the ways it reinforces the neoliberal economic agenda.  But overall it remains a positive force for good and the benefits greatly outweigh the disadvantages.  And criticisms that it is undemocratic sit uneasily coming from a state in which we have legislators whose sole qualification is being on particularly close speaking terms with their imaginary friend, and a had of state that symbolises our greatest problems.

But the referendum is starting to look desirable, at least if you live in Scotland.  The most likely result is a comprehensive majority for staying in, according to pretty much every reputable poll.  Which would have two major benefits.  It would likely put the issue to bed for a long time to come (unlike the recent referendum in Scotland....).  And, better still, would kill off ukip and send frog-faced Farage into well earned obscurity as a minor footnote in history.  The cost would be worth it just for that outcome for, without the far right tugging the strings, mainstream politics could drift back towards the centre-left ground where it truly belongs.

Of course these things are never entirely predictable and freak events can render any predictions redundant.  And in the event that an Out vote were to triumph there's still a big plus lurking in there.  Because that would almost certainly trigger a Yes vote in Scotland and the break up of the UK.  Tough on the English initially, but the possibility of a successful social democratic Scotland might be just the impetus the English left need to reinvigorate themselves.

Seems like a win-win to me.

Meditating your way forward

BEING MINDFUL

A few weeks ago I stopped off in a pub in Newington (in south Edinburgh) in need of sustenance.  Burger ordered, pint in hand, I made my way to a table in the far corner.  To my right two young women, probably students, busy with their laptops. To my left a lad I would, at first glance, have described as a bit of a jakey. Cropped hair, tattoos, denim, near skeletal and vacant of expression.  Not the person to engage in conversation. Maybe.

So I got my book out, started to read and supped at my beer.  Then the lad got up and started patting all his pockets.  As he'd just been rolling a fag it seemed obvious that he was looking for a lighter so I smiled and preempted the likely question by saying I didn't have a lighter and what a pain it was when you had so many pockets and no idea which one of them held the object you needed.  He found it eventually, went for his smoke, then came back to the remains of his pint. At which point I found him in the mood to talk.

Books, covers, don't judge, eh?  In part my judgement proved correct, but this guy was also full of surprises, and taught me a thing or two.  The biggest surprise was his opening gambit.  Had I ever tried mindfulness? This was not what I'd expected.  I admitted I hadn't, although I had heard of it, and had a had a go at various meditation techniques in the past, but never found anything that worked for me.

He was on his way to his regular mindfulness session - I think he was scheduled to attend two or three a week - and was really looking forward to.  I mean, REALLY looking forward to it.  Because he truly believed that it had played a big part in turning his life around.  Not so long ago he'd been a heroin addict, had lost all proper contact with family and friends, got into trouble with the police.  I wasn't clear if he'd spent time in prison, but if he hadn't then he was almost certainly on his way there.  Nor was he very forthcoming on what had actually prompted this huge change in his way of living.  What he did want to share with me, and possibly anyone else who would listen, was that he'd now been clean for months, and that mindfulness had played a huge role in turning him around.

He went into details about how hard it had been at first.  Not just the coming off the drugs, but learning to reach the mental and emotional state that the mindfulness exercises required.  That emptying his mind was something he could achieve easily on drugs, but that state, that degree of detachment from the physical world, was now a sensation he could experience simply through his own mental effort.  That no matter how hard, and at times pointless, the process had seemed at first, in the end it was all justified by the results.  Now he was not only drug free, but able to hold down a job and interact with society.  (It did cross my mind that he may have been told to engage in exactly the sort of conversation he was having with me, whenever the opportunity arose, as part of his rehabilitation process - ?)  Now his drug of choice was the mindfulness meditation technique and it felt like this had become the centerpiece of his life.

Eventually he said he had to go as his class would be starting soon and he very definitely did not want to be late for it.  Indeed I felt he might be the first to arrive!  Just before he stood up he got out his paper and tobacco(?) and rolled another smoke. I imagined this was to help calm him before the start of his session.  But no. He put it down in front of me and said 'Enjoy'.  I made him take it with him, rather than seeing it go to waste, making sure he understood it was because I'd never smoked.  So he didn't seem at all offended by my refusal and off he went smiling, presumably not to be seen again (this wasn't a pub I'd been in before, or am likely to visit often in the future).

But the memory of our brief chat, and that gesture of kindness at it's close, will stay with me.  Here was a totally unexpected moment of pleasure, from a seemingly unlikely source.  And I told myself off for being such a judgemental and patronising old bugger.  This lad had mastered, and benefited from, a technique which I have never been able to come to terms with.  It's true that I have never attended classes, and only made the effort on my own, but it still felt like something I would never fully get my head around.  I can listen to my own breathing for no more than thirty seconds before my mind insists on drifting away into my usual state of daydreamedness.  He has may admiration, as well as my gratitude for providing such a bright spot in my day.

Retired? Enjoy life. (While you can....)

THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS

I once again live in the city which hosts the largest annual arts festival in the world, so August is a crazy month for culture consumers.  Whatever you might want you'll find it here.  (And I will get around to looking back at my personal highlights of the 2014 Fringe in a post coming soon.)  But it's not like there's a lack of things to do during the rest of the year.  And last week provided us with one of the most culturally varied seven days imaginable.

On Monday we went to see Tony Benn : Will and Testament, as mentioned on this blog a few days ago.

Tuesday evening saw us return to the Leith Folk Club, our first visit since January, to see the young band Dallahan.  They were our favourite musical discovery of this year's Fringe, an eclectic mix of Scots, Irish, Americana and Hungarian influences.  The singer, Jack Badcock, has a surprising voice, more crooner than folkie at first acquaintance, with an incredible range.  Their arrangements are constantly surprising, with that Balkan influence creeping in regularly.  A varied set covered traditional ballads, gypsy jazz, celtic dance, bluegrass and culminated with a comedy calypso piece (originally made famous by Lance Percival in the sixties!).  They have also realised there's a lot more to being a live band than simply playing and their gabbing between numbers was both informative and funny.  Their CD has since been getting a lot of plays chez Crawford.  Oh, and they have one of the coolest bass players you will ever see.

If it's Wednesday it must be musical day.  And so it was off to the Playhouse for my second musical of the year.  Which is about two more than I'd normally see.  My standard view of the genre is "get on with the plot oh there isn't one", a view confirmed on the other occasion I ventured to the same venue and saw We Will Rock You.  They didn't.  We Will Bore You.  How did Ben Elton ever sink so low?

So I ventured to see Jersey Boys with a mix of trepidation and open mindedness.  Amazingly the latter won out.  It might not be something I'd rush to see again, but I did genuinely enjoy myself.  There is an actual plot, the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and it whizzes from scene to scene at Linford Christie pace.  I'd heard of them, vaguely recalled about three of the songs from the sixties and seventies, but most were new to me.  There's some good pop tunes in that there catalogue, and all the main singers had excellent voices, especially the guy playing Mr Valli.  Where musicals usually come unstuck is in recruiting the cast it's singing and dancing abilities that are prioritised, leaving acting chops a poor third.  But this lot, by and large, made the grade.  All four leads took it in turn to act as narrator, a device that worked well in holding the time and scene shifts together, and a real test of stage presence and audience management.  And, with the exception of a cedar-like series of monologues from the Bob Gaudio character, all of them handled it well and brought genuine emotion to the part when required.  I might not go quite as over the top as this review from the local rag, but I did have fun.

Away from the live entertainment we had a couple of art exhibitions we wanted to see on Thursday.  At the City Gallery the theme was Common Wealth, both in it's more widely known sense of a group of post-imperial nations, and the more important meaning that the wealth of a country is there to be shared amongst all it's citizens.  Other than a fabulous video history of land ownership in Scotland, viewed in some kind of giant patchwork Wendy House, there was little I found memorable.  An additional exhibition on the top floor did have some wonderful pop art style pictures and a great cat sculpture, but overall the visit was a bit of a let down.  Some days you just aren't in the right frame of mind.

But we crossed the road to the Fruitmarket Gallery and found the Jim Lambie retrospective.  No, I've never heard of him, but I've learned that one of the great features of exhibitions here is the video room upstairs where there's a film interview with the artist in which he explains the works on display and his motivations in creating them.  Thus armed the actual viewing makes a lot more sense and becomes simpler to enjoy.

Vibrant colour highlighted the unusual juxtapositioning and transformations of familiar objects.  Objects of intrigue and beauty.  My favourite was the room filled with floor to ceiling ladders, some with mirrors, some without.  You never knew if you were going to look through into another scene or see your own setting reflected back at you.  A real life set from Oz.

So that's a film, a folk gig, a musical and some visual art.  It must be time for some proper theatre.  One of the best things Glasgow has exported to the capital in the east is regular seasons of A Play, a Pie and a Pint.  Which pretty much describes the experience.  For a measly twelve quid you get your choice of pies (worth getting there a bit early to avoid being stuck with the stodge encased in stodge option that is the macaroni cheese pie....), the choice of a pint, glass of wine or soft drink (whatever that is - I went with the excellent local brew, Stewarts Traverse Ale), and then down into the bowels of the building for a one act play.  Value, eh?

Last week the play was Mrs Barbour's Daughters, a modern look back at one of the most important women in Scottish history, yet one I'd never even heard of before.  She achieved fame in the First World War as an agitator for social justice and an opponent of the rampant profiteering of landlords.  Which sounds familiar....  We could do with more like her today to help counteract the dire consequences of unfettered neoliberalism on most of the population.  There are plans to erect a statue to her memory in her native city and maybe that will help to encourge wider knowledge of her objectives and achievements.  An evening of entertainment and education.  And pies.

Saturday didn't quite work out as planned, thanks to our continued search for a new home and an estate agent with little sense of geography or planning.  We saw three flats, but as this involved criss crossing the city each time a lot of the day passed on buses.  So the planned visit to see a free comedy music gig resulted in us seeing only the last ten minutes of The Priscillas, a sort of electro-pop version of The Nualas (Who they?  All will be revealed in a future post....).  The venue was the best secondhand book and music shop in all Edinburgh, the brilliantly named Elvis Shakespeare.  If you come to the city you should visit it.  Yes, you should, just go there.  And buy stuff.  This man deserves your support.

Sunday.  Day of rest?  Sod that.  My perfect winter Sunday.  Stick something in the oven and head up to The Stand comedy club for the free lunchtime show.  That's free as in no charge, at all.  Yes, free.  Should be rubbish then?  But people, like us, come back time and again.  Stu and Garry's Improv Show, aka Whose Lunch Is It Anyway?, is a consistent chest hurter.  I've seen many 'big name' comedians and I don't think there's one who's made me laugh more than these guys.  They have been doing improvised comedy together for something like fifteen years and provide the nearest thing you'll see to telepathy.  Somehow I ended up on stage manipulating parts of Garry's body, but Ill leave that to the more warped and diseased corners of whatever passes for your mind.

The route home took in another flat (I think this is what's called multitasking), the oven produced the goods, and then we were off to our final cultural event of the week.

I lie.

But it was definitely live and definitely entertainment.

To The Fridge of Dreams, aka Murrayfield Ice Rink, to see the Edinburgh Capitals SNL team take on Moray Typhoons.  If you aren't keeping up let me tell you this is the fastest moving team sport around, ice hockey.  There were goals, fights, and we posed for a photo with the man or woman in the smiley lion outfit.  Plus a win for our guys.

And all in the most beautiful city on the planet.  I may just be winning at life.

Greed overrides people every time?

CARING CAPITALISM

Unless you live in Edinburgh you probably won't have heard about this example of the joy that unfettered capitalism can bring into our drab little lives.

Childish?  Bitter?  Pathetic?  All of these things and more.  The symbolism is perfect, targeting the relatives and friends of people in hospital as revenge for failing to retain a council contract.

And there still people out there who can't understand why big business is not fit to run public services? Who do not comprehend the essential importance of a public service ethos?  As if the Passport Office weren't warning enough....

Mr Benn - Yes or No?

THE WRONG TONY

A couple of days ago we went to see Tony Benn : Will and Testament at the Cameo cinema.  Long awaited (we first saw an excerpt from it over two years ago) it lived up to my expectations.  Often, sad, even moving me to tears at times, it was, largely, inspiring.  A man who stuck with his convictions, unless evidence were presented to the contrary.  A man who went up against the system no matter how much The Establishment vilified him for it.  Their efforts to marginalise him stand as the very testament to how much he hit raw nerves and came close to cracking the united facade that the rich and powerful put up to deceive the majority of us.

Benn wasn't always right - he freely admitted as much himself - but he was always honest (much to his cost when he was a minister) and spoke his mind according to his own beliefs.  Even his opponents admired (and feared) him for that reason.  That and his sharp intellect and analytical mind.  One of the few leading politicians who genuinely applied themselves to the betterment of their constituents and the wider society they served.

One the closing statements of the film struck a strong chord with me, one that has an additional resonance in the light of recent events.  "The battle is between Socialism and Barbarism.  And I know which side I'm on."  And in the decades since the Thatcher governments began to reverse all the progress which had been made by Attlee's administration, and kicked off the social decline which continues to see inequality in the UK grow and grow, the barbaric nature of capitalism becomes ever clearer.  The idea of "Capitalism with a human face" becomes ever more risible and evidence accumulates of the duplicity that those in power will resort to.  After the Tory domination of the eighties and early nineties the election of a Labour government felt like a chance for the slate to be wiped clean, for a new social direction.  But, despite some advances such as the Minimum Wage, in most respects the Labour of Blair proved to be no more capable of the kind of change needed than it's predecessors.  What we got was Tory-lite, a Thatcherite party in all but name.  And the death of any real pluralism of choice.

Is it any wonder that voters have become increasingly disenchanted with the political mainstream when all three of the old traditional parties look ever more and more the same?  The loss of Clause Four, and a commitment to state ownership, destroyed the socialist Labour movement that Benn had pinned his flag to.  Although he remained a Labour man to the end it was obvious he did so with only a few vestiges of hope remaining.  The Labour party of the Twenty First century has little in common with his honest values and commitment to a fairer society.  We did indeed end up with the wrong Tony B leading our state. Just look at Mandleson....

Benn was opposed to EU membership, throughout his life.  In this I think he was wrong, although I sympathise with the anti-capitalist thinking that guided this view, for the biggest failing of the EU, and the ECHR, is the commitment to the sanctity of property.  It remains a charter for the rich.  Equally he expressed his opposition to Scottish independence and might have even spoken on behalf of the No movement had been around to do so.  Or would he?

There are many reasons to be sad at Benn's demise, but from a personal view I'd have loved to know what he'd have made of the Yes campaign in the final weeks leading up to the Referendum.  Whilst many of the public faces remained the expected politicians - Salmond, Sturgeon, Harvie, Sheridan et al - the Yes movement had taken on a life of its own, above and beyond political parties.  It had become a genuine people’s movement, operating outwith the boundaries of party loyalties.  It had become exactly the kind of movement that Benn had inspired, and been inspired by in the past.  It had also, in the closing weeks, become a target for everything that The British Establishment could throw at it.

Benn was once described by a national newspaper as "The most dangerous man in Britian".  If only.  He received much worse than that, and only once they considered him relatively harmless was he accorded National Treasure status.  Most papers hated him.  The TV stations found him hard to handle, easier if ignored.  And he had opponents in both his own and opposing parties lining up to declare him borderline insane.

Tony might have recognised all this in those final days leading up to 18 September.  We'll never know what he might have made of it.  And I recognise my own confirmation bias, and wishful thinking, in imagining that he would have come over to our side.  Perhaps recognising the Yes movement for what it was - the biggest democratic attack on the UK's rich and powerful since the days of the Attlee government.  I wonder....?

The votes are in, the results to come

NOW WE SIT AND WAIT

As I sit to write this it's three minutes past eleven on the evening of the eighteenth of September, two thousand and fourteen.  Of course I could have written that sentence with far fewer keystrokes, but the pseudo formality feels right for the occasion.  Because today history has been made.  And in a few hours from now I'll find out if I'm one of those who made the change, or was a bit player as a nation actually turns down the offer of independence - the latter an unprecedented event as far as my knowledge goes.

The polls have closed, the rhetoric and shouting and half truths and downright lies are at rest, and all we can do now is watch and wait. The only big decisions left are whether to watch BBC or STV, and if I should pull an allnighter or try for a nap and an early rise?  

If you've read this blog before, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook, then you'll know exactly how I voted and which result I'm hoping for, so I'm going to skip that issue and look at how it's felt to be a part of such an epochal event.

We went out to vote late in the morning, by which time the flow in and out of our polling station wasmodest and there was no queue to join.  Outside the Yes and No campaign representatives stood chatting away to each other like old pals (perhaps they were).  There was no sense of great drama,not a hint of intimidation, none of the elements beloved of the sensationalist end of the media.  The only drama was in my my own heart and head when I paused before marking my cross in the box.  This really did feel so very different from any vote I've ever cast before.

Our afternoon took in a (Yes leaning) comedy play about the referendum, a bit of coffee and cake, and then a Danish thriller at the cinema.  So I haven't spent a lot of time walking the streets and my sense of the occasion is largely based on time spent on buses, and in the cafe and the theatre bar.  The skies over Edinburgh have been grey and gloomy all day and the public mood may have been influenced by the weather.  There seemed little excitement, no hint of panic.  But there was a definite tension in the air, not of the crackling electric variety, but an expectant calm that knows there will be a lot of disappointed people in the morning.  Very few Yes or No badges were in evidence on the street, although journalists were evident everywhere.

But the evidence from the ballot boxes belies this to an extent.  Following on from the record breaking 97% registration figure, there looks to have been a voter turnout unheard of in this country.  I've seen a story from one of the more rural stations, of all registered voters having recorded their votes by nine thirty this morning.  Many stations had queues awaiting their opening at seven am.  Are we going to hit 90% turnout?  As an exercise in democracy, whatever the outcome, this has been a remarkable occasion.  And, despite the efforts of the tabloids, largely devoid of nastiness (any large scale campaign that raises such passions is bound to bring out a few extremists on either side).  Citizens have been engaged, excited, ready to debate the issues and on both sides this has become as much a movement of the people as of politicians.  Scotland can be proud of being such a civilised country.

Whatever tomorrow brings the world will be different.  For all sorts of reasons.  For me the greatest of these is that the Yes movement has taken on the combined power and money of the UK government, what is generally referred to as "The Establishment", and 95% of the mass media (the Sunday Herald was the only national publication to come out for Yes, and there were justifiable doubts about the even-handedness of the BBC) and still managed to convince around half the electorate to join their cause.  That is a remarkable achievement, win or lose.

Now let's wait and see.

Oh, England, just give us a bit of space now, eh?  It isn't always about you....

The resuscitation of Gordon Brown

WHY GORDON?

Back in the dim and distant past, when this whole referendum thing first got into gear, the Scottish Government proposed there should be three choices on the voting paper.  For full independence, to retain the status quo, or for an increase of the powers devolved to the Holyrood parliament.  The latter quickly acquiring the daft name of 'Devo Max'.  The Cameron government thought otherwise and next Thursday's simple binary choice was the result.  Devo Max was an option Downing Street thought unnecessary.

Polling at the time suggested that that missing option was the one most likely to have attracted majority support from Scotland's voters, had it been offered.  But Westminster felt confident that if it came to the choice of staying within the UK, or going it alone, the unionists would win comfortably.
And all the evidence at the time suggested they were right.

Fast forward to Spring 2014 when it already it feels like the campaigning has been going on forever.  Yet now starting to ramp up in intensity.  Devo Max has largely been left to rot in the gutter, but the occasional unionist politician has mentioned that when a No vote goes through Westminster may give some consideration to passing on some additional powers.  Crumbs from the table.

How times change.  As the polls have closed up and the underdog Yes campaign has gained momentum, as the day of polling gets ever closer, as arguments and 'experts' get thrown at the electorate from every angle, the polarity of the debating has increased and passions have been raised.  This was going to be closer than almost anyone had imagined.

And then there was one, just one, poll that showed Yes ahead.  By only two points, and other polls still gave No a lead, but it seems to have sent a shudder through the whole Better Together movement, and the leaders of the three main UK parties in particular.  Just days later, backed by Cameron, Clegg and Milliband, an announcement was made proposing that a No vote would result in significantly greater powers being devolved to Edinburgh.  There wasn't a lot of detail, but it did seem reminiscent of something from the past.  It seems Devo Max has been picked up, given a bit of a dust, and presented to us as a fresh new set of ideas.  And it only took one poll....

If you know me in real life you might not be surprised at a teensy-weensy note of cynicism creeping in here.  Poor old Devo.  Cast aside unwanted, she's now back on the scene, slightly faded, slightly jaded, and not quite sure what she's doing any more. But someone seems to need her, urgently.  Good luck old girl.

But it's not the return of Ms Max that concerns me here.  Desperate times bring out desperate measures. And Better Together have been sounding very desperate recently.  No, what intrigues me more is the presentation of this brave new world.  And, more specifically, the choice of presenter.

Gordon Brown emerged as the spokesman for this one, the front man, apparently, for the Westminster establishment.  At first glance he seems a sensible enough choice.  A weel kent face.  Former leader and statesman.  And still retaining some degree of credibility, even affection, in Scotland (despite being a laughing stock to many in England).  A sensible choice.

Really?  If I was a government trying to convince an electorate of the sincerity of my very-late-to-the-party proposals would I really choose Gordon?  A backbench MP, perhaps with some influence, but with no power and no prospect of being in power.  A voice from the past, irrelevant to the future of all three parties.  A voice it might be very easy to disown if the future dictated such a course of action....

If these proposals (and note that's all they are - nothing is, or can be, guaranteed) are being brought forward with genuine sincerity shouldn't they be presented by someone who has real power to take them forward?  Someone, perhaps, from the current government?  A Scot of course, so that rules out the Conservatives (I've met hamsters with more charisma than Scotland's sole Tory MP).  So a credible LibDem then (that's Danny Alexander out of the reckoning).  And who do we have in the post of Scottish Secretary of State?   None other than Alistair Carmichael, one of the few senior unionists to maintain an air of moderation in his pronouncements and with the decency (or career awareness!) to announce that if there's a YES result he'd be available to be a member of the Scotland negotiating team.  That rare beast, a coalition minister it's possible to have some respect for.

And, if you really wanted to give the impression that the three parties were unified behind these proposals why not throw in Margaret Curran, Alistair's shadow?  Wouldn't that demonstrate some commitment to implement the new legislation required (let's for a moment that this will have to be done by a UK parliament that hasn't actually been elected yet)?  Wouldn't it?

But no.  We got Gordon.  Yesterday's man.  Anyone convinced?  Draw your own conclusions.


PS If any No voters read this, or perhaps a committed unionist in England, I'd love to hear from you and tell me where, if, my analysis is flawed.  Please do.