Had a fantastic weekend in Edinburgh to bid farewell to Sean and Keitha on their return to Canada. We visited charming Dumbiedykes...


It was a full-on Canadian fest as Ashley was over as well for the party. She has the honour of being the first person to experience the luxurious new carpets at my swinging Shepherd's Bush batchelor pad when she stayed with me earlier in the week. We even went to see a Canadian play. Well it was free and the show we had planned to see had been cancelled. It was the tale of a woman writing about her past and the imposing figure of her alcoholic Scottish aunt who bestrode the family scene like a boozed-up Colossus. Not the most promising mis-en-scene maybe. But it had its moments.

I was only up for the weekend so we didnt get to see much else. But I loved the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players. It's the kind of show that Fringes were invented for. Mom and Pop Trachtenberg and daughter Rachel (10) on the drums. They are your average New York "Conceptual Art-Pop band". Their art is to plunder yard sales etc and purchase the slide collections of UDPs. Thats Unknown Deceased Persons to you and me. Then then set the slides to music and take the tour out on the road. The one thing you dont want is for BA to lose most of your clothes, instruments and slide projector somewhere between New York and London. But the show must go on and having got a replacement slide projector, it did. Good stuff.

But mostly the weekend was about hanging out with friends and saying goodbye to Sean and Keitha. Smarty had organised a party (cheers matey!!) and Simon and da Noog came up from London as well. Donald (whose pie making exploits cemented his reputation as the metrosexual's metrosexual) and Adele were there plus some of Keitha's friends from her 16 month tour of duty at Scotmid in Leith. Now that's a character building experience. Here's our happy couple with Ashley, ithout her none of us would have been there!


And I got to spend time in Ediburgh again. It's odd how just being somewhere can make you feel happy and Edinburgh does that for me. And that's not the Red Kola talking. Although that helps.