Katherine McGillivray

Sad news about the early death in the summer of Katherine McGillivray, who was an extremely talented and gifted viola player and teacher.
Anyone who was at what must have been an  almost definitive performance of Bach’s St John Passion in Perth Concert Hall with Mark Padmore as the Evangelist back in March, (revue in the Herald) [...]

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Ron Mueck

Great news! – the National Galleries of Scotland have extended the Ron Mueck exhibition for a week until 8th October.    It is even open until midnight on the 7th.   
This is an exhibition of huge oversized sculptures and is really unusual.    I thought that I was going to miss it, but will be able to see [...]

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New Curling Season

The new curling season starts today.   First match tonight.    Time to look out the brush and shoes once again.     Should be fun.      I don’t seem to get much better at it though.

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Tutti Fruitti

Bought tickets for Tutti Fruitti by John Byrne at the Kings in Edinburgh.    Really liked the iconic TV series that launched the careers of Robbie Coltraine and Emma Thompson.     For those who missed it, it was all about a Scottish band called The Majestics who re-form and go on a tour.     It was a whole [...]

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Paper Sizes

All this postage investigation got me to thinking about paper sizes.   Why is A4 called A4, and where did the range of paper sizes come from?    The edge lengths don’t seem to fit imperial or metric measurements.
In a nutshell, the shape of the A range is such that the height divided by the width is [...]

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New Royal Mail Rules

Still trying to get my head round the new rules for mailing stuff.    To say that it is not simple is a mere understatement.     The standard issue 5mm thinkness gauge that is supplied on really flimsy paper is totally useless, so I have made my own out of stiff card.  How sad is that?

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IKEA

We went to Edinburgh IKEA.    Bad idea.   Arrived Sunday lunchtime.   Rain coming down in stair-rods.      Half of Edinburgh’s population there already, and a good proportion angry to boot.   Car park rage, meatball queue rage, loo queue rage.      The shop has interesting stuff – it is the cattle herding aspect along the endless one way path [...]

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