Eugene Onegin – RSAMD.

I always look forward to the operas put on by students from the Opera School at RSAMD in Glasgow.    They are young voices, and bring a freshness to well-known (and not so well-known) operas.    The shows are part of the coursework, and these singers are getting experience of taking direction from a guest director, as well [...]

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The Children – Dundee Rep

This was an interesting night at the theatre.   First, Dundee Rep’s Youth Theatre put on Edward Bond’s dark play “The Children”.   Robert Patterson and Irene MacDougall from the resident main company also took part.
The play dealt with the aftermath of an arson attack on a house by a teenager on instruction from her clearly deranged [...]

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Police Cordon

We had a bit of excitement in our village this week.   A police cordon appeared with cones and tape blocking off the whole pavement on one side and parking on both sides of the street.    A white boxy trailer thing (mobile incident room) appeared, and there were a series of rather chilly looking policemen standing [...]

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Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela

Anyone see the re-run of this prom on BBC4?   I missed it at the time, and everyone has been very excited about it.
Just wow.    Never seen anything like it.   Just totally brilliant.
Check out Mambo.
Oh, and this should be required viewing for the BBC Scotland production team as a demonstration of how to film a classical [...]

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Scottish Food

Interesting that the SNP are looking at a policy which will promote Scottish food.    Scottish Food means less food miles of course, and will help our own farming industry.
But there will always be issues of seasonality, quality and price to get around.   Sometimes Scottish food can actually be more expensive than food which has travelled [...]

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Poultry on TV

It has been an interesting week on Channel 4  Chicken TV.
Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall tried to contact the poultry industry to let him film the intensive production, but not a single poultry producer would let him in.    As a farmer, I find that quite appalling, as we have to be answerable to our final consumers.    So [...]

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Meetings – Basic Services

I was at a meeting over at Erskine during the big storm on Tuesday.   
The hotel was 3 star, and was struggling a bit to keep its standards up.    The ladies loos would not flush;   there was no hot water in the gents loos – in fact, if you turned on the cold tap of one [...]

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Tea or Coffee?

I was at a farmers meeting in Perth today.   
Initial cup of tea went well.    Cup of tea at breaktime was certainly neither tea nor coffee – it looked and tasted like a mixture.    The flasky thing said “tea”.    It was totally ghastly.
I was not brave enough to stay for lunch.

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Blowy!

We had a huge amount of wind today.   I think all the major bridges in Scotland were closed at some point, including the Erskine bridge, Tay bridge and Forth Road Bridges.     Lorries were blown over, trees blown down.    19,000 homes with no power.    And I had to drive out past Glasgow this morning.
I don’t mind [...]

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12th Night – Epiphany

It was 12th night on Sunday, so the Christmas tree finally came down, the decorations got tidied away into their box and the Christmas Cards collected up.    We have had a very busy Christmas with relatives staying.
Our local church held a midnight service this year, and candlelight and incense were promised, so we went along.    [...]

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