[UPDATED Friday 29 & Saturday30 April, 2016]  
Drones, a family surprise, doing art (again) and more flowers    

Drones
Alice and I went to see Eye in the Sky this week. Wow! What an incredible (or rather, horribly credible) film. Exciting, informative, full of tension, occasionally humourous, and very touching too. Two slightly more out-of-the-way reviews can be found at New York Review of Books website and ArsTechnica.

This last site seems a really interesting one to follow if you're into both culture and geeky stuff. Like us here. In fact we've signed up.

My favourite bits were the actions of the Somali operative on the ground (played by Barkhad Abdi) with the miniature spy-drone disguised as a beetle: the stuff of James Bond (see GeekWire) and maybe not even possible - or just not yet?

Alice said she learnt a lot about exactly how modern Drone Warfare is conducted; how many political niceties need to be observed, and how they all negotiate passing the buck (a phrase originating in the game of Poker.) She declared it all a very chilling scenario, and had tears in her eyes at the end of the film.

Do take a look at this revealing article in The Guardian, which includes a video about the psychological effects on the young (mostly) operators of this kill-at-a-distance technology. Or see the video separately here.

A family surprise
To cheer herself up we went on a recce of the local charity shops. She's been doing this ever since seeing the documentary about Iris Apfel, which inspired her to wear more daring jewellery. Of course, Iris could afford multi-million dollar stuff, but she also hunted for super-cheap second-hand bargains. Don't forget to click on her fabulous picture.

Alice bought two more necklaces at her favourite Cancer Research shop. It's turning into such an obsession, we need a row of hooks to hang them on, before they get too tangled up. She's even got some hooks, but hasn't put them up yet. Typical.

And here comes my great surprise!

Shelter shop

Our last shop was Shelter, another worthy charity that works to improve life for the homeless.

You can see from the photo here that I've found I have a distant relative, like Ba!

Although we bonded immediately on a visceral level, an unexpected language barrier meant we couldn't communicate further. My idle fantasy is that he's an endangered primate refugee who is suffering from shock, as he does have a somewhat sad air about him. But I suspect he's only been "liberated" from some child's toy box and certainly not stolen like Woody from Toy Story 2. I hope he finds a new home soon.

Doing art (again) and more flowers

We decided to take a look at some of the local exhibitions in the British Art Show 8.

Our first stop was the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art - One, who were hosting part of the said Art Show 8.

It took us quite a while to progress up the drive.

Before we even got to the proper entrance of the Museum itself, I decided to explore a rather bizarre object.

Where am I?

Not obvious at all is it, even if you see a bit more of it.

It's a "sculpture" we assume, beside the driveway.

Much Googling (is that a verb now?) and surfing from one site to another by Alice, later on, revealed it is called Kolbenneblok by one Tony Cragg.  The Gallery says it's from "a series of works he refers to as the 'Early Forms'. These mark a shift away from the artist's use of found objects towards the use of materials, such as plaster or bronze, to make malleable, hollow sculptures." So there.

Ba was much more interested in the Spring display of flowers. Click and see how happy she is! Lovely daffs, and some mysterious but beautiful purple blooms, apparently called Snake's Head Fritillary.

See more about them on the Kew Gardens website.

Then we paused to enjoy the sun and admire the graceful Landform Ueda by Charles Jencks.

He did lots of shapes like this for Jupiter Artland, where we went back in 2012.

As for the exhibition itself, there was only one item all three of us really liked. It was Diagrams of Love: Marriage of Eyes by Linder.

Here's a close-up from the online Exhibition Highlights. 

Apparently it's also featured in a ballet!


Right-click to see the details.

We relaxed afterwards in Modern One's pleasant cafe garden, before heading back home.

Writing this up has, as usual, taken much longer than it should do. If only Alice wasn't such a perfectionist and didn't get carried away surfing for links and then following those up with more still! Not to mention her endless fiddling with the layout here (Blogger input is not WYSIWYG) until she's satisfied with the relationship beween text and image.

So we're taking a break here, and will fill you in later on with either an update or a new post.

Update 1: Even more art and flowers

We had another warm sunny day not long afterwards. This saw us pursuing the trail of the British Art Show 8 again, this time in the small gallery at Inverleith House in Edinburgh's delightful Royal Botanic Gardens.

There was a tapestry there we really liked, too: Mother George, 2015 by Caroline Achaintre.

We never found out who had inscribed this optimistic text above the doorway into the upstairs gallery. [Click on the photo to see it at readable size.]

But the item on the wall opposite was fascinating. To create Fabulous Beasts, Simon Fujiwara purchased old fur coats – once luxury commodities – and shaved them to reveal the patchwork skin beneath. Did you ever!

The art with the heron is The whole vibe of everything, 2015 by Jesse Wine, a sculptor who works primarily with ceramics.

The catalogue says "Making use of traditional glazing and firing techniques he produces autobiographical works that often take the form of objects from his daily life. This piece sees him distil a complex scene from a Japanese screen into a single element." They don't half go on in this stilted language. I just liked it.

There's a book to sign or add comments as you leave the building, but I couldn't think of anything at all to ask Alice to write. Anyway, Ba likes natural things, not invented objects, and was positively itching to get outside again.

We're taking another break now, to get some sleep: we'll catch up again tomorrow, we hope.

Update 2: Flowers again and a family extra

After seeing the exhibition above, it was such a lovely day that we lingered on in the Botanic Gardens and Ba had a wonderful time among the flowers.

The Camelias were such a beautiful pink, that she didn't want to come down, but we persuaded her there were even more delights awaiting us if we carried on exploring further.

So we did.

And found this delicate Blackthorn. [Click, won't you, click!]

Alice took several pictures at both stops, but says now we only have room for a selection on here, or else there's too much space and not enought text.

I don't think that matters, but she was most adamant. And she is the one actually doing all the layout jiggery-pokery.

She has consented to two of the Magnolia cylindrica however.

I suspect that's because this first one was taken "against the light" and involved a great deal of fiddly editing (and some swearing) to get the flowers to look the right colour, instead of being mere dark sillhouettes. But, as she says, the information is there in among the pixels, so determination, plus trial and error, will eventually bring it to light. [Nice pun?]

Ba does look very fetching in the fading sunshine, doesn't she?

It was then getting close to closing time. You can't ignore that, as a couple of officials traverse the gardens from opposite ends (it's a pretty big area altogether) clanging loud hand bells - old school style ones - shouting "Closing Time! CLOSE-ING Time!" and herding us towards the gates.

I wonder if anyone does ever get locked in . . .

Luckily we'd just had time to admire a simply ravishing Yoshino Cherry in full bloom. When we'd first arrived it had been commandeered by what looked like a professional fashion shoot, or an engagement party, so we couldn't get near.

It was worth the trudge all the way back to the East Gate just to see it properly, especially as they don't stay in bloom for very long and it might be over by the time of our next visit.

Did you know that because of this, in Japan they have special cherry blossom parties in the parks? That's proper appreciation of nature for you! You can go there on blossom holidays from other countries, too.

Family extra  

On the way home we passed Ba's Great Uncle's workplace, and found he had been moved to a different position in the window. You can just glimpse Alice's reflection with her camera at the apparent "back" of the room inside.

There was a poster for the May Beltane in front of him! The image here, however, is derived from the website of the Beltane Fire Society, where you will find more information.

It's actually tonight as we write this, so you'll have to wait until next year, unless you're very quick off the mark.

We'll leave you with this historic image of an
unrecognisable Alice, dressed as one of the May Queen's White Women, when she took part in the Edinburgh Beltane festival, in the days when she was a fair bit younger.

That was before you had to pay to watch the event, too. It became so popular that the organisation of volunteer performers, musicians and other workers had to limit numbers and pay the Council for safety personnel and all the cleaning up afterwards. A shame in some ways - but it's still great fun to see, if you don't mind the huge crowds.

Now we're up to date at last, we might get back to editing our Reading in Bed: the Extras video.

So watch this space.

REALLY catching up!  

If you've come here looking for the catch-up about Ba's newly discovered Great Uncle, either scroll down to half-way through the previous post, or click here to open that piece separately. [Try clicking all the green links - where we've hunted out even more interesting stuff for you.]

Alice, by the way, has recently discovered she has a "new" distant cousin in Australia, and has been much pre-occupied with drawing up a revised Family Tree. 

It's quite pretty to look at and she's posted here a simplified one. Since she just spent ages creating this special version, please click on it. You'll have to in any case if you want to be able to read any of it. Better still, as we say every time, open this and any other images in a new window or tab. That's usually by right-clicking. I don't know what you do on a Mac - sorry.

My  family wouldn't really make a "tree". It would only consist of MOTHER (UNKNOWN) and FATHER (UNKNOWN) so wouldn't get us very far. But it doesn't bother me, honest. Who needs relatives when you've got good friends like Alice and Ba! And someone else too - but see later.

We would all love to get back to editing our Reading in Bed: the Extras video. (You can see the original, with and without voice-over, on the YouTube channel of Alice's good friend, Joy.)

However, Alice is so very obsessive that once she starts on a new project at her computer, she never stops until she's so exhausted she just has to go to bed - often way into the wee small hours. Tut, tut. So I declared we have to catch up here first, or we never will before the next exciting / interesting event takes over.

She complains that I always have too much to say, and want every single photo with myself in to be posted, so that doing the blog takes far too long and stops us getting on with the video. Oh dear. Compromise required?

Whew! We took a break here and watched a bit more of our Game of Thrones Box set (Season 5) in preparation for the appearance of the widely anticipated Season 6. We're looking forward to it no end, I can tell you. It makes me extra willing to put up with those boring bus trips (Alice has her iPod) to babysit the grandchildren, as they've got Sky!

We daren't link to any potential spoilers about the controversial fate of John-he's-dead-now-Snow, but are keeping our theories to ourselves. This link is to the official HBO trailer #2: purists don't even want to watch that . . . .

Actual catch-up starts here. 

[It turns out we've been working at doing so, on and off, ever since Friday 14th, you know.]

1. For starters, here's our windowbox progress report, which is becoming a fairly regular feature of the blog.

The irises have shrivelled now, but a miniature tulip has flowered, and there are some beautiful snowdrops - the first time snowdrop bulbs have ever come up for many years, so it was worth persisting and planting some yet again!

You can tell it's much warmer too, or was then, as we didn't need hat or scarf. Note the daffodil bud above my head, and a really fat hyacinth budding behind me. Alice saw and heard a bee buzzing over it just the other day, but it flew off before she could get her camera.

2. Answer to the bellows puzzle. If you don't remember seeing it first time round, click here.

I'm on an Edinburgh tram and the "bellows" are the big hinges between the carriages, which move when it goes round corners. [Do please click on me.]

To the right is a view looking up the inside of the tram as it went up a slope. The controversial trams are faster than the buses, as they have right of way and don't stop so often, but they're only of any use on a very limited route. There's been talk of extending it.

The picture on the left is from a Wikipedia article on Articulated Buses - bendy to you and me. There's an explanation (of sorts) by Hübner here.

3.  Alices' funeral hat was finally recovered! It had found its way to our Harvieston friend. Remember him? Here he is in full Wallace outfit. Do click on this one for the sheer glory of it. Alice took that photo when we went to see the giant smelly plant - oops, sorry, the Titum Arum - which had come out (a rare event) for just a few days in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens.

Nowadays he is heavily into fairies and their lore: there are dozens, in various poses, all around. Here we are sitting in the hat beside one such charming young creature.

Then we had to go outside and admire the snowdrops, to keep Ba happy. I have to admit, they were beautiful, and our friend kindly picked a bunch for us to take home.

We found a pretty little vase to put them in, and they were complemented by the arrangement of hyacinths (indoor bulbs which came up then fell over) and some jolly supermarket daffs.

4. This "someone else" we  mentioned at the start was added to our little family back in February. Dear BB8, whom we so very much enjoyed seeing in the latest Star Wars blockbuster. She (I'm told she's a she) came via another member of the family, as a birthday present - well, she was on our Wish List . . .

Even Ba, who doesn't go to the cinema (too noisy, too bright, too fast) nevertheless seems to have accepted her. Maybe that's because they share the communication feature of a non-human language - ?

And we have good old R2-D2 as well! Just like Ba, who was rescued from a "REDUCED" box at the Bradford Media Museum, he came cut price as well. Even worse than that, he was attached to a USB cable so he could hoover up dust on one's computer desktop.

He performed that task extremely badly, so he's recently been cut loose. Hurrah!

5. Alice is getting tired, typing rather slowly with more errors than is her wont, and complaining loudly that she needs her supper, so we'll be brief with the rest. Very brief. We'll just squeeze in a couple of cultural events.

We watched the BAFTAs, and followed up on the Oscars later, as they weren't on live Freeview in the UK.

Alice was delighted that Mad Max: Fury Road got oodles of awards, as it was one of her top favourites. But she gasped aloud when Stephen Fry made his "joke" about Jenny Beavan looking like a Bag Lady.  We thought she looked super in her biker jacket! And her costume designs were fabulous, too. But hey, it certainly got a lot of people talking about the more fundamental issues around acceptable female attire at these glitzy events.

We also went to the theatre: not a common outing for us as it's so much more expensive than the cinema, added to which Alice is often quite disappointed - she has such terribly high standards I'm afraid.

We even went three nights in a row (yes!) to see all three parts of the historical James Plays, written by the lovely and talented Rona Munro. Alice had unfortunately missed them when they were originally performed at the Edinburgh Festival, as she was "Underground" much of 2014.

Wow! They were really well done, and the staging was terrific. My favourite bit was when one of the Queens was in labour on a four-poster in the middle of the stage, while the fighting (choreographed like an exciting piece of dance) went on around her, and even on the bed! There were Scottish songs in it too, which provided a relief from all the political chicanery.

Now the oven's been "warming up" for hours without anything in it, so that's it for today!