Dying for the spotlight

One of the sites spotted out and about at the Edinburgh Festival today - this young lady was advertising a play about "Ophelia".  She makes great subject matter for a blip.

We've been to see the Edinburgh Photographic Society's 157th International Competition Exhibition this morning.  The range of work was fascinating from a technical and artistic perspective.  What was very interesting was just how much editing was allowed for the images on show.  Some were very obviously the products of many hours extensive work in photoshop and had were not even obviously photos as such, whilst others were very obviously taken at a particular point in time and captured that precise moment.

If you are in this part of the world and interested in photography it is really worth a visit.

After lunch we went to see and listen to the wonderful Eddie Izzard reading an abridged version of Great Expectations.  Eddie and Charles Dickens share a birthday some 150 years apart.  It appears that this performance is part of the work in progress for the full unabridged version being prepared for eventual release at some stage.  There was a warning in advance that this would be a "straight" performance, it was not intended to be comedic, so there would be no gags. An invitation was issued for anyone who wished to leave to go now, before the performance proper started.  No one did.  The performance over the next 90 minutes was captivating and had the audience enthralled.   I am not sure what gender label Eddie operates under now, or on the extent to which it matters or is needed.  But as an aside, it is interesting how hard it is to write this paragraph and to retain gender neutrality.