Edinburgh and Hull 2017

Again, no more than a listing of shows seen.

Nathan Coley The Lamp of Sacrifice, 286 Places of Worship, Edinburgh 2004

Edinburgh

Tuesday 22 August: to Waverley by train via St Pancras (£31.70). Spotted Flying Scotsman outside the NRM York. Pint in Cloisters bar and night in, watching me watching the Middleton Pace-Eggers on a TV programme about Utopias.

Gerald Leslie Brockhurst By the hills 1939

Wednesday 23 August: to the BBC area to queue for The Now Show (Punt and Dennis) tickets, no luck. Gallery (mini)Bus to Museum of Modern Art Two for True to Life: British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s. Superb exhibition if you like this period of deeply unfashionable art, which I do! Across to One for small exhibition of Ed Ruscha and cardboard churches by Nathan Coley. To Fruitmarket for Jac Leirner Add it up, a sort of Martin Creed thing using everyday objects arranged to make art. To the Standing Order for a Wetherspoon's pint, and to Sandy Bell's, to catch up with Peter Chrisp. Then into the stand-by queue at the BBC for Punt and Dennis radio show and I got in! Doug Anthony All-Stars were one of the guest acts.

Thursday 24 August: £4 day bus ticket to Summerhall to see the art. Not impressed. To Talbot Rice, ditto. Bus back to Tollcross and a coffee and custard tart at Colony. To King's Theatre for Jarvis Cocker's Room 29, a musical about Hollywood, with Chilly Gonzales and the Kaiser String Quartet.

Salvation Army Knitted Bible Story, from Warrington

Friday 25 August: Bus to Nicholson Square, popped into the Knitted Bible Story at the Salvation Army and Sue Perkins Live! in Spectacles at Pleasance Grand, then after a beer in the courtyard, Nick Helm's very sweary Masterworks in progress '17. To George Square for a cullan skink pie and mash and a walk back to the flat.

Avro Vulcan B.2A XM597

Saturday 26 August: day off! Bus to St Andrew's Square to meet Mad, then train to Drem and bus for the National Museum of Flight. There I was reunited with Concorde G-BOAA and a Vulcan amongst other treasures, including a Lego event. Bus to North Berwick, train, and a Korean meal at Ong Gie back at Tollcross.

Dragon of Profit and Private Ownership

Sunday 27 August: Bus to National Library for film about Staffa and Shackleton exhibition, thence to City Art Gallery for Edinburgh Alphabet, a miscellany of stuff from the archives. Visited the green Dragon of Profit and Private Ownership at Trinity Apse, and Al Murray's The pub landlord's saloon at the Speiegeltent Palais du Variete. Don't sit at the front! His guests were... The Doug Anthony All-Stars doing the same song as at the BBC! Pizza at the Wildman then to the Festival Theatre Studio for Martin Creed himself with Words and music singing twee Ivor Cutler style songs to an electric guitar. Taxi home.

Oops! Black Burns by Douglas Gordon

Monday 28 August: Bus to Book Festival, and then to the Stand for Simon Munnery's Renegade Plumber. He never disappoints. To the Portrait Gallery for coffee and tram to West End and bus to the Pleasance for NewsRevue 2017 at Beyond. As you'd expect: songs and dances about current affairs competently done. Watched the end of festival fireworks from Sam's kitchen window!

Hull telephone box

Hull

It's never dull in Hull. It has its own railway and its own telephone boxes.

Tuesday 29 August: Train to Hull (£20.45). Walk to Haymarket, pint of Peanut Butter Stout at York Tap. Met at Hull Paragon station by Rick for a night in with trout.

Philip Larkin's trousers, and vest

Wednesday 30 August: to University to see Philip Larkin exhibition New eyes each year at Brynmor Jones library: his books, his trousers, his cameras, his knick knacks. I was delighted to find next door a wonderful art gallery of mainly early 20th century art, and lots of self portraits. Hearty soup at Zoo, then later to Ambiente in the Fruitmarket for tapas and to the Freedom Festival Tent for Counting Sheep Revolution: a guerrilla folk opera, a Ukrainian immersive experience with lots of songs. Thankfully I wasn't dragged into the country dancing.

Hearty soup from Zoo

Thursday 31 August: Park by Premier Inn for walk round the Fruitmarket and Humber Street Gallery. Check in at Royal Hotel for the night. Walk up to Ferens Art Gallery (Mr Ferens didn't like the Pre-Raphaelites, too modern! Missed the Skin exhibition. Then across the square to the Maritime Museum and a pint of Old Moor's Porter at the Wetherspoon's The Admiral of the Humber. Picked up from hotel and to the George Street Car Park for Ragroof Theatre's Bridges y Puentes, another immersive, this time about immigration and written by Dorothy Max. Got a passport! Then rush to festival tent transformed for a Freedom Festival Gala evening with entertainment by Slightly Fat Features, a troupe of comedy jugglers, champagne, wine and a veggie lunch box.

Ferens Art Gallery

Friday 1 September: RMT Northern Rail on strike so early Hull Trains to Doncaster, but no further. Had to wait hour and a quarter for my Virgin train, but rest of journey uneventful. (Hull to London King's Cross £9.90; St Pancras to Brighton £11.55)

More photos on Flickr