The East German film and a robbery.

Last night we go to a screening of an East German movie shot in Bulgaria in 1953. The man at the box office tells us it's a Stalinist-era classic. " It stars Konrad Wolf " said in a tone of voice that implies we should know who he is. Afterwards a professor from the University of Leipzig  gives a brief over view of the finer points of the script. This is what you might call 'intense' and extremely detailed. The sell out audience of nineteen year olds and German faculty sat spell bound. Tonight we are going to a screening of 'Meet the Buchanans ' which may be less worthy but will hopefully be lighter. We're hoping it's one of those fly on the wall critiques of pretentiousness :https://www.screen.scot/film-in-scotland/made-in-scotland/film/meet-the-buchanans . We've taken the decision that at least twice a week ( weather permitting )  we will go to one of the events that take place in the quieter fringes of this small university town. If you're going to retire to a place you might as well make use of what's on offer.

After a week of constant rain the fields on the way out to the heron pond are decidedly water logged.

Pot plants on sale outside the delicatessen. Students are big buyers of pot plants. Most of the plants won't make it to the end of the semester.

Students on the beach this morning. They are standing in a circle laughing. They're there when we arrive and in the same place when we leave. 

Angus goes for a haircut. The usual Turkish gentleman who communicates with me monosyllabically isn't there. Another, younger gentleman has taken his place. The standard instruction ' Not too short ' is given - and ignored.  Since I was last there they've installed small television screens in front of each chair. These play 'Scenes of Turkey ' on loop. I enjoy a trip down the Bosphorous on a ferry before the camera shifts suddenly and biliously to wide angle drone shots of the beach at Bodrum.

There has been a robbery. The golf club maker on the road between the cashmere shop and the good restaurant has been burgled. The local paper tells us the perpetrators were a 'professional gang who fled the scene in a black Range Rover' :https://scottishgolfnoticeboard.com/Home/NewsDetails?newsid=1041  The older villagers view this as another sign that the world is descending into chaos. Angus wonders how many golf clubs can be stolen and loaded into the back of a Range Rover in the space of five minutes. Four or five sets at most ? This sounds less like the work of a Medellin drug cartel setting up their base here and more like some opportunistic thievery by some lads from Dundee with plans to 'shift them' from the car park of their local bar.

Some trumpet music :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEQ7Q0YyQqE&list=RDjEQ7Q0YyQqE&start_radio=1

'The' place for lobster rolls  in Milan. Somewhat bizarrely Milan is big on lobster rolls :https://louisvuitton.ristorantedav.com/en/homepage/

Penguins:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rockhopper-penguins-athleticism-makes-them-daredevils-animal-world-will-warming-climate-slow-them-down-180987846/

This seems sensible :https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/no-china-doesnt-plan-1000-years-ahead