"Even the rain"

It's our youngest grandson's fifth birthday today, and Laurie's effort at photographing the photographer (in April this year) came to mind this evening as I watched the Film Society's latest offering: it's a film about filming an historical epic in Bolivia; and one of the few female characters videos the filming.

Pirandello would have admired this layering effect, and more so the echoes between the historical exploitation (being filmed), the location's "current" (1999-2000) water wars and the exploitation of the film extras.

Not a bunch of laughs, but a very brave film, and a tribute to the difference a film can make.

Full houses at Pittville

The Pump Room was full both this morning and yesterday afternoon - all to the good for the Cheltenham Festival finances. And for the first time after a lengthy gap, we once again get free tea or coffee included in the ticket price - though seeing how much they have gone up, it's just as well.

This morning's programme opened with the Escher String Quartet playing mid-period Mendelssohn (32 minutes, but it felt longer). Piano prodigy Benjamin Grosvenor - only one day out of his teens - then gave us Gaspard de la nuit: this must be hard enough to play at the best of times, but made more so when a phone goes off: this happened four times - does anyone else harbour murderous thoughts as I do on these occasions?

After the interval, the five performers combined to give us the Brahms Piano Quintet, which will surely have sent our royal patron off to lunch in a good mood: I was wondering why police were there directing traffic before the concert.

Yesterday's event that I attended was altogether more unusual: the period instrumentalists Florilegium combined with the Arakaendar Bolivia Choir to give us a nicely varied programme of Bolivian baroque pieces. From the first entry by the choir, processing to the stage, it was clear we were in for something different - a sound we don't get from European singers, even those open-throated Bulgarians.

Not everyone was rushing back to watch Federer v. Murray: an impressive percentage of the audience stayed for the post-concert discussion: Piotr Nawrot SJ and Ashley Solomon (Florilegium's director) gave a riveting account of how it has all come together. Hearing these newly-discovered religious settings removed, at last, the nasty taste left by Swayne's Missa Tiburtina the previous morning.