John Gibson: Here's a touch of the Yankee Doodles!

Published on Friday 3 July 2009 09:18

I'M not a Yankee Doodle Dandy. Not born on the 4th of July. But I can't recall when I last missed an American Independence Day celebration in Edinburgh and this has been no exception.

The 4th falls tomorrow but the US Consul, Lisa Vickers, brought her party forward to Wednesday night in the Caley Hotel's Pompadour Room where Lord Provost George Grubb in his introductory remarks said: "We've been very lucky with American consuls."

In recent years they have been women and our luck certainly hasn't run out with Lisa. "Now is a very, very good time to be an American diplomat," she believed, reminding us that "25 million Americans claim Scottish ancestry and I'm one of them."

After three years in a city she has made her own in many ways, Lisa is leaving early August, returning to the States for a year in Boston, but she'll be staying within the corps. Her replacement here? Another woman.

Faces in the crowd on Wednesday (Caley GM Willy Blattner had the Pomp spicked and spanned for the occasion) included Robin Harper, one of the MSPs who'd not insulted the Queen at Holyrood hours earlier . . . former Lady Provost Anne Irons, in a fifties-style summer prom dress she'd recycled from her wardrobe and telling me she's been married to Norman 43 years. "That's probably four life sentences," she quipped.

I was wearing a Fifties-style suit that's suffering chronic depression from excessive dry cleaning. Journos are no exceptions in this age of financial restraint. It's tough out there on the streets.

Switched off

Odd, you might think, that after an exceptionally long time as this paper's film critic, I saw nothing at all of this year's Film Festival. Of my own volition, I should add.

Apparently I missed nothing. From the reviews, turkeys trotted through the programme at will. While I'm of Je ne regret mind, I'm not sobbing into my Jaegerbombs either at missing out on Steely Dan. Seems they "forgot" to treat an expectant Playhouse audience to their biggest hits. Wish I'd been there, though.

Afterwords . .

. . . Norman Mailer's slant on divorce: "Alimony is the curse of the writing class."