Bill Paterson

Yesterday afternoon, I watched a couple of Doctor Who episodes that I had videotaped the previous night. They were all from the 1970s. I saw episode four of "The Invisible Enemy", in which the Doctor (Tom Baker) had to fight against an intelligent virus, and the first three episodes of "The Image of the Fendahl" in which a sinister cult tries to resurrect an ancient evil living within a prehistoric skull. They were both pretty fun stories, especially "The Image of the Fendahl" (which bore a more than passing resemblance to the Quatermass serials).

In the evening I went along to a rock bar called the Black Rose Tavern for Jen's birthday party. It was really nice. I got home at around midnight.

I was up quite early this morning because my mum was coming along to collect me, so we could do some grocery shopping. When I got back to my parent's house I had some sushi for lunch (I really like sushi). In the afternoon we went to the Modern Art Gallery to see a Tracey Emin exhibition. It was really interesting, although the subject matter was almost entirely autobiographical.

We went back to my parent's house for a coffee and then headed out to the Edinburgh Book Festival. We were there to see the actor Bill Paterson talk. He had done a series of radio talks about his experiences growing up in Glasgow and had published them as a book. The talk consisted of him reading extracts from the book and answering questions from the audience. He was very good and very amusing. However it was all held inside a tent and the rain outside got so heavy at times that the noise of the rain on the roof completely drowned out what people were saying. Bill Paterson is one of those actors who, even if you don't recognise the name, you would probably recognise by sight. He's done a lot of often small, but distinctive parts, in many films and TV shows.One fun thing, the Book Festival being as it is, we saw, in the course of randomly walking around, authors such as Tony Parsons, Iain Banks and Louis de Bernieres.