Brief encounter

It was with great excitement that the RTO welcomed the appointment of a new Culture Minister in Scotland. Mike Russell has moved from patrolling the glens as Wildlife Crime Minister to attending the rarefied salons of the beau monde, and is the tenth politician to hold the much coveted arts brief. This suggests that the culture portfolio is not quite the cushy number it sounds, but Mike is more than up to the task.
On assuming control he made a speech to the nation’s arts lovers, immediately finding favour with his in-depth knowledge of their first names and his joined up approach to words.
And he certainly went down well with members of the RTO when he said: ‘Creativity is not the preserve of the gifted few.’ In fact, he could have gone further. In Scotland today it probably helps the career trajectory of the artiste if he or she is without gifts altogether. A new national awards scheme has generously given several thousands of pounds to a mixed bag of cultural endeavours which appear to positively embrace the giftless.
If only the RTO had known in advance of the ‘Inspire’ programme it could have competed alongside the Shetland Islanders who have been handed £165,000 to combine a light show with the traditional art of lace knitting, or the Highlanders who have received £475,000 to produce a submerged dance spectacular with performers in Wellington boots
This all sits very well with the RTO, obviously, which is by definition terrible, and the Chairman is confident he could have put forward a suitably amusing proposal (RTO violas, say, playing Telemann’s Concerto for Viola) to whet the appetites of the Inspire funding committee had he been forewarned of its creative interpretation of creativity.
On the subject of committees, the return to Edinburgh of Zandra Macpherson, who has been wintering in New Zealand, was celebrated by the New York Organising Select Committee. The meeting scheduled for last week at Pippa’s (who has stood in so admirably for Zandra) will now be held this week at Zandra’s, which gives everyone that bit longer to recover.
On the agenda will be the pros and cons of staging an outside broadcast in Times Square in the event that the Town Hall is sold out. Since 800 tickets (give or take 300, depending on who is counting) have been sold, leaving 700 still to shift, the Times Square scenario is a hypothetical one for now, but we shall keep you posted. Watch this space!

* Following a summit in Washington DC between Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond and the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the RTO can confirm that the latter will (possibly) be present as one of our VIP guests on April 1st. In what must have been a very busy chat, Mr Salmond nevertheless found a moment to bring up the RTO’s imminent tour and its effect on Stateside music groups. ‘The Secretary of State was clearly impressed by the idea of a small country making a large contribution to a global issue,’ he said.