It was such a glorious day in Embra that I abandoned the habit of a lifetime to cross Princes Street to view at close quarters the mendicant piper. I usually keep at least two lanes of noisy traffic between me and his caterwauling but today, buoyed up by the warm November sunshine and the sight (if not the sound) of the lone piper playing his paunch out,ignored by all and sundry. Even the 4 out of season Japanese tourists and the two Chinese ones with their best selling guide book 'Scotland on Ten Muckles a Day' were like Bad Samaritan, content to pass by on the other side. As I approached he seemed to break in to one of my old favourites: 'The Barren Rocks of Aden' (the approximate version)-that touched a chord (not musically speaking) and, moved by fond memories of lands afar and battles long ago, I fumbled for a coin and flicked it into his gapingly empty violin case (there appears to be nothing similar for the pipes, they are of course a bag in themselves) Only in mid air I realised this was a £2 coin and not the 10p I thought I had selected-still playing and with the sparkling coin still in mid air he had bent down and whisked it into his sporran before I could say ' Oh s**t' No change given, I presume. And as I moved away, poorer, if not wiser, the refrain changed;

'Will ye no come back again?'

Fat chance.  ¶ 4:31 PM