Famous Scots' portraits

It was an early start for the train up to Edinburgh for my annual visit to the book festival. The line from Alnmouth north must be one of the most scenic coastal routes in the UK. My senior rail card and advance booking meant the 1hour journey cost £3.95 - however it cost £12 to put my little case in the left luggage.

I met Jenny and we went for a coffee in the George then headed to our first event by human rights lawyer Dexter Dias, who had us gripped by his talk on types of human personality - ranging from FGM, and why the mother's allow it, then the different ways two people dealt with locked in syndrome, to his defence of the Manchester bomber - how not just Islamic terrorists, but also Charlottesville white supremacists, behave as they do.

After a browse in the bookshop - his book was far to heavy to buy and carry around all day - we met Jenny's sister and had lunch in a very nice but expensive, restaurant on Queen Street. From there we walked along to the Portrait Gallery - several interesting exhibitions were on. I have made a collage of some well-known Scots - perhaps you know a few? Such different styles of painting and photography.

Then back to Charlotte Square for a very lively discussion on why Reni Eddo-Lodge won't talk to white people about race, with Juno Dawson on Trans and CIS and identity politics. There were far more young people in this audience. Juno does a lot of work in schools - she said if she asks a class to put up their hands if they thought of themselves feminists only about 5% did. She then asked them to put up their hands if they believed in stuff like equal pay, and they nearly all did. I don't know what they thought feminism was.

It was 9 before we arrived in Kinghorn at Jenny's house. A long but very stimulating day, with more tomorrow.