What a pleasure to spend four hours yesterday at Summerhall with Richard Demarco guiding us round his collection. I took my copy of his The Road To Meikle Seggie published in 1978 for him to sign. We have known each other, we reckon, for over 40 years. Richard will be at Wigtown on Oct 1st talking about the series of paintings he has just exhibited in Moscow, organised at our conference in Moffat last September: An Imaginary Journey of Lermontov Through Scotland.

Another date for your diaries: the launch at EIBF on August 15th at 18.30 of the Scottish poets' tribute to Lermontov  published by Carcanet Press, After Lermontov - devised by Ekaterina Genieva and myself to mark the 200th anniversary since Lermontov's death at the age of 27. He was descended from a Borders family, the Learmonths, and by extension related to Thomas the Rhymer, of Ercildoune. In troubled times like the present, these links are worth celebrating.