In memory of Alexandra

She was standing in the rain, and crying. I did not expect it. Such a strong, commanding woman, full of witty insightful ironic comments, with her hand gestures and an expressive face. From the first minute you spoke to her it was clear she would take no bullshit from anyone, she lived a life of her own choosing. Small and slim, with a very white skin and very dark hair and a heart-shaped face, in her long unusual jacket, a small black hat, moving through the streets with purpose and determination. And now she was standing here, in the rain, with me, and the tears were just escaping out of their own accord.

Her child had died. A healthy child, born to a healthy mother, died because she was refused a caeserien. She is a pettite woman, and her child was well over four kilogrames, and she was two weeks overdue, and she had been in labour for fourty hours. Still, they refused to give her the caeserian, and the child was killed by an unskilled doctor, with forceps.

And this happened here, in Edinburgh, in the best maternity ward, in the 21st century, to a healthy mother and a healthy child. Forceps are considered dangerous and antiquated in most countries, but are still widely used in the UK. Small women are adviced to have a caesarian in other countries, but in the UK the NHS is trying to keep down the costs - a caesarian is twice as expensive as a forceps birth - and the dangerous instrument is used instead. And a healthy child is injured, and dies.

'You never get over it. You try to understand it, but you never get over it. It's a piece of you, a child you carry in you for nine months, you develop a relationship, and it dies. To have a healthy child murdered, and we don't even know if there is going to be an investigation. In this country you put on a white coat and you can kill without prosecution.'

She is so hurt, there is nothing in her face, in her body, but the pain. Although she keeps apologising, I am glad she is talking to me.

'This country is so good at being this' - she gestures to the beautiful buildings around us as we stand on a street in central Edinburgh. 'A facade. At pretending to care - about human rights, about social justice, about health of the citizens - and than it does nothing. It's the pits. In any central European country, this would not have happened. In Hungary, I know the medical system is corrupt, but if you pay, you are going to get service. No-one will risk killing a healthy baby, because no more patients will come to them. Here they are not accountable. It's an accident.'

In the end she has no more to say, and again we hug, and I hope for her future. I watch her run accross the street, dark and small, and when she's gone behind the corner I start to cry.

I wouldn't have normally written about this, but Beatrix wants as many people to know as she can. She wants to create a media storm so that an enquiry is held into her child's killing. She has just interviewed for the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1253013/Forceps-killed-baby-doctors-using-them.html Please read.

Galleries for a snowy day

When it hit, I was ready. Wooly cardigan - check. Red scarf - check. Red beret - check. Umbrella - check. Gloves - half check (only have one). And step outside, into the snow. Ah, yes, it is not over yet. The various monuments along Princes Street did not look as impressive as usual with the wet snow heaped on their heads.

On the way to work...

The blizzards raged throughout the day, but by the time I was free of the keyboard and screen again all had turned into mush. People were hurrying in the rain, hiding their faces in upturned collars and generally struggling to ignore the outdoors which was violently upsetting their plan by turning umbrellas inside out and negotiating its chilly fingers through the sleeves and into the cosy inside of their jackets. As I was walking down Hanover Street I could not help myself and stepped into the cozy vegetably artsy interior of Henderson's Shop and Bistro.

Henderson's interior.

It is a lovely shop, with lovely food, and lots and lots of tasty healthy and indulgent treats. As I was browsing exciting exotic chocolates I had a chat with, hm, well this is a family business, and she is the aunt, so perhaps in some way is a co-owner? Either way, she told me that the business has actually been going on since the seventies. I know Edinburgh is a wealthy city, but I still found it very impressive. The shop has a restaurant downstairs which I intend to explore once rainy weekend.

Stocked up on salad and Chili Chocolate I headed back out and continued down Hanover street, shedding flakes of a delicious spanakopita I got to keep me going until dinner time. I was heading for the Scottish Gallery on Dundas Street. The area seems to be popular with art dealers, and I made some mental notes for when I am rich and famous.

On Dundas Street.

The gallery itself turned out to be a commercial venture as well. In it's small, quiet interior people were working busily on their computers, surrounded by works of modern art. Some pictures had red stickers on the name tags to indicate they have been sold. I got a glance or two.

Inside the Scottish Gallery.

I was the only visitor, and hesitated for a second, but then decided not to give in to the paranoia. I hung up my coat and scarf (at last reasonable people who provide a jacket hanger at the door), put down my umbrella, and inquired politely if it was ok to take photographs. We exchanged lukewarm smiles, I have been acknowledged. I could commence my vieving.

Winter fields.

I know someone who would like this one - it's called 'Remembering the Grand Canal'. She got the colour of the water spot on.

Most of the upper floor was dedicated to the work of Alexandra Knubley. I have never seen a technique like hers before, a combination of oil paints and beeswax which allows her to draw dramatic lines through the very fabric of the painting. Some of the paitings were much to harsh for me, painting architecture with this technique makes it too unintelligible for me. What it is wonderful at, though, I thought, was depicting forests. I am aware that I am biased. Yes, there is no view as beautiful in my eyes as a sunlit forest floor. These particular paitings made me gaze and smile, and feel relaxed, and at home. And they were genuinely beautiful.

My favourite two.

The lower floor hosted a variety of art objects, from beautiful to adorable to just really bizzare. I loved the Japanese vase, and was not surprised to see the 'do not touch' sign near it, it was utterly strokeable, and hypnotising in the precision with which it was made, hard to believe it was sculpted with human hands.

A Japanese vase at the Scottish Gallery.

There was a fair bit of jewellery as well, and I was quite touched with these fragile, laborious and very disposable paper creations.

Paper jewellery.

And there was a lot of purely bizzare stuff as well, such as the 'The shooting of Jeasus', or a distrubing pile of pottery called 'How we live in the suburbs'. You don't want to know what they cost.

The shooting of Jesus (I'm not kidding).

How we live in the suburbs. Apparently.

A golden finger sticking out of the wall, a porcelain fig leaf with earrings, head-shaped mugs, you know, the usual array of decontextualised weirdness. There were also quite a few objects resembling pieces of ultra-new or degrading machinery and materials. If I had a catalogue, it would probably be saying something like 'The artist was inspired by the lethal clenliness of industrially produced stainless steel elements to anesthetic machines' or 'The artist seeked to recreate the sense of loss we feel when faced with material decay'. And I understand those ispirations, I really do, I have often spent minutes staring into a pattern of rust, or even worn stainless steel pieces as jewellery. What I can't understand is why go to such lengths and such expense to try and re-create something which is already given to us by the endless creativity of the world, why not just re-contextualise it, rather than seeking to reproduce it in those half-baked creationgs which try to make dried kethup look like rust, and demand three thousand pounds for a ring of blue metal. Yes, I am such a conservatist, but it seems like a waste of time.

On a lighter note, a photo of an original comic strip, also for sale at the Scottish Gallery. Ah, we've all been there, and remember it with disgust.

Reading This Blog is a Health and Safety Risk

At the bottom of the road on which I live in Sheffield there is a school. It is housed in a steep-roofed Victorian house, and has a few trees in the yard, and a painting of a tubby mermaird on the wall. Generations of local inhabitants have passed through its door, and it is something of an established institution. Skinnytoes went to school there, as did his dad. Who once was telling me about the walking trips he used to take with his class at primary school. Up to thirty ten year old kids, plus one male teacher, would head out on full-day trips into the Peak District. And not to walk along the river in an orderly line, or to skip around in a well-fenced field - they would climb up Jacob's Lader and head accross the peaty labirynth that is the moor to the Kinder Downfall, eat their snap, and head back to town well after dark. He remembers those trips fondly.

Currently our neighbour sends her son to the same school. There has been quite a bit of snowfall recently, but the school yard remained strangely quiet - no snowball fights, no snowmen, no snow angels. The kids were kept inside, in case they slipped, strained their ankle, and their parents sued the school for child neglect.

What is wrong with this picture?

The outsourcing of responsibility. Overprotectiveness. Vicious litigation. They have become characteristic of the British society. On the underground, on the train, in cafes, you're forever bombarded with information about potential 'hazards'. 'Please take extra care while at the station as surfaces are wet and may be slippery' - I can just hear the voice repeating this message every thirty seconds at the train station, and it makes me unwell. Recently I have read a science fiction book in which the society reaches such a level of personal liability paranoia that law firms cover entire cities with CCTV cameras which constantly monitor the citizens. As a result every human interaction is bound by a strict etiquette, there is no spontaneity, and no sincerity, unless apropriate contracts are signed. No one ever gets their feelings hurt, no one is at any danger, at any time.

The Health and Safety pandemic is just one more sign of a fear-fuelled - and fear-fed - society. Consider the two web-pages I came across today. Kudos if you can spot which one is the spoof.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Dealingwithemergencies/Preparingforemergencies/index.htm

I especially recommend the booklet:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_176618.pdf

'If you find yourself in the middle of an emergency, your common sense and instincts will usually tell you what to do.' But in case they don't, we give you this booklet. Priceless.

For a more sensible take on the subject, see

http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk/index.htm

They also have a booklet. It's much better.

http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk/booklet/general.htm

And remember, if you're house has just been hit by a nuclear weapon, your children are being eaten by aliens and your curtains don't match your carpet, STAY CALM AND CARRY ON. And read the booklet.

Spying on Edinburgers

Or is it Edinburghers? Or Edinburgians?
After the rather provincial feel of Sheffield it's nice to walk the streets and find interesting people to spy on again. Fashionistas, part-time Burlesque queens, suited-and-booted office cat-walkers, elegant older ladies, happy-go-lucky but ever so fashion-conscious students, all of them parade themselves in front of my lense on Friday afternoon. I often wish I had a pair of those spy glasses, where you just go 'click' in your pocket and get a shot of what - or who - you're looking at. You can actually buy them quite easily now, but the resolution is pitiful, making them useless for anything other than actual spying. I am left with following people around and making a fool out of myself. My theory with photographing people is: no-one ever thinks they're important enough to be photographed, so just go for it. Nine out of ten times they will look back to see what monument or architectural quirk you were pointing at. One out of ten times you have to run fast, but hey, what is life without a bit of risk.

Walking an owner at the Grass Market.

A princes at Princes Str Gardens.

A gentleman with the North Bridge.

Catching up in front of the Scottish National Gallery.

Rush-hour bus queue at Princes Street.

The fairy-tale city.

Possibly a mass case of spinach-stuck-in-teeth syndrome.

Against planning ahead

Spur of the moment decisions are sometimes the right ones. On Thursday afternoon I found that a schedule misunderstanding with a friend of mine left me to look forward to a weekend on my own in Edinburgh. I swirled around in my chair to examine the map of Scotland which hangs behind my desk – so many places to go to, all of them so difficult to reach... For reasons known best to the rail companies, the distance which can be covered in three hours when going South of Edinburgh takes two and a half times as long when going North. And, the weather forecast was unpromising. I could spend a gloomy weekend in Edinburgh, watching comedies and eating ice cream. Or, I could bite the financial bullet and head home, to Sheffield, for the weekend. Which I did.

Walking in the Peak District was fantastic. We took the car and drove to Monsal Head, where a river winds and snakes through a long, steep-sided valley. The river was as full as I have ever seen it, and the weirs were real raging waterfalls.

The snow was melting on the southern slopes, while the northern ones were white; from the hills themselves to little mounds of earth the pattern repeated itself, so that a field of molehills looked like a miniature copy of the landscape which surrounded it. The melting snow created networks of tiny streams, clear as crystal and glittering in the sun. Our walk was full of tiny vignettes of spring.

From Monsal Head we followed the river until we came to the A6 road, at which point we turned away from the river and started to climb. In a few minutes we were at the top of the slope, and negotiating our way through a very muddy path which lead through a farm. Hairy cattle observed our attempts at staying vertical and relatively mud-free with interest.

Easily amused cattle.

We soon rejoined the river further upstream on the other side of the hill, and walked up towards the Crossbrook Mill. There were people climbing the white walls of the canyon there, and the usual medley of water fowl. The Mill has a new hole-in-the-wall cafe which warranted investigation. We sat for a good long while sipping strong tea from real (not plastic) cups and basking in the early spring sun, giving it the chance to bring out our freckles. This was the first time this year I've felt the sun give off any heat, and it was a welcome change.

Winter has not given up yet though, it would seem – today we woke up to a world covered in ten centimetres of fresh snowfall. Hushed and white in the morning, by the time I had to walk to the station the city was receding back into grey, streets and pavements full of cold, wet slush. The time for snow is past!

Food Inc at the Filmhouse

Once again I was rushing through the evening streets, very nearly late for a show. I was heading to the Filmhouse Cinema for a screening of ‘Food Inc.’, a 2008 documentary. Again, I did not really read up about it beforehand, and was just looking forward to something interesting to fill my evening.

As I rush past, people are watching curling at the winter Olympics, and I overhear : 'Bloody Switzerland is kicking our ass!'

It was five to when I got in, just enough time to go to the Filmhouse café and grab a pint of Polish beer – turns out you can take alcohol into the cinema. That may be just because the Filmhouse is such a small and hippy venue, or perhaps this is a Scotland-wide habit? I may want to investigate.

The busy interior of the Filhouse cafe.

It was a full house, and I had a chance to scrutinise my fellow cinema-goers as we queued up waiting to be let in. Multiple earrings, floppy hairdos, hand-made mittens, tweed and comfy shoes, glasses and capacious shoulder bags; yes, I was decidedly amongst my own kind. They looked like a good, interesting crowd, and this impression proved to be important later on, as it was the post-film discussion which was the most satisfying part of the evening.

The film was fine, it adhered to the usual post-Moore sensational, alarmist, simplistic style, with personal stories of battles against corporations taking the centre stage. There was very little information which was new to me, but then again I’m ‘in food’, and I believe that in general the European public is much better informed then the American one. Still, there were some interesting pieces of information I was not aware of – like the fact that most beef in the US (and I suspect in other places too) is corn, not grass-fed. What that means, in a nutshell, is that the cows are fed petroleum, and that the whole system depends on carbon fuels. The cow’s health suffers too, as it’s digestive system is not designed to deal with starch-heavy food; it has to be provided antibiotics as a result. Finally, corn-fed cows develop massive amounts of e-coli in their gut, and this, combined with industrial-scale slaughter and meat-packing, practically guarantees that at some point, some of the consumers get sick with e-coli and die. One meat processor devised a solution to this problem – he disinfects the meat with ammonia. The end product, after the meat has passed through kilometres of tubes, been treated with gasses, squashed, formed and re-formed again, is a slab of pale meat-derived protein used as ‘hamburger filler’. Talk about the medicine being worse then the illness! (And I’m sure fast-food companies can get away with it as, technically, it still is ‘beef’ – only processed beyond recognition).

Corn-feeding of animals, and the massive availability of corn-derived sugars, makes for foods that are cheap at the counter, but like any good capitalist product drag in their wake a mass of hidden costs (called, in economics externalities – I think of them as the ‘not my problem’ costs). In the case of food, these include: pollution from corn farming, food processing and from cow-produced methane (yes, grass fed cattle fart much less!), soil and environment degradation from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (doesn’t the name just send shivers down your spine?), and finally health costs to the consumer, and thus the entire economy.

I do wonder if someone has calculated how much the economy would improve if we were not at risk from food-linked cancer and diabetes. I wish they would, and I wish the governments then took it seriously. Naïve as I am, I keep believing that – yes – another world is possible. For the final message of the film was just this – it is up to us to chose what we eat. Supermarkets and food-producing companies depend on us for their profit, so we have to shop carefully and vote with the trolley. I initially shrug my shoulders at this, knowing this message to be much too simplistic. Giving the responsibility to the individuals, not to the governing bodies, is only part of the solution; consumers need governing bodies to provide information and safeguard their health and interests, not everyone can afford to shop with the trolley, etc etc, well-rehearsed arguments. In the end, however, I had to admit that, simplistic as this may be, this is the heart of the matter. It’s up to us to make sure that what ends up on our plate is the thing we want to eat.

Speaking of the devil.

The Rambert Dance Company

It wasn’t easy to get going again after I have settled into my couch after dinner; but I had to get up, have a quick shower and head out again: I had a date with culture. The streets of New Town were quiet as usual, and I popped into Café Centro for a quick pick-me-up espresso macchiato. While the café owner is indeed Italian, the staff is mainly Polish, so I can have amusing tri-lingual conversations with Rai Uno in the background; and they’re not a chain store, which is a Good Thing. However, this cultural medley means that drinking espresso at the counter is a no-no: to go or table only. It’s nice to be waited on, but it does make you settle. When I got back to Princes Street and cast a quick look at the clock atop the Balmoral, it was quarter past seven. Fifteen minutes to go until the beginning of the performance, and I did not even know where the theatre was!

The centre of Edinburgh is, fortunately, really quite small, and some minutes of power-walking later I was in front of the glass façade of the Fringe Theatre. The body of the building is not very inspiring, it could be a multi-screen cinema or a shopping mall. The inside, however, is renovated, but old fashioned. Stainless steel and glass don’t make it beyond the doors of the auditorium. In fact, the inside took me by surprise – it was so much like the local theatre in my little town back in Poland, for a second I felt I as if had travelled back in time. Gold-painted plaster decorations, art-nouveau inspired lamps, the red, plush curtain, and the general feeling of dusty grandeur. The carpets were balding in the centre, and between the seats the wood of the floorboards was showing from below the peeling paint, perhaps a sign of many enthusiastic applauses when you feel your hands are not enough and you have to stamp your feet too. It felt small and homely, while I was prepared for the immense scale of Saddler’s Wells theatre were I used to go to watch dance shows in London. The scale of the place had one important plus – I was much closer to the scene then would have ever been possible for just 20 pounds in London, and if t weren’t for the rather tall lady in front of me, my mid-row seat would have been perfect.

Inside the Festival Theatre.

I came to watch a performance by Rambert Dance Company; I had done very little research before buying the tickets, so I was not quite sure what to expect. I knew the school was famous, and I was looking forward to finding out exactly why.



The lights dimmed, the curtain rose, and a nigh-time scene was revealed, with a group of six dancers, a family, walking under a starry sky. It begun. The group broke up into individuals, couples, then became a group again, only to break up, and kept moving like this, in continuation, like a flock of birds, or a wave. The theatre interior, and everything else, slipped from my mind as I struggled to keep up, on the one hand trying to appreciate the choreography of the whole group, on the other constantly drawn to wonderful detail of each dancer’s performance. There were two daughters, two sons, a mother and a father, and in the hypnotising plaiting and unplaiting of the group the individual relationships were played out – the three women caressing one another’s faces in passing, the father picking up the youngest daughter like a baby, the parents strong embrace and quick parting. They were settling down to sleep, and the rest of the night was to be spent on individual performances. Each character told their story, and others would wake up and join in, and then take over, until, at dawn, the whole family was in dance together again.



The complexity was amazing, and the movement… The father picks up the daughter, and makes her seem light as a feather as she floats down again easily, over his arm and down his back, escaping. The father and mother dance a dance of worry and wanting, and their feet barely touch the ground. Each movement is precise, muscles tense, making them seem like moving statues, as if it were a slide show, each slide a perfectly staged photograph. When the curtain drops I buy the programme, and find out this piece is called Hush.

The dancers take a bow after having performed 'Hush'.

Seeing and being seen at break time.

After a break we settle back again, and it’s time for the main piece of the evening, The Comedy of Change. It is a celebration of the Darwinian theory of evolution, I read, and the movements are inspired by the dance of birds. The scene is black and empty, apart from pupa-like pods scattered around the floor. Slowly and painfully, like insects, the dancers emerge from their shells. They are all dressed in skin-tight lycra suits, black at the back, white at the front, like fish. The music is difficult, abstract, with rhythms hidden below layers of random notes and high-pitched sounds. To this, the dancers begin to display. They flash their white bellies and dance briefly in the spotlight, and then turn around and blend into the darkness again. It is well performed, and I can see what they’re doing, but it is very alien and abstract and I find it difficult to feel with the dancers as I did in the previous part. It is, indeed, like watching a display; and then there is a moment which makes it all come together, when a few of the dancers pair up to mate. Slow, gravity-defying entangling makes them seem like sea creatures. Grabbing one another tight, tumbling slowly, they blend into the dark and disappear from view.

The costumes make it possible to really focus on the bodies of the dancers, and I see how incredibly athletic they are. Each muscle is well-defined, each tendon visible. The dancers come in all shapes and sizes, and ages. They are very dissimilar, it is nothing like watching a ballet, where each performer seems an exact copy of the other – here there is a great diversity. A tiny South-American girl next to a thin blond woman, next to a stocky young man with a shock of red curls, next to a statuesque black man. There is one thing they all have in common, something about the way they are built. They all started out with normal bodies, like mine and yours – but now they are fleshed out to the maximum, each muscle worked to perfection. They are there a hundred percent. Where you and I have a muscle, they have a line of pure steel. It is fascinating to watch, because they are not in-human, they are not overtly thin or bulky, they are just – fulfilled.

Comparing notes at break time.

There is another break, and then the final piece of the night. I feel a bit dozy and distracted after the last performance, so the beginning of this one nearly throws me out of my chair. Lights on. All the dancers of the school are on the scene, men standing with silver collars around their necks, blinding the public with reflected light as they – shout at us! The female dancers are sitting in the middle of the floor, and they too shout – no, bark – rhythmically at the public. For a few shocked seconds, I just freeze. Then the rest of the lights come on, and the Rambert orchestra becomes visible – they are sitting on a platform above and behind the dance floor, and are performing live, wild, percussion-heavy music.

Forget Rio, for the next twenty minutes the theatre is the carnival. The performance is exhilarating. Waves upon waves of dancers clash into one another and bounce back, and then run out of the scene to make space for smaller groups to appear. They taunt one another, laugh and shout and show off, moving the performance straight into the streets of Cuba, of Rio – men and women parade their bodies and their skills, jump and twist and laugh out for the joy of movement. The last scene is a flurry of bodies as all the dancers perform together, my heart jumps, the tips of my fingers send off little sparkles, my head swims, and then it’s over, they stand in silence, apart from one dancer, still in the spotlight, unable to stop, continues to jump high into the air, up and down, and shout for more. We emerge back into reality, and it’s a rebirth.

First gentle mention of spring.

I know, i know, as soon as I say something we will be having snow blizzards and hail. So I'll say it very quietly. I think it's on it's way.

The Union Canal still covers with ice during the night, thin enough for swans to force their way through (that must hurt), but thick enough for ducks to stand on. The ice is so fine and so transparent it seems like they're standing on water (well, technically they are). And yet, at the side of the frozen canal, snowdrops pop their pretty heads from under the dead grass.

Snowdrops by the frozen Union Canal.

These were the first ones I have spotted, but soon they started poking out everywhere, I have never seen so many snowdrops in my life. I always thought they were this delicate, shy, perhaps even endangered flower, and it turns out they have colonised Edinburgh.


What further restores my faith in spring is a little chance meeting I had the other day. There he was, standing on a stone in the middle of the river, his breast as white as a bunch of snowdrops, the rusty belly and dark brown wings, the sparkle in his eye, the whole thing. His spindly legs supported a tubby little body with a comically short tail, which he held up high. He watched me, and I watched him. Perhaps nervous, he started bobbing up and down like a cork on a wave, as if he were curtsying me, and then he ran into the stream, straight in, into the deep water, disappearing under the brown waves, and, within a second, back out again. I laughed to myself with surprise and delight, and, perhaps offended, he flew away, wings beating frantically to support his tubby round boy in the air, buizzing as if he were a beetle, not a dipper. Lovely bird.

Pubs

A quiet drink and a good book in the Stockbridge Tap.

Never quite knew what the big fuss was about. Until I moved North. Well, yes, I read a few books as well, but as any good ethnographist will tell you, there is nothing like the first-hand experience. I never used to understand, before I got my own local pub - or rather, it got me. It's hard to say when a local becomes a local, it can take a few weeks or a few months, but after a while you've been going there when you eneter this cosy, sour-smelling place the bar staff start to nod and say hello, and you know the other locals by sight and exchange a few remarks about the weather, and you have your corner and your favourite perspective on the place, and then you know, it's your local. For some of my friends, their pub is their shelter, their refuge and a real home; for many, it is a natural extension of their living room, a place to meet friends or just to do the crossword, or watch a game, or just hang out. I recently went out for a pint in London with my aunt, who normally lives in Paris. As we settled into comfy chairs in front of the gas fire to watch the rugby, she told me going to pubs was her favourite part of sight-seeing in London. In Paris, sighed, it's impossible just to sit in a abr and drink the same drink for an hour without being kicked out.

Big cities don't do pubs so well, city pubs don't really have a soul, a personality. To survive the constant influx and outflow of regular customers, they tend to fall into categories, rather than standing by the strength of their reputation. And so you get gastro-pubs, music-pubs, real ale pubs, 'old man' pubs, women-friendly pubs, and so on. The closest pub to my flat in London was a combination of a gastro-pub and a 'young' pub, and I remember it very fondly. One room of 'The Landseer' had big windows and was filled with leather sofas and bookcases, inviting you to spend the Sunday afternoon reading the paper or playing Scrabble. The other room was converted into a nice dining area, with pine tables and grey linen napkins, a lovely place to nibble on pickled figs and crusty bread.

Edinburgh is still terra incognita for me as far as pubs are concerned. There is a nice, clean, but a bit souless place down the road, called 'the Stockbridge Tap'; lovely Victorian tiles, lots of light, not much atmosphere. The one next to it I did not even venture into: it has high glass-top tables with black leather stools, fairy lights in the windows and is pupulated by short-skirted girls with large glasses of red and gel-haired guys puffing up their chests. There is one place that I took a liking to, mostly because it reminds me of art-deco cafes in Prague.

Cafe Royal pub and the lovely tiles.

Cafe Royal pub.

Called appropriately 'Cafe Royal', it is situated on the tourist trail, just in front of The Balmoral Hotel. It has the bland atmospehre of a chain store, but the interior is very beautiful. The walls are lined with tiles illustrating different trades, the art-deco lamps are just lovely, and all the brass finishings shine and sparkle in their light. Nice for a pint while you're waiting for your train from Waverley, or on the way home from work, but not somewhere you'd like to sit for hours.

February 14th

It's not that I mind, really. Not even the ubiqiutous heart-shaped everything, not even the lack of free tables at the restaurants, it's all a bit of harmless fun really. A bit like war in a way - bad for people, good for business. Mostly harmless when you're looking at it from an observer's perspective. I would not want to be on the receiving end of the love stick, and I have seen plenty of those who are this weekend. I was getting a bottle of water at a newsagent's when I overheard the following conversation between a customer and the shopkeeper:
- Do you have any chocolate?
- Like this? (points to a Cadbury bar)
- No, no, in a box. Chocolate, in a box. It has to be in a box.
O-kay. Whatever you say. Nice and slow, easy does it, put down the roses and let's talk about your issues. Speaking of which, Skinnytoes pointed out to me the most outreagously priced rose bunch, 80 pounds for ten roses, 8 pounds a rose. Hand-reared by wise men in the Himalayas, no doubt. In spite of the prices, there were plenty of men plodding along, holding their obligatory bunches with a complete lack of enthusiasm. No women rushing about after flowers and presents, though. Wonder why.
May I also remind you that St Valentine is the patron saint of the mentally disturbed, especially of the epileptics. Go figure.

Boggle-minded

How luxurious - waking up at nine, and not having to go to the office! This was the first Saturday I had to spend in Edinburgh, so there were a few obligatory points to be covered. Point one: a nice bowl of porridge and a cup of cappucino at an Italian cafe on George Street. The sure sign of the place's authenticity was Rai Uno on a wall-mounted flat-screen TV silently preaching its message of full bodies and empty heads; well-groomed men were shaking their heads over prosciutto and dried tomatoes, the well-groomed all-female audience aplauding enthusiastically. The porridge was excellent (creamy and not too sweet) and the view of the Firth from the top of George Street beautiful. Since my arrival, this was the first time I've had a chance to see the sea on the horizon.

The Firth as seen from George Street.

The next point of call was the Royal Mile, the long street leading from the gates of the Edinburgh Castle all the way down to the Palace of Holyrood House. While it changes the name a few times on its way, the spirit remains the same - it is the most touristy place in the entire city, if not in the whole of Scotland. I am quite pleased I am in Edinburgh at this time of the year; in the summer the street must be a sea of heads, with one tide-wave swelling up towards the castle, and the other receding towards Princes Street. I challenge anyone to find one non-tourist oriented place on the whole street. It is choke-full of tartan shops, miniature museums and amusements, cheap restaurants, dodgy whisky shops - and, my favourite, ancestry shops ('Your Family History - 10 pounds').

A Close.

One way to access the Royal Mile is to climb up one of the steep Closes. The Old Town is built in many layers, and housing works on multiple levels. Climbing the particular close below, I found myself following a small Japanese girl carrying a bag of shopping, and a plate - a normal, porcelain plate - filled with cooked prawns. Curious, I watched her enter into one of the buildings, and my eyes fell on the sign on the wall. I wirthed in jealousy. Those beautiful stone buildings, commanding breathtaking views over the city and the sea were inhabited by - students!

If only I had known, no Uni in the UK would have stood the competition.

Having crossed the Royal Mile, there are plenty of ways to climb back down on the Southern side of the hill. You can follow the road around to the corner of the Princes Street Gardens, where once a week the car-park is taken over by a farmers' market. In spite of the chill, there were quite a few stalls up, and quite a few people about.

The castle forms a suitable backdrop to the market.

It is certainly dominated by actual farmers, with a lot of meat and fish selling going on, including very nice Scottish Buffalo burgers made fresh as you wait, mmm. I got into a conversation with one of the sellers about the situation in the Highlands - apparently he's spent best part of his week digging up sheep from inder the snow. Moved with pity, I prompty bought some lamb chops. My absolute favourite was the bread stall, though: their sourdough loaf is as heavy, moist and chewy as they come, and is better even then Austrian bread - there, I said it. The chances that the loaf I got will survive beyond this weekend are pretty slim.

A customer at a coffee stall at the farmers' market.

Sourdough bread - yum!

The day was getting increasingly cloudy, but there was one more thing to be done. Calton Hill is just few steps (upward steps) from the Waverley train station, and I was told it had beautiful views over the sea and the city. As we were walking, the One O'Clock Gun could be heard from the castle, and the black ball on top of the Nelson's Monument on Calton Hill was dropped; both were established in the 19th century to help the ships in Leith Harbour tell the time.

Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth from Carlton Hill.

I found looking at the city and beyond from Calton Hill completely confusing. For a long time I just sat on the bench, trying to figure out what it was I was actually looking at. The flat light of a cloudy day, combined with excellent visiblity, made distances confusing and perspective meaningless. The view is vast, I could even see the mountains over the Firth bridge far away in the distance, at least 20 km away. Monochrome grey of the buildings forced me to squint as I tried to imagine the actual sizes of the houses.

Dreamscape Edinburgh.

North Bridge connecting the bottom with the top (and the middle, and the above, and the below).

Looking at the town centre was not much better. Edinburgh is just such a dreamscape city: multi-layered, multi-levelled... It is populated by buildings that look more like castles, by castles that defy reason by clinging on to sheer rock faces, by sheer rock faces bursting out through the fabric of the city like giant waves or crashing icebergs. Spanned by bridges which start at the bottom, but weirdly end at the top; but the top is actually half-way up some buildings, above others, and far below others still. Buses, trains and cars zoom here and there, pedestrians hurry up and down adding to the confusion, and the whole ensamble ends up looking like one of Escher's creations, you half expect things to start moving upside down at any minute. It's like looking at a flock of birds going in all directions at the same time, there is no way I can take it all in - if I focus on one spire, it's immediately displaced in my eye by a turret, from which I'm distracted to note an archway, and naturally a staircase, and a ledge - a never-ending game of snakes and ladders. At any moment I expect the sky to fill with people in leather goggles, cruising in their pedal-powered flying machines, or maybe travelling leisurely in private zeppelins - because Edinburgh, I finally realise, looks exactly like an 18th century vision of a future city.

At home there is still a gas fire, a kettle which whistles as I boil the water for tea, and on tv giant, bleeding men run around a field after a leather ball. Wales make an amazing comeback in the second half and win over Scotland by seven points. Primitive emotions take over as I gasp an cheer.

Union Canal

The sun was still out, low over the horizon when I left work; I could only see its aura from behind the warehouses, staining the whole sky golden , making the industrial landscape around my office remind me of California. Much colder, of course, but there was something about the open space and blue, spotless sky… I had a few hours before I was due to meet a friend and his family in Brumsfield, so I decided to do some good old wondering, and headed West.

Soon I crossed the railway line in Slateford and I spotted a friendly blue ‘public path’ sign pointing in the direction of Leith, and decided to follow it, through a residential estate, a thin path between two lines of hedges… And then, I stumbled upon a canal. The water was calm and reflected the sunset like a perfect mirror – how could I resist? I grinned, and decided to follow the comfortable asphalt path running along it towards town centre.

The Canal.

'Should I smile?' 'Yes please!'

The canal was dominated by cyclists and ducks, with a few focused joggers as well, but I was pretty much the only person taking a more leisurely pace. The area around where I joined the canal is not particularly inspiring, but the presence of water was clearly attracting some developments. There was a decent-looking modernist flat complex, and a few miniature single-family houses, all made to look more attractive by the light of the setting sun I’m sure. Still, I can see the appeal of looking out of your dining room window to see some happy ducks going about their duck business.

A bland set of modern flats, but with a nice view.

A miniature family house, which looks like it belongs in German countryside, not in the middle of Edinburgh.

The canal, for which I had no great expectations, was getting more interesting by the minute.

A long corrugated iron shed turned out to belong to a rowing club, and soon afterwards I came across a poster advertising this as the training place of an Olympic rowing medallist, David Florence. Well, well.

A rowing club shed.

Soon I came to a very cute, and very quiet, canal marina, and got into a conversation with a man who came down purposefully to feed the ducks and swans. It turned out that the waterway I took to be my personal lucky discovery, and which I was expecting to finish at an uninspiring industrial site at any moment one, was actually the Union Canal, which connected Glasgow and Edinburgh. Exciting!

Feeding the swans.

Some background info is needed here. I heard of the Union Canal a few days earlier when a girl from my office was describing her failed attempt to cycle alongside it all the way to Glasgow – something I strongly intend to de when the weather improves and the path gets a bit less muddy. The canal was build in 1822, and was used to transport coal; it has been shut for commercial traffic since 1930. Wiki tells me it’s a contour canal, ie a canal that, rather than going in a straight line, follows the countour of the land to avoid costly tunnels and high banks. Still, it has quite a lot of cool infrastructure, including numerous acqueducts, the most spectacular of which I had just missed by a few metres on my trip – it carries the canal above the Water of Leith, which really tickles me. There is also a tunnel to bring the canal under the Antonine Wall (the northern equivalent of the Hadian’s Wall), and a rotating boat lift. Very exciting stuff which I will have to see – but I may wait until mid march, when the renovation works on the canal and the path are complete.

Along the canal.

Now that I knew where I was, I really wanted to see where the canal ends up. I briskly marched past Harrison Park, full of dogs and kids practising cricket. It was getting dark when I reached Leamington. There was some serious development going on there as well, with a big sign advertising the sale of ten three-bedroom modern houses. Even the evening light could not mask the already weathered wood, and tired design. I wasn't inspired.

The new 'City Living' in Leamington - yes, you're not buying a house, you're buying a 'lifestyle soultion'. We'll throw empty pastic bottles floating in the water and a dramatic view of a derelict warehouse for free.

The canal ended with a lift, and a small basin – a later found out that the original quay was filled when the canal stopped being used for commercial purposes, real shame.

Leamington lift.

I stood by the lock, contemplating which way to go, and staring absent-mindedly at a derelict factory building to my left when I realised what I was looking at. This was the Fountainbridge Brewery which I have been reading about in relation to some work I’ve been doing.

The Fountainbridge brewery of Scottish and Newcastle.

This massive site employed 390 people, and belonged to Scottish and Newcastle, famous for their Newcastle Brown Ale. Following their takeover by Heineken, the Fountainbridge brewery was closed in 2004, and nothing seems to have been done to it for the past six years. Apparently you can still get in though, if you’re into ‘urban exploration’ – I found some quite amazing photographs of the derelict interior on this site: http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=41228 . As my academic supervisor would say, there is an article in this!

I finished my canal-side adventure in a lovely chocolate bar (ha!) in Bruntsfield, which is just West of the great Edinburgh park called the Meadows – which I still have to explore. The bar is called The Chocolate Tree, and is wonderful.

The Chocolate Tree.

The smell of dark chocolate lures you in from the street into a cosy interior decorated heavy wooden furniture. An antique samovar and silver-cloured trays give it an old-fashioned feel, nicely contrasted with vividly coloured wall hangings.

Some of the lovely chocolates the Chocolate Tree make - all organic.

I could not resist a chilli-flavoured hot chocolate while I waited for a selection of chocolates I chose for my evening hosts to be arranged in a hand-made origami box.

Hot chocolate with chili - perfect for a frosty Edinburgh evening.

I had a chat with the owner, a lovely German girl with an impressive plait of dark hair. The company has been running for a few years now as a mobile café’, and they have also been supplying their lovely chocolates to supermarkets and restaurants. They settled in Brumsfield in December, and apart from the chocolates you can also buy amazing looking cakes which she makes herself – mmm…. The area has a young and cosmopolitan feel, so I hope that it sustains this new addition! Highly recommended for a moment of well-deserved hedonism.

A word of wisdom from the Chocolate Tree.