Bloggin in Blockbuster on a Saturday Night

So it comes to this. Actually I think I've only once spent a Saturday night in Edinburgh before, when Rob came up last year. Said goodbye to everyone yesterday - tried going to two seperate cinemas to see 'Motorcycle Diaries' - both sold out. Time to go home. Where ever that turns out to be.

A balanced curriculum

I'm teaching on IALS General English course this block, which makes a change from Medical Students, although the Medics group were really sweet this year and didn't seem to be too bothered that I know diddly about medicine.

This morning students did mini-presentations, then as we had ten minutes left at the end of the first session I got them to tell me the story of Snow White (well this is General English, and it came up... in fact it came up because one of the barmier mini-presentations was about subliminal messages - it seems that the names of the Seven Dwarves describe the sequence of events within drug use [yawn]. Anyway, the ever-reliable Snopes has it all here.)

In the second half we did an activity which involves drawing a picture containing objects which represent characteristics of family or friends (lots of rocks - solid as a... - birds and, interestingly , a mirror). Then I got out the axe and taught them 'Caledonia' by Dougie Maclean, which we're going to sing at the Ceilidh tomorrow night.

So. In one session they had a story, drew a picture and sang a song.

Time to take up primary teaching maybe.

So much for Great Britain then...

Well, it had to be done. On Saturday I got in the car and drove the 625 miles to John O’Groats and back. And it's true; John O’Groats really is crap. I mean, I thought Lands End was tacky, but this is something else. Getting there though was fabulous. The weather was supposed to be shitty, which is why I thought I’d go off in the car rather than climbing up something or cycling around something, but in the end it was nice both days, and the coastal drive up through Caithness with long long views over the blue sea was fantastic. And OK, maybe my little Escort isn’t a Porsche, but it’s got a bit of poke, and the last hundred miles up the A99 (seems an appropriate number for what you could see as the final road in the country) was a really exciting drive. A few miles along from J O'Gs is Dunnet Head, the true most Northerly Point in the British Isles. As I walk across the grassy slopes towards the cliffs, I'm aware each step is taking me further North than I've ever been before. Shall I take one more step or return for ever southwards (keep this going at Dunnet Head for long enough of course and you'll be over that cliff, and boy did it look a nasty, overhanging bitch from the road in). It's a wonderful spot though, with views across the Pentland Firth to the Orkneys, and yes, binoculars confirm that bumpy bit really is the Old Man of Hoy (you, know, he's that guy in a mac who goes round frightening schoolgirls...)

I stay over in a hotel in Cromarty, which is a handsome little East Coast town, where you can count the oil rigs moored in the firth for refurbishment over the water at Nigg (there were 8), and have a couple of beers (Red Cuillen from Skye – good stuff) and some really nice local Black Isle lamb. I’m just finishing this off with a Malt (Tomatin, I’d give it an 8) when my phone rings. It’s a student from Salford, who wants some proofreading doing. Can I correct his 18,000 word dissertation by Wednesday? (For money, natch.) Nah problem I tell him, feeling mellow and at one with humanity. This turns out to be a very bad move, and back in Edinburgh I spend the next three nights sitting in a series of cybercafés until ten at night. In fact the most suitable of the local places with net access is the Leith Walk branch of Blockbuster video. It’s distinctly surreal to be sitting there reading this very boring stuff about foreign companies setting up business in China as drunken Neds roll in to return videos…

Let's just float

There’s something I’ve been meaning to try over the last three years in Edinburgh; going down to Stockbridge and floating in a big plastic egg full of salty water. This is what you do at the Edinburgh Floatarium. Essentially it’s a sensory deprivation experience.

I suppose it didn’t help having the caffeine from a large cup of Crum’s weapons-grade coffee coursing through my veins, but rather than inducing a state of blissful relaxation and meditative oneness with the universe, the experience of floating in the dark in a big plastic bucket brought on feelings varying from extreme boredom to paranoia. I kept thinking about Bond films; what if they opened up a little hatch somewhere under the water line, and let in just one small and hungry piranha? What if they very slowly turned up the heat of the water, sealed down the lid and pressure-cooked me? Then there’s the boredom; after they turn off the new age music that plays for the first fifteen minutes (at least they do turn it off, which is one comfort) you just lie there in the dark floating. But the egg thing isn’t that big and you can easily the touch the sides by stretching your arms out. So you try not to. But you are actually drifting, and as it’s dark, you don’t know in what direction. This means that every so often you bob gently into one of the sides. After a while, this consumes your entire thoughts. Which body part is going to hit next? The head, your left arm, your big toe? Maybe a little gentle paddling will move you back to the centre, but too much is going to hit you on to the opposite wall. Then there’s the sensory deprivation thing. Your senses aren't deprived at all, they’re crying out to you that you’re floating in a big plastic bucket full of salty water in the dark. And it is salty; before you get in you’re warned to put Vaseline on any cuts and abrasions, but I soon realized I had various little spots and sore bits I didn’t even know about, but once immersed in a strong solution of Epsom salts my supposedly deprived senses started telling me all about them.

When I came out, it was dark and rainy. I’d chained the bike to some railings a little further down the hill, where the path starts that runs up the Water of Leith to Dean village. It took a couple of minutes to get the bike locks off and put the saddle back, and just as I was scrabbling under the bike to get a chain off, in, in other words, a fairly vulnerable position, this guy started talking to me from about 6in. behind my ear. It may not be quite 6ft. in the air that I jumped but it was close. In fact he was a quite nice, if eccentric guy who wanted to tell me that he and his dog had been watching out for the bike. However, I suspect that floating naked in a big plastic bucket in somebody elses basement for an hour had indeed changed my mood to a certain feeling of defensiveness. Cycling home through the bottom end of the New Town, with 90% of the route being over cobbles, in the rain and dark and dodging homicidal taxis meant that by the time I got home I felt more stressed out than I had in a long time. Fortunately that man Crum had the ideal answer in the shape of yet another obscure Malt he wanted an opinion on, and thence to the pub.

So all in all, not the best way to spend 25 quid. Not nearly as much fun, or as pleasant, as going swimming and/or taking a good leisurely soak in the tub, preferably with candles and some nice music. And Gwyneth Paltrow.

Maybe that should've been a whine bar...

Caught by paparrzzi

One of the medics just mailed me this, and low and behold, the link works off of Yahoo email.

This was taken candidily at last weeks ceilidh. Scary. The guy behind me is, I presume,one the New Scotland Dancers, the dance group we get in to show students the steps. I think Rucy managed to catch his kilt akimbo. If that's not what happened I don't want to know what's going on...



Leith Walk Cyber caff is full of nutters tonight. I'm off to try Floatation...

Lothian and Borders Police (dockside branch) let us go

I'm in the OKish cybercafe on Leith Walk, on my way back from a bike ride round the Port of Edinburgh. Thing is, I read 'Trainspotting' a couple of weeks ago, and not feeling that comfortable in this part of town already, it made me feel still less easy about personal security. The character Renton in the book (Ewan Macgregor that dived into a shit-filled lavy in the movie) has a flat in Montgomery Street, where I'm staying, and there's various scenes of gratuitous violence involving the psychopathic Begbie down Leith Walk, the main drag that leads all the way from the posh East End top of Princes Street, down to the Port of Leith, getting rougher and readier as it goes. At one point in the book Renton says "The further down The Walk you go" (ie the further towards Leith) "the more chance you have of getting a burst mooth".

Montgomery Street is at the top of The Walk, and while the area is robust - more robust than Newington anyway - it's not that grim, with bits of yuppification and lots of arty people hanging about. Which is not to say it's wise not to take care.

Leith is salty, but an area on the rise. As I ride Bicycly along The Shore, the yuppie part that looks not unlike Amsterdam with high houses along a wide canal, a ratarsed yuppie girl outside a wine bar calls out to me "buy a better bike" - why? 'if I want to show my face round here again?' or 'and she'll be mine?' Or just 'we can't handle the concept of personal accessories that cost less than four figures in this part of town'. Thought that sort of thing went out in the 1980s. Maybe she just said "I've a better bike". Oh, good.

So Leith is a bit of a schizoid place, there's still clearly a lot of urban deprovation just behind the new lofts lifestyles, and some rather heavy people are hanging about away from The Shore down nearer the Royal yacht Britannia. It also turns out you really can do a Trainspotting Walk. Strikes me as possibly a good way of getting a burst mooth...

I get down to the docks and there, across the water is a little gunboaty thing, the Customs Cutter 'Valiant'. Hang on a minute, my Dad was on the Customs Cutter 'Valiant' in the 1950s. Turns out it's not the same one...

Twas on the Isle of Tiree...
Inspired by reading Rob's copy of Ginger geezer, the Viv Stanshall biography, I bought a ukelele just after coming up here, and then on a trip back to Broady dug out Welsh Auntie Gwen's old 1930/40s sheet music - 'Jollity Farm' of course, but also 'South of the Border', 'Run Rabbit Run', 'He played his ukelele as the ship went down' (surreal) and 'The Isle of Capri'. All these come with ukelele accompaniment in the form of chord boxes, but I'd never bothered to look closely before; each song is in a different key, but bizarrely the idea is that you tune the uke differently every time, but play the same small set of first-position chords; one shape for major, another for minor, and another for a 7th chord. Weird.

Anyway, that's how it is that as I push the bike off the ferry at Scaranish Pier on Tiree, I'm humming one of our Gracie's best loved tunes (duck). (No, I mean Duck. Geese too. And those mohican things are probably lapwings).

I've made a slight miscalculation. Two years ago I was riding around a lot and did some (for me) long runs around Scotland. I've forgotten that this is the first significant time I've taken the bike out this year (shitty summer), not to mention that I'm two years older. Tiree is more or less flat as a billiard table, but there's a strong wind blowing into my face as I settle into the seven mile ride to the hostel I'd booked.

It was Crum's idea to book a hostel - 'you'll enjoy it' he said 'much friendlier than B&B'. When I get there the other guests consist of two Glaswegians up for the fishing (this is normal; wherever I go there's always two Glaswegian guys up for the fishing. When NASA reach Mars they're likely to be greeted with the words "ya richt Jimmy? Canny broon troot thees paarts") There's also a Family. From Colden Common. That's near Chandlers Ford. Where people are weird. But I'd forgotten how weird.

In the kitchen when I arrive the mother is trying to get her two little girls aged about 5 and 6 to write a postcard to their gran. There's much "shall I write it out and you can copy it" and spelling in crap phonics "that's duh uh ah err guh rah nnn". I feel like I've walked into somebody else's self-catering. The worst of it is that unlike the parents, the two children are civilised human beings and want to talk to me. Over the next 24 hours they endevour to tell me about their cat Paws, recently gone to The Great Litter Tray in the Sky, the advantages of bicycles, and other interesting topics. I might add that they initiate each of these conversations. As soon as I reply the parents (or rather the mother; most of the time Daddy is absent wind-surfing, kite-jumping or various other macho things that his family are not invited to join in with)butt in and whisk the kids away as if I'm an axe-murderer. I suppose maybe I'd be the same if I had kids, but I can't help thinking you either tell your children not to talk to strangers under any circumstances, or accept that they're social beings like anybody else. Anyway, I can't really get out of the hostel again fast enough, which is a drag as it's now drizzling as well as windy. I hack the bike round the island in the cauld blast, not really having a lot of fun till I get to Hynish, the model village built by Alan Steven to house workers building the Skerryvore Lighthouse. I'd wanted to visit since reading Bella Bathurst's The Lighthouse Stevensons. There's a very interesting exhibition. There's nobody else there. It's warm and dry. I spend two hours examining every single exhibit and discreetly eat my lunch - I even bring the bike inside.

Next day, however, it's sunny and warm enough to cycle round the island in shorts and a tee shirt. I ride up to the top of the island, cut across a track over the machair and find a deserted beach. The ferry is due to leave at lunchtime, so I'm back in Scaranish in time to sit in the Sun over a dram (Scappa - caramelly and very appealing) outside the suitably dilapidated hotel, looking out over the tiny harbour, with a few scruffy fishing boats and dinghies drawn up on the white sand.

Back at the ferry I'm checking out where to queue with the bike when the two little girls run up; they want to show me the sea shells (a rather fine scallop and a sea urchin) they've just found on the beach. I'm just showing them the piece of granite I picked up on my beach when Daddy lumbers up.

"I think bikes get loaded with the cars actually" he says in one of those 'in front of the children' voices.

"Yeah", I say looking him hard in the eye. "I think they probably do". He looks away. I spend the next hour on the ferry playing 'lets ignore each other' with Mr and Mrs, while the two girls play 'let's find VGM and say "hello again"'. Finally I find one of those lounges with hardly anybody in that old ferries often have, and read my book in peace.

Bit of a mixed weekend all in all; Tiree was really nice. Remind me once again not to go back to live in Sweet Home Southern Hampshire, people.

Last week on the Fringe; how to see the same people three times in one week.

1. Buy tickets well in advance for a Monday perfomanace of Jim Sweeney's 'Me and my MS', a show in which impro hero Jim Sweeney talks about the effect multiple-sclerosis is beginning to have on him.

2. Also buy tickets for a perfomenace of 'Paul Merton's Impro chums' for that Wednesday.

3. Fail to read the small print in the Fringe Brochure where it says 'Me and my MS' runs every night of the Fringe except on Monday August 23rd when there will be a 'special anniversary performance'.

4. Go to 'Me and my MS' on Monday August 23rd. Jim Sweeney introduces special guests - Paul Merton, Steve Steen, Richard Vranch, Greg Proops, Suki Webster, Andy Smart and a few new people that I didn't know. They do some impro, bits of which are quite funny (it's a shame with impro they don't just do it at home and then write down the best bits to redo on stage; to be honest I'd got bored with it before 'Who's line is it anyway' transferred from R4 to TV, and it still had Lenny Henry on it. However, Sue is a biggish fan and her brother Steven is a major groupie). Barry Cryer comes on and says 'I don't do impro' (hooray!) and tells three very good jokes, which frankly, for this years Fringe, is about as good as it gets. Jim Sweeney says not a word about MS, which may baffle the several people in wheelchairs in the audience who probably also didn't read the programme properly as much as it does us.

5. Realising our mistake we buy more tickets for the same show the following night. This time Jim talks openly and very funnily about a disease which is appalling and he knows will soon stop him performing, then probably confine him to one room with full time carers. I worked at New Vale with lots of good people with MS - lovely Judy Aspinall in particular - but Jim's show gives me a far fuller idea of what the vile thing does...

6. So on the Wednesday we go to 'Paul Merton's Impro chums'. He introduces his guests: Steve Steen, Richard Vranch, Suki Webster, (aka the new Mrs Paul Merton)... and Jim Sweeney. We've now seen Jim three nights running. Watching him performer, using a stick, clearly with vision problem, you realise just how fragile he's become, noticeably more so than in the 'Sick Transit' show we saw two years ago.

Thursday night, we actually see some different people. There's a production of The Little World of Don Camillo in the fabulous Valvona and Crolla - well, going to the theatre in a delicatessen was certainly a first for me. It's a refreshingly good show (shame they didn't give out free crostinis or something, but you can't have everything). Like last year's promenade Macbeth (that's still on; I pass the actors in a huddle on George Bridge one evening), it looks like a semi-professional show, and that means you get the feeling everybody is having more fun (amateur means 'for the love of it', not 'tacky'). I only read Giovanni Guareschi's stories about a year ago, nice to see them performed - told rather than acted, with two musicians - an accordion player (this has been a good festival for accordions) and a trumpet player (dressed approriately as priest and communist worker). The audience all appear to be of mature years (ie older than us), which may reflect the fact the books were popular in the 1950s - my copy belonged to Welsh Auntie Gwen.

Friday night Terry comes up. We start the evening at the Speigletent watching a great band I'd previously seen at one of Radio Scotland's free 'Arts Show' recordings (featuring the lovely Janice Forsyth) 'Klezmer Nova' who mix Klezmer (I didn't think I liked Klezmer) with a jazz sensitivity almost like one of the Mingus Big Bands. (To be honest that's what Terry said; I'm not sure I'd know the sound of the Mingus Big Bands from a hole in the floor.) Anyway, they're a lot of fun, shame there's not more people in and folk dancing, but then it's only seven in the evening...

From there to The Pleasance to see three comedians called 'The Dinks'. One is Dan Antopolski, who I'd sort of wanted to see, but then I never trust comedians who flood the town with pictures of them looking like Rock Stars (check this link). You just know if you asked them about it they'd say they were being knowing, ironic and post-modern, but that the fact is they just think they look cool fuckers in those tight little leopard skin shirts. Anyway, the Dinks are shite; it's a show about three daft buggers sharing a flat and getting up to surreal adventures; you just know it's been put together by three daft buggers who share a flat and need to get a life. The twist is they're Canadians...

you've guessed it, I'm blogging two weeks after all this happened, but I like to keep my festival reviews up to date... well, obviously when I say up to date... well, I like to get them in at some point.