Ben Gould

Jul 15 2019

Architecture, Building, Construction, Edinburgh, Photography

Chesser House, Edinburgh.

2007

This Orwellian building on Gorgie Road was an eyesore by day. Home to Edinburgh Council ministries, it was a depressing affair trudging past here every morning, the gruesome monument ruining my Fleetwood Mac U.S. Route 66 fantasies.

At night, though, it was gleaming, almost cosy and welcoming. Weird.

And it’s now being converted to yet more apartments. As is the rest of Edinburgh in its present ‘gentrification’ frenzy. Nostalgia will no doubt kick in one day and I’ll start to mourn the metamorphosis of Chesser House.

At this moment in time, though, I’m not bothered. I’ll give it a decade.

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Soviet Union, Uncategorized, USSR, World War One, World War Two, WWII

Stephen Kotkin on Stalin.

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A third of the way through Stephen Kotkin’s middle chapter (Waiting for Hitler 1929-1941) of his mammoth three-volume study of Stalin, and it’s mind-blowing material. Fuck knows how long these books, with the final instalment still to be published, took to research and write. And it’s not just superlative academia; this chap with his razor-sharp wit can be funny as hell at times, which is most irregular when you consider the horrifying subject matter.

As an accessible compendium into what essentially made the Soviet Union work (Stalin’s own system of design) this is an unrivalled study of personal dictatorship and its geopolitical symbiosis.

As a speaker, Kotkin has been frequently described as ‘Professor Pesci’. Just listen to one of his lectures (posted below). Uncanny. I’d prefer, though, to not picture him in Casino (1995) with a hoodlum’s head in a vice.

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Berlin, Germany, Photography, Technology, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

Berlin 2009 was my own private kick-starter.

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A full 10 years next week since I first set foot in Germany, this extended Berlin jaunt the beginning of many more liver-swelling shenanigans. In a decade the following have been … surmounted:

Amsterdam, Munich, Bratislava, Vienna, Brussels, Prague, Budapest, Kraków, Amsterdam again, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Bremen, Gothenburg, Tallinn, Amsterdam again, Munich again, Stockholm, Frankfurt again, Poznań, Bangkok, Oslo, Hamburg, Osnabrück, Bremen again, Tokyo, Kaunas, Riga, Warsaw, Gdańsk, Dublin, Kraków again, Oslo again, Sliema, Geneva, Copenhagen, Bremen again, Dortmund, Cologne, Bonn, Amsterdam again, Milan, Venice, Rome, Dublin again, Warsaw again, Berlin again, Basel, Bilbao, Reykjavík, Salzburg, Sliema again, Albufeira, Straubing, Berlin again, Szczecin, Salzburg again, Munich again, Wroclaw, Porto, Sofia, Straubing again.

Hitler’s Bunker today.

Berlin 2009 was unique in that I did it entirely internet free. I had no snazzy smartphone and wasn’t on any social media platforms. I had a mere camera and that was it. Consequently, I actually saw shit and took it in. No phone = no distraction, no barrier between me and the Grey City’s peculiarities. It was the most productive slice of tourism I’ve ever done and the last time I’ve used a paper map. In a sense it was a crossroads trip, the last archaic adventure.

Tagged 2009, Berlin, Germany, Noughties, Smartphone, Tourism, Travel

Jun 24 2019

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Cinema, Edinburgh, Movie, Movies, Photography, Technology, Uncategorized

Visions of π (1998).

Scorching Edinburgh.

Took this snap on a sweltering Friday afternoon in Edinburgh. For days I was trying to pinpoint why I was having … visions of a semi-obscure movie from the late ’90s. Then it finally came to me along with the following almost poetic narration:

‘9:13, Personal Note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn’t know if my eyes would ever heal. I was terrified, alone in that darkness. Slowly daylight crept in through the bandages, and I could see, but something else had changed inside of me. That day I had my first headache.’

Darren Aronofsky’s π (1998), which is as stylish a movie one could ever make about mathematics. It’s quite something.

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Britain, Cinema, Edinburgh, Film, Movie, Movies, Scotland, Tourism, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized

Mark Renton Street, Edinburgh.

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Calton Road this afternoon. It struck me today that I’ve never once snapped this Mark-Renton-gets-run-over spot, the manic laugh he offers to the driver an iconic snippet from Trainspotting (1996).

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I was an employee (an actual ‘trainspotter’, no less) of East Coast Railways a decade ago and used to sneak out the back of Waverley Station to this Renton hideaway for a cheeky fag and a can of Monster, my walkie-talkie in hand just in case my absence was noted. Come to think of it, 30% of my ‘working day’ consisted of either this filmic interlude or listening to Kanye West tunes in the ScotRail bogs.

“Where are you?”

“Just having a shite, I’ll be on the platform in a minute.”

Those were the days.

Tagged Calton Road, Edinburgh, Film, Mark Renton, Movie, Scotland, Train station, Trainspotting, Waverley

Jun 18 2019

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Britain, Cinema, Edinburgh, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

The Phantom Menace (1999) two decades on.

I recall the incident well – HMV, Princes Street came to a standstill as the trailer was broadcast on a Sunday afternoon. “Jesus fucking Christ, this looks epic,” I said to myself. The matter is, I did indeed think it was a belter of a movie, viewing it four times that summer of ’99.

The overwhelmingly negative reaction to the movie is perhaps the first case of fanboys going ape, sending shockwaves through an industry a bit slow to catch on to the power of the internet with its bloggers and keyboard warriors.

It’s 2019 and I legit believe it’s not a bad film, and some moments in it are up there with the first two movies: the pod race, Anakin’s farewell to his mother, the climactic Darth Maul brawl, cracking scenes underpinned by substantive character development. You take out Jar Jar and it’s immeasurably better. And I don’t get why fans were complaining about this childish Binks cretin yet conversely whinged on the detail dedicated to taxation and trade wars, an adult domain buttressing the magic and the wonder.

I treasure it as a nostalgia piece, a cinematic madeleine cake taking me back to a time when my standards were low and I was easily amused.

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Air travel, Architecture, Art, Germany, Munich, Photography, Soviet Union, Tourism, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized, USSR

Bavaria. Booze. Bantz.

Straubing.

Back in the Fatherland again for more lazy gallivanting, a week of Lidls, pubs, and killer insects. This is my seventh trip to Bavaria, so only a few new insights. I do quite like the place – it’s quiet (mostly), civilised (mostly), and people have manners (mostly).

Ice cubes.

All of these goodies and no ice cubes. Tragic.

Why the dearth of them in supermarkets? Is this some ‘German thing’ in which they’re too ashamed to purchase the cubes ready-made, that the locals would rather be all labour-intensive and concoct the beverage coolers at home? Irritating.

Lidl.

These convenience stores continue to be an experience. One can always unearth a wee treat in here, from cut-price protein bars to knock-off Jägermeister. I also admire the checkout staff; they don’t attempt to initiate pointless small talk when you’re more dishevelled than Jimmy McNulty during his peak Baltimore mishaps. They get on with it, which is how it should be done. British people suffer from an affliction: talking about the weather. It’s boring chat and you get no such gibberish from these Germans.

Mosquitos.

These fuckers need wiped out regardless of the wider ecological ramifications. They attack O negative blood like those choppers in Apocalypse Now (1979) taking down the village to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. I’m a so-called ‘universal donor’ and this is how I’m rewarded – bites in double figures to my face, arms, legs, and arse. Charming. “Burn them all,” as Aerys Targaryen would have wailed.

Wheelchairs.

Where are the people in wheelchairs? In Straubing and Passau I didn’t see a single Ironside. Strange. Are they kept indoors or something?

Chernobyl connotations.

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Lined up my midget e-cig with this and felt quite grateful I didn’t grow up anywhere near Ukraine circa 1986. I thought this snap quite the arty-farty creation; it will be doing the rounds on Instagram.

Overall, another cracking jaunt. I’ll be back next year for an Aldi blog.

Tagged Bavaria, Germany, Mosquitos, Munich, Passau, Straubing, Summer, Tourism, Travel

Jun 04 2019

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Art, Berlin, Germany, Photography, Tourism, Uncategorized

Conrad Schumann – life as an icon.

Schumann

Until the other day I thought this photograph, the so-called ‘Leap into Freedom’, was the criterion for liberty, no less. A cursory Google search (the snap came up in some morbid conversation about David Hasselhoff’s ‘Looking for Freedom’) says otherwise. The power of images is propaganda above all, the human story often discarded. It appears Schumann was the prisoner of *our* image, and reading about his life post-1961 – depression, solace in alcohol, his eventual suicide in 1998 – one can’t help but feel for the guy.

That primary life-changing decision with all its what-ifs, and he had to be reminded of it daily, us lot ascribing meaning to the photograph that wasn’t there, like we’ve owned his experience.

20 years later.

I suppose the contemporary equivalent is becoming a meme and spending your life trying to supersede it.

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Architecture, Building, Construction, Edinburgh, Film, Movie, Movies, Photography, Scotland, Tourism, Uncategorized

Scott Monument, Edinburgh.

Monument final Image with adjusted curves

Took this snap with a Tesco Hudl tablet hoisted on a wee micro tripod, crawling on the floor as some tourists stood bemused at my ‘antics’. It was during this moment that I recalled a troupe of Americans got stuck in the monument’s staircase on their attempted ascent to the top. It was Edinburgh’s own version of In Bruges (2008). What a hoot.

Tagged Edinburgh, In Bruges, Princes Street, Scotland, Scott Monument, Tourists

May 20 2019

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Fantasy, Game of Thrones, Television, TV, Uncategorized

Game of Thrones. Goodbye, my love.

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Eight years of Westeros drama, 2011-2019, with a godawful two-year hiatus between the 7th and final season. To accidentally appropriate a catchy verse in a recent Justin Bieber song, it’s been a hell of a ride (driving the edge of a knife).

Thrones was two-in-one TV, shades of history with splatters of fantasy, brutal realism and realpolitik – one got the sense of the intrigue at the court of Klemens von Metternich or Bismarck editing telegrams – with magic and dragons. And all if this topped off with booze, tits, and your occasional rape. Peak Thrones has to be season 4, for the superlative writing, the intricate balancing act between the intimate and the epic, Tyrion’s ‘fuck you all’ trial, and the sheer number of what-the-fuck-just-happened moments. It was literally astonishing.

Things went a bit downhill from season 6 on. It was evident the writers, having gone beyond the Martin books, had run out of ideas and sadly resigned the show to that of ‘experience’ – spectacle, hordes of extras, battle after battle. Which is fine, but the verbal sparring and power plays such as those between Varys and Littlefinger were sorely missed, so too was any sense of remaining mystery about the familiar ensemble – all their cards were on the table. It frankly became a bit silly. Not to bother, it’s partly because the bar was set so high for so long that the later episodes in the saga felt lazy despite being the most watchable bits of drama on TV.

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Summary thoughts:

What the hell was Petyr Baelish’s accent all about? It fluctuated from one region of the British Isles to the next depending on how devious he was feeling.

Tyrion got boring by the end. He forgot he had witty things to say, and it didn’t help that it was no longer a case of dwarf vs. everyone.

Ramsay Bolton was Joffrey on steroids.

Stannis Baratheon reminded me of almost every supervisor/manager I’ve had, displaying a facade of nobility, but will without compunction burn their own kin for a pay rise.

And every time I eat chicken I think of The Hound and Arya tearing around the countryside, psychos in arms. Those two were meant to be.

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Tagged Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Series, TV, Westeros

Wanderings and … wonderings.

Author Archives: Ben Gould

Chesser House, Edinburgh.

Stephen Kotkin on Stalin.

Berlin 2009 was my own private kick-starter.

Visions of π (1998).

Mark Renton Street, Edinburgh.

The Phantom Menace (1999) two decades on.

Bavaria. Booze. Bantz.

Conrad Schumann – life as an icon.

Scott Monument, Edinburgh.

Game of Thrones. Goodbye, my love.