Category Archives: Edinburgh

May 18 2019
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Architecture, Britain, Building, Construction, Edinburgh, Middle Ages, Photography, Scotland, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

St. Giles’ Cathedral – the High Kirk of Edinburgh.

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Situated on the Royal Mile and in its current incarnation dated from the late 14th century, I’ve walked past it roughly 6,000 times yet have never been in the fucker. My reasons are multifarious, but one of them is that I don’t enjoy the manipulation, i.e., architectural determinism, of it all. The splendour I can enjoy from afar. Some find a solitude in churches; I just have visions of the terror they’ve inflicted, and this presently includes the tractor beam that pulls in hordes of cretin tourists. Sorry not sorry.

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May 06 2019
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Architecture, Art, Britain, Building, Edinburgh, Photography, Tourism, Uncategorized

Leith Walk trompe-l’œil.

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The highlight of Leith Walk. This reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) pretend convenience stores North Korea parades for tourists. Except this cultural gem has actual real-life Buckfast, and reasonably priced, too.

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May 01 2019
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Architecture, Britain, Building, Edinburgh, Leith, Photography, Scotland, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

Persevere Court, Leith.

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I was pointlessly waddling around Leith and Newhaven again this afternoon in search of existential equilibrium. Sadly, I did not find such a level of spiritual enlightenment. I did, however, locate another treat that adorns the view from Ocean Terminal. They tell me the bad boys go by the name of ‘Persevere Court’. The first thing that popped into my head was: are sprinkler systems installed? The second: the colour scheme must have been designed by someone who has frequented far too many Ryanair flights.

Outrageous scenes.

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Apr 22 2019
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Edinburgh, Photography, Scotland, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized

Gorgie spring.

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It’s official – spring has hit Gorgie. Cue shirtless chavs, the foreboding jingle of ice cream vans, rammed buses, and a general increase in noise levels. I prefer the ghetto in winter because it sends these things back into the woodwork where they should remain. Happy Easter.

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Apr 18 2019
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Edinburgh, Leith, Scotland, Tourism, Transport, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

Newhaven Quay, Edinburgh.

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Snapped from Brewers Fayre. There’s something of the Americana about this chain of venues, with the free soft drink refills and Hooters-esque staff uniforms. I was in Dunfermline’s version of one of these ‘restaurants’ a decade ago and found the experience most distressing; come to think of it, this might have actually been a Frankie & Benny’s. No matter, they’re all interchangeable: tacky décor, borderline violent eaters, screaming kids running amok.

Newhaven itself is a curious mix of the old and new; flats are *always* being developed, little ships will always have their presence, and eateries such as Brewers Fayre will continue to splatter the waterfront.

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Apr 15 2019
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Edinburgh, Photography, Scotland, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

Shell Garage, Dalry Road. Memories.

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This used to be the home of the infamous Shell garage, a post-3:00 a.m. drunken haven. There was nothing quite like their chicken stuffing sandwiches, especially when one was off one’s proverbial tits on a Smörgåsbord of £1 voddy and cokes from Rush Bar in the Cowgate. And how I miss the mangled chat with the bloke behind the glass. He clearly wanted to die but I still bombarded him with my life thoughts. 2005-2013 was a good fucking time in my life.

Greenpeace protesters at Shell

Greenpeace protesters are protesting at Shell garages in Edinburgh as a result of Shell exploring in the Arctic 16 July 2012

Now it’s an empty space. Sad. The land that is; not my existence. These days I get free Wi-Fi at work. 24/7 Clockwork Winning.

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Apr 13 2019
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Britain, Edinburgh, Photography, Scotland, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized

Modern living.

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Basking in the glory of an e-cig USB plug-in on the No. 16 bus.

Doing this grandiose act in Newhaven, I felt as if I had summited the bus experience, charging and vaping on the peasant wagon the apex of the commute.

#Rebelwithanecig.

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Apr 08 2019
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Architecture, Building, Construction, Edinburgh, Photography, Uncategorized

Hutchison House, Edinburgh.

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Grim as fuck, this one. It smacks of the ’60s – poverty and deprivation in the so-called swinging era. It’s the type of building a skag head would chuck himself off. Some things need demolished; this is one of them. Yuk.

 

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Apr 07 2019
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Edinburgh, Music, Photography, Scotland, Technology, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

Writing anything is torture.

Writing is waterboarding of the mind, such is the rolling artillery barrage of stimuli out there. As a part-time aspiring Gonzo in the knock-off Hunter S. Thompson mould (I don’t do drugs for fear of dying before the real-life Matt Damon lands on Mars), I cannot construct a sentence if there is a Wi-Fi connection. Why pen anything when there is Wikipedia and a mammoth page dedicated to the Battle of Austerlitz (1805)?

One must be unplugged from The Matrix.

Here is my photographic … representation of even an attempt to write anything with a correctly placed comma. And all music must be Enya or Enigma or any other kind of chillout music, nothing too high-tempo.

Writers Block

This photo ripped an hour from my life, by the way.

It’s how I imagine F. Scott Fitzgerald carved his stuff when Zelda was out in Lalaland off her tits on cocktails galore.

 

 

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Apr 03 2019
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Architecture, Building, Edinburgh, Photography, Scotland, Tourism, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

In a nutshell. Leith, Edinburgh.

Rambling around Leith today taking snaps. The port district is ugly but it has character. I would wager it has the highest concentration of junkies and creatives per square mile than anywhere else in Scotland. Everyone knows someone who’s on the smack, yet conversely their next-door neighbour will have aspirations of being this generation’s Bukowski.

The pubs also ‘suffer’ from deflation.

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