A rainbow above KFC at Meadowbank. This is quite the surreal moment.
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Edinburgh congestion is torture.
Leith Street purgatory.
The traffic in Edinburgh is a sadistic abomination, something that would drive Michael Douglas out his car à la Falling Down (1993). Every fucking day there is a jam of jams, caused and compounded by traffic lights with a five-second gap between green and red, omniscient roadworks, never-ending tram extensions, a 20 mph speed limit, tourist questions to the bus driver as if he were a tourist information office, and Edinburgh’s much-vaunted position as the prime location for filming chav fodder (Fast & Furious, Avengers) in, which brings about all manner of diversions. The city is a conurbation of the slow.
Whose doing is this? I don’t know but I can tell you that Edinburgh Council are, in the words of John McEnroe, “The absolute pits of the world.” So I blame them whether it’s their fault or not.
Further reading:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-35812226
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17682291.edinburgh-named-as-worst-uk-city-for-traffic-jams/
The fall of the Berlin Wall – 30 years on.
The Berlin Wall has been down now for longer than it was up (1961-1989). A lot of stuff seemed to happen during that Cold War era but since the wall’s … demise it’s like very little of significance has actually happened, even though it has. When you live through the decades rather than read about them things are less dramatic.
Francis Fukuyama’s ‘The End of History’ is of course absolute pampers but for me at least, it does often feel like history is indeed over, the Manichean structure of it gone, and we are now living in post-historical times. And nothing means anything anymore. Maybe it’s the 24-hour news cycle, the desensitisation to carnage as a result of its hourly reportage.
Anyway, here’s a mediocre snap of the Berlin Wall from my first trip there in 2009. Later that day I went to Checkpoint Charlie with a pal of mine and said to him: “This is fucking shite.” I don’t know why I was expecting something magical.
And check out these two stunning movies:
The Right Stuff (1983) – the wrong stuff.
This movie was fucking awful. I’d heard all about it for years but put it on the shelf for a rainy day. It rained and I took the plunge.
Why is it that most ‘space movies’ are dull as dishwater? The subject remains an endless fascination but the movies are mostly pathetic. The filmmakers’ think that ‘getting it all right’ on the physics and equipment equals a masterpiece. They continue to disregard a need for drama, a human conflict that sucks you in and makes you invested in proceedings.
This film is sadly another snore-fest. No one gives a fuck about the scientific dimensions of the story, only the conflict and the feels. We have here a rather ultra-talented array of actors – Scott Glenn, Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid – all looking … bored.
It’s so uninspired and prosaic, real lazy filmmaking. Imagine Michael Mann made this; you’d have a masterwork on your hands.
Fucking hated this film. Shite.
Morning sun on Hutchison Crossway.
It doesn’t often look like this at Hutchison. For a very brief instant, things were cinematic. And then it was gone just as a beaten-up Ford Mondeo staggered into frame. This was my ‘Decisive Moment’.
Sainsbury’s, Meadowbank.
I have been in this store more times than any other building in the history of my life. I have visited this shop on so many occasions that I could win a rebooted version of Supermarket Sweep blindfolded in record time; I know the location of every item and can blitz a £60 shop in under three minutes. I’ve conducted some cursory calculations and my conclusion is that I’ve graced the self-scan machines with my presence at least 3,500 times, which *must* be unique, unless I’m so solipsistic I’ve overlooked the fact that local working-class fanny magnet Fred (or whoever) has lived over the road for 40-odd years and ventures inside merely for chats.
Anyway, yesterday I saw a midget outside kick the fuck out of a trolley because ‘it’ stole his £1 coin. Scenes. He looked like Verne Troyer on steroids.
Gangster No. 1 (2000) is a gem.
Saw this the other day after a long hiatus, and what an experience it is. With Sexy Beast (2000), it’s one of the few post Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) Brit gangster movies that actually delivers; Christ, remember all the early noughties mockney garbage that pummelled audiences into paralysis? That was one rotten era, a silly chav flick out every other week. And they all seemed to feature twats.
Gangster No. 1 (2000), though, is so stylishly put together and shamelessly so, the performances at times terrifying, and it shows the actual power and results of the ability to inflict violence rather than nonchalantly shrugging off the act as something comical (all Guy Ritchie movies). The film is about something, which is a rarity these days.
And it’s so good to see Malcolm McDowell in a decent movie; it’s almost as if he made a conscious decision to star in tripe after knowing nothing could ever top if…. (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971). That’s a perfect double bill, by the way, and so too is Sexy Beast (2000) and Gangster No. 1 (2000) – proper carnage but arty proper carnage with lots of swearing.
Sexy Beast (2000).
The Falkirk Wheel has blown my mind and I haven’t even seen the thing and for 17 years thought it was a ferris wheel.
Once upon a time, I went to Falkirk for a ‘night out’. I can’t remember a distinguishing characteristic about the place save that it was dodgy; it had a Chernobyl feel to it and the bar staff were more difficult to understand than a Klingon speaking in their native tongue. The wheel, however, was something I was convinced I knew well. I always thought it was a sort of Central Lowlands version of a vintage ferris wheel à la The Third Man (1949). I only found out the other day that it’s not a wheel as in a ferris wheel, but something functional and once again … not at all a ferris wheel.
It is in fact a boat lift which connects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal, and it’s quite the impressive achievement both aesthetically and from a purely engineering perspective. How I didn’t know this I … don’t know. I figure I was just lost in semantic confusion.
I might visit one day, and I now understand why Falkirk experiences a little bit of tourism. I would not, though, recommend its pubs to even Francis Begbie in his pomp.
Further reading/viewing:
https://www.scottishcanals.co.uk/falkirk-wheel/plan-your-visit/
http://www.visitfalkirk.com/things-to-do/family-days-out/the-falkirk-wheel/
Thai road-trippin’.
Time flies. This was six years ago today, and what a silly wee adventure it was, Bangkok to Rayong to Pattaya to Ayutthaya. The piece-of-shite motorbike I purchased off a Burmese borderline dwarf exploded about two hours into the journey to Rayong so I had to sit on a rotten minibus like a tinned sardine for half the day. But Fleetwood Mac got me through proceedings. I hate to appropriate the word ‘epic’ but this sojourn really was because it had everything; it was The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) but without Velcro dartboards to launch midgets at.
Good times.
Dalry Road, Edinburgh.
Arty-farty pretensions with this snap from Monday. Interestingly, there’s a graveyard coming up on the left there and I once saw a (presumably hammered) woman clutching a bottle of budget cider wander inside and take a shite in a bush.
All very Edinburgh.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 