Category Archives: United Kingdom
Gorgie does Corona.
Convincingly Vanilla Skyesque visuals in Gorgie this afternoon, with most residents ‘self-isolating’ (or whatever) as all semblance of civilisation crumbles.
I expect martial law and food rationing by May.
Corona has unleashed the creatures.
There’s this line in The Departed (2006) uttered eloquently and menacingly by Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello: “You learn a lot – watching things eat.”
I can’t help but think of it every time I venture into a supermarket (or pop on Facebook to have a butcher’s at human antics) in this nauseating Corona epoch we now reside in – folk hoarding bog roll and pasta, literally slathering and screeching about the venue, peasants resembling something rage-like out of 28 Days Later (2002).
Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1255377/British-Army-coronavirus-latest-ministry-of-defence
I feel sorry for the checkout staff. That’s a tough gig.
You learn a lot – watching things shop.
Standard Meadowbank scenes.
A thoroughly frightful February in the Meadowbank ghetto this morning, with Arthur’s Seat in the backdrop conforming to its winter type; there is a desolation in the air here 24/7 and a ‘hobby’ of mine is listening to peak The Smiths in all their miserableness every time I lumber through the car park with a protein bar nabbed from Sainsbury’s.
That wee KFC picnic area is a delightful sight come spring, the main attraction hordes of local tribes (most off their nuts on crack cocaine) fending off seagulls.
In the Loop (2009) – election season special.
Election night is a special night, and the UK has had too many to even summarise in the past half decade. It’s a time when all the godawful monotone robots we have for public servants come out of the woodwork, every single one of them a walking, talking bag of empty catchphrases. Behind the scenes, one suspects their minders are the real brains behind the operation, the expletive-laden puppet masters who are laughing at us.
Malcolm Tucker is how I picture them – cynical, verbally violent, Scottish. I have heard very complimentary things about The Thick of It (2005-2012) but I am not going to bother as the movie is a belter and I don’t wish to diverge from it. There are lines of dialogue here so glorious that I can’t even fathom how they were written.
Best line: ‘Within your ‘purview’? Where do you think you are, some fucking regency costume drama? This is a government department, not some fucking Jane fucking Austen novel! Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your shitter with a lubricated horse cock.’
I am gasping to say that to almost every clown I have to work with. One day the moment will present itself. I verily cannot wait.
Further viewing:
The Edinburgh Christmas Market is back with a vengeance.
This Xmas market is an addiction. I don’t enjoy a single second meandering about its gruesome stalls, yet I continue to do so every year as it gets worse and worse in its lumbering pointlessness. The only parallel I can think of is watching Manchester United play football these days.
One day this is going to end. Best to savour it while it’s here.
Further reading:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-50446733
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/
Edinburgh – winter is coming.
Princes Street is ghastly – chavs galore and feckless tourists – but every Christmas it’s almost bearable. Because it rains and snows and people look fucking miserable. I like misery and I enjoy seeing people miserable. Great.
Newcastle – in search of Jack Carter.
I was in Newcastle this week. The city is a bit of a toilet and their football fans quite possibly the most delusional on the planet. I fondly recall Michael Caine’s Jack Carter uttering the immortal line, “Listen, the only reason I came back to this crap house – was to find out who did it. And I’m not leaving until I do.” That’s Newcastle in a sentence.
It has its wee charming attributes, though, as do most post-industrial northern dwellings. It’s Hovis advert territory but with tracksuits. I spent my time here wandering about like a wee numpty in search of locations featured in the movie. I didn’t find any, although I did locate a hostel kitchen that had no sink.
Further reading/viewing:
https://www.movie-locations.com/movies/g/Get-Carter-1971.php
https://www.getcarter.xyz/locations/arriving-in-newcastle/
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/former-get-carter-pub-re-opens-8285847
The Foot of the Walk (FOTW), Leith.
I’m in here twice a week now in the afternoons. Unfortunately, I’m not getting plastered; I just take my wee lunch break in the dwelling and get stuck into a full fat Coca-Cola and do the Metro crossword and experience Coronation Street flashbacks. I’m surrounded by miserable loners, mostly old codgers in flat caps who speak very few words but scowl non-stop at everyone and everything. My kind of people.
Tweed jackets and bunnets are making a comeback.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 