Formerly the House of Fraser, this prime slice of real estate will now allegedly house a rooftop cocktail bar. It won’t happen for two reasons: 1. The men in white coats don’t think that Scottish folk can be trusted to imbibe on rooftops; 2. We can’t be trusted to behave ourselves on rooftops, especially after a gin & tonic served in a slipper or whatever the fuck the Hipster zeitgeist utilise as highball glasses these days.
Bye for now.
Further reading:
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.
Wee bit of humanity in this one. Splendid.
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.
I fucking hate Princes Street. It’s dire, chock-full of stores that appear designed exclusively for desperate housewives. There are also mobile phone shops and a budget book place – this curious number sells no novels, the only items on display autobiographies of pointless celebrities and road maps of Denmark published in 2004. All very bizarre. Added to this is the plethora of American tourists crawling about with their bumbags on, elephants in the In Bruges (2008) sense.
Princes Street looked decent in 1858, though. No spackers to be seen here.
The Xmas Market is back, Edinburgh’s ‘winter wonderland’. Stalls selling tacky clobber, ‘German’ food and drink at Weimar Republic-level prices, and jingle bells noises.
Personally, I think it’s shite, but it lures in the tourists and scares away the junkies because they get too confused by bright lights and the smell of warm food.
I don’t really know what was happening here. Normally on a stroll by the castle I glance up at the beastly fortress and briefly envision the Wars of Scottish Independence as I whistle a chunk of James Horner. This Sunday, however, I saw some randoms chucking around a large fluffy dice. Weird.
Rose Street is somewhat like the famous York Shambles but with more pubs and less Romans. Princes Street is an adjacent hellhole – chav clobber galore and rickety buses – but Rose Street almost takes the stench away. A lovely street.
It’s here once more (with feeling). The Christmas Market on Princes Street has been setting up shop every November for what must be the last two millennia. There’s not much to it but tat peddled from wooden shacks, and a sickly, premature jingle bells atmosphere. One can hit the mulled wine and warm ciders, though. Any excuse for a piss-up. There is also an imposing fuck-off ferris wheel if you fancy gobbing on someone from an advantageous peak.
Watching this short Pathé feature I’ve seldom recalled so many conflictingly good and bad memories inhabiting the same space. In almost every image here I ludicrously time-travel to a kaleidoscope of experiences and the Sartrean depths of the moment, something about the temporality of being-for-itself.
The singular power of images, for me, is that they transcend the ‘shadows-and-dust’ narrative we direct. A memory of a place or person is just a memory – it’s the image that validates our longing for the past experience.
It is odd how little Edinburgh has changed architecturally since 1931 – it’s one of those cities seemingly impervious to redesign (a Venice of the North?) and this is imbued in its dormant volcano. People come and go, the landscape watches on.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 