Overheard on the radio: manipulate the brain and one’s experience changes. It’s the most obvious statement in the world, but how to pull it off? I refuse to become toxically positive and shut out all negativities. Is there an acceptable ratio of optimism versus pessimism to aim for? Perhaps a 10% pessimism weighting might be … Continue reading One Week
XXII. St. Stephen Street Here men wear trousers chosen for the fruit they eat – cherry, lemon, plum, and apricot. Stock fashion. Plaited belts, hair that tickles silk cravats (in paisley print) tucked into shirts (two buttons open), gold rimmed spectacles, pocket squares poke from Harris tweed. Men who say, ‘brisk breeze today,’ buy croissants … Continue reading St Stephen Street, Water of Leith
XVII. Old Calton Burial Ground Ensconced behind a ferned wall, moss clad and lichen laden, lie this city’s ancestors. Tombs, mausoleums, marble headstones, monuments in granite obelisk, all stand – or slump – in terminal decline. They tilt and lean, bereft of those who grieved them. No solemn mourners now, they’ve been forgotten. Slaters, snails … Continue reading Old Calton Burial Ground, Princes Street
XIII. St Andrew Square Bring back Highwaymen! Have them roam the streets. Have them pistol-pin us with the order, ‘Stand and consider!’ Pay close attention to the open sky. Never lie. Sit on the stone benches bordering St Andrew Square. Mull, ruminate, notice the steel-toe-capped booted, yellow-vested builders eating sandwiches under high-plinthed Henry Dundas, ‘Grand … Continue reading St Andrew Square, Eyre Place
VIII. Easter Road My stomping ground is Easter Road, a place of withered leaves, stubbed butts, strewn rubbish, and the same squat bulldog lamp post tethered while his master buys a macaroni pie. A bookie’s, two booze shops, three options for tattoos, and a bakery with sourdough for £6 – can’t see that lasting, not … Continue reading Easter Road, Abbeymount, Meadowbank
VI. Royal Terrace Some habits punctuate my days, like sunset walks to Calton Hill with robin, rat and wren. I’ve met them all, housed happily in hawthorn hedge, that neat-clipped edge to Royal Terrace with its high and haughty ‘cannot-help-it’ tinge. Enough to say, I saw a couple dancing there beneath a crystal chandelier. A … Continue reading Royal Terrace, Calton Hill
This time two years ago, September 2020, we were deep in the throes of the Covid pandemic, mired in lockdowns and uncertainty. A vaccine was on its way, that much we knew, but we didn’t know when it would be administered, if it would work, or how much of a winter of isolation lay ahead. … Continue reading Once Upon a Time in Edinburgh
I didn’t know burial grounds were so full of life. Cemeteries filled with crumbling stones dating back one hundred, two hundred years, hidden and forgotten places known only by lonely dog walkers, head-dwellers, and retirees, places like Warriston Cemetery where the dead sleep while new growth teems with life. My friend took me there earlier … Continue reading Warriston Cemetery
-esque: in the style of, resembling (suffix, forming adjectives). There is no mistaking it, I am in Dublin. To borrow from a poem of Philip Larkin,, Dublin is so 'Dublinesque'. I disembark at Connolly, emerge into bright spring sunshine, and Dublin and I immediately remember each other. Here it comes, this vibrant feeling as I … Continue reading Dublinesque
(It’s a long read today. I’m out walking the city of Edinburgh with my nephew and you’re more than welcome to tag along.) We tramped about the city in the rain in search of hot chocolate. Rule number one (for one needs to establish rules at the outset when spending time with a thirteen-year-old boy, … Continue reading Edinburgh City Walk
My Edinburgh Press 