April 13-19, 2024
SATURDAY 13 The sun was shining when we arrived in Edinburgh yesterday. We stripped off the layers and as soon as we left our hotel and hit nearby Market Street the weather turned. We ducked into The Fruitmarket, browsed an atmospheric retrospective exhibition by the Scottish sculptor Martin Boyce, then sat at a window seat in the cafe watching the rain outside get heavier and heavier. We left when we learned they had no white wine in the fridge.
📌 On our way to Ondine last night for some extravagant seafood we passed a ginger youth in a kilt playing the bagpipes. My wife urged me not to take a photo and later said she suspected the youth of being part of a large organised gang of ginger bagppipers.
📌 Edinburgh takes modern art seriously and has given over two huge historic buildings in lush green parklands to two galleries, imaginatively named Modern One and Modern Two. Modern One had an intriguing collection of work by the Korean artist Do Ho Suh, who does amazing things with thread and paper, plus a modest but impressive permanent collection from some of the greats. Modern Two had a boring celebration of Eduardo Paolozzi, the “Scottish Pop Artist” who would be 100 were he still alive.
📌 On Princes Street we spotted another ginger bagpiper.
📌 What we hoped would be another exciting seafood dining experience, this time at the White Horse, was not to be, mainly because the headline dish (crab scotch egg) was off the menu.
SUNDAY 14 Ricky, the jovial (and English) guide on our Edinburgh tour bus, was an archetype of the misogynist-xenophobe who has no idea that what they think is funny is actually quite offensive. When he tried pathetically to endear himself to the Dutch, German and American tourists in our group by impersonating their accents we got off and went to the National Museum of Scotland, a place I could happily spend all the remaining days of my life.
MONDAY 15 Had I given it some proper thought I might have predicted that the Andy Warhol Textiles exhibition at Dovecot Studios would be a cheeky mix of the gimmicky, the humourous and the sublimely elegant.
📌 On the bus to Leith I asked my wife to repeat the tongue-twisting words, “The Leith Police Dismisseth Us”, with ever-increasing speed. But she wouldn’t do it.
📌 A trip to Edinburgh would not be complete if we didn’t visit Valvona & Crolla to spend potty amounts of money on luxury Italian foodstuffs.
TUESDAY 16 As the train sped south to London we tried to catch a glimpse of Antony Gormley’s famous Angel of the North sculpture. My wife succeeded, I failed.
📌 As soon as we felt confident enough to sing the praises of the newly state-owned LNER train service (polite, efficient, reliable, etc. The staff actually seem to care), our train broke down in York. They were very honest and practical about it, and we got notification of a full refund within half an hour. We boarded the next train and got home about an hour later than expected.
📌 Dawn posted a picture of a parakeet that parked itself in a tree opposite her flat.
WEDNESDAY 17 On his Notes from the Underground Substack David Aaronovitch is rightly fascinated by one of the demographics to emerge from the Cass Review on NHS gender identity services for children and young people. Between 2017 and 2019 there was a dramatic switch in the young people accessing the service.
Clinicians confirmed the changing demographic as demonstrated by the data above. They described how this changed over a two-year period between 2017 and 2019, from a mixed age range group with a majority of birth-registered males to 70-80% birth-registered females under the age of 25.
The Cass Review
THURSDAY 18 The City of London Corporation plan to bulldoze the site of the old Museum of London and replace it with commercial property was smacked in the face last night when Michael Gove of all people called in the planning application after a widespread and highly organised campaign to stop it. Local residents argue that the existing architecture of the Barbican building can be preserved by repurposing and refitting rather than destroying it. They also argue that this option has a much lower carbon footprint. The City of London Corporation is both the planning authority and the proposed developer of the site.
📌 It’s reported that up to a dozen Greater Manchester police officers are investigating a complaint against Angela Rayner about some tax she might or might not have paid years before she became an MP. For clarity, a dozen is 12.
📌 Art UK has a fabulous online collection of Autograph’s photo archive.
📌 My wife’s tomato seedlings are gaining strength, despite our absence over the weekend.
📌 As we walked down the street, a neighbour’s two children, out playing, stopped to chat and told us about their cat’s new kittens. Then the youngest, two front teeth missing, stared at me with curiosity and turned to my wife: “Is he your dad?” he asked her.
📌 My wife told me over supper about a past work college who used to arrive late at work on the same day every week for “medical” reasons. He was visiting his chiropodist.
FRIDAY 19 The latest stitchwork in my plant series will be a rose that starts off pink but will probably end up featuring every colour in my thread basket. As usual, the reverse side is better-looking than the show side.
📌 It’s always a treat when Sam goes full surrealist, this time with a dog on an airbed.
📌 My wife has a spine problem that sooner or later will require surgery. We spoke to the spine doctor and decided that we’d go for a wait-and-see option for the next 12 months.
📌 We finished the second series of Blue Lights and what started in Series 1 as an almost clever look at the workings of the PSNI became a routine ensemble cop show with heightened drama in romantic relationships and sectarian politics.
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Billy's Scrapbook 