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These days you could say the same about Ketamine.
Tiring of the pleasures of London town, last weekend I took myself off for a few days in the world's biggest train set - or 'Edinburgh' as it is better known. I've often commented on how, living in the big city, I never actually seem to do any of the things which it has to offer as they'll still be there next week. However, when you've only got a limited amount of time to see things you spend it running from one place to another trying to cram in as much experience as you can before the train blows it's whistle and you have to go home again. And so it was here. I didn't spend much time in the hotel* but instead Saturday morning found me standing on the battlements of Stirling Castle, looking out over the battlefields of Bannockburn and Stirling Bridge.
The south of Scotland is dotted with mighty and brooding castles which were built in order to facilitate the Scots' thousand-year hostility towards and internicine strife with their traditional enemy, the Scots, and Stirling is one of the most impressive. It stands on a rocky crag in the middle of a glacial valley, a bit like Edoras or a gigantic outy belly button, and dominates the area. It especially dominates the little town it overlooks, which is quite an unhappy place and has plainly had the heart torn out of it by the recession. This is perhaps made even more poignant by the fact that Stirling castle was once the seat of the Kings of Scotland right up until the day that James VI became King of England as well, at which point there was a comical 'peeowwww' noise as he headed to London so fast they couldn't see his arse for dust and leaving the locals to wonder what to do with the whopping great castle on their doorstep.
Like many places in the British Isles, Stirling is simply littered with important bits of history. It was here that the forces of John de Warenne were roundly defeated in 1297 and this is commemorated with a large and imposing monument to that great Scottish patriot and freedom fighter, Mel Gibson. It was also here that Robert the Bruce defeated Edward II (and pretty much ended his rule) in 1314 at Bannockburn. After the battle, Robert levelled Stirling Castle in order to prevent the English ever again holding such an important foothold in Scotland, a move which was so effective that I hear Scottish Energy built a power station over his grave and use the Bruce's rapidly rotating body as a powerful turbine.
Anyway, I spent an interesting and informative day tramping around the castle, which is undergoing an extensive renovation programme and is looking very spick and span as a result. I also wandered around the regimental museum of the Argyll and Sutherland highlanders, which is based in the castle, who seem to have spent several hundred years zooming around the globe shooting at anyone who looked at them funny and then nicking their stuff. I felt totally patriotic and left with a spring in my step.
Saturday night took me to the concert at the Grand Kirk on the Royal Mile. On the face of it this seemed like a good idea, as it was promoted as being a string quartet and I was sort of hoping for something along the lines of the baroque concerts they do at St Martins in the Fields. Certainly something musically grand and baroque would have been appropriate given what a wonderful building the Grand Kirk is; ancient and serious and imposing, and given to statues of John Knox looking very cross indeed about things like how girls have breasts and how people sometimes smile. Unfortunately the concert turned out to be 'a programme of new music by young composers', and it was every bit as awful as that sounds. Every so often during the recital my heart would leap as something approaching a tune or a theme would start to appear, before it was ruthlessly dashed down again by the sort of discordant, minor-key arpeggios which are de rigeur in music designed to be challenging rather than enjoyable. I should have been warned by the composer saying that their music was 'experimental', which of course it wasn't. It was experimental when Stravinsky was doing it a hundred years ago. Now it's just irritating, and I was half-hoping that one of the statues of John Knox might leap from its plinth and floor him with a particularly heavy Bible.
Anyway, to get my blood-pressure down to manageable levels again, Sunday saw me take myself off around Holyrood Palace which is where the Queen stays when she's visiting the neighbours. Although a castle has stood on the site for quite some time, most of the work on the current building was done by Charles II who, like James VI (or I) before him, never actually visited the place. Nevertheless the place is crammed with pictures of historical and mythical Kings of Scotland, every single one of which looks like Charles II in a different wig. I got the feeling the artist was trying to tell me something - I'm not sure what it was, but I did come out feeling like Charles II was very definitely the rightful King of Scotland and was pretty much certain to have a legitimate claim.
The rest of the Palace has lots of history about the bloody and miserable reign of Mary, Queen of Scots in it, and you come away feeling that she didn't have many laughs.
And that was about it, really. My train home was getting up steam so, after a short diversion to Adam Smith's grave to pay my respects (I left a pound on it, on the assumption that if it weren't for him I wouldn't have it) and another short diversion to the expensive Whisky shop (where I left significantly more than one pound), it was ho for the station and home.
So that was my weekend. How was yours?
* The Balmoral, which is allegedly the best hotel in Edinburgh but not worth the money if you ask me. There are better hotels cheaper in the city.
Tiring of the pleasures of London town, last weekend I took myself off for a few days in the world's biggest train set - or 'Edinburgh' as it is better known. I've often commented on how, living in the big city, I never actually seem to do any of the things which it has to offer as they'll still be there next week. However, when you've only got a limited amount of time to see things you spend it running from one place to another trying to cram in as much experience as you can before the train blows it's whistle and you have to go home again. And so it was here. I didn't spend much time in the hotel* but instead Saturday morning found me standing on the battlements of Stirling Castle, looking out over the battlefields of Bannockburn and Stirling Bridge.
The south of Scotland is dotted with mighty and brooding castles which were built in order to facilitate the Scots' thousand-year hostility towards and internicine strife with their traditional enemy, the Scots, and Stirling is one of the most impressive. It stands on a rocky crag in the middle of a glacial valley, a bit like Edoras or a gigantic outy belly button, and dominates the area. It especially dominates the little town it overlooks, which is quite an unhappy place and has plainly had the heart torn out of it by the recession. This is perhaps made even more poignant by the fact that Stirling castle was once the seat of the Kings of Scotland right up until the day that James VI became King of England as well, at which point there was a comical 'peeowwww' noise as he headed to London so fast they couldn't see his arse for dust and leaving the locals to wonder what to do with the whopping great castle on their doorstep.
Like many places in the British Isles, Stirling is simply littered with important bits of history. It was here that the forces of John de Warenne were roundly defeated in 1297 and this is commemorated with a large and imposing monument to that great Scottish patriot and freedom fighter, Mel Gibson. It was also here that Robert the Bruce defeated Edward II (and pretty much ended his rule) in 1314 at Bannockburn. After the battle, Robert levelled Stirling Castle in order to prevent the English ever again holding such an important foothold in Scotland, a move which was so effective that I hear Scottish Energy built a power station over his grave and use the Bruce's rapidly rotating body as a powerful turbine.
Anyway, I spent an interesting and informative day tramping around the castle, which is undergoing an extensive renovation programme and is looking very spick and span as a result. I also wandered around the regimental museum of the Argyll and Sutherland highlanders, which is based in the castle, who seem to have spent several hundred years zooming around the globe shooting at anyone who looked at them funny and then nicking their stuff. I felt totally patriotic and left with a spring in my step.
Saturday night took me to the concert at the Grand Kirk on the Royal Mile. On the face of it this seemed like a good idea, as it was promoted as being a string quartet and I was sort of hoping for something along the lines of the baroque concerts they do at St Martins in the Fields. Certainly something musically grand and baroque would have been appropriate given what a wonderful building the Grand Kirk is; ancient and serious and imposing, and given to statues of John Knox looking very cross indeed about things like how girls have breasts and how people sometimes smile. Unfortunately the concert turned out to be 'a programme of new music by young composers', and it was every bit as awful as that sounds. Every so often during the recital my heart would leap as something approaching a tune or a theme would start to appear, before it was ruthlessly dashed down again by the sort of discordant, minor-key arpeggios which are de rigeur in music designed to be challenging rather than enjoyable. I should have been warned by the composer saying that their music was 'experimental', which of course it wasn't. It was experimental when Stravinsky was doing it a hundred years ago. Now it's just irritating, and I was half-hoping that one of the statues of John Knox might leap from its plinth and floor him with a particularly heavy Bible.
Anyway, to get my blood-pressure down to manageable levels again, Sunday saw me take myself off around Holyrood Palace which is where the Queen stays when she's visiting the neighbours. Although a castle has stood on the site for quite some time, most of the work on the current building was done by Charles II who, like James VI (or I) before him, never actually visited the place. Nevertheless the place is crammed with pictures of historical and mythical Kings of Scotland, every single one of which looks like Charles II in a different wig. I got the feeling the artist was trying to tell me something - I'm not sure what it was, but I did come out feeling like Charles II was very definitely the rightful King of Scotland and was pretty much certain to have a legitimate claim.
The rest of the Palace has lots of history about the bloody and miserable reign of Mary, Queen of Scots in it, and you come away feeling that she didn't have many laughs.
And that was about it, really. My train home was getting up steam so, after a short diversion to Adam Smith's grave to pay my respects (I left a pound on it, on the assumption that if it weren't for him I wouldn't have it) and another short diversion to the expensive Whisky shop (where I left significantly more than one pound), it was ho for the station and home.
So that was my weekend. How was yours?
* The Balmoral, which is allegedly the best hotel in Edinburgh but not worth the money if you ask me. There are better hotels cheaper in the city.
