Warning - nuclear missiles can seriously damage your health



The church of Saint John's on Princes Street often features some thought-provoking and satirical paintings commenting on current events. Since recent weeks have seen ministerial resignations from both the Edinburgh and London parliaments over the controversial plans by Blair to start work on a successor to the Trident nuclear missile submarines it seemed and appropriate time to post this. I find it bitterly humorous the way Blair pushes this through parliament - only with the help of Tory votes since so many of his own party refused to back it, my how proud he must be - to plan for a new force of nuclear missile submarines while at the same time attacking Iran and Korea for their attempts to build atomic weapons and after dragging us into an illegal war which was supposedly to destroy Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Just who the hell are we supposed to 'deter' with this force? With British soldiers being injured or killed due to shortages of helicopters and personal armour shouldn't we spend some money there instead of billions on new nukes which do nothing? Has anyone explained to the Prime Minister that the Cold War ended some time ago and the world situation is a bit different today?

Saint Giles



Saltires fluttering in the spring breeze on the Royal Mile, with Saint Giles cathedral behind (no, not named after Buffy's Watcher!).



The entrance to Saint Giles; a few feet from this spot some brass panels mark the spot on the cobblestones where the gallows used to stand. Across the nearby junction is Deacon Brodie's pub, named for the respectable citizen who by night led a different life which led to him dancing on air at the end of a rope on those same gallows - gallows, ironically, he had helped raise the money for as part of his 'respectable' front.



Love the different creatures on each of these small pillars flanking the entrance.



I like the winged creature on the lower right hand - looks almost Babylonian in style.



Barber-shop quartet, Medieval style!



Inside Saint Giles; the sun was coming in the stained glass window behind me, dappling the stone pillars in shifting patterns of different coloured light.



Bright spring sunlight spilled in this day, illuminating the stained glass, the vaulted ceiling and the stonework beautifully. Being Edinburgh there were tourists around, of course, but not too many just yet, so I could enjoy that very special sense of peace you get in old, stone kirks. Hard to believe in this quiet spot the opening shots of the Civil War would be fired in the form of stools hurled by outraged women as the ministers tried to read from a book of common prayer imposed by Charles I. A few months later dreadful combat would burn throughout Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales, ripping apart the kingdom and costing a king his head. How little could those women have realised what a storm was to break over the land.





The Lion Rampant and the Unicorn, ancient insignia of the kingdom of Scotland.







The pipes of the organ shining in a burst of light from a high window.



The marble effigy of Montrose.



This tiny side-chapel is an especially peaceful spot, reserved for quiet contemplation and remembrance, where you can light a candle for someone you lost.



Not entirely sure, but it looks as if the bearded preacher in the upper right is meant to be that well-known barrel of laughs, John Knox, quite possibly the Scotsman most in need of a spliff and a shag to chill him out than any other in history. I had to stop taking pictures at this point, unfortunately, as an attendant came up and told me I needed to purchase a special permit to take photos, which seems a bit odd to me since this is supposed to be the national high kirk; I wonder if tourists can pay in their own currency and have their money changed right there in the temple :-)? It was only a few pounds but I objected to the principle; still, at least the staff were polite about it unlike the ignorant vergers of Saint Paul's in London and, unlike the rude and unfriendly Saint Paul's they do allow some photographs, but really, that can't be terribly conducive to tourism in a major site in the capital, can it?

Millennium Clock

Since my new camera has better video and sound functions than the old one I shot some footage of the Millennium Clock going through its paces in Edinburgh's Royal Museum. Shame I had to seriously reduce the quality so it would suit YouTube, but since it is a free video hosting service I suppose I shouldn't complain.

Blue Peter

What is the world coming to when you can't even trust Blue Peter to play straight and true with viewers? With the other recent scandals over TV premium rate phone-in shows I've mostly been of the opinion that, yeah, TV companies are blatantly ripping off viewers, but anyone stupid enough to keep calling at those rates frankly is a fecking idiot and deserves to be ripped off. But Blue Peter? Okay, they weren't making tons of money from a premium rate number, but they did lie to millions of kids. They have now apologised for an 'error of judgement' but I think the fact they kept quiet about this since November until a member of the public exposed it means an apology is pretty weak and rather insincere - only apologising after not only lying to kids but keeping your mouth shut about it like it never happened for months until you are caught out is something else again and an apology doesn't cut it. I think the only way Blue Peter can make it up to a traumatised nation is to have presenter Konnie Huq in the tiniest bikini in the world doing an episode on jello-wrestling.

Ivor the Engine

Walking round the Museum of Scotland with my mum and dad the other day we heard a noise, "scccchhhhhhhhhhhhh tpppptt, scccchhhhhhhhh tpppptt...". Looking down from the gallery we were on we realised an engineer had started up the gleaming steam engine on the floor below us. This modern addition to the Royal Museum in Edinburgh takes you round Scotland's history in chronological order, starting at the entrance with Pictish standing stones, taking you through the early Kingdom of the Scots and on. By the upper floors you reach the Industrial Revolution - there is a large stone building actually inside the museum housing a Newcomen style 'atmospheric engine' (the earliest steam engines, before James Watt improved them) with the wooden beam projecting from the stonework. Beside this is this working steam engine; when we passed it we noticed the can of oil and the dirty rag on top and realised someone had been working on it - of course we hoped we'd see the engineering curator come back and start her up.

While walking round the next floor up we heard the distinctive sound of a steam engine 'breathing', a dragon of iron and copper brought to life by a fusion of fire and water. Like a lot of little boys I loved steam engines as a kid; I well remember my mum and dad taking me round the steam museum at Carnforth in Lancashire, which I loved - not only did you see restored engines you saw great, rusted hulks awaiting rescue which, if you came back a couple of years later, would have been lovingly and painstakingly rebuilt by volunteers to working condition, freshly painted, brass and copper pipes gleaming.

Even better it was a living museum, not just a static exhibition; the engines would be fired, build up their steam and come to life, so much better than seeing just a static exhibit. I guess there are some things you never grow out of and I still love steam engines; the intricate movements, the harnessing of water and fire to create something new in history after thousands of years of humans relying on their own muscle or beasts of burden. Quaint today, perhaps, but world-changing, cutting edge technology at the time and still, to my mind, carrying themselves with an elegance and style no modern, more efficient engine ever quite captures; in their own peculiar way steam engines seem to be alive in a way no other machine is, breathing, pumping oil and water like blood and with a heart of fire and iron; our most mythical creature, the dragon, born anew from imagination and engineering.

Sunset

After spending a very pleasant day with my mum and dad going round Edinburgh, enjoying food and drink and generally having a very nice time we were descending the Mound, came round the corner at the top, next to the Bank of Scotland headquarters and walked right into this glorious sunset.

300 previewed

I was approached by some of the folks who were organising previews of the upcoming film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel 300, which tells as historically rather loose but nonetheless brilliant tale of the 300 Spartan warriors who held off the entire army of the Persian Empire for several days while the other Greek city states rallied their forces (Athens would later repeat this victory at sea, crushing a huge Persian fleet). It is one of history's great turning points; had the Greeks been ground under the Persian heel our modern world would be very different, without that Classical flowering of philosophy, scientific enquiry, writing and democracy (how ironic a bunch of military zealots who ran their brutal society by enslaving an entire people to do their work while they trained would be so instrumental in this).



Unfortunately for me the preview was at the BFI's Imax screen in London, so I couldn't really make it, but a couple of my colleagues at FPI based in London were only too happy to go along and have now posted a preview up on the FPI blog. I can't wait to see it myself - historical inaccuracies aside it looks quite amazing, being shot in a manner very similar to Sin City (another Frank Miller comics adaptation), matching the comics original almost panel for panel, shot against green screens with very few actual sets to give it an incredibly stylised look. And I'm sure the girls (and some of the boys) are going to enjoy 300 incredibly fit men who spend a lot of screen time almost naked and oiled :-)