Okey Dokey

Day 24 of my induction into the cult of Waitrose. Today it was their Ginger Nut Biscuits. I am starting to get scared of what happens when I return to Australia and I can't go to Waitrose anymore. Am I supposed to go to Coles and pretend that this is living? That isn't living. *sob*

I'm starting to sound like I'm from Stockbridge. In fact, Stockbridge has been a bit of a problem. I think I was basing my opinions about Edinburgh on this particular suburb. On Sunday Stockbridge really fanned out its tail. White yuppie couples with designer dogs queuing at the fromagerie and boulangerie for the most exquisite and overpriced morsels. I'm sure they're all progressive at heart, but its a luxury progressivism, a boutique progressivism.

I felt all too implicated as I neglected a beggar, wandering with the other middle-aged well-offs to struggle with my choice of Viennoiserie. And wasn't it me who dragged poor Stuart into an artisanal craft shop to buy a bunch of exquisitely cool crap on Visa card? It was. The things I hate about Edinburgh are things I hate about myself: comfort, insincerity, insulation.

(But Edinburgh Castle still sucks.)

Out of TimeFocusEnergy, we got the car out and drove to the nearby Holyrood Park, a little oasis of crag in a Georgian sandstone wonderland. We took the short stroll up to St Anthony's Chapel and felt that joy one always feels in a ruin: even stone must bow before time's sovereignty. And I think it was good that we started the day reading an article by Stan Grant called "After Queen Elizabeth II's death, Indigenous Australia can't be expected to shut up. Our sorry business is without end," because it was a reminder that all these medieval stones are not bastions of civilisation in a sea of barbarity; it's always tempting to mistake the preciousness of ruins for signs of greatness.

It was a joy to drive through the poorer (ie the normal) parts of Edinburgh too, away from the Stockbridge fantasia. We saw that not everyone here is a hipster. That little drive out of the postcode felt like waking up from a hallucinogen.

We go to Glasgow tomorrow, and I know I say this a lot, but we have not had enough time here. The Glaswegian hotel clerk gave us a passive aggressive "Okey Dokey" which sounded like code for "You senseless idiots," but then again we did get a sincere "Okey Dokey" yesterday from Alison from Leith, so we've seen the yin and the yang of that idiom ... and the yin and yang of Edinburgh too.Read more