Robert Sharp

Nothing quite says “affluence,” like an old Burger King restaurant that has been converted into a jewellery store.

[photopress:cameo.jpg,full,pp_image]

Ah, Edinburgh! This Athens of the North, this home of the Enlightenment. What perfect Sundays you provide for its denizens. Snuggled beneath a warm blanket of idleness, a shroud of irresponsibility, I am free to sit in the re-vamped Cameo Cinema Bar and take advantage of their gratis wireless, and complimentary newspapers.

And for a blogger, a 21st Century gentleman-pamphleteer, what could be a more perfect afternoon than this? I scythe through The Observer, and the myriad possibilities for unsolicited opinion leap out at me. I am spoilt for choice. I could muse on Scottish Independence, perhaps? Or comment on the USA’s relentless march towards totalitarianism? It is, in a way, surprising that Blogistan becomes so quiet at weekends. Isn’t everyone else making electronic notations on the Sunday papers?

Jasper Gerard caught my eye, with a short piece on the Countryside Alliance:

And while I opposed banning hunting as I oppose banning anything without overwhelming reason, I also suspected those who enjoyed killing for its own sake were tossers. Like deposed dictators, perhaps foxes need to be killed, but huntsmen seem to snuff out life with all the tearful regret of the Iraqi prison service.

This precisely captures my feeling. I don’t care particularly for the fox, which is a pest. But killing things for fun seems an affront to nature, and if one is going to do it then you should have the decency to eat what you have killed. This is possible when you shoot game birds, deer, or when you go fishing. But since the hounds rip up the prey beyond what is edible, I do think “hunting with dogs” is a sensible distinction to make.

Should we have banned it though? Reconciling this “illiberal liberalism” (as Gerard has it) will no doubt occupy my thoughts for the rest of the afternoon (I suspect my answer would have something to do with our laws on animal cruelty and bear-baiting). With my back to the window and the outside world, I sink deeper into this leather armchair, and philosophize.

A couple of council tower blocks in the Oxgangs area of Edinbugh were demolished yesterday. They drop pretty quickly.

(more…)

[photopress:murrayfield_lineout.jpg,full,pp_image]

Scotland win this particular line-out, but were outclassed overall by the Aussies.

I don’t know what other residents of Edinburgh think of rugby weekends, but I’ve always enjoyed the flash floods of kilts and colour down Corstophine Road and Dalry Road. I the atmosphere which surrounds rugby matches is of course more festive and friendlier than football. This is probably because the football matches in Edinburgh are usually at club level, where the rivalries art local and more acute. Rugby matches, on the other hand, are internationals, meaning the visiting fans treat the match as an excuse for a holiday. Inside the ground, home and away supporters are not segregated, and we saw Australian flags waving alongside the Saltire.
(more…)

A few days ago, a fifteen-year old Sikh boy was assaulted by a gang in Pilrig Park, Edinburgh. During the attack, the gang took a knife, and cut off the boy’s hair. Sikhs, of course, believe that hair (“Kes” or “Kesh”) is a gift from God and a source of spiritual power and faith. So the crime was a violation not only of the body, but of the soul too. It was in effect an attack upon all Sikhs, an entire section of our Edinburgh community. I am ashamed it happened.

This is a photo of a vigil held this afternoon, Sunday 19th November, at the site of the attack. Plenty of tam o’ shanters and turbans in attendance. You can also see Labour MP Mark Lazarowicz at the centre of the picture.

Update

Sikh teen lied about hair attack

Lothian and Borders Police confirmed the attack had not taken place and said the boy had expressed remorse. They said no further action would be taken.
…
The teenager is believed to have had personal problems and was also having cultural identity issues brought about by differences between his Sikh upbringing and Western society.

This is one of the overlooked aspects of multiculturalism. The different and conflicting identities that exist within an individual are as important as the different groups that exist within the country.

Two ‘New Media’ events in Edinburgh in the next seven days:

First, I’m going to try and get along to an event this Saturday 18th called Cathay House Blend, curated by ‘Intercultural Artist’ Kimho Ip. He’ll be collaborating with Scotland’s electro-pop chancers FOUND, who’ve just returned from gigging in London at the BBC Electric Proms. It is at the National Museums of Scotland.

Second, New Media Scotland are invoking the Scottish Enlightenment, and giving away free glasses of anCnoc whisky at the Poker Club, next Thursday 23rd November at the Beehive Inn on the Grassmarket.

Meanwhile, Devil’s Kitchen hints that he may be starring in some kind of epic drinking theatrical extravaganza, This Lime Tree Bower, in late November. He hasnae publicised the date and location details yet.

NHS ‘moles’ are like the Malawian Orphans of the British blogosphere.

Doctor Crippen and Devil’s Kitchen think they are soooo clever with their inside information, don’t they? The Doc reports on the persecution of junior doctors, by revoking their right to prescribe drugs; while the Devil has a bizarre story about nurses secretly performing medicals on asylum seekers.

Well, I’ve got one too (actually, I have five or six, but let’s not be boastful). I’ve been forwarded a particularly amusing letter from Mr Mike Grieve, University Hospitals Division, NHS Lothian. He is leading a financial recovery team to reduce over-spending, which is currently running at £1 million per month.

Our immediate task is to return to a position of month-on-month income and expenditure balance … Much of this is incurred in four areas of expenditure namely, the cost of doctors in training, bank and particularly agency nursing costs, clinical supplies and some medicines.

So, they need to cut costs in the areas of: doctors, nurses, medical supplies, and medicine! Is that not, like, everything that goes into making a hospital a hospital!?

To be fair, at least they are on the case, and trying to get back on budget. My source is not impressed:

Without bank and agency nursing staff the service would collapse. There is a high level of sick leave amongst nurses, due to high levels of stress, low morale, poor pay, shift working etc.. A ward not well staffed by nurses is not safe.

What is interesting is there is no mention of managers, the ones who clearly fucked up in the first place.

That’s fine, but I can’t shake the worry that this would be not so different if the running of hospitals were sub-contracted out to private companies. What’s to stop them cutting the same costs and services to maintain profit margins?

I have said before that the operative word in ‘citizen journalist’ is not the latter, but the former. Fay Young’s short, personal report on the happenings of an Edinburgh City Council meeting seems to be a good example of ‘citizen journalism’ and the importance of new Internet technologies. The happenings at the meeting were probably not newsworthy enough for The Scotsman or even the Edinburgh Evening News, so a reporter might not be paid to file a report on it. Now, Fay is an established journalist, but it was in her role of ‘citizen’ that she was present and able to post her report (“Hot air stifles climate change debate”) on her blog. More information for the rest of us, which we hope leads to a more accountable, participatory democracy.

Fay was not impressed by the councillors’ collective time-management:

The meeting rattles through some fairly important stuff about poverty … Then the meeting spends 25 minutes debating whether to replace or restore the old Davenport desks and chairs. Finally one Labour councillor protests at this waste of time when there is still a motion on climate change to debate, not to mention the capital city’s alcohol problem. Still they drone on, and it is another five minutes before they vote [27 to 29] to replace the old heavy mahogany with something that can be easily shifted and stacked when it is not in use.

I wonder if Fay Young has read C. Northcote Parkinson’s eponymous Parkinson’s Law? This is a fantastic compendium of satirical essays, first published in the Economist, and collected in book form in 1958 (I have a fourth edition from that year, which carries some delightful illustrations by Osbert Lancaster). In his essay, “High Finance; or, The Point of Vanishing Interest”, Parkinson describes a committee that bears a remarkable similarity to that which Fay witnessed last week. Finance committees are, he says, made up of people who know nothing of millions, but well accustomed to thinking in thousands:

The result is a phenomenon that has often been observed but never yet investigated. It might be termed the Law of Triviality. Briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.

So, Fay’s experience seems all too familiar! Parkinson also presents an amusing essay on the ‘Coefficient of Inefficiency’, definied as the size at which a committee ceases to be of any effective use whatsoever. This he puts at somewhere between 19 and 23 members. It is interesting to note that the number of councillors voting at Fay’s meeting was more than double that estimate…

Whatever the accuracy of his theories, Parkinson’s Law is a great read, and a highly recommended stocking filler for the economist or policy wonk in your life.

I’ve been pottering about quietly in my flat, with the windows open. It is a still kind of day here in in Edinburgh, and the sound from Tynecastle wafts over the tenements. In this manner I deduce that Hearts are beating whoever it is they are playing.

I’m reminded of my time in Rio de Janeiro, living near the Parque Guinle, in the shadow of the Corcovado. If Fluminese or Botafogo happened to score, the city would erupt in a joyous cacaophony, like a jungle awakening.

Sometimes I find it is nice to live in a noisy town. The disturbances, like the roar of Tynecastle, or the One O’Clock Gun, are a kind of language of the city, one that you can pick out and understand above the hum of the traffic. It is a communication (of sorts) with your neighbours, who are elsewhere and enjoying themselves. “We are here,” they say. “You are not alone.”