Travel, Trains and Teeny-Tiny (Uni) Towns

Travel, Trains and Teeny-Tiny Towns

A Rather Long Post About How A Book Made Me Realise I Love Trains, Visiting Small Towns And Referencing The Thirteenth King Who Can Time Travel. 

Settle in for this one. Make yourself comfortable. Set the scene - with a girl dressed for winter on your average East Coast Train, crappy biro in her hand and a little notebook full of incomplete anagram circles. 

The last few weeks I feel like I started to explore this lovely land I call home. I've been hopping on and off trains: to St Andrews, Glasgow, Durham - and realised how much I enjoy it. Similarly, I've also begun to noticed that those teeny-tiny towns (or itty-bitty-city in the case of Durham) have a delicious appeal. A fortnight past, I stepped off at Leuchars having meandered down the coast from Edinburgh, thrilled to visit Charlie and his incredibly wee kittens. Yesterday, I jumped out of the carriage onto the platform and gazed down the lush verdant hill across to Durham's Cathedral before, with a grin and the sun on my face, ambling into town. Both Saturdays were glorious. Bursting sunshine winked down from the sky with a bright, cold eye and the buzz of being somewhere new made me shiver with delight. There I stood, in the role of stranger, ready to see someone else's haunts and havens. 

As I mentioned, Charlie met me at the bus stop when I popped up to St Andrews but when I went to Durham it was to see my sister settled into her new room in Hatfield College's Rectory, so in this latter case I was meeting my family. Now, both of these places are home to world-renowned universities, hugely successful and prestigious colleges for some of the best and brightest students. Both are also ancient - buildings in both areas range from the medieval to Norman, histories going back even further. In terms of universities, St Andrews is much older, but that hardly detracts from how we should view Durham. Town and university merge in their respective centres and the both have that slightly odd feeling of locals vs students. 

But now, having been at Carolina for a year, I don't look at either place with the scorn or derision that used to curl my lips at the mention of small university campuses. Muttering judgementally, I'd make comments like 'they're just like school', or 'they're too bubble-like and insular' or 'they're full of the same people' - I imagined everyone decked out in Jack Wills and signing off (as one girl actually did on my sister's facebook) "#Durham #YAH". Well, I think I can safely say that I am an idiot and am very glad that UNC has opened my eyes. Squirrel.

It meant that whilst wandering in my happy daze alongside the nattering Mr Wild, I could laugh at myself, face to the bitter sea breeze and love that in that place and that time I seemed part of one of the most beautiful places in Britain. It meant that looking round Durham yesterday, twisting and turning through its higgledy-piggledy streets, I had to fight the urge to break off from my rag-tag family and go explore all the curious nooks and crannies. Yes, I think I'd be restless in any town as small as these two and I think I'd be mad if I had spent four years at either one straight after Haileybury. But I can see why my sister fell in love with the Cathedral and Castle. And I think there's a certain appeal in the small everyone-knowing-everyone atmosphere. Driving into her college today, we were clapped and cheered through the gates and the excitement of starting university somewhere like that was infectious. And you know... those 'Sylvia Plath cliffs' beneath crumbling stones that Alice described to me years ago... they're rather wonderful too... and I can't deny that living by the sea has enormous charm.

There's a couple more things to mention. 

Returning home from Durham, my pen finds itself in my hand. I finally finished a book I've been dipping in and out of over the last couple of weeks. It's an Ian McEwan novella - although it reads a lot like a collection of short stories (and there's something about them that makes me read it in the voice of that time-travelling master of the universe) - and it's called The Daydreamer. Vivid, fantastic and written with such insight to the way the dreaming, wondering, wonderful mind works, I sat for the remainder of the journey in a nostalgic, whimsical stupor, watching the dull green fields fly by beneath curling wisps of cloud and rain. 

In the aftermath of McEwan's words, I'm remembering things. The final chapter, 'The Grown Up', whisks me back to days down in Dorset when The Houseboat Gang raced the tide in,  building our castles higher and higher and moats deeper and deeper into dark wet sand, mornings spent splattering down the beach from Bounty to Sea Shanty and evenings wriggling sandy feet into sleeping bags. We would spring down the shoreline, nimble, weightless, flying through the dunes, making up games that would make any writer envious of all their miraculous storylines. There's a paragraph when he writes about how: 

'the sun sank... and the families gathered in one of the gardens for a barbecue. After they had eaten, the grownups would be far too content with their drinks and endless stories to set about putting the children to bed, and this was when The Beach Gang would drift away into the smooth calm of dusk, back to all their favourite daytime places. Except now there was the mystery of darkness and strange shadows, and the cooling sand beneath their feet, and the delicious feeling as they ran about in their games that they were playing on borrowed time. It was way past bedtime, and the children knew that sooner or later the grown-ups would stir themselves out of conversations and the names would ring out in the night air -' 

(McEwan, Daydreamer, 128-9)

As I read it I was back on Bramblebush Bay, barely aware of the echoing chink of the chain ferry down the beach, covered in white and black sand with Vicky, George, Rollo, Tom, Rosie and everyone else. It was our names on the end of the sentence. Every story has that wonderful allure, that assessment that's so perfect and evocative. Things like the 'Useful-Things Draw' (aka. the family-man-draw) that's inevitably full of junk like the tops of bottles, too short string and plain old peculiar 'stuff'. Or the contrast between a cat's morning and ours. 

The Houseboat Gang
Ludo, Rollo, George, Tom, Georgie, Rosie, Vicky and Me

At about this point, I realise I have a good couple hours left on the train and my face is twisted in a nonsensical smile that I'm sure made the boy sitting opposite me a little nervous. I also realise, watching the world disappear along the track, that I really enjoy travelling by train. That sentence could be followed by one that takes you back to the beginning of this post, back to Durham and the girl curled up on a train. What I failed to mention is the bubbling enthusiasm and sense of adventure that I've begun to identify in the last couple journeys. Standing on the platform, the time ticking down and the train about to approach - there's something in the anticipation. With a train, its rattle promises adventure. There's a hint of new places, new faces, new things to discover and explore and of course there's a little bit of risk too. Will you actually find your way to the right end of the line? Will the train take you where you want? Have you hopped on the right one? Who will you sit with? Who will you meet? You can meet anyone on a train and there's that feeling of infinite possibility... the same feeling I often have when crossing the Meadows, knowing you could bump into brilliance.

 So that's the last thing I really wanted to mention - how brilliant I've realised trains are. That's it. I won't write anymore. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
SCRIBBLER

Jekyll and Hyde

Edinburgh: City of mist and rain and blown grey places. 

Six, seven, eight storeys high were the houses; storey piled above storey, as children build with cards.

Charles Dickens

At this juncture it would almost seem redundant to repeat my everyday saying that I do love Edinburgh. But that's not really why I'm writing this today I don't think..... not at all... it's more because as life goes on and the days fly by, I know that Vicky and George are going off to university and - hold on a second - I'm actually in my last year.

Who else thought that by the time they hit university they'd have their whole life planned out? I know I did. I thought by fourteen I'd have finished and published The Dance of Shadows. Well, we can see that didn't happen. Similarly, I thought that once I was doing my degree, I'd figure out where I want to go in the future... that's still about as up in the air as the sun. Of course, we're all naive before we really hit reality, children are naive,  but we have to grow up at some point. Rankin has a long discussion about this in Rebus' voice in Knots and Crosses, when said detective muses on his missing daughter and contemplates a student with her Worker's Union 'rascism is fascism' slogan. 

Holt and I had a nice conversation yesterday too, about the people we know, the difference between the people we work with, those characters from outside our respective university bubbles, and all of us that are safely ensconced within it. George and Vicky are quite lucky, they've had their gap years and come back, thankfully not talking about 'tanzan-ee-yah' as if they're part of the roaring twenties, but with the understanding that they have had to work as well. George had a dull-as-dishwater job that was a good commute away from home and he appreciated that it was that job that saw him round Europe in August. Similarly, Vicky worked at our old school alongside our granny, a girl's school called Godstowe, and was earning well below minimum wage but is now nicely set up for university. They have their heads screwed on right (more or less for Allner's anyway) and they're starting the best roller-coaster of their lives. 

Some how, this large tumble of disparate things: the twins, Rankin, dissertations, Holt - they've all muddled up and here I am wondering exactly what I'm trying to say. I wax lyrical and ramble - you know this by now.

So this is the crux I promise: I love Edinburgh. It's the city that I come home to, even though I didn't grow up here. It's the place where the people make me smile, where even on wet, blustering days I look at the skyline and think how glad I am to have ended up here and not Oxford or Exeter or Bristol. For me, even those dark places below the Cowgate or the uncomfortable corners of Leith or the worrisome routes between Haymarket and Tollcross, haven't really reflected a second of Mr Hyde. Sinister stories, horrific happenings - you don't turn a blind eye -  but this is still a city seen through a veneer, the pretty sheen of studenthood. Coming back, knuckling down, going through all that reverse culture shock crap... I don't think it's really a return-from-America-thing, I'm fairly certain it's a 'shits-about-to-hit-the-fan' kind of thing. 

And Vicky and George have all that to come. And Holt's already figured it out and is on to the 'how to deal with it' stage. And Rankin pulls it a part then laughs at it because he was one of us too. That Dicken's quote - Edinburgh being like a house of cards that's been built by children? I'm beginning to understand the metaphor now. 

Good luck twins, hold onto your naivety and follow the forty-five rules written by a ninety year old if you can. Also, I promise this is the last lame-as-broken-blackberry entry. From now, I'm going back to my roots, updating you on what things are interesting and what things make me happy and probably a lot more about travelling. Restless feet have got me moving. 

As ever, thanks for ploughing through my incoherent scribblings. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER

Moon Over Bourbon Street

MOON OVER BOURBON STREET

Music, Books and Tortured iPods

I've been playing around with a subject for the last couple days - wanting to write something, not really knowing where to start. Well brave readers, I found my muse. 

Today I was having a nice chat to a friend of mine over skype - the person in question can remain anonymous (you know who you are) - twiddling my hair, laughing at stupid jokes that barely make sense now, it's a pretty average conversation between pretty average friends. Behind me, my ipod whirs. 

The music shifts from bonnie King Charles to the theme from Edward Scissorhands. A fairly major jump, I admit, from alternative folk-pop to classical Danny Elfman at his finest. My friend snorts, I ask why, the reply is a 'nothing, nothing.' The conversation continues. The ipod whirs again. This time from Elfman into Dreaming of Appalachia by the Major Sevens, a bluegrass band I'd fallen in love with during my year abroad. Another snort that's covered up quickly with a question. Happily distracted, I natter on. Then the ipod whirs for a third time. This time my over-web companion laughs, stares at me in perplexed horror and asks:

"Seriously?"

I'm very confused, "Seriously what?"

"You're listening to that?" 

I'm still confused, "To what?"

"Your ipod is tortured. Listen to that."

I tune into the sound at last, it's Enter Shikari's No Sleep Tonight and across the internet, I'm realising that my casual acquaintance really is judging me. 

"It's just on in the background."

Rather unhelpfully I'm then told the mix of what has just played in the last few minutes. Now, I'm the first to admit my playlist is pretty eclectic. I like a lot of music and can't claim to be the most discerning collector when it comes to loading things onto my classic brick of an ipod. Yes, I've seen Britney Spears and the Spice Girls in concert and have more than enough pop on my itunes but then I've also seen the Strokes, You Me At Six, Pendulum and NOFX. I saw Fleet Foxes in a thunderstorm and Roger Waters perform beneath a giant floating pig at the O2. I've worked at music festivals and I've crowd surfed out of Brixton Academy. Of course, the consequence of this is the hotchpotch melee of opposing genres sucking you deep into their bewildering rabbit hole. And apparently there is something about this that is so far flung from wonderland that the very existence of this disparate collection has my inanimate ipod 'screaming out for real music'. Cheers buddy.

I suppose until now I've never really thought too hard about it. Over the last year, I've come to appreciate country music (courtesy of a car-ride to Florida over Spring Break), been introduced to the finer points of dubstep-a-la-Carolina and learnt that whilst not everyone loves music from the 60s/70s those that do have clear superiority. But ever noticed that those things don't necessarily sit alongside grungy, screaming over-grown teenagers with guitars? Nope, I can't say I ever really considered it. 

Anyway, that's quite a long story introducing a very simple idea. Or ideas. There's a couple of them. 

Let's jump in on the deep end, with musings that flounder in a sea of pretensions and too-much-free-time. 

The Question: what does music say about a person? Does it really say all that much? 

Trying to answer (because apparently my ipod has a terrible case of MPD and who wouldn't be curious to diagnose it), I had a google, found a quiz that asked the former questions and I filled it out. 

Out comes this answer: YOUR TASTE IN MUSIC SAYS THAT YOU'RE PHILOSOPHICAL.

According to this my music is reflective and complex. This means that I am 'intellectual to the point of being cerebral'. I'm also 'very open to new experiences, and even more open to new ideas and theories' whilst 'wisdom and personal accomplishment are important to me'. On top of all that I'm 'naturally sophisticated... drawn to art, especially by independent artists... [am] likely to be financially well off and not because I was born that way.' That all sounds rather nice doesn't it? I seem to have so many positive attributes and all because in an elevator I'd rather listen to jazz than hip-hop, or because my current 'most played song' comes under the banner of folk. I'm not entirely sure I buy into this though. I like the sound of it - even if I'm not entirely sure that 'cerebral' is the most comforting of descriptions - but is that my personality or is this just a response to how I like to think my personality shows? These quizzes aren't there to make enemies, they want you to keep on clicking and demanding more of them... so they'd appeal to how people with my taste in music want to be perceived not how we actually are. This is likely the same for everyone. 

Anyway, I had a giggle and that's the end of the first thought. It sort of takes us into the second and then into my small, personal project for the next few days.

Music and books. So the title of this bit of blogging is 'Moon over Bourbon Street', it's a Sting reference. Did you know that he wrote it after being inspired by a book by Ann Rice? The book was 'Interview with a Vampire', a novelised short story. There are loads of songs like this - inspired by or based on books, stories, characters and such. So I thought I might do a thing where I match my top ten books (aka the books currently on my shelf) with songs that I'm listening to. Or maybe the other way round with songs and what books I think go with them. 

I don't really know. I don't know if I'll actually do anything with this at all. I think most of what I just wrote was utter wattle. In fact, I would say that if you read all of that, you probably need to find some better hobbies than reading this stuff. Then again, please do read, it seems rather pointless to waffle on like this unless someone bothers. Contradiction affliction. Whatever. I'm bored. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER

Golden Pen Relay 2012

A Pen that's a Little like a Sword 

Stuck in a Stone

This post is going to start off by stating the obvious. In fact, if you haven't picked up on this already and you've read more than just this blog post, you probably need to brush up on your literacy skills. On the other hand, you may have skipped over this hardly monumental revelation because it's quite boring, self-serving and gratuitous. So, if you have something better to do with your time like reading up for your dissertation, finishing your portrait of a head-brain-monster, cleaning the fridge or eating cheese, I urge you to go do that instead. This is a post is likely so dull you'll curl your toes in fear for your ability to ever feel anything but boredom again. Ok, final warning: turn off your screen now. 

So here we go, now that we've rid ourselves of those less hardy than we are. 

Most of you know that I'm a bit of a writer - a scribbler by my own definition. I've turned my hand to other things: music - we all can see how that turned out; art - well Zoe and Lorenzo both have canvases with my attempts at painting; acting - let's pretend that didn't happen; it always comes back to words and writing and the lovely way that stories can be put down in ink. Or in this case, typed out on a screen mightily in need of a wash. Anyway, every year since 2007/8, I've taken part in National Novel Writing Month - a competition/challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I've completed it twice and done all the jottings more times than I can count. Now, with just over a month before it begins (it's every November for those who don't know), I'm thinking... maybe I should start jotting ahead of time - start the planning, plot the course before letting the bunnies out to ruin all my vague ideas with garbled garden gnomes and cabbage patch kids and general nonsense. That sentence was general nonsense. They're already everywhere. 

This time I want to write a crime novel. You see, I live in Edinburgh only a couple blocks away from Arden Street and the origins of Rankin's Rebus - actually, I didn't even put that little fact together until a friend pointed it out to me the other day (I'm clearly not a super sleuth). I reckon I could do it, despite my lack of experience in the genre. I guess I need to more reading and stuff, tricky since I've already around forty hours a week of reading for class and that's before analysis and everything else like that.  I have the idea in my head, I know why my killer kills and I know who my detectives are but need to flesh them out, figure out how to organise myself etc.

Thus I thought I'd ask any of you readers if you had any suggestions - for example, do I start with a funeral, a murder or the banal day-to-day of my protagonists? Do you have any pet hates in crime fiction? Anything you really love about crime fiction? What do you think about supernatural elements creeping in (at least on the surface)? And do you think two post-grads and a chap that builds shacks could track down a serial killer? Do you like to know your serial killer or do you enjoy the thrill of suspense the whole way through? 

Let me know.

That's all. I did say it was boring. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER

The Blueswater : A Belated Review

THE BLUESWATER
A Belated Fringe Review

This review was originally written for Fringe Guru as a response to 'Blues', the sell-out, award-winning show put on by The Blueswater at the Edinburgh Fringe 2012. As it happens, the review was never published (nobody can say why) and yet it's been sitting here, unedited on my computer ever since. I kind of feel that I even want to write a new one in lieu of their performance on Friday 21st September at the Jazz Bar, but you'll probably have to wait a bit longer for that. The tweaking process has now been finished and only a month too late you have it, you heard it here last: The History of Blues!

* 

There are a few things that a different about a city like Edinburgh and one like New Orleans. Born between piracy and prostitution, the Crescent City seems hardly comparable to the Athens of the North. It’s a city where the languorous Louisiana drawl lilts along its story like flotsam drifting on the Bay whereas Edinburgh’s brogue rambles with purpose. New Orleans is loud and effulgent, burning with the promise of hundreds of deadly cocktails in takeaway cups and glittering plastic beads whilst Edinburgh’s shadow looms over us, buzzing with voices and vitality and all the secret places that are waiting to be discovered. But both cities contain a little bit of magic, histories steeped in myth and folklore, music that beats the same rhythm as your battering heart. It’s true, maybe you haven’t discovered it yet, but if you think that you need to cross the Atlantic to hear some of that ole fashion'd Nawlins sound, you might want to think again.

You don't need to buy that $800 ticket with American Airlines. You don't have to spend fourteen hours sitting around an airport, cramped into economy class seats or battling through more drunken tourists than you've ever wanted to know existed on the ever-buzzing Bourbon Street. Instead, if you can survive the crush of the Royal Mile, fit through the doors of the Space on Niddry Street and leave all liquids over 100ml outside the theatre, you can taste the Creole spice as the Blueswater practice their own brand of voodoo-hoodoo. For a measly £7 you can stop sniffing round the door after the faint scent of a sazarac and experience a 12-piece band performing a synopsis of blues music across the decades, spanning from B.B. King to Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Jimi Hendrix to Muddy Waters.

It’s an iconic opening – the simplicity of this first performance, completed by the luxurious trips of the harmonica (Gordon Jones) and guitar, keeps the crowd rolling into their seats, murmuring, wondering whether they should be silent or if this relaxed atmosphere is what they can expect. With eyes that follow his audience, Felipe Schrieberg’s rendition of R.Johnson’s Me & the Devil transforms the black, expressionless stage into a space full of anticipatory welcome. When the tune comes to a close a satisfied smirk tugs at his lips, the tension rises as he launches into the origins of the song and the style and the singer. Here is a man that can captivate an audience and keep them, spellbound even before he brings out his inner witch-doctor for a wild-eyed version of I Put A Spell On You.

Schrieberg and Jones are quickly joined by a roguish brass section, their wry-smiling guitar duo, a cheeky looking drummer, nodding bassist and three enchanting ladies on keys and backing vocals. Among this motley selection of characters you have the charismatic Luc Klein on trumpet, whose ability to just-keep-on-playing-that-one-note has you breathless (when he’s perfectly fine); you have Rebecca Sneddon whose saxophone makes sounds I didn’t know could be made on a saxophone; you have the stick-twirling drummer (Paul Archibald) whose arms go so fast you wonder if they might fall off and you have Charlie Wild whose ‘guitar-hero’ status moves the show out of the realm of the delta blues and into rock’n’roll. All of the group bring something intrinsically theirs to the mix, nurturing the music as if they’re playing it for the first time but with so much skill and togetherness that it belies their dedication. Even when they lose that tightness, they remain organic, rolling with shifts in tempo and catching up when additional verses appear. They are skilled and obviously passionate about what they do.

It’s impossible to stop that enthusiasm from catching. Feet tap out the beat, secretly jiving along to the rhythm whilst the lady in front lets her shoulders roll and sway. One couple actually jumped up, moved to the side and broke out the swing dance. Despite the show being partly educational, the energy never drops. The ‘history’ itself, this fifty-five minute synopsis of the blues is humorous and quick and for the layman their coverage is ideal. Including names and songs and references that appeal to those with only a rudimentary background in the genre, they explain chords and reveal facts then open up the next tune and invite you to get your mojo working.

You don’t need to know much about the blues. You don’t need to be craving gator-on-a-stick or have a penchant for a mint julep. You don’t even need to be oblivious to the rest of Edinburgh’s musical scene. This is a show that you will be able to claim as your Fringe highlight at the end of the night. You’ll probably also leave singing and bemoaning the lack of a proper dance floor, ready to spill out into the revelry and head down the Cowgate. You won’t find anything quite like the Bluewsater though, so luckily for you, you can acquire their cd and sign up for their mailing list and rest assured that they’re playing in Edinburgh again soon.  

You’re a fool if you don’t see this show.

*

Listen to them here: http://soundcloud.com/blueswater-collective

Buy their CD on iTunes!

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
SCRIBBLER

Back To School

Back To School

Why I Need to Find a Job and why my Nerves were Foolish

So it's begun. 

I had the first two hours of my four-hour-week today. Yup, it's Monday at six o'clock in the evening, the sky is blue with only a hint of a dark cloud rolling away towards the coast and half of my university week has already flown by. I have officially returned as an enrolled student at the University of Edinburgh. The irony that I spent today, of all days, dressed in full on Carolina regalia (carolina hoodie, ron-a-thon tshirt, UNC shorts, red owl back-pack that's definitely seen better days) only dawned on me in the last couple of minutes, but it's a fond sort of irony. 

Today was funny. I woke up to my alarm, heard Zoe in the shower already and rolled over thinking 'right when she comes out, I'll get up and jump in', only I rolled over and fell straight back to sleep. Luckily, being the wonderful friend that she is, she did come in and poke me in the head to wake me up once more. So eight-thirty in the morning, I'm up and dressed and entirely clad in my tarheel uniform, thinking I'll go to the gym. Three hours later, Zoe's gone to class and I'm still not at the gym. 

For those who don't know, when I look outside the living-room window I can SEE the gym. If I wanted to I could lob a lacrosse ball through it's likely-closed-off-chimney without having to use the lacrosse stick. It's that close. But somehow, in my head, as my continued Fringe lurgy made my whole body quiver, I managed to psyche myself out of the venture. 

"People. Will. Be. There." I worried, "Everyone's going to see how horribly out of shape I've become." 

"Oh yes," Replied Self-Consciousness, "And they will be JUDGING YOU."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sensible-Me retorted, "Nobody's going to care. You'll be fine."

"But I'll be on my own."

"You're being a moron. Get up and go." This last one sounded suspiciously like my mother. And Lauren. 

Luckily, as this conversation occurred for the umpteenth time and my Shmoo sent me her zillionth video, Zoe came home and we arranged to go to the gym AFTER class. The other fortunate thing about my brilliant procrastination skills was that I realised horror-of-horrors that I had a tonne of reading to do for my first class that I had yet to do. And then even more for tomorrow as well. Scribbling out notes, hastening through Carruther's and cramming a load of talk on neuroscience and folk psychology, I did at least manage to stay one step ahead of the game and do quite a lot of useful work. 

Turning up to class was fun. I was there a few minutes too early (I was quite convinced that it was meant to start at two but apparently not) then, floating through the corridor came a voice... a familiar, lightly-Scottish brogue that brought a curious smile to my lips. Could it be...? YES! It was David, the brilliant retired-teacher-turned-philosophy-student, who joined Holt, Jo and I on our quest to defeat the university exam system and actually pass it despite (in my case at least) kind of having no clue what on earth was actually going on. I feel this might be a recurrent problem this year... it's all right though, Jo is in my class for Social Cognition and we've already set up a study group at his house on Tuesdays. Phew. It totally put my fears to the side and his surety in this teacher makes me more confident too. 

Tomorrow will be nerve-wracking. I still have to write up everything I've read today and put them on a group document that we can all then read and share. It's all Frued and art and psychoanalysis, so whilst I'm sure my subjects will coincide, I'm a little put out that I've two psychology-based classes when I already know how useless I am at psychology. Hopefully my layman's folkiness will be enough. Also, I'm just hoping that everything will fall together like it did today. I must remember to buy some more notebooks and folders. And rocket salad. 

Wednesday and Thursday will be this weeks deal breakers. Dissertation overview meeting and then supervisor sign up... I'm more than a little concerned that I might not end up with the tutor I need as my supervisor. I'm also quite worried that he might hate my idea and reject my thesis as it stands... Oh me, oh my, this is what happens when I have too much free time and can think and think and think over what's to come. Over-thought things always become mountains when they're even smaller than pimples. 

On the plus side, Friday is only four days away and that means the weekend. Wait... my weekend is on Tuesday. Nevermind. Friday is only four days away and that means the return of the Blueswater Collective (whose review I really do need to remember to edit and post up on here) to Edinburgh. This means my bestest squatters will be in the same city at the same time doing the same thing in the same place (oh em gee it'll be the same trill and everything). Yup, Charlie will be back in town and I'll have a good excuse to go hang out with my favourite non-female trumpet player and maybe it'll stop raining. That last point is probably wishful thinking.

So on with the week! All two hours of it. My gosh I need a job. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 

SCRIBBLER

Everything Changes

Reverse Culture Shock

 and the Realisation that 
Everything Changes

Hello again readers, 

It's only  been a few days but all I have the urge to do these days is write. A lot of my scribbles have been creative - I restarted a well-loved story during the Fringe. I first wrote it years ago but a new friend reminded me of it and I've been puttering about on plot etc ever since. Similarly, when I first came back from the States, I jotted out a new novel that I hope might one day sit next to your Grishams and James and Christies and such. Yup - I decided to turn my hand to crime, probably all that Criminal Minds I watched in ADPi. 

Anyway, this isn't really about any of that. It's not about the continuation of ideas or their coherence. It's about the beginning of the return, the start of comparisons and critiques, reverse culture shock as my beautiful, wonderful, Jeykll and Hyde city comes under the scrutiny of Post-America-Me. 

I love Edinburgh. I fell in love that warm, bright day in March 2009 when I stepped out of a taxi with my overly concerned mother and saw the city framed by Arthur's Seat. The sky was so blue and clear and the wind had the hint of winter still in its touch, but the sense of spring, of possibility and adventure was tingling in my fingers. Or that could have been the chill. Either way, I was hooked. Oxford and interviews and the heavy bleakness of IB seemed distant, unimportant next to the fact that I had an offer to this place - Edinburgh. You can read about my first reactions to Edinburgh here. It might make a good opposition to this addition. The other comparison might be my Carolina Culture Shock after being asked if I wanted to go shag by a perfect stranger. 

I reckon that right now I'm moving out of the Honeymoon period as reality (dissertations, classes, work) sets in.

During the Fringe and even before the Fringe when I was dreaming of Edinburgh, there was hardly a fault I could find in anything related to it. Even the weather has always been my favourite weather - you know the kind when it tangles up inside your clothes and you feel the thrill of a chill on your skin? And it still is. But there's something: a niggling, wiggling, wriggling something that tugs at my sensibilities. It's not that I miss Chapel Hill. I don't, not even when I think of the balmy nights spent on Franklin Street. But I miss the people. I miss Jay and Foxie and the hours spent moaning over deadlines and planning to go to Coffee Shop and failing. I miss Coffee Shop on a Tuesday Night when every international descends on the bar. I miss 304 Pritchard and everyone in it. I miss lunchtimes in ADPi with all the girls. I miss Rebecca and calling her up to swap silly stories about ridiculous nothings. 

I could hear people upstairs before I went to Stella's houseparty tonight. They had plenty of friends over and I could tell, from their voices, that at least some of them were friends of mine as well, friends that I left behind  when I went to America. I think most of all I miss them and I miss the feeling of being part of a group as I was before I left. I'm scared to start my fourth year, terrified of the lack of familiarity that I feel when it comes to university in the UK. The societies I was apart of, especially MUSOC, is now full of new faces that look at me with puzzlement and curiousity. 

"I was one of you," I want to say, "I've only been gone a few months..."

I can feel the approach of that all too recognisable sensation of oddness, of not quite fitting in, of being uncertain in a world that's both similar and different to what you know or, in this case, remember. 

Some of this I chalk up to restlessness. This is the first time since I left Chapel Hill that I've not had a new adventure up my sleeve. Going up to St Andrews for the day or nipping up to Glasgow for a show only seems to encourage my all-consuming want travel and travel and travel. Funnily enough, I don't want to leave Scotland, but I'm now hyper-sensitive about the fact that I've never been up to the Highlands or gone to the coast or seen a loch. It's utterly barmy. 

Somethings Never Change. Opal Lounge 2012.

Of course, some things never change - our little holland house crew is pretty much exactly as it was, meeting up and everything picking up where we left off. The boys are back from France/Melbourne, the girls are returning for their fourth year and even though the absences of Madeline and Mineta are far too keenly felt, there's the sense that if you put us all in a room we'd just leap straight back into conversations about dodgy men on the meadows, how to creep each other out and/or tea. 

I love Edinburgh. Every day I walk through Marchmont and across the Meadows and smile and I let the absolute joy of being here sweep over me. Relishing every moment that I can say belongs in this city, I walk and I talk and laugh with my friends. But there is the constant catching up and not even the knowledge that they also have to catch up with me can appease the fact that I left them and now I have to come back and build my world up again. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,

SCRIBBLER

Life of a Lunatic - Edinburgh Fringe 2012

Life of a Lunatic - Edinburgh Fringe 2012

Music, Words and P.A.R.T.Y.

Its taken almost three whole weeks to piece together everything that makes up the Edinburgh Fringe and turn it into coherent words. It's not quite like any other experience I've ever had and I have the feeling that it would never be quite like this year ever again either. As a Fringe Virgin, descending into the colourful, crazy furore of the city was a little bit like living in the mind of a video game designer strung out on amphetamines whilst watching One Day and listening to the Trainspotting soundtrack. There are so many adjectives that could be applied to this hotchpotch month but I have the feeling that relating all the performances and shows and street acts and flyerers and all the rest would likely be rendered meaningless. Instead, there are certain moments that stand out, nights and days whirled round and remembered in retrospective nostalgic delight. 

Just a warning. This is kind of long. 

This was the Awesome Space on Niddry Street 

The story actually begins weeks before August, with job applications and interviews, but you can read about that in my Summer Summary. I could then tell you about introductions and inductions and training days but those aren't all that interesting. The only thing that genuinely is important at this point is this: this is where I worked, The Space on the Mile  / @ Niddry Street. 

Everyone loved Niddry. It was a chilly, single venue that sat an audience of 102 and took up the back of the Raddison Hotel. It had no space to queue arriving ticket-holders, except outside (as you see in the rain) and we had one man who saw one of our longest lines, decided it must be a night club and ambled in to see a musical called The Last Five Years. Admittedly, our beloved space did sit opposite 'alternative' nightclub Hive, but still we had a giggle or two at his bewildered expense. The most important part of all this though, was the team. 

This summer, between the bus across America and working in London and now the Fringe, has been a summer of new friends. The difference is that when turning up to hop on the bus, you're meeting the people you're going to be spending the next 28 days with, there's a part of you that automatically wants to make nice with everyone. Similarly, on a predominantly male bus, it's best to muck in, there's an element of convenience and underneath that convenience is where you find the genuine people. Sure, you end up closer to one set of people than another - I don't think that Jon or Liam could ever be replaced and if there's anyone as cool as Janice (shiny or otherwise), I'd love to meet them. But in Edinburgh, you don't have to play with the kids that break your toys or only want to beat you at monopoly. There are so many eccentric, wonderful and bizarre and brilliant people that if you don't like someone, you don't have to pretend that you do. For me, the people you meet during the Fringe are the people you always dreamt of meeting but always assumed belonged in books and films. 

This is probably epitomised by TEAM NID-RAD-2012. 

We worked together. We had your mum lines. We ate late-cake and we told in-jokes that mostly rode on Chris's 'banter bus'. We had late nights. We had early mornings. We lay on the floor after the last show went in and listened to Power Ballads. We went to parties and danced like idiots and sang until our voices were lost.We ate together and drank together and very nearly died together. 

I don't think there's anyone that I don't think of fondly. 

Rhiannon

There was Rhiannon, our lovely manager and one of the sweetest, funniest people I've met. She has a squinting eye for the idiots who come into our box office and a quip or two up her sleeve for when her team acts like morons. And there was supervisory special agent Stella who might be one of the weirdest people on the planet. She's quirkier than the word quirky and has phenomenally bad taste. With a wicked sense of humour and a severe haircut, I'm wondering if I can persuade her to move in next month. She also pulls off a wonderful one-eyed panda. 

Jenny, Rosalind, Leyla, Stella & HC
(left to right)

Then there's Jenny. One of the two sparkling characters that came to live with me throughout the Fringe (the other is the effervescent  Leyla who is named after the song and is a definite Berrocca addict). Jenny's probably the girl you want to go to for recommendations on what to see at the Fringe, nothing she chose to see seemed to be anything less than fantastic and her obsessive radio loveage meant some awesome conversations. Hunter Claire, resident American and artiste makes the yin to Stella's yang with her deadpan jokes and enviable telephone manner. Clare, a bouncy Durham student and Zoe, the token Scot, make up the rest before you have the TECHIES. 

The Niddry Team was three: Chris, Jim and Pavel. If there are three other men with a dirtier, more deviant jokes in their repertoire, I don't want to meet them. These three do quite nicely. 

But do you know what made the team even more awesome and amazing? In fact, more awesome than the Awesome Show (possibly the worst show I've ever seen. Ever.) It was the ease of everything. We worked on caffeine and we lived on laughter. So that's very nice. And then we had shows that really were awesome at our venue too and there are even more people that I think I need to mention.

Let's start with one of the groups that we housed during the Fringe. The Fourth Monkey were one of my highlights during the festival. With six shows, some original, some interpretations, some straight performances, they had a dark, magical repertoire behind them. 

4.48 Psychosis

They had Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis (that I reviewed here) and Elephant Man (a play that was nominated for the Freedom of Speech Prize by Amnesty International). The company is run by a fellow called Steven Green, one of the most interesting men I met. His team is brilliant and his troupe are supremely talented actors and actresses. If you ever have the chance to see them I would highly recommend that you do. 

The other group (I don't think any account of the Fringe would be complete without them) is the Blueswater Collective. With the charismatic Felipe centre stage and the twelve-piece band completing the sound, they're well worth a listen, if not £8 for their fish-eyed, professionally produced and mastered CD. Of course, by this point, I'm an avid fan and so if you follow that link you'll end up in soundcloud and you can listen to a selection of their live performances and judge them for yourself. 

Blueswater Collective - Review Coming Soon

Two of them, Luc (trumpet) and Charlie (lead guitar) came to stay at the Magical Flat 82 in the last weeks of the festival, having been turfed out of the place they'd been squatting in. Complete with bag (yes, singular) and trumpet, the two made a nest out of our living room which was rather fun.  They're both uniquely talented in the sense that they carry themselves with that particular level of ingenuity that lends itself to their performance. I don't know if that makes sense. Charlie's late-night pop songs were epic - I still miss my rustlers every time I walk/trot/scamper past scotmid - and Luc's pretty good at giving us a twirl in the kitchen to make us feel special. The two of them are incredibly similar and totally different at the same time and quite unlike anyone I've known from home or school or the US or anywhere really and as with Team Raddry, I'm so unbelievably glad that I know them. Actually, both of the boys are trying to move to Edinburgh (which would be amazing musically and generally) so fingers-crossed on that one and if any of you readers see any staff wanted signs....?

But I think this is the end of this post.

An Empty Niddry two days after the Fringe Ended

We've gone through people, we've touched on the shows... there's just too much to cram into this kind of medium and I don't know what to say next or what not to say next. There were parties. There were tears. There were unstoppable giggles and stupid mistakes. There were miscounted coins and misread signals. There were late night conversations that made my heart skip because it's been so long since I've wanted to talk or listen that long. There were yellow submarines. There were bags of food hung from trees, tantalisingly out of reach. There were glowing, incandescent, marvellous people - too many to illustrate here.

And that was the Fringe for me - all the people, all the life and vitality and possibility and inspiration and everything, everything just seeming so exciting that you could burst. The desperate tiredness at the end is forgotten behind effulgent days that stretch out, burning and wondrous. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
SCRIBBLER

London, Travels and Other Stories

Probably, in all likelihood, any of you who so kindly followed me through the first nine days of my great big bus trek across America are still wondering what on earth happened next. And whilst following up on the whereabouts of my diary notes is still at the forefront of my mind, there's too much that's gone on in the months since I touched down in Heathrow Airport (after a decidedly uncomfortable and terrifyingly turbulent bump over the big blue Atlantic). Be warned - the following contains references to cats, internships, travelling and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. All of these will probably be expanded upon if I have time.

London was cold when I arrived, grey and cool and as my sleepy mother and father drove home, both of whom had just arrived back from France a few hours before, the wonderful dense green of the Chilterns overwhelmed every sense of nostalgia and for maybe a second or two, I thought - okay, George Eliot, you had a point. Then I thought about the wonderful cup of tea that could only be found in a Twinnings teabag and the shiny new kettle in the kitchen and couldn't stop smiling after that. The happy return could only last so long. Relieved and tired and more than a little groggy from the quantity of sleeping pills I'd taken to calm myself during the flight, I popped on the kettle, dropped Bag One upstairs and then asked after Scampy. Scampy is my cat. Not my sister's or my brother's. Mine. He's a grumpy, black-haired moggy that likes to pretend he's Master of the House. The only problem is that all of those present tense verbs should be past tense. As soon as I ask where the cat is my sister's face falls into a placating frown and starts to say the horrible truth. My sixteen year old hissing-spitting hunter, my purring hug, has died. RIP Scampy - you scary ass mouse murderer. Two days later mum had decided on a new kitten who's so adorable and affectionate I actually miss her as I'm writing this. She's called Squeaky because she squeaks.

Jobs are all the rage when you're 21 and about to enter your fourth year of university. They're very in vogue, every one wants one, especially if they don't pay you and you're able to call yourself and intern. Luckily, I managed to attain one of these excitingly fashionable titles and spent two weeks buzzing with the hum of London life, bustling through the underground, commenting on the people, watching stranger play on the piano in Paternoster Square. 'Luther' was the lovely company to give me that opportunity and I have to say it was brilliant. Of course, there were things that were slow at times or too fast - sometimes time likes to play tricks on your mind, but as a PR Consultancy, the people are vibrant and interesting and the job itself is full of cryptic undercurrents and wonderful little quirks. It's busy and exciting and I hope to at least keep in touch with them all. 

It was at this point that the jetset life came back to haunt me. Restlessness became overwhelming in the wake  of all this rhythm. Unlike the year prior, familiar things surrounded me at all times, homey comforts and smells that both delighted me and drove me insane. I applied for another job, a different kind of job, a job back in the beautiful and much missed City Of My Soul: Edinburgh. The Fringe Festival called to me. I've wanted to  do the Fringe for as long as I can remember, plus I told myself I'd work there every year since I started university. It was settled rather quickly. Applications were filled in, deadlines met, opportunity after opportunity analysed and usually applied for. 

The Space UK and Fringe Guru responded. If you follow the links you'll see two quite different jobs had selected me. The SpaceUK is a company that essentially rents out theatre spaces, techs and staffs box offices and generally helps with back and front of house theatre events. Fringe Guru is a festival review site, a site for those who want to read up on what's on etc. I was going to be a Box Office Girl and an Official Reviewer. I couldn't be happier. 

But before Edinburgh I had two more stops: Dubrovnik and Paris. 

Dubrovnik was a whim. This summer in the UK, the summer sort of lost its way and buggered off somewhere that only it knows. Those long, eternally blue days where the bees come out and the flowers all burst into colour were no where to be found. Any flowers that dared to bloom quickly shrivelled up and died in their waterlogged pots and all the bees spent time cowering under any of the bigger leave that survived. So my mum was fed up. I was fed up. My sister had already gone off on her own adventure around Europe with her best friend Emma so her twin was feeling left out and my dad really just wanted to go somewhere that no one would complain about. So five days before take-off we're booked onto an easyjet flight to the beautiful Croatian city of Dubrovnik. 

Paris, on the other hand, was for my beloved Shmoo's 21st birthday. Between the two of us, I'd managed to book a month late, but it meant I had her all to myself which was perfect. With a whole year apart, I needed some best friend time and what a time we had. Descending into the corkscrew clouds that piled up like the towers of Versailles, nerves jittered about within me and the clinging, sticky heat was cloying. 

"I'm not much of a Paris person," I thought (and I said as much to Alex later), "I hate this Orlybus and this horrible sweaty heat and this gibberish language." 

Admittedly, I felt quite vulnerable not being able to understand or speak to anyone, but I think a lot of it was just post-flight anxiety and tiredness. I scribbled away with my pen on the subway though and by the time I was with Alex, I was ready to roll out in pink jeans and shirt. 

I think I saw a whole new side of Paris that weekend. Away from the tourist traps that most of us non-speakers would end up in, Paris is exquisite. Ambling to the canal, we ordered pizza from a hole-in-the-wall cafe that then gave us a pink balloon with instructions to sit on the river bank. The cool, rushing air funnelled through the wide watery space and freshened everything with a smile. The thrum of local life, the numbers of people huddled in groups on the banks, the awesomeness of that pizza made me reconsider all of those misgivings. Here was a Paris that, even though I didn't understand it, made sense. 

Cheers Alex, ma petite meuf, for such a wonderful time. 

NEXT COMES EDINBURGH. And you know what. I think that deserves a whole new post dedicated to it. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 

SCRIBBLER