Notes from the North 9 2024

Edinburgh seems to have gone mad for Christmas although perhaps it feels more unhinged and frantic than usual because the lights and tinsel are in such marked contrast to what we know is happening in other regions of this plundered and war-torn planet. Even the august frontage of the Royal College of Physicians at no 9 Queen Street has decked itself out to look like a landlocked lighthouse 


By the late afternoon Princes Street is all but impassable on both sides of the road. The screams from the fair-ground rides echo out far above Walter Scott, sitting impassively in his monument. 




As to what Adam Black (1784 – 1874), would have to say about the hordes milling round his statue in Princes Street gardens, snacking on frankfurters and donuts and glugging down lager or warmish red wine … it’s just as well he’s a speechless stone effigy. 



Black was a publisher active during the heyday of the Scottish Enlightenment. He bought the copyright of the Encyclopædia Britannica in 1827. The Encyclopædia was published for the first time in Edinburgh in 1768. He brought out the 7th, 8th and 9th editions from his shop on North Bridge. He also acquired the rights to Scott’s Waverley Novels and de Quincey’s works, (best known for Confessions of an Opium Eater). It’s a long time since the Encyclopædia was owned by a British publisher however. Its headquarters are in Chicago these days and since the last print edition came out in 2010 it has followed the general trend and gone entirely on line. It still boasts Nobel laureates among its expert contributors but it has to compete with other sites like Wikipedia, plebian but highly successful. 

 

It took me a while to find a rhythm again after my extended stay in California. I was there during the final weeks of the election campaign when the people I met and talked to were still hoping for a different outcome from the one we now have. I say we because the result is reverberating round the world, emboldening and empowering the too rich and powerful as it goes. 

 

In the middle of typing this I get a message which vividly illustrates the threats and problems we are likely to face in the coming year and beyond. It comes from Led by Donkeys (www.ledbydonkeys.org) and says they have put up a video on Clacton pier telling the constituents of that seaside town how much their MP Nigel Farage has made so far from his other jobs since becoming in an MP for Clacton-on-Sea - £301,529. Farage has made at least four trips to the USA to court Donald Trump and his flunkies since being elected to parliament for the first time in July of this year. The latest news is that unless the Electoral Commission gets the government to move fast and tighten the rules, he or his party (which more or less amounts to the same thing) may yet become the beneficiary of the biggest political donation in UK history, from Elon Musk. 

 


As one young woman said to me the other day, there are ways of combatting the negativity of our present times without getting hammered or heading out in a Santa hat or jersey (her words not mine). It’s good to take time out to listen to music or look at some art instead, to put things in perspective. I did that last week, spent a soothing quiet hour in the RSA, wandering round the drawings from Chatsworth House, ‘From Dürer to Van Dyke’ (on until 23 February). When I came out again the pavements were still as crowded but I didn’t mind so much. 



The Christmas tree on the Mound was twinkling and the young woman playing her bagpipes was making good money. 


I walked home, stopping briefly under a darkening sky to capture the last leaves of the year shining out - not a bauble or a fairy light to be seen.   



Bonnes fêtes however you spend them and more to come in the new year. 

Comments

  1. Martin Raim22 December 2024 at 01:49

    This post neatly captures the mood of the times. You juxtaposed Edinburgh's 'unhinged' and 'frantic' Christmas celebrations, stoically endured by Walter Scott and Adam Black, with the horrors taking place on this 'plundered and war-torn planet. Your photos tell the tale, and I experienced a flash of optimism contemplating the beauty of the year's last leaves and the picture of the young, red-capped busker playing her bagpipes on the sidewalk raking in good money.

    -Martin

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