Mad Edinburgh

[OC Richard]

So many things Alex says resonate with me in different ways.

There's the thing about locals having sort of a reverse view of their own iconic places, which people travel from all over the world to see.

I personally experience this, because I live in Southern California and I work at Disneyland.

People come from Europe, from Australia, from China to visit. Yet there are people born and raised within walking distance of Disneyland who have never been there, who you couldn't pay to go there. They intensely dislike it, everything about it. They find it baffling that people would travel thousands of miles and invest thousands of dollars in holidays to visit it.

Then there's Los Angeles, and Hollywood.

I hate those places. I've never lived there, and have the typical Orange County view of Los Angeles, which is something like the annoying bigger brother who is sort of a bully, always lording over you.

We view LA as being a dump. I was dumbfounded when I ran into some young French tourists who were telling me how beautiful LA was. We had quite a discussion, but in the end we just had diametrically opposed views.

I know a guy who lives in Edinburgh and he refers to it as a dump. So there ya go!

I think Edinburgh is the most beautiful city I've seen. Mind you, I've not seen that many! And I love Glasgow, and Inverness, and York, and Chester... it's all very cool for an American, in ways that people in the UK just can't relate to, like Los Angeles and those French guys.

For one thing, it's the way Edinburgh is built on those hills, so that the city looks different from different viewpoints. So many cities are just flat and dull.

But certainly it's horrible the way The Royal Mile is crowded with tat shops. I hate those passionately.

My first visit to Edinburgh was in the mid-1980s and those didn't exist. Up and down the Royal Mile were actual Scottish Highland pipemakers and Highland Dress makers.

I've stated my opinion here many times: just as the European Union protects many local industries, things like you can't call a cheese by a certain name unless it's actually made in that place, I think that all items of indigenous Scottish culture such as kilts, sporrans, kilt jackets, bonnets, Highland bagpipes, etc that are sold within the borders of Scotland should be made in Scotland. This protects both the native Scottish craftspeople, and the tourists.

You don't know how many times somebody has called me about coming for their first bagpipe lesson, somebody who has just returned from a Scottish holiday, who has bought a set of bagpipes in Edinburgh. Always it's a ***** Pakistani bagpipe, utterly useless as a musical instrument. "But, it has to be a real Scottish bagpipe- I bought it in Edinburgh!" they say. I have to be the bearer of bad news: if they want to learn to play they'll need a legitimate instrument.

BTW I've visited Edinburgh during the Festival and when Edinburgh is rather quiet. As annoying as it must be for locals, I do enjoy the craziness and energy of Festival time, in spite of the hordes of European tourists. (There must be 100 Italians and Spaniards for every American.)