OK, there’s not really any news;
Jobhunt not going well, urge to punch recruiters for being shit-useless steadily rising, and I really have no clue what to do about it.
Still, it’s a nice photo of the castle, I thought.
Yes, more stairwell pictures†; This one’s at the Safestay Hostel, which has a somewhat complex layout due to being a few buildings bodged together, so there are some odd changes in level across the floors, and the first floor is in two sections which do not connect inside the building, but you can go through a balcony above the bar to make the journey.
† These are important because of reasons.
I like the fact that, as you wander around the city, you can look down a random street and see … Actually, I’m not sure whether that’s the castle or not, now that I look at it.
OK, it’s the castle – Just checked. Corner of Bread Street and Spittal Street.
I went to see Trainspotting 2, and was able to go via this possibly familiar location to do so.
I had to look up approximately where it was, but it turns out that the location more or less makes sense; It’s a possible route one could take if running away in that area.
I wasn’t able to get a picture of it, but at one point the Spanish blockaded the hostel.
Thanks to poor tactical planning on their part, they only blocked the lobby with bags and suitcases and a milling throng of people in very bulky cold-weather gear, and paid no mind to a secret path, known only to those who’d been to the bar.
The very bulky cold-weather gear came in handy, however, when it started snowing.
Sadly, not enough to stick around, except on the tops of cars, but it was fun while it lasted; There were little flurries most of the day, and I’m told that it also snowed in other, less Scottish places, like Buckinghamshire.
The events recounted in The Ballad Of Pukey Van Der McGee gave me an idea of what to expect for the weekend, and this sign appearing on the door next door did NOT fill me with confidence that a quiet Friday night was a possibility.
Fortunately, I had a cunning plan, based mainly on the fact that a podcast recording with people in New Zealand, Canada, and the UK is going to involve somebody drawing the short straw, and since sleep probably wasn’t an option, an 0100h recording time wasn’t going to be a problem on the ‘being awake’ front.
Somewhere to record was an issue; The bar was clearly not an option, and the lobby, while quieter, would still have a lot of people passing through; Background noise is something which can be worked with, someone asking “Whatcha Doing?” is more difficult.
Also, with the things we sometimes talk about during perfectly reasonable discussions, I was worried about ending up on a watch-list.
Fortunately, those stairs I mentioned earlier because of reasons didn’t connect directly to the hallway; There was a chamber/room in between, possibly as some species of smoke control or noise control measure, and that space had an alcove which wasn’t in the path between the doors. A space with a good WiFi signal.
Thus, I was able to set up the Big Red Couch studio, Edinburgh branch, pictured below.
At 0100h, I was quite glad of that radiator. The hostel is warm enough, but windows leak heat, and there was a lot of not-warm out there. Surprisingly, nobody used the stairwell the entire time we were recording; A couple of pretty drunk (or ludicrously Scottish) women did use the stairwell afterwards, and did ask what I was up to, but were too drunk to care much about the answer.
Or understand it.
Or, after ten seconds or so, remember that they’d asked.
I’m impressed that neither of them died falling down that stairwell.