[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent January 2003]
It snowed last night, for the first time. A light dusting on the cars parked along Salisbury Road in the morning, like icing sugar on matchbox cars. The day is bright and clear and blue.
Two has gone into three. There was talk of chaos in the streets of Edinburgh at New Years, a bunch of arrests made in this city, terrorists hatching their plots… real information is thin on the ground. There were
a lot of police at the Princes St party but it was all good cheer, everyone was happy to be there with none of the drunken rowdy I was expecting. Maybe it was just too cold for much roughhousing.
Princes St and the Princes St Gardens are the venue for what is billed as the biggest new years street party in… well, I can’t remember what they claim, but it was big all right. Blair Rhodes, good friend from NZ now
Edinburgh resident and all-around nice guy, had a spare entry ticket and we arranged to meet at ten pm outside one the gates. Naturally we were no more precise than this, and as I wandered through a large crowd in the enormous space we’d agreed on I realised it was a pretty dumb suggestion for me to
have made. However, Blair found me soon enough, stumbling upon me going through the contents of my complementary goodie bag – a slab of chocolate, a sipper bottle of fresh Scottish water and a badge to pin on marking me out as a survivor of the Princes St revelry.
Hogmanay is a big deal in Edinburgh, for everyone except the locals. At the party, the main event for the four day celebration, Scottish accents were thin on the ground, Australian flags were flying everywhere – yes indeed, wherever there is a promise of a party the antipodeans show up in force. (Just ask those poor German oktoberfesters.) But the atmosphere was wonderful. Eschewing the Culture Club reunion stage and its £30 ticket fee, Blair and I bedded down in the throng before a stage where the Dhol Foundation were playing. They are drummers, all Indian playing traditional Indian drums over an explosive amped-up backbeat that got the crowd hopping. Outstanding music, just right to jump around in the chill and get
scrunched against everyone around you! They banged their last bang with ten seconds left in the year and by the last five everyone had caught on to the countdown.
I have been in a big crowd for new year’s before, and it remains a damn good way to see in the new and farewell the old. What was special this time was the fireworks. Man, that was a lot of fireworks. The whole
thousands-strong crowd, fresh into their new year enthusiasm, gaped at the sky. The only thing missing was ‘Auld Lang Syne’, absent of course because there were no Scottish people anywhere to be seen.
Great fun. Then the party continued.
The following night there was a street theatre event. It involved eight giant red giraffes pacing their way down the Royal Mile, pausing as they went to dance in patterns as a flying clown screamed out ‘Zere will be a Scottish parliament – perhaps?’
Yes.
Edinburgh is great.
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I saw Two Towers twice in its first three days. Ah, home.
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Stay well you all. Thanks for the emails. Will one day try and respond.
morgue