As the weather looked like it might hold out last weekend I decided to take the kids (well, two of them, anyway) to Craigmillar Castle in Edinburgh. This is not the more famous Edinburgh Castle, the old garrison and monumental tourist trap in the centre of Edinburgh, but Edinburgh’s “other” castle. In fact, Craigmillar is almost the opposite with just a small car-park and gift shop at the entrance but nevertheless still an interesting relic.
Craigmillar Castle - The Tower and inner courtyard seen from the West
Craigmillar castle is quite a substantial building in its own right and is similarly intriguing. Most castles are usually pretty symmetrical but Craigmillar, particularly the central tower, is really quite labyrinthine. Once inside it is difficult to gain one’s bearings and we ended up looping back to some of the same rooms (at least, I think they were the same) via several different passages and staircases. I’m still not entirely sure that we saw every nook and cranny.
One of the main bedrooms in the tower at Craigmillar Castle
The origins of the castle go back to the Preston family but there appears to be the usual history of macabre bloodletting that goes hand-in-hand with medieval Scottish history. It also has its royal connections with the brother of James III held there for witchcraft and bumped off in suspicious circumstances and James V staying there to escape the plague. It also has connections to Mary, Queen of Scots (doesn’t everywhere), as well as being the place where the plot to dispatch her husband was hatched.
Craigmillar Castle Hall seen from above.
Aside from all the usual skulduggery I was particularly impressed with
the great hall and the attached kitchens. It is often a stretch to
imagine how daily life in these old ruins would have been but the hall
really gives an impression that it would have been used for banqueting
on a grand scale.
Whilst there are many deep-seated divisions in society with arguments of left-vs-right, liberalism-vs-authoritarianism and philosophical arguments on the existence of God; very few things can cause such utter vexation as to which way around the toilet roll goes on the holder.
There are two main schools of thought on this matter. The first is that the partly unravelled paper should hang down in front of the roll, thus making it easier for the next user of the bum wiping product to extract a few sheets with ease. Let us call this the arrangement of the bog roll as the “ergonomic way”:
The second school of thought is that the paper should be neatly hidden behind the roll to make an aesthetically pleasing appearance whereby the recipient will be scrabbling around for the end of the paper, cursing beneath their breath with their knickers wrapped around their ankles. Let us call this the “wrong way”:
After a quick straw poll on this matter I tended to find that it was men that preferred the “ergonomic way” whereas women would go for the “wrong way”. However, I think this is a little simplistic and in fact the real gender split is between women, who will simply shrug and pull off the required paper, and men, who will rant and rave about the “wrong way”, posting endlessly on social media about the utter inconvenience of it and even take photos to create a blog entry about the matter…
I suppose it is actually the male equivalent of women complaining about the loo seat being left up. Personally, I always put both the seat and lid down as I have lost far too many pens, spectacles and mobile phones to an unpleasant watery grave but it’s never really bothered me whether the seat is up or down when entering the lavatory as I’ll simply adjust it to suit. In fact, the only toilet etiquette that everyone agrees on is that the scratchy tracing-paper sanitary sheets that are found in public toilets are an abomination.
Edinburgh's Museum Of Childhood is one of those odd little places that I have always intended to visit but never seemed to get around to it. In fact I did try to visit it last year but it was closed for unspecified reasons when we got there. I decided that a drab Sunday afternoon in the middle of January was as good a time to visit as any other and took my daughter along to have a look.
The museum is free to enter and looks very small from the outside but consists of five galleries over several floors that are packed with childhood memorabilia from toys, through to baby paraphernalia, fairground attractions and children’s clothes. The collection originates from Patrick Murray, an Edinburgh councillor and collector, and largely consists of exhibits from the middle years of the 20th century when the British toy industry was at its peak.
The pedal cars and trikes are on the ground floor of the museum.
A collection of action men - these appear to have most of their fingers. My Action Men usually looked like they had been involved in some sort of industrial accident if they hadn't suffered death from parachute.
Many of the toys on display were originally manufactured in Liverpool. Meccano is a notable example.
These Dinky models were also produced by Meccano.
No toy collection could be complete without a Hornby train set.
The dolls houses ranged from the simple to this extraordinarily detailed example.
This Russian doll set brought back memories of my grandmothers house where I would happily spend hours taking them apart and putting them back together again.
As well as the toys there are also collections of childhood food and drink items. Some are still familiar today whilst others have not stood the test of time. For example the sweet cigarettes now seem outrageous and the gollywog collectables from the Robertson's marmalade are very much of their time:
It would be interesting to see some later exhibits, possibly the electronic toys that became more prevalent from the 1980s (after Murray’s death) but it is a fascinating collection and well worth a visit if you are in Edinburgh.
It’s the first week of 2017 and despite me hoping that things would improve over last year the BBC have already hacked me off by changing their pre-programme idents on BBC One. In the greater scheme of things this really shouldn’t matter but I rather liked the old ones and the new ones, so far, are just a little bit naff. They have said that they are going to have new ones throughout the year so maybe we will see some sense to their scheme of “Oneness” as the seasons change but so far we are stuck with either a Zumba class or a bunch of middle-age swimmers, standing around, freezing and looking like spare parts:
There have been a surprising number of BBC idents over the years. Many of these have been based on the theme of a globe:
This is probably the first one that I vividly remember which involved a globe and a doughnut:
With the advent of computer graphics a more elegant design was chosen:
Many people’s favourite involved the globe in the form of an orange balloon against a backdrop of the country's iconic landmarks:
… and then there were the dancers. These look quite good on a first viewing but are tedious beyond belief once they have been viewed for an 11th, 12th, umpteenth time:
For the last 10 years we have had the “circle” idents which have shown various scenes that are ever so slightly surreal involving a circle. The hippos are meant to be a favourite but my personal favourite is the magical forest ident, possibly because there is so much detail going on.
We'll have to see how this goes. I'm just hoping that they don't bring back a plummy voiced chap ina dinner jacket. Frankly, anything is possible.
