Twice again to Ould Reekie this week-0nce for a seminar and once for the quack. Tuesday's visit was slightly odd because of a photographic assault by a bunch of Ruskies. I was quietly and thoughtfully descending the Fleshmarket steps wrestling with one of life's great questions: whether to go back to Berwick by GNER or Virgin when I was suddenly dazzled by about 9 cameras flashing from the bottom of the steps. This nuisance emanated from a group of men, some half clad in USAF uniforms pointing their digitals up the passageway and snapping away. Apart from me the steps were deserted, covered in litter and a less photogenic scene you won't find in Edinburgh at the best of times. 5pm and deepening gloom is not in that category. As I forced my way through the scrum there were a number of, I suspect, disobliging comments in Russian (I am something of an expert on disobliging remarks inRussian having sat next to a number of Soviet delegates at the UN for three years in the early 70s) What were they doing? Then it came to me-apparently Ian Rankin's latest thriller 'Fleshmarket Close' has just been translated into Russian and this was the Nvody Nsorski Reading group on location. Why the USAF uniform jackets? I suspect just bought in that little shop just off South Bridge Street which specialises in militaria including a 16th century Lowlander broad sword, yours for a mere £1100
Anyhow I am glad that I escaped my usual fate of being stopped by Japanese visitors and asked to photograph them with a highly complicated cameras which they can almost explain in Japanese. I usually bow courteously, press all the buttons on display, bow again, hand the apparatus back and skedaddle. I have had no complaints.
