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Edinburgh Quotes

“The counter-culture was global - or so we thought. For the first time we felt in touch with California and Paris, Poland and India and together we would change the world. Even Edinburgh would move to a more open and humane and anarchic direction. It and we would be a tonic to the nation and the very idea of 'nation' would become irrelevant. Scottish culture believed itself to be 'European' but surely it gloried in a powerful insularity too. And that was all to be moribund, this was a brave new world and we had no irony in that belief. The dystopias of Huxley and Orwell were forgotten - we now had the key to happiness. And surprisingly even now, it still seems we were doing the right thing and it was good.”

HappinessEuropeEdinburghBrave New WorldCounter CultureInsularityScottish Culture
Book:Justified Sinners: An Archaeology of Scottish Counter Culture, 1960 - 2000
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“All Fergusson's verses, indeed all humanist verse, has within it an eligiac seam; always present beneath the surface is the assumption that the world is imperfect, that it has fallen from grace. As with the disintegrating Tory ideal in the country, there is in Fergusson's poetry an ideal, imagined city of the past, hopelessly toppling as the new Babylon lays down its foundations: city of chaos, dirt, noise, broken communication, luxury, disorder. In essence the poet follows in his representation the timeless humanist imperative, attempting 'to create order out of disorder, and to make sense of life'. Hallow-Fair and Leith Races to a degree make just such a clear demarcation between the two cities of past and present in their thesis - antithesis structures. The two cities embody two different Scottish cultures: Auld Reekie, the pastoral, civilised, humanist culture; and Edina, the Athens of the North, but more often, Babylon, the counter-pastoral, brutal, Whig culture. Hallow-Fair, Leith Races, The Election, The King's Birth-Day in Edinburgh, satirise the new Babylon; the poems of this group celebrate an older Scotland, and Auld Reekie, in the same eligiac vein as The Daft Days. Yet, as we have seen, the poet, at times, undermines too rigorous a humanist position: demarcations are not all that clear; ideals don't always elevate the human codition; the endless wheel of change and creativity, diversity and unrest, may be forging themselves into a new order.”

Humanist PoetryEdinburghWhig PhilosophyRobert Fergusson
Book:Robert Fergusson and the Scots Humanist Compromise
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“In 1766, James Boswell, having returned from a grand tour accompanied by Rousseau's mistress, left London for his native Edinburgh, where he took his final law examination and joined the Scottish bar. Meanwhile, ensconced in the Advocate's Library, the Professor of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy, Adam Ferguson, was completing his pioneering work, shortly to appear (despite David Hume's misgivings) as An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767). These were heady days in the precincts of the Scottish Parliament Building, when cultural conversation in the Old Town was as high as the odours of its teeming streets. On 16th August 1773, Ferguson dined at Boswell's house, with Samuel Johnson who had just begun his Scottish journey. They debated the authenticity of Ossian's poetry, and their colleague, Lord Monboddo's ideas about human evolution, Johnson ridiculing the latter's notion that men once had tails.”

EdinburghSamuel JohnsonScottish Enlightenment1766Adam FergusonJames BoswellLord Monboddo
Book:The Scots Imagination and Modern Memory
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“There is a species of taverns of a lower denomination, which, however, are sometimes resorted to by good company, when disposed to enjoy a frolic. These are the oyster-cellars, a sort of ale-houses, where the proper entertainment of the house is oysters, punch and porter. Most of the oyster-houses have a sort of long room, where a small party may enjoy the exercise of a country dance, to the music of a fiddle, harp, or bag-pipe. But the equivocal character of these houses of resort prevents them from being visited by any of the fair sex who seek the praise of delicacy, or pique themselves on propriety of conduct.”

OystersProprietyEdinburgh
Book:The History of Edinburgh
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“The whole city of Edinburgh poured down upon Leith, to see the colony depart, amidst the tears, and prayers, and praises of relations and friends, and of their countrymen. Many seamen and soldiers, whose services had been refused, because more had offered themselves than were needed, were found hid in the ships, and, when ordered ashore, clung to ropes and timbers, imploring to go, without reward, with their companions.”

EdinburghDarienLeithCompany Of Scotland
Book:Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume II
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“Performers always come back from the Edinburgh festival with adventure stories. Watts told a few: meeting a young kilt maker who spent a year in a madhouse after eating too much LSD, and accompanying Seattle actor and musician Michael McQuilken (of Collaborator Productions) to the hospital after a Frisbee accident. He reached up to catch it and cut his hand on a sign, .. He had to get a few stitches, but I think he can still play.”

ThinkingYearsStillsPlayStoriesHandsYoungActorsToo MuchCuttingAdventureEatingMusicianMeetingsProductionsAccidentsHospitalsMakersPerformersFestivalsSeattleCollaboratorsLsdStitchesEdinburghMadhousesFrisbeeKilts
Author:Reggie Watts
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“I've spent a lot of very happy times in Edinburgh as a result of playing virtually every festival since 1996. It's also a beautiful city in its own right, is walkable, within sight of the sea and mountains - and was too far north for the Luftwaffe to have done any damage, hence the spectacularly beautiful architecture.”

DoneBeautifulResultsCitiesSeaMountainSightArchitectureDamageVery HappyFestivalsEdinburghHappy TimesBeautiful City
Author:Marcus Brigstocke
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“A Finnan haddock has a relish of a peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable on any other coast than that of Aberdeenshire. Some of our Edinburgh philosophers tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a party at dinner where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competition with the genuine Finnan fish. These were served round without distinguishing whence they came; but only one gentleman out of twelve present espoused the cause of philosophy.”

PhilosophyCausesPartyFoodProduceEqualPhilosophicalCookingCompetitionRoundsFishesPhilosopherDinnerGenuineVainGentlemanCulinaryPeculiarDelicateTwelveCoastRelishFlavourEdinburgh
Author:Walter Scott
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“Buy products of genuine lasting value from brands that take their manufacturing seriously. I have things that are 75 years old, like the dinner suit of my grandfather's that was made in 1933 by a tailor in Edinburgh. Clothes develop stories. You can remember where you've been through clothing that you've worn. I want products that are going to endure. I hate that we buy things that are disposable. We need to buy products with integrity.”

WantNeedsYearsMadeStoriesRememberValuesHateProductsIntegrityClothesI HateEndureDinnerGenuineSuitsBrandsLastingClothingsGrandfatherWornMy GrandfatherManufacturingDisposableTailorsEdinburgh
Author:Patrick Grant
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“I'd always had an interest in guitar from about seven years old. But I first actually had lessons when I was about fifteen in Scotland, in Edinburgh. There was a folk club there and a girl called Jill Doyle taught me the guitar, who happened to be Davey Graham's sister. Davey Graham is one of my heroes and always has been. Fantastic guitar player. And he's had a strong influence on me all the way through.”

WayYearsFirstsHas BeensGirlStrongInterestPlayerHappenedInfluenceTaughtHeroLessonsSevenGuitarFolksClubsFantasticFifteenScotlandSeven YearsMy HeroGuitar PlayerEdinburgh
Author:Bert Jansch
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“I was an adult and I was in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I was performing in this cave - they used to bury the plague victims in these caves underneath the streets of Edinburgh, when I got this weird cold sensation up my spine, it gave me this really weird feeling, and then I looked up and there was this white, sudden white shape, that just zapped from me and went straight to the light that was at the back of the room, and I just stopped cold and said to the audience, "Did you guys see that?" No one saw it.”

SaidFeelingsLightUsedGuyWhiteRoomsAudienceSawsStreetsColdShapesAdultsVictimPerformingSensationsCavesFestivalsPlagueFringeSpineReally WeirdEdinburghWeird Feeling
Author:Rhys Darby
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“When I come to a new city is I combine: I say, well, it's like Barcelona and Edinburgh, though I can't imagine what that would be. But Toronto, the last few times I've been here, what always comes up is Chicago and West Berlin. It's a big, sprawling city beside a lake, of a certain age and a certain architectural complexity. But the high-end retail core looks more like West Germany than the Magnificent Mile. Yonge Street is like K-Damm. There's an excess of surface marble and bronze: it's Germanic and as pretentious as pretentious can be.”

WellsLooksI CanEndsBigsWould BeAgeLastsCertainCitiesImagineStreetsWestCome UpSurfaceCoreMilesComplexityGermanyLakesChicagoExcessMagnificentBerlinMarblePretentiousTorontoBarcelonaRetailBronzeEdinburghWest GermanyWest Berlin
Author:William Gibson
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