the river of sadness and despair

Although there had recently been a showerlet of sudden but apparently predicted almost-snow a few minutes earlier the unfortunate liquid pictured was probably an unfortunate liquid by the time it reached the bottom of those steps between North Bridge and Market Street given the stair's habitual smell.

It must be terribly distressing for unfit people staying at the Scotsmen who travel into the city by train and decide to take the short-cut this stair offers up there when they find they have to start taking deep breaths of distinctly pissy-smelling air after a couple of flights. They'd probably be better of trotting up Fleshmarket which even some unfit people could probably manage on a lungful due to the lack of corners though it's really the top bit which smells the worst if they did try to breathe deeply up the last quarter. They'd then have a nice little saunter round the corner to get their breath back and look less dishevelled before arriving at the hotel. I expect most of them opt for the gentler slope of Market Street-Cockburn Street, wheeling their silly wheelèd suitcases all the while.

Hopefully none of them just jump in a taxi in the rank in the station. That would be lazy. Hopefully if any do then the taxi driver would hopefully point out that it's a walk of perhaps two hundred metres but a much longer drive given the one-way nature of the roads and that walking would be a much swifter option even for unfit lazy people with wheelèd suitcases. That would perhaps be pushing the boundaries of possibility though.

***

I was mightily disappointed that the Filmhouse's showing of Grindhouse wasn't sold out this evening though obviously relieved that it meant I had some knee-space and somewhere to rest my coffee. Strangely Rodriguez's Planet Terror works best both as a standalone film and as half of the double-feature; as well as taking more obvious pains to get the right look with the varying film stocks, dodgy effects and playing-for-ham it's also just a better and more enjoyable film just as a film. Death Proof is almost just another standard Tarantinoid banter'n'soundtrack film but with what seems like rather short middle and end sections. Still, for £6 for both it was a worthwhile three hours, especially when you get to see the fake trailers missing completely from the standalone screening of DP and of which only Machete remained alongside PT though it's very disappointing that they're not real films. Maybe someone will come back and pick them up at some point. I could perhaps have asked any one of the people surrounding me who would probably have pretended to have known if anyone was doing feature versions of the fake trailers even if they had no idea whatsoever.