am calling him a gravedigger

Having never managed to get round to anything at Doors Open Day before this year Nicky drew up a little schedule with opening times and bus numbers in order to try and get round as many things as possible in the limited time available.

Seafield Crematorium was the first on the list and whilst it's pretty much what you expect (a couple of big ovens and lots of tacky little shrines with ersatz stone cherubs) it was still mightily interesting. I assume Seafield is fairly unchanged since the original installation (albeit with an upgraded computerised oven control system and a CCTV monitor for the chimney) as it looked slightly odd and inefficient... there's a large distance between the coffin-lift and the ovens, a long wind-up time on the oven, a long distance between the oven and the (rather dusty) machine which pummels the remaining large chunks of bone into small, scatterable fragments and so on. I'd imagined the oven would have a series of small, intense flames (like bunsen burners with the holes fully open) but there is apparently only one large flame emitted from the head end. After the ceremony-room and oven-room (and a brief appearance by a photographer from the Scotchman On Sunday) an old guy showed you round the garden bit, the technique for re-erecting fallen gravestones (and anchoring them to the ground properly this time) was demonstrated along with the equipment used to measure and dig graves. I was extremely surprised to find that they're manually dug using spades and shovels, especially on ground liberally sprinkled with trees. I hope they get to wear more sensible clothes when on active duty, though.

Donaldson's college had always been admired from afar for its bulk and domination of the western skyline and as it will shortly be vacated, abused with modern building techniques and 'complementary' glass edifices then repopulated by everyone who thinks the Quartermile development might be a bit too pikey it was second on the list for a visit. Unfortunately everyone else was there too; after queuing for half an hour just to get in the door there was then another queue to get round the only old-looking bit of the building which was still accessible. We cut our losses after another ten minutes and left. All the proper tours had been booked earlier in the day but they were taking names and email addresses for potential additional tours at later dates.

Nicky had always fancied a look at the Museum of Anatomy in the university medical school, partly because of the elephant skeletons visible through the window. I hadn't read the information in the Open Doors Day booklet but assumed that this meant the huge room full of malformed things in jars of formalin through which we were taken when I studied anatomy and into which it was often possible to sneak after lectures. Unfortunately the only bits open were the main lecture theatre, the staircase up to the lab in which we got to look at dissected brains and the hallway with the elephant bones. Still, an intact elephant skeleton (whilst a sad thing compared to a living, breathing happy elephant) is still better than no elephant skeleton at all. Could have done with a tripod, though.

Whilst I was trying to get a shake-free shot of the elephant's tail-vertebrae Nicky had wandered through to McEwan Hall, also open but only on the ground floor which was mostly occupied with people at desks answering education-related questions for potential students. I was mightly pleased to see that the rumour going round when I graduated (that every 1999 graduate (in which I eventually ended up after scuppering my chances of first 1998 then 2000) would get their name carved into the ground-floor corridor wall) is at least partially true as there are now some smeared and unpolished brass plaques on which my name is borne. I suppose we were all lucky that they didn't charge us an extra engraving-fee on top of the mandatory ceremony and robe'n'hood hire fees.

As with McEwan Hall (formerly only visited for exams, graduations and organ recitals) I've never been round much of the Old College except the bits necessary to pay accomodation fees, exam fees, exam resit fees, library fines and collect grant cheques and hardship funds so a wee poke at the fancy bits they use for board meetings and fanciness. The large upper gallery thing is quite grand although if I managed that building I'd live in perpetual fear that a particularly energetic Strip the Willow at an hosted wedding reception might knock over a few of the sideburned busts of former dignitaries. Popped into the Talbot Rice gallery on the way out as I'd not been in for a while. The new bit was interesting enough but the old bit (as well as being far too warm and stuffy) was extremely dull, a little like the old bit in the National Portrait Gallery (posh frames, fancy walls, muddy pictures of miserable buggers). I tried to get out to a couple more things later on but the queues were massive so I just went for a pre-meal-out-make-myself-hungry wander instead.

I tried to resist popping up Calton Hill for some people-watching but failed.