beeeeep!

So that was an interesting weekend.

Friday

I arrived in Edinburgh at quarter past seven p.m., and once I dropped my stuf off at my brother's flat-

That reminds me. You know Rebus? You might know him from the ITV series rather than the books by Ian Rankin. He's a detective based in Edinburgh, pretty much the usual maverick type but Scottish. But what's interesting is that he lives on a flat in Arden Street in Marchmont. Which is the same street my brother lives on. Weird, eh?

Anyway, I digress. That'll be my lunch. Oh no, that's digest... As I was saying, then I went to the event itself, the Edinburgh Goth Weekend, the St Valentine's Heart of Darkness. Point: I am not a goth. I was invited by my brother, who is one of the organisers and did the website, so I went. I was certainly the most normal-looking person there, though I certainly make no strong claims on normalcy. But at least I was in black, so I blended in a bit.

At the other end of the (entirely black) spectrum were some very entertaining people. Some women who shouldn't even be shown fishnets or corsets, let alone wear them, and a load of people in plastic (black), leather (black) or velvet (black), or a combination of these. The usual array of frilly shirts and cuffs. Mad hair. 'Normal' hair. A few kilts.

There were three rooms, one "trad goth/industrial/punk", one "cybergoth/EBM/darkwave" and the third "ambient-experimental". Between an hour or so of apparently well-known DJs playing "appropriate" music in the various rooms, I saw a set by Spermwhale (one of the cybergoth ones, I think) who were not too bad but hard to describe and another by the massively popular Screaming Banshee Aircrew. They were quite good and very, ah, distinctively dressed.

I only left way after it ended at three a.m. because I had to wait for my brother who, worst luck, had to be the last to leave. I dozed off at one point (it was late after a looong day) but finally got to go to sleep at around four p.m. All in all a most entertaining day.



Saturday

When I finally regained my senses enough to check the time, I found it was six p.m.. Yes: I didn't see daylight on Saturday. I slept for fourteen hours. Don't ask me how that worked. I completely missed the trader's stalls and other stuff during the day, so I have no idea how that went.

As it turned out I almost immediately got drafted into action: I had to take a vital consignment of cakes to the venue for the bands or they were not going to play. Yep, that's right: the darkly scary goth and/or rock band members were going to walk out unless they got cakes.

So I headed down there for another night's excitement, which this time featured the quite superb and popular Maya29, a sort of punk band, I guess; the even more punky Je$us Loves Amerika; and the darkly techno Revolution By Night, who ended with a version of "Stupid Girl" by Garbage. Strangely, the sets and DJs in the cybergoth room had projected images of the Transformers and The League of Gentlemen as a backdrop. Freaky.

Again, a late night.



An aside: food was an interesting experience. I've never had so many "chips with X" in one weekend before. And everything deep fried in batter, of course. Nice, but eventually fatal. But I can recommend "sauce", which is an Edinburgh thing; basically brown sauce watered down with vinegar. There are fights between people from Edinburgh and Glasgow over whether sauce is better than vinegar. Seriously.



Sunday

I actually saw the sun that day. Stunning. Wandered down to the venue and saw some goths in the stark light of day; bizarre. I saw the trader's stalls this time, though there wasn't much going on. They were setting up a karoke system at one end, though I think they were only going to play music, not actually have people sing.

It was funny to see what happened when they tested the volume: the stereo belonging to the witches in the corner had just finished playing "Bells, Books and Candles" by Graeme Revell (used in 'The Craft' amongst other things) and started playing the theme from the TV series 'Charmed' when suddenly the Atomic Kitten cover of Blondie's 'The Tide Is High' (the original is just infintely superior) blared out. The witch's heads suddenly popped up like they were wiccan meercats. Most amusing.

Then came the so-called "GothZoo". Contrary to what you might think, this did not involve providing goths for the public to see and stroke. Instead it was what I suppose you could call 'goth-friendly animals' if that makes any sense. No cute fluffy things, just the strange and maybe scary.

So one womam brought her chocolate millipede (cool); two cockroaches (friendly and they walk all over you); a BIG snail about the size of a cricket ball; a tarantula that didn't like the noise much; a frisky scorpion that was no longer safe to pick up; and a young king snake, which was very nice. The snake was very cool to the touch and smooth like leather, and clambered around on me for ages.

Another load of people brought owls. One small grey one that was very interested in the cockroaches across the room, a European Eagle owl (which was about two feet tall and very big and heavy) and a barn owl. Unexpectedly, much like most birds their actual bodies and heads are smaller than you think under all those feathers.

Interesting point: apparently, if (by scale) we had eyes as big as an owl's they would be the size of watermelons. Once we'd stuck them in our heads about half of the remaining space would just be ears. With so much space taken up it's no wonder they can't actually move their eyes like we can.

Then I made a sudden rush of purchasing and made my exit, for my train was due in but one hour.



And that, oh reader, was that.

HAN SOLO You're a loveable rogue maverick, a little bit woo, a little bit way. Beneath all that scoundrel schtick you are essentially good. When a dog barks, you know what it's on about. Take the Film Four Force-O-Meter

FROM A T-SHIRT- "Goths: Where were you when we invaded Rome?"

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