Bill Bryson - Notes from a small Island

AND SO I WENT TO EDINBURGH. CAN THERE ANYWHERE BE A MORE beautiful and beguiling city to arrive at by train early on a crisp, dark Novembery

evening? To emerge from the bustling, subterranean bowels of Waverley Station and find yourself in the very heart of such a glorious city is a happy experience indeed. I hadn't been to Edinburgh for years and had forgotten just how captivating it can be. Every monument was lit with golden floodlights the castle and Bank of Scotland headquarters on the hill, the Balmoral Hotel and the Scott Monument down below which gave them a certain eerie grandeur. The city was abustle with endofday activity. Buses swept through Princes Street and shop and office workers scurried along the pavements, hastening home to have their haggis and cockaleekie soup and indulge in a few skirls or whatever it is Scots do when the sun goes doon.

I'd booked a room in the Caledonian Hotel, which was a rash and extravagant thing to do, but it's a terrific building and an Edinburgh institution and I just had to be part of it for one night, so I set off for it down Princes Street, past the Gothic rocket ship of the Scott Monument, unexpectedly exhilarated to find myself among the hurrying throngs and the sight of the castle on its craggy mount outlined against a pale evening sky.

To a surprising extent, and far more than in Wales, Edinburgh felt like a different country. The buildings were thin and tall in an unEnglish fashion, the money was different, even the air and light felt different in some ineffable northern way. Every bookshop window was full of books about Scotland or by Scottish authors.And of course the voices were different. I walked along, feeling as if I had left England far behind, and then I would pass something familiar and think in surprise, Oh, look, they have Marks &C Spencer here, as if I were in Reykjavik or Stavanger and oughtn't to expect to find British things. It was most refreshing.

I checked into the Caledonian, dumped my things in the room, and immediately returned to the streets, eager to be out in the open air and to take in whatever Edinburgh had to offer. I trudged up a long, curving back hill to the castle, but the grounds were shut for the night, so I contented myself with a shuffling amble down the Royal Mile, which was nearly empty of life and very handsome in a dour, Scottish sort of way. I passed the time browsing in the windows of the many tourist shops that stand along it, reflecting on what a lot of things the Scots have given the world kilts, bagpipes, tamo' shanters, tins of oatcakes, bright yellow jumpers with big diamond patterns of the sort favoured by Ronnie Corbett, plaster casts of Greyfriars Bobby looking soulful, sacks of haggis and how little anyone but a Scot would want them.

Let me say right here, flat out, that I have the greatest fondness and admiration for Scotland and her clever, cherrycheeked people. Did you know that Scotland produces more university students per capita than any other nation in Europe? And it has churned out a rollcall of worthies far out of proportion to its modest size Stevenson, Watt, Lyell, Lister, Burns, Scott, Conan Doyle, J.M. Barrie, Adam Smith, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Telford, Lord Kelvin, John Logic Baird, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and lan McCaskill, to name but a few. Among much else we owe the Scots are whisky, raincoats, rubber wellies, the bicycle pedal, the telephone, tarmac, penicillin and an understanding of the active principles of cannabis, and think how insupportable life would be without those. So thank you, Scotland, and never mind that you seem quite unable to qualify for the World Cup these days.

At the bottom of the Royal Mile, I came up against the entrance to the Palace of

Holyroodhouse, and picked my way to the centre of things along a series of darkened back lanes. Eventually I ended up in an unusual pub on St Andrew Square called Tiles an apt name since every inch of it from floor to ceiling was covered in elaborate, chunky, Victorian tiles. It felt a bit like drinking in Prince Albert's loo a not disagreeable experience, as it happens. In any case, something about it must have appealed to me because I drank a foolish amount of beer and emerged to find that nearly all the restaurants round about were closed, so I toddled back to my hotel, where I winked at the night staff and put myself to bed.

In the morning, I awoke feeling famished, perky and unusuallyclearheaded. I presented myself in the entrance to the dining room of the Caledonian. Would I like breakfast? asked a man in a black suit.

'Does the Firth have a Forth?' I replied drolly and nudged him in the ribs. I was shown to a table and was so hungry that I dispensed with the menu and told the man to bring me the full whack, whatever it might consist of, then sat back happily and idly glanced at the menu, where I discovered that the full cooked breakfast was listed at .14.50.1 snared a passing waiter.

'Excuse me,' I said, 'but it says here that the breakfast is fourteenfifty.'

That's right, sir.'

I could feel a sudden hangover banging on the cranial gates. 'Are you telling me,' I said, 'that on top of the lavish sum I paid for a room I must additionally pay fourteenfifty for a fried egg and an oatcake?'

He allowed that this was, in essence, so. I withdrew my order and asked instead for a cup of coffee. Well, honestly.

Perhaps it was this sudden early blot on my happiness that put me in a grumpy mood or perhaps it was the drippy rain I emerged into, but Edinburgh didn't look half so fine in daylight as it had appeared the night before. Now people plodded through the streets with umbrellas and cars swished through puddles with a noise that sounded testy and impatient. George Street, the core of the New Town, presented an unquestionably fine, if damp, prospect with its statues and stately squares, but far too many of the Georgian buildings had been clumsily abused by the addition of modern frontages. Just around the corner from my hotel was an office supply shop with plateglass windows that had been grafted onto an eighteenthcentury frontage in a way that was nothing short of criminal, and there were others in like vein here and there along the surrounding streets.

I wandered around looking for some place to eat, and ended up on Princes Street. It, too, seemed to have changed overnight. Then, with homewardbound workers scurrying past, it had seemed beguiling and vibrant, exciting even, but now in the dull light of day it merely seemed listless and grey. I shuffled along it looking for a cafe or bistro, but with the exception of a couple of truly dumpy discount woollens places where the goods seemed to have beendropkicked onto display counters or were spontaneously climbing out of bins, Princes Street appeared to offer nothing but the usual array of chain establishments Boots, Littlewoods, Virgin Records, BHS, Marks & Spencer, Burger King, McDonald's. What central Edinburgh lacked, it seemed to me, was a venerable and muchloved institution a Viennesestyle coffeehouse or treasured tearoom, some place with newspapers on gripper rods, potted palms and perhaps a fat little lady playing a grand piano.

In the end, fractious and impatient, I went into a crowded McDonald's, waited a century in a long, ragged line, which made me even more fractious and impatient, and finally ordered a cup of coffee and an Egg McMuffin.

'Do you want an apple turnover with that?' asked the spotty young man who served me.

'I'm sorry,' I said, 'do I appear to be braindamaged?'

'Pardon?'

'Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't ask for an apple turnover, did I?'

'Uh . . . no.'

'So do I look as if I have some mental condition that would render me unable to request an apple turnover if I wanted one?'

'No, it's just that we're told to ask everyone like.'