h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The other great advantage of the Royal Mile is that it is one of the only places in Scotland where it is socially accepted (expected even)that you can spit in public.

The Heart of Midlothian, provides the pavement spitoon. This is one area of Edinburgh literally swimming with life. Although some of it is less than desireable it is certainly colourful.

It is meant to give you good luck if you can hit the centre of the heart. It's good luck for the rest of us that you have no contagious airbourne disease.

It's also the best place to go if you're in a good mood and wish to be brought out of it sharply. The only place in which tourists act more stupidly is the top of Arthur's seat, where they can be seen merrily mistaking the university buildings for "palaces" and castles. Upon seeing the real castle, they will say "Gee, marsha, it's a bit small."

I could not agree more. The tourists at the castle have a habit of asking "what time the One O'clock Gun goes off"!

Ought to get a job pulling a rickshaw. If any tourists get in asking to go to the palace or the castle, take them to Muirhouse. Otherwise, simple fun can be found taking the west route up Arthur's seat, soundly thrashing all the americans making their way slowly up, usually led by someone that thinks they know the way. Watch as their improper footwear fails to get a grip on the dry, slippery earth. Climb up the side of the crags and surprise them by appearing over the side of what they consider to be a sheer drop. Get in the way of their camcorders. Pretend to be performing some strange sort of pagan ceremony using the view-stone as an altar so that they can't gather round it and point at things. Follow them wordlessly around the summit, occasionally making darting glances at their dog and licking your lips.

Ought to get a job pulling a rickshaw. If any tourists get in asking to go to the palace or the castle, take them to Muirhouse. Otherwise, simple fun can be found taking the west route up Arthur's seat, soundly thrashing all the americans making their way slowly up, usually led by someone that thinks they know the way. Watch as their improper footwear fails to get a grip on the dry, slippery earth. Climb up the side of the crags and surprise them by appearing over the side of what they consider to be a sheer drop. Get in the way of their camcorders. Pretend to be performing some strange sort of pagan ceremony using the view-stone as an altar so that they can't gather round it and point at things. Follow them wordlessly around the summit, occasionally making darting glances at their dog and licking your lips.

I'm going to enjoy looking out for you this Festival!

Right. Another fun thing to do is to go to the Pleasance, stand in the foyer and see if you can get Stewart Lee (who is very short in real life) to tread on your mate's toes and walk off. I'm planning to loaf outside the Gilded Balloon so that I can tell Arthur Smith that he's just not funny and will die a lonely man. Did you see the documentary about comics who spend their lives pissed? He was on that and appeared to be a bit of a git. I'll be the one wearing green shorts scowling at people walking five abreast on the pavement.
In the meantime, make sure you see Ed Byrne (don't know where yet), Mitch Benn (probably at the Southside Community Centre), Tripod (probably the Gilded Balloon II) and possibly Sean Cullen, also at the Gilded Balloon. These people are reliably funny and don't act like they own the entire city for the duration of August. I thus feel happy in giving them my money.
The solution to hurting feet is to never wear new shoes. Get a pair of sturdy boots and have them resoled. Keep them supple by applying baby oil, thin beeswax, one layer of polish, thicker wax, different wax again and then polishing them a bit. My current footwear gouged huge holes in the backs of my ankles for three weeks when I first got them but have since been great. Wallace and Grommit socks are only a temporary answer.

Yep, Arthur Smith is indeed a git by all accounts, and I saw Tripod last year and they're v. funny. The footwear solution is undoubtedly a goer except that it wouldn't look the part in the office where I'm condemned to spend too much of my life. Could always wear them to get there and then change into slippers once I arrive I suppose. My excuse for the W&G socks is people give you things, and I'm too mean not to wear them.

Try barefootedness. Is there a drawn-up list of Rules concerning employee dress? If not, they're buggered if they don't like it. Alternatively, exploit the rule we exploited in school that trousers/shoes could be replaced by shorts/sandals. Remember the green woolly socks, though W&G would probably do as well.
Isn't it great on days like this when it's all misty and the tourists have to buy postcards instead of taking photos? See the thing on the news last night that scotland needs to accept tourism as a money-bringing thing? I heard some people wandering along South Bridge last night saying "Gee, Marsha, the natives must really hate being in this town during august". "No, I think they really enjoy it. It must do the town so much good to have all these people guarunteed to be here every year." SOmeone needs to realise that all these people come up here with their fixed-lens compact cameras hoping to photograph the castle only to find that it's got a massive lump of scaffoldy-seating thing stuff next to it that they can't exclude from the shot. They have to shoot the palace from the west now that Dynamic Earth is in the way. At least they've taken all the green shit off the scott monument for the first time in three years.

I still love watching them in 1/15 sec f1.8 conditions on Princes St illuminating the whole of Edinburgh Castle with one compact camera flash...

Given all the gadgetry-bollocks cameras have these days, there's surely room for a little rangefinder thing and shape-recognition stuff that can look through the viewfinder and tell people "No, that's going to come out bleached", "Bugger off, this flash works on two AA batteries and that's 100m away", "You might want to turn the camera on its side at this point" or "I'm a fixed focus lens, for christ's sake. It says in my instructions that you have to be at least two metres away from the subject." My dad might wear embarassing clothing when he goes on holiday but at least he uses a Zenit 12-E and a hand-held photometer. APS. Grrrr.
Another lovely misty day. How atmospheric. The meadows look so much better when DHT and Appleton tower are obscured.
For the sake of the tourists there should be a special MSP costume that allows them to spot civic dignitaries from quite a long way away. Also, instead of those irritating historic scotland ads with the irritating little brats running round Stirling and Edinburgh castles there should be a reworking of Rob Roy with lightsabres and space guns. I wonder if Ewan's descended from him? There's an angle there, sure enough. Time to get back to the institute.

The one I could do with is "warning: when you get this processed you'll have no idea why you took this picture". Tourists should also have a feature that reminds them not to leave their friend sitting on the wall in the foreground of the picture with the mandatory "why in the name of b*****y did we come to Scotland it's so BLOODY cold here" expression on their face. Gotta go off and brave the haar now.

Hey - that's the kind of idea that could make millions! Just make sure you get it patented before Disney rip the plot off.

And I'd say Ewan almost certainly is!

'sus

{Apologies if this makes no sense somewhere further down this forum, but it probably does in relation to the post I'm replying to......... honest!}