Canons’ Gait

Phil O So Far he say: Never be cringingly ashamed of your humble background nor chest swellingly proud of your privileged one.        What’s it got to do with you?

This week we are checking out the Canons’ Gait in the Royal Mile. Formerly the Blue Blanket.  Unprepossessing from the outside it has a good reputation for tasty pub food and a wide range of mostly Scottish, craft beers. The night I was there they ran out of food and had to turn folks away. The couple behind me made a point of telling the staff how much they had enjoyed their meal. My pint of Azure ( new one to me ) was good. Part of a group owned by D M Stewart which includes the Abbotsford, Guildford and Cumberland. On a second visit I had a pint of one of the four cask ales on offer and no prizes for guessing the colour of my tasty pea, mint and courgette soup.

Gogism for today.  Well where do I start mate? You’ve no idea how this irritates me pal, yes sir it really gets to me buddy, so much so that I am no longer a cool dude.

If I tell someone that you are my best mate then you are my closest friend. If you say “see you later mate” then you are probably hoping that you won’t and that if you do it will be of very little consequence. In one of the shops I go into almost daily ( hands up, it’s a wine store!) one of the guys has taken to calling me mate when I go in, so like Richard Thompson I think I’m going to be taking my business elsewhere.

It seems only fair since I asked you to come up with the three things which most irritate you that I tell you mine. I’m really just working out now that I didn’t mean global issues like climate change, food security ( I must come back to that!) etc. but rather people things ( eg folks picking their nose in public? )

I assume your time is precious so here’s only one of mine.

It is how we use our mobile phones iPads etc and how that usage affects others. If you have been with me since Genesis then you may remember that I recently spent a holiday in Sri Lanka. One of the days we took in a cultural show of traditional music and dancing. Sitting directly in front of us were two Oriental young men, one with a smartphone the other with an iPad. They filmed the whole performance, therefore totally missing out on the immediacy of the event. Doh.

You are in the pub and you get the drinks in for your date ( you fill in the genders ) There you are on your first night out, presumably trying to get to know each other, but what you get to know is that your date is on Faceoff and wants to show you a clip of a parrot escaping from it’s cage, landing on it’s owner’s head and flying off with his toupeé. Your place or mine?

New Year’s day 2016 and we are off for a walk into Holyrood Park. It is a gorgeous morning and it being the time of year it is the city is full of tourists. Firework display at the castle last night safely recorded by all for posterity, and to remind them what a great time they might have had if they had actually experienced it.

You could go into Holyrood Park every day for a year and never have to take the same route twice. It is a fantastic resource in the city.  Many other people are of the same mind and as we are coming off the hill this new year’s morning, we come across two girls side by side, filling up the whole path and thumbing their phones. Ok so it’s a new year therefore new resolution, and mine is that I am no longer going to change direction or get off the pavement to accommodate you as you give your thumbs RSI.

EXCUSE ME!      The girls look up, and briefly slip back into reality for a second. –  before diving back into another dimension as we pass.

Ok time to leave that particular gripe behind but last thought on mobile phones. If they really are safe why do some authorities say don’t keep them close to your testicles, boys?

In the U K:  This week a former prime minister resigns from the Tory cabinet following a budget which, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, left the top 50% no worse off but the bottom 20% to lose 12% of their income by 2019. Distributional analysis; how much different “classes ” paid in tax, used to be published after each budget but this Chancellor thinks it must no longer be published because people will think the deficit reduction is a bad idea!!  Weird logic.

Someone once said that if you tell people something often enough they will eventually believe it.This week on perpetual repeat,

“One nation conservatism”

A total lie.

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In the world: A guy in a fake suicide bomber vest hijacks a plane. Prior to boarding he had been frisked at “security” Fill you with confidence?

Trump’s circus goes three rings and throws up prospect of, if you’ll excuse the somewhat contorted clown reference, all of our futures being Grimaldi. Now there was a tragic figure.