Ulla’s Amazing Wee Blog

Just looking at the stats for this blog.

One of the most often viewed and linked to entries is the unique article about the “Wild West” in Edinburgh, summarising the history of the cinema at Springvalley Gardens. Its also  linked from a website about the  buildings of  Scotland’s Cinemas ,  which includes a lot of historical entries like the Springvalley Gardens Cinema, with pictures from inside of the building. I always loved this house for its character, its surroundings and its atmosphere, it is something really special.

The other most popular entry is of course “How to catch a lost hamster”. It seems like in the whole wide world of the Internet nobody else has tackled such an ordinary but yet difficult problem. Fluffy would be proud of his contribution to hamster welfare, would he still be alive. The entry has 72 comments all of people chasing after their little pet. I never really replied to any of them as all the principles of catching a hamster escapee are either in the article or in the video and I don’t have the time unfortunately, either, for personal hamster catching advice.

At the moment this personal blog has about 150 visitors looking at the site per day.

This morning I smelt a disgusting stink when getting up, quickly dismissing it as “the kids have set the rubbish chute on fire – NOT AGAIN“.  So I wasn’t too alarmed when three firetrucks pulled up in front of the house. But quickly it turned out to be much more, as the ladder was brought up and the firemen wore gas masks and oxygen bottles, and the smell became more, not less intense.

fire brigade in front of Fidra Court

We got a bit more alarmed when a fireman on his ladder rushed by in front of our window on the way up.

The rectangular squares are part of the anti-pigeon netting, obviously   .

Anyways, the firemen knocked on our door several times and asked us to stay indoors, open the windows and the balcony doors and if we are all okay.  I asked where the fire was and was told it was on the ground  floor, but still they are all zooming around here as if there would be something more going on in the upper regions of our little 14 storey skyscraper.

At the moment – a few hours after the first signs of the fire – the fire brigade still are around and seem to check that nobody passed out or got too affected by smoke inhalation. It seems they are breaking into a flat upstairs at the moment – I can hear the noise.  There will be more detailed reports in the papers later I assume, as there were quite some press photographers around.

Wednesday was an incredible bad day for me with nearly everything going wrong which could go wrong. The only highlight was that I finally was able to make it to report from the protest at the Edinburgh city chambers, against the privatisation of the social care and support services. Report and pictures as usual on Indymedia – UK for pictures and Scotland for local report and networking. I even brought the camcorder along but it was a bit too dark for filming. Nevertheless, hopefully I’ll have time to produce a little video, but not more than 2 minutes length with voice-over only.

Deaf Action in action

Reading the local Bavarian paper on the internet, my attention was drawn to a video clip about the cold war nuclear bunker in Nuremberg.  I did not know there was a nuclear bunker in Nuremberg at all, let alone underneath the main pedestrian  shopping zone.  Compared to the secret bunker in Crail in Fife it is a civilian not a military bunker though.  In 2006 the German government decided that it was unlikely that the bunker would be needed anymore in future and therefore gave up its maintenance, handing it back to the local authorities. In the case of Nuremberg, the local the fire brigade ended up with the obligation to look after the building.

I just got into watching old movies with the 1981 Australian “The killing of Angel Street”, describing a community struggling against commercial property development in the 70ies in Sydney. It is based on the history of activist Juanita Nielson , who was murdered because of her opposition to the high-rise developments. The film is now hard to get.

Yesterday I watched marxist (?!) filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s “Alphaville”, a classic 1965 film about a totalitarian, de-humanised and computer-controlled society.  It came with a pack of videos some artist dumped on us in a tidy-up action, along with Luis Bunuel’s 1964 “Diary of a Chambermaid”. I found both films quite hard to watch, they are quite intelligent and heavy, definitely challenging and disturbing the audience more than any current Hollywood superficial blockbuster.  Especially the Luis Bunuel film shocked me. Unbelievable that such films were made in the early 1960ies.
Jean Luc Godard’s new film “Socialisme” will be released next year, will try to catch up on his other movies till then.

“This Revolution” could be subtitled as “Indymedia goes Hollywood”; and is a hommage to the 1969 film “Medium Cool”- half documentary, half movie. Unfortunately it seems that not much exciting protest action happened at the RNC convention to document, except that the police accidentally arrested the leading actors as a suspective subversive group, contributing to a sudden end of the movie.  Still quite nice to watch though therefore not that much action included.

For several months now I have tried to arrange a visit to the Earthship in Fife. But the opening times were incredibly restricted, with the whole of August closed and in June and July it was only openend the weekends, and also not every weekend either.  Yesterday we finally made it to see the ecological building, and again it was closed, but we had come nevertheless and were able to walk around in the park.  A notice on the front door of the closed Earthship explained that it was due to a lack of volunteers. It was quite disappointing to realise that actually nobody lived in the house like the ones in the US – in Fife it was basically just a pretty unused showcase it seemed, absolutely not representing the amazing enthusiasm and philosophy of its founder, which got me so fascinated with it in the first place when watching the documentary “Garbage Warrior” about the history of the earthships and the realization of the sustainable living idea.

Afterwards, we went to Kirkcaldy – the town of parking spaces – and had a meal in a pretty new restaurant. The people there tried incredibly hard to establish the “Red Bar and Kitchin” and we were happy that they cooked from fresh with mainly local ingredients. Their pricing was also quite fair with the non-alcoholic drinks costing around a pound each.

We went and visited Scotland’s Secret Bunker the other day. I was really fascinated by the nuclear bunker in Fife, that I totally forgot to look at the exhibits in a critical way.  At the moment I am still wondering how much of the exhibition in the bunker was actually authentic or not, and if it is, from which time period. As the bunker was decommissioned in 1992 or so, but build in the early 50 ies, there are for example a wide range of red telephones from different decades on show.

However, it was very exciting actually seeing the bunker, which is based in the middle of nowhere near Crail, about two hours drive away from Edinburgh and South- East of St. Andrews.

It looks a little bit like a farmhouse from the outside.

Scotland's Secret Bunker

However, the entry fee is now a little bit less than 10 pounds per adult person, but the canteen in there has good prices and is very lovingly preserved. The owners seem to put a lot of enthusiasm and energy into the attraction to make it exciting; it was nice to see an exhibition about the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament included in the bunker.  I also have forgotten how the toilets smelled in the past; in the 70ies and 80ies when I grew up, it was taking me right back into my childhood to have smelled the bunker toilets and to use the extremely thin toilet paper in order for the pumps to be able to cope. I have totally forgotten that even the toilets made progress and became more powerful in the last thirty years.

I would have totally bought the story of the rooms being authentically been rebuild, even though some visitor behind me was wondering what the German army rifle would do in the  general’s command room,  if there wouldn’t have been a flag with a swastika been hanging in the communications room. Well, I guess the owners want to make the bunker attractive to all visitors, but that was going a bit too far for me – though they are possibly trying to cater more for people interested in military history at that point as they had a collection of army knives on show, too. Another room they had a lot of East German army exhibits, which had at least thematically to do with the Cold War, but of course, had nothing to do with the bunker in reality either.

the radar room

Though, in total, for me it was really worth going there, as I have never seen anything like it, but am sure there are many more nuclear bunkers existing all over the world.  I would have liked to have heard many more personal testimonies of people who actually worked in the bunker or used it before it was given up, but as the Official Secret Act still applies, it seems the owners have difficulties finding people. There was only one short interview with someone who used it as a short term accommodation during some military exercise; to that point I had never even thought about that there weren’t any showers in the bunker or that there wasn’t any food prepared in the bunker, but that it was brought in from the outside.

I was very fascinated by the red phones (with the sign beside it reading: early missile warning)  and the underground  BBC radio studio.

Red Phones

Me and my hubby had a fantastic day out last weekend.  We borrowed a book “The most amazing coastal places in Britain” from the library and were off exploring the close-by recommended sites south of Edinburgh. With the Marathon though running through Musselburgh and beyond we missed out on the close-by places and ended up in Dirleton, visiting Dirleton Castle, which is famous for its gardens which mainly consist of one huge flower border.

Dirleton Castle

Afterwards we went into the local pub, the Dirleton Inn, which was recommended by the staff in the Castle, as it had just had a change of owner and got refurbished. It felt very posh sitting at the completely new tables and everything was brandnew, the carpet so soft and unused,  the staff and the owner were still so enthusiastic and proud.  They did not have a menu but just printed out paper, but the Cullen Skink was fantastic and I loved the goats cheese on top of the pork loin. Apparently the owner had the Cramond Inn beforehand, which he is in the process of selling.

Afterwards we went to Yellowcraigs Park and wandered around the beach whilst being amazed about seeing Fidra Island for the first time.

Fidra Island

Afterwards we went on to North Berwick and also got to see Tantallon Castle,  which is located just beside the sea, with Bass Rock in the background.

Tantallon Castle

If this year is continuing to be like the last months it will certainly be very busy – especially on holidays!

In order to get to Germany we visited Cambridge on the way and tried to visit Burghley House, Park and Gardens – it was still closed though and is only opening from about Easter onwards for summer. Even the toilets were closed – so we headed to Stamford to find some, the beautiful little village beside Burghley House, which because of the conservative attitude of the major landowner has no petrol station and no out-of-town shopping centre.  So the town is kept very historic and traditional; it looks very beautiful with its little streets and everything. Apparantly it has become a conservation area in 1967 and has half of the listed buildings in Lincolnshire, says Wikipedia.

On Tuesday we crossed the Channel and visited Brussels city centre. I really like Brussels as it is very open-minded and a very diverse place with lots of languages being spoken. Its also a World Heritage Site, and I liked the Grand Place with the distinctive and impressive buildings like the City Hall. We had a big expensive meal at Butchers Lane near the Queens Gallery, having “Mussels in Brussles”. I first didn’t want to go in the tourist centred restaurant, but my partner insisted and also the waiter was very nice and very cleverly persuaded us in. But it was a good (and expensive) meal to remember. I had gratinated mussels and my hubby the mussels in white wine ; we had some cherry beer with it. Due to confusion as to where to bed down we just ended up driving till we got tired and then crashed out in one of the cheap motels on the way.

The next day we drove and visited Koblenz, another city with a world heritage status, if so mainly because as a part of the lower Rhine region. We had an extremely nice breakfast in the cafe next to a bakery and walked around the city. The whole area  in front of the “palace” has been dug up though we first thought the building site would become an underground car park it is planned to be the site of the main German flower and gardening show this year. There were again very nice houses and extraordinary buildings, but in contrast to Brussles quite few of them. The most impressive building site was a little court yeard in the back were it seemed the historical buildings from the middle ages were dug out and restored.

Later on we tried to visit Wuerzburg, another little charming town with a world heritage site, though we arrived to late to actually visit it this time. We had a stroll around the city centre though and enjoyed the sun shine a little bit.

The weekend we drove together to the Bavarian Forest to do some skiing, the first time for my partner to try. He was first a bit fearful and shuffling along but his skills improved greatly and on the sunday and the monday he was able to do a full round of Nordic cross country, 4km of it. Sunday it took about 2 hours to complete the track and on Monday 45 minutes. On the way back we visited a delightful chocolate factory and got some presents for friends, colleagues and family.
The day after we had a very amusing meal in a  mad fish restaurant.The landlady seemed to be getting slightly drunk during the service and made more and more jokes with heightened levels of obscenity. My mum started to get a bit upset when the landlady started flirting with my Dad.   The decoration of the restaurant was significantly stuck in the 80ies with DIY mural paintings of what were supposed to be Italian villages and food specialities; the furnishing  was quite outdated, too. The food was quite nice though I am always a bit suspicious if we eat seafood in a region where there is absolutely no sea. My hubby loved the “Genovese Fishpot a la mamma” and luckily didn’t understand any German whereas me and my Dad found it all quite funny but my sister and my mum enjoyed moaning and complaining about the weird experience afterwards.

The next day we were heading off back to Britain. We did not get far before we were getting stopped by the police. Typical! I was driving along with about 70 miles an hour – usual British spped limit whereas there isn’t any speed limit on the motorway in Germany so I was suspiciously slow apparantly. The police car made an indication it wanted to overtake us, then its LED light flashed up with a “Follow me” message on it. They checked my car papers and driving license and stated they were concerned about the car being overloaded and overweight. So they demanded that we should drive with them to a sandpit to get weight. Can only happen in conservative Bavaria I have to add. We made 1480 kg. However they still refused to let us go and waited for the Peugot garage to call them back with the allowed wieght specification, as it wasn’t in the car paper. We found some in the Operations Manual and would have met all of them, but the police was not certain which Type of car it was and therefore did not let us go either, but insisted I should empty out the car with all the luggage and boxes of books to find a metal plate with additional information of Type and weight specification. After me refusing for about half an hour to empty out the boot, we finally dug up the metal plate and look and see: it was exactly the same as on the Operation Manual with 1590kg. Police was excusing itself and l;eaving but I was still pissed and the day wasn’t improving as we got into a traffic jam for and hour and had a mad horrible experience trying to drive in Brussels with Google Maps indicating the wrong address to our overnight stay. There were loads of one-way streets and aggressive drivers in the rush hour, as well as a lack of signs, too, and there were a lot of smaller roads meeting in star-like junctions where it seemed the most confident horn-blowing driver had priority. However we had a very nice host although we had to empty our luggage with the three boxes of books out again and carry them into the flat because of fear of getting the car broken into.
The next day we visited Brugge, a charming city, but with the added problem that no toilet opens before 10 am. Brugge is also a world heritage site and a lovely beautiful town with nice buildings.
We crossed the Channel back around midday and had a quick break in Canterbury before driving to Nottingham where we wanted to visit some relatives and stay for the night. Unfortunately though I had misplanned the extend of the holidays and was expected back at work the very next day, which consequently lead to a intensive night drive up to Scotland.