the elephant's tale

I don't... blog very much

2010-05-13T10:44:00.002+01:00

I have been staying a long way away from Edinburgh lately, as the map shows, and I won't be in Edinburgh much over the summer either - so there isn't much blogging going on. I'll leave the blog up for now, in case it's of any interest to Elephant House readers, and will either come back to it one day or make a decision that my Elephant House blogging days are over...

I see... pesky student aftermath

2010-01-06T13:44:00.003Z

Those pesky students...

I talk to... NADIA ALTOR

2009-12-02T20:21:00.008Z

age: 25
from: Barrow-in-Furness
type of visitor: she's the cook!
drinking: latte

"On a brick wall in a back garden just north of Birmingham, visible from the train, is a painted-on goal post with the words HIT IT AMADEEP daubed inside in thick black capitals. I know this because I wrote it. Amadeep was my little brother, and I wrote it the summer before he died."

Don't you think that sounds like a great first sentence for a novel? Evocative and distinct, it hooks the reader immediately. It's actually the first sentence of an excellent short story by Elephant House staff member Nadia Altor, who graduated from Edinburgh University's Creative Writing MSc recently. You can read this story and others here, as well as extracts from Vanguard, a novel telling the story of the Carson family in a shipbuilding town as filtered through punk-rock, social breakdown and the mysterious voyaging of a nuclear submarine...

I have a theory that nearly all quality writers, at the beginning of their careers, start off belonging to one of two groups: strong in language but weaker in story-telling, or strong in story-telling but weak in language. Nadia reckons that she's probably closer to the first group, and she certainly has the natural gift of phrase-making, it's apparent in all her stories; but I wouldn't be surprised if she has the story-telling skills required by novels too. We'll have to wait till Vanguard is published to find out...

Like the admirable Mystery Mr X (who, having read all available impenetrable literature in Europe, has departed for South America for a month to read further impossibly obscure tomes) Nadia prefers to go unphotographed, hence the artistic photograph of her coffee cup resting on my interview notes...

I talk to... VOLCANO CLIMBING JONNY

2009-10-23T15:30:00.010+01:00

Some people support charity the hard way, by demolishing small ornaments, while others take the easy way out by climbing three active volcanoes in a week and raising thousands of pounds in the process. Elephant House staff member Jonny and cafe owner David belong to the latter group. Come November 10th they'll be in the Phillipines tackling three of them there hot mountain type things (I got a 'B' in my Geography GCSE).

The actual volcanoes are the not insignificant Taal (ongoing signs of unrest), the imposing looking Pinatubo (which in 1991 produced the second biggest volcanic eruption of the 20th century) and the whopping-great-big scary-looking steam-spouting Mayon (see photograph; eruption imminent, level 2 alert in place due to increased activity in June and July of 2009 - nice timing guys...)

About twenty people are undertaking the adventure. Their target (apart from evading any potential Pompeii-style outcome) is to raise £50,000 for the Scottish Filipino Charity, an organisation that funds the education of underprivileged children in the Phillipines. If you visit the Elephant House in Edinburgh it would be GREAT if you could spare a few pounds for this cause... And if you're reading this from afar, it would be GREAT if you could donate via the charity's website.

I break... AN ELEPHANT

2009-10-19T23:25:00.005+01:00

I spin round in the cafe, my bag lurches out from my side, and an elephant tumbles from its ledge to the floor. Elephants have four legs, but this one now has three. Under the stern gaze of elephant-loving tourists I crawl around on the floor looking for the missing elephant limb, knowing that I am a bad person: the elephant was for sale, with all monies going to the The Scottish Filipino Charity, which sponsors the education of children in the Philippines. I have butchered a child-educating charity elephant.

I realise I must buy this three-legged elephant or kiss my reputation goodbye. I 'fess up to a member of staff and buy the creature for £5. I take it home. I put it on a ledge of my own. I like it. I ponder whether to glue its leg back on.

The Scottish Filipino Charity is an organisation that supports underprivileged children in the Philippines. In November Elephant House owner David and staff member Jonny are doing a sponsored climb of three Philippine volcanoes, in aid of the charity. To sponsor them, or to break your own elephant and then pay for it, speak to anyone in the cafe, or check out www.scottishfilipinocharity.org. More on this sponsored volcano climb soon...

I talk to... RAJORSHI CHAKRABORTI and MYSTERY MR X

2009-10-15T17:03:00.009+01:00

age: 33
from: India
type of visitor: regular
drinking: pot of darjeeling tea

I know highly entertaining Indian novelist Raj from a couple of readings we've both attended. His first novel Or The Day Seizes You was shortlisted for a prestigious prize, and his second novel Derangements has recently been accepted for publication in the U.S.

Raj sweeps into the Elephant House hoping for some heavyweight literary discussion. This explains why he's looking not for me but mystery Mr X, a regular in the Elephant House who prefers not to be identified on account of a becoming modesty. Experiencing Raj and Mr X talk literature is like being pleasurably happy-slapped by Jacques Derrida wielding a studded copy of Middlemarch. With relish they set about discussing all the books ever written, while I chip in with my own distinctive slant on literature (“Um, no, haven't read that”; “Or that”; “Er, who?”)

Mr X goes to the toilet - even enigmas have their down-to-earth aspects - and Raj asks me whether a good novel needs to be all trees, or trees and lawn; in other words, does incident need to be set off by reflection, or can it be packed in like a forest? I say something highly intelligent about trees, lawns, valleys, mountains, glaciers. Just want to put that on the record.

Raj is a sentence maker - the language of his novels is endlessly rich and fecund, and hearing him read his work aloud is one of the most enjoyable experiences a reading can provide. He writes short stories too...

I talk to... JOSIAH

2009-09-08T14:58:00.005+01:00

age: 25
type of visitor: regular
eating: muffin
drinking: filter coffee

I often see Josiah writing in the Elephant House, and he has the same rather classy looking netbook as me, and he has a beard...

Surely Elephant House + netbook + beard = writer? But when I talk to him, I find out he's doing something much more useful. He's a key player in The Grassmarket Community Project (also called The Grassmarket Mission), which is a wonderful charity dedicated to getting alongside people who are poor, marginalised, excluded, homeless, or struggling with addiction or mental illness. The ethos is based around trying to build community by finding ways of blurring the lines between the ‘marginalised’ and those who overlook them. There are all kinds of activities - cooking, art, woodwork, gardening, drop-in centre - run by members of the community, and all kinds of alliances with other socially proactive groups. It's a big deal: in total Josiah is helping to facilitate 200+ volunteers in Edinburgh in the provision of support and opportunities for numerous people who are looking to address the issues that are holding them back.

Josiah's always looking for more volunteers, and in one way or another the charity is involved in dozens of fantastic projects within a minute or two's walk from the Elephant House, so explore their websites here and here if you think you might like to get involved...

I see... MEN IN DRESSES

2009-07-18T16:21:00.006+01:00

where: the Grassmarket

Cycling back from the cafe today I see men in dresses outside a bar in the Grassmarket. It's not unusual to see men in dresses in Edinburgh - for thousands of years Englishmen have celebrated their stag nights by coming to Edinburgh and putting on dresses and drinking ten pints - but these two are very fine examples so I ask if I can take a picture. At first they are a bit shy and unsure - no girl likes to seem easy, after all - but eventually I win them over. Soon they urge me to go into the bar and take more photos of men in dresses ("there's some terrible sights in there"), but I happen to be wearing a bright yellow fluorescent cycling jacket and waterproof trousers, and don't fancy my survival chances in a bar full of well-oiled stag-nighters.

I attend... WESTPORT BOOK FESTIVAL launch

2009-07-12T00:55:00.008+01:00

Westport Book Festival runs from 13 to 16 August and is based in and around characterful Westport Street in Edinburgh. The area is known locally as the Pubic Triangle, because of its isosceles of lap-dancing joints, but strangely "The Pubic Triangle Book Festival" didn't attract many sponsors.

The programme launch party took place on Saturday night at the fine second-hand bookshop Edinburgh Books, with Directors Hannah Adcock and Peggy Hughes making pithy speeches to a packed shop under the benevolent gaze of a water buffalo called Clarence...

To mark the bosomy aspect of the festival's location ("Edinburgh's Soho - a heady mix of books, bespoke-tailoring, booze and bosoms") there were cakes in different bra sizes: A, B, C, D and Double D. Double D was a lot of cake. I went for a delightful B, but that doesn't mean anything. I like all sizes of cake.

Only slightly more important than the bosoms and the cakes are the authors at the festival. I'll write more nearer the time, but big poetry beast Douglas Dunn kicks things off at 3p.m. on Thursday 13 August, and the legendary John Hegley closes the festival on Sunday 16 August at 8p.m. Between these two are a host of poets, novelists and non-fiction writers, including me and Gregory Norminton on Thursday 13 August at 7.30pm.

It's a small, newish, special festival going from strength to strength, and includes what promises to be the world's first 'Literary Twestival' for Twitter addicts...

For tickets, programme and bra-sized-cake queries, check out the festival website.

I go to... the ANON relaunch

2009-07-10T08:31:00.007+01:00

where: Scottish Poetry Library
when: 9 July

Anon ("the anonymous submissions poetry magazine") is something I set up in 2003. Recently it was taken over by new editors Colin Fraser (he tweets here) and Peggy Hughes (she blogs here), and the (re)launch party took place yesterday at the Scottish Poetry Library. Some ninety people came along to buy the magazine and drink the wine -- and steal the MP3 player in the Ladies' toilets that was transmitting Anon poems in a continuous loop (until stolen).

The new edition of Anon is beautiful -- you can buy it (or find out how to submit poems to the magazine) here.

"How does it feel to give away Anon"?" I was asked, and "Are you the biological father?" I explained that I had neglected Anon for a while - not enough nappy changes or trips to the zoo - so it's a relief to hand it on to far more capable parents. Colin and Peggy organised a tremendous relaunch that bodes well for the future of the magazine.

I go to see... ANDY MURRAY (again)

2009-06-30T10:22:00.016+01:00

where: Festival Square
when: he'll be here for all his Wimbledon matches

Five sets and four hours saw Murray get past Stanislas Wawrinka last night to reach the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, and once again Edinburgh came out in force to cheer him on. First there was me and a guy doing tricks with his bike...

Then there was me and a guy doing tricks with his football...

After an hour I was freezing in the mist, so I cycled to Biblos for a pint and an indoor screen, and watched tennis while Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare and possibly Samuel Pepys watched me back...

Wawrinka and Murray fought like polecats to take it to two sets apiece, at which point I raced back to Festival Square to catch the atmosphere of the final set, and to my surprise, after nearly four hours, there was an atmosphere, though kind of spooky...

Murray's quarter-final is against Juan Carlos Ferrero on Wednesday...

I (don't) see... EDINBURGH CASTLE

2009-06-28T23:11:00.006+01:00

One of the delights of writing in the Elephant House is to look out of the window at that castle in the air, Edinburgh Castle, perched high on its stump of extinct volcano, in-between the trees of Greyfriar's graveyard and the tenements of Merchant Street. But sometimes, like today, I look out of the window to find that the trees are there, and the tenements are there, but the castle isn't - mist has descended damply on its ramparts and crenellations, leaving just a hazy impression of the building behind.

To the right of the mist-obscured castle, above the houses, you can just see a spectator stand for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo (7th to 29th August). The Tattoo isn't really my thing, but if you like men and women in uniforms, marching parades, pipers, drummers, fireworks, dogs and really loud bangs that wake up everyone in Edinburgh late at night for most of August, it could be yours...

I go to see... ANDY MURRAY

2009-06-27T20:45:00.004+01:00

where: Festival Square
when: he'll be here for all his Wimbledon matches

This shot shows Murray Madness hitting Edinburgh big time today as Andy Murray races past Victor Troicki to make the final 16 of Wimbledon. The atmosphere in Festival Square was crazy, delirious, almost four-dimensional as myself and two youths jostled for position before the giant screen.

Murray's next match is on Monday, when the crowds are expected to swell dangerously, perhaps to half a dozen. Hope to see you there...

I go to see... LOOKING FOR ERIC

2009-06-15T21:42:00.004+01:00

film: Looking For Eric
director: Ken Loach
where and when: Cameo until 25 June

There are two Erics in Ken Loach's latest film: Eric Cantona plays Eric Cantona (method acting at its outermost limit), while Steve Evets plays depressed Mancunian postman Eric Bishop. This second and Lesser Eric has a helluva lot on his plate: a deep and guilty love for the first wife he abandoned, stressful childcare duties for their grandchild, contemptuous stepchildren in thrall to the local villain, plus a self-esteem so low that he could easily limbo under a doormat while balancing a bottle of beer on his pale and undernourished belly.

At the beginning of the film, Lesser Eric's near encounter with his first wife has him succumbing to a panic attack and driving the wrong way round a roundabout, smashing up the car and putting himself in hospital. Things go downhill for him from there. Fortunately he starts filching his stepson's dope to get some relief, which allows Greater Eric -- yes, renowned Kung-Fu expert, philosopher of seagull axioms and sometime footballer Eric Cantona - to start making pithy cameo appearances within Lesser Eric 's disintegrating consciousness.

Cantona's gnomic encouragements - on self-esteem, love and teamwork - are at times so incomprehensible that I couldn't tell if they were in French and English or some other language (Cantonese), but they educate Lesser Eric in how to respect himself and deal with all the problems that beset him; ninety minutes later, helped out by scores of like-minded working-class chums, Lesser Eric has won his woman back, solved the small matter of his stepson being viciously blackmailed to look after a gun, humiliated and neutralised the psycho who owns the shooter, transformed his deeply dysfunctional family into The Waltons, and become a real man just like Greater Eric - although not such a dab hand at football.

If I sound less than convinced, it's because I'm more than sceptical. The film reminded me of the more simplistic offerings of Radio Four's Thought For the Day, those ones in which an earnest cleric ends up saying that life's a bit like a game of football, isn't it, when you think about it, and God's like the referee...

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Looking For Eric for its entertainment value and the great performances, and I suppose that when viewed purely as a comedy-drama -- rather than the serious social commentary it also aspires to be -- it's a qualified success...

For a thumbs-up-high review, try Film4; for a 'this is a stinker', The Independent delivers.

I go... a long way away

2009-04-07T22:07:00.002+01:00

I'm currently in Buenos Aires for a month or two and don't have much opportunity to blog, but normal service will resume on my return...

I talk to... NIKA

2009-03-24T19:59:00.009Z

age: 23
nationality: 'I'm from many places'
type of visitor: occasional
eating: smoked salmon wrap
drinking: jasmine tea

Every few weeks I notice her in the cafe, and wonder who she is, and ponder what she's doing.

She's very distinctive looking, and always works with a concentration so intense that I don't like to interrupt. But this time I talk to her, and find she's happy to chat.

I discover she's a sculptor, Nika Kupyrova. She's drumming away on a laptop in a cafe, rather than doing quirky 3-dimensional things in dank studios, because she's working on a funding application for a new installation. In the arts world, people are making tedious funding applications pretty much continuously; some enterprising artist should make an application for an art work that involves the continuous filling in of funding applications.

A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, Nika lives in Glasgow. Her focus as an artist is on photography and space-based work, using found objects in particular. "My work glamorises domesticalities, offers a peep-show insight into a fictional habitat, lingers over routines, eccentricities and homemade erotica".

I rather like this image / installation, called pigeon. And there's a rather spooky clip of her installation keep here....

You don't see... PANTS

2009-03-14T21:29:00.014Z

It was windy today and I saw pants from the window of my second-floor flat - an imposing array of them, flapping in a stiff Edinburgh breeze. I left them out of this photograph in case I was arrested, so you don't see pants. But you do get to see washing in the wind...

I'm not fond of washing - stuffing it into the machine, hauling it out, wrestling with giant, sodden duvet covers. Nor do I approve of windy days - they blow my bicycle in front of buses, and they make my ears ache. Wind is bad, as far as I'm concerned, and when I'm concerned even farther than that then I find that washing is worse. But washing in the wind? It's one of the loveliest sights. It plants a bulb of hope in my moment.

postscript:
The washing and changing of duvet covers is a sub-category of washing so dolorous that it makes me whimper. Simon Armitage (the very good English poet, as in, probably the best English poet alive, damn him) has a poem called 'Alaska' in which the sapping horror of duvet-cover-care is nicely rendered:

...but let me say, girl,
the only time I came within a mile

of missing you
was a rainy Wednesday, April,
hauling in the sheets,
trying to handle
that big king-sizer...

Today's elephant...

2009-03-12T11:34:00.007Z

These two elephants stare at each other perpetually. They're probably in love, but can do nothing about it. There are some advantages in such an arrangement, as John Keats said in his Ode on a Grecian Urn, when he consoles two lovers fixed forever on the surface of a vase...

Bold lover, never, never can you kiss,
though winning near the goal - yet do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though you have not your bliss,
Forever will you love, and she be fair!

The general idea is expressed in another line in the poem: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / are sweeter...

I update... MAKI HAMADA'S EXHIBITION

2009-03-11T10:23:00.005Z

I blogged about occasional Elephant House waitress and always amazing artist Maki Hamada on February 6th. Her solo exhibition at the Peter Potter Gallery in Haddington continues for just two more weeks - all details, plus my response to her work, are here.

Her works have been selling well, but there are still some left. In any case, it's a spectacular exhibition, and Haddington makes for a lovely day trip.

Poetry reading - 25th March

2009-03-09T08:43:00.005Z

who: Mike Stocks & Helena Nelson
where: The Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh
when: 7.30p.m., 25th March
how much: £5 (£3 concessions)

If you'd like to hear me read from my books FOLLY and SONNETS, and say hello, then come along to the Scottish Poetry Library (see photo, google map here) at 7.30p.m. on Wednesday 25th March.

I'll be reading with award-winning poet Helena Nelson - her book STARLIGHT ON WATER won the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. Her latest pamphlet is called UNSUITABLE POEMS.

Helena's poetry - like mine, I hope - is approachable and appealing. In fact some of it - like mine, I fear - is said to be "quirky and satirical, not for the faint-hearted or under-10s..."

Helena runs the excellent Happenstance Press with incredible verve - if you write or read poetry, take a look - and she is editor of Sphinx magazine.

I go to see... WENDY AND LUCY

2009-03-08T11:37:00.006Z

film: Wendy and Lucy
director: Kelly Reichardt
where and when: The Cameo till Thursday March 12th, and then at the Filmhouse from March 27th

In this careful, sometimes ponderous, always subtle film, a woman on the edge loses her dog and, er... Well that's about it. Technically it's a road movie - she's on the way to Alaska in her beat-up Honda Accord - but more accurately it's a pothole movie, because she gets stranded and goes nowhere. My companions were divided in their views. Two thought the film was dreary, pretentious tosh, and one thought it was meaningfully restrained...

Wendy loves her dog Lucy - I mean, they French kiss, as near as damnit. I'm not going to tell you if she finds the doughty pooch or not - you'll need a sliver of narrative tension to see you through that 1 hour and 20 minutes of hound loss - but to focus on the meagre plotline isn't really the point. Wendy and Lucy is an examination of the big gaps in the ideal of the American dream, personified in the closed, lonely, go-(not)-getting character of Wendy as she has a few strokes of bad luck and fails to grasp any good luck.

The story can approach a sort of featureless photo-realism - nothing much happens, often, and it's often in real time that the nothing much that doesn't happen, doesn't, um, happen. In other words, the tedium is authentically tedious. But of course everything is interesting ultimately, if we look ever more closely; even boredom.

My interest was held, most of the time - the acting is superb, modulated, achingly sad. So much context and information is held back from our understanding of the characters' impoverished interactions that the watching audience has to work out its own moral framework to place upon the plot's tiny premise.

For a good analysis of what's so good about the film, try this New York Times review; for an opposing argument, channel4.com puts the boot in, tenderly.

I talk to... MARTA

2009-03-06T22:18:00.010Z

age: 23
nationality: Catalonia
type of visitor: occasional
eating: carrot cake
drinking: cappuccino

Marta's appearance is bold and striking: blue fluffy cardigan, orange-and-yellow striped shirt, large and colourful jewellery. She chats readily about her training in print-making, and how she's in Scotland to improve her English. She hopes to go back to Catalonia to do post-graduate studies.

The red book she scribbles is her diary. She's been writing diaries since she was nine years old and unlike that impressive journal writer DEREK she goes back to them from time to time 'to discover how I've changed'.

I kept a diary as a twenty-year-old student. The contents were so idiotic that after a month I decided to burn it. For reasons which were perhaps not unconnected to being an idiotic twenty-year-old student, I burnt it indoors, in a metal wastepaper bin...

50 or so pages of A4 paper produce surprisingly high flames and much smoke. I picked the bin up to take it outside. I dropped the bin and yelped -- the bin was hot. Now there were burning papers all over the bedroom floor. I grabbed my dressing gown to beat down the flames and -- my dressing gown transformed into a fireball and quickly ceased to exist. It had been made of some highly flammable artificial fibre. Buckets of water were required, and lots of shouting...

After we finish talking, Marta goes back to her diary. I get the impression I am in it now.

I bump into... ROD BURNS

2009-02-24T09:34:00.012Z

age: 36
nationality: English
type of visitor: rare
eating: pain au chocolat
drinking: two black coffees, one Irish coffee

I seldom see Rod, and then only at night, in bars, when we fail to resist ending up in the slightly louche cocktail bar Rick 's on Frederick Street (a couple of doors from the slightly sleazy Fingers Piano Bar), so I'm surprised to see him striding through the cafe. He looks different in daylight - like a newly washed car edged out of a dark garage.

Rod was one of the poets to get into the first edition of the poetry magazine I founded, Anon. Subsequently he wrote to me, and we've been good friends since. His visionary swearing is always impressive.

Sometimes publishers ask me to write back-cover blurbs. I've only agreed twice: once for an American poet called Rose Kelleher, and once for Rod's book The Salesman's Shoes. It comprises tanka (poems with five lines and a strict syllable count on each line in the pattern 5-7-5-7-7), and I find many of them brilliant. They use shifts of perspective and unusually striking imagery to make the ordinary extraordinary. Here are a few of my favourites...

Seeing traffic lights
sequencing through green, amber
red for nobody
the nightwatchman's heart blows out
like a torn bicycle tyre.

*

Savour of hotdog
and overhanging bosom
and raw woody ink --
circles in the inferno
of this bookless passenger.

*

Ah, broken wiper
dragging smears across the glass
of the driver's side --
won't you now illuminate
the sound of one blade flapping?

Rod's writing name is James Roderick Burns. His latest book Greetings from Luna Park uses the Japanese verse form sedoka -- a form so neglected and obscure that it draws a blank on Wikipedia. Maybe Rod could rectify that...

I see... THE MOON

2009-02-10T11:17:00.008Z

The middle of the day; there's the last of the snow below me, and a quilt of blue sky above me. A couple of minutes from the cafe I see the full moon hanging in front of a whacking great statue (who is it? Queen Victoria?) on top of the Royal Scottish Academy. Is this beauty (moon, sky, grandeur), or comedy (who threw that snowball at the Queen)? For one or both of these reasons, my camera emerges.

The Royal Scottish Academy is part of the National Galleries of Scotland, situated on The Mound (google map here). The galleries open daily 10 till 5 (Thursday till 7). The permanent exhibitions are free to view, and some temporary exhibitions are free too. From February 14th you can view 25 Years of Photography, which shows the best Scottish photography (old and new) purchased for the national collection during the last quarter century.

I attend... MAKI HAMADA'S EXHIBITION

2009-02-06T09:35:00.009Z

where: Peter Potter Gallery, 10 The Sands, Haddington, EH41 3EY
when: until March 28, 10 till 5 Monday to Saturday

Maki works at the cafe now and again. She takes care to make a really good cup of coffee, and she often asks me how my writing is going. I'm aware she's an artist (makihamada.com) who's won prizes and awards - and she was a finalist in the Nationwide Mercury Prize Art Competition, which is the sister competition to the pop music awards. I've already missed a previous exhibition in the Owl and Lion Gallery in the Grassmarket, so when I hear she has a new exhibition in the Peter Potter Gallery in Haddington 20 miles away (google map here) I attend the launch.

Her work is stunning.

Viewing from a distance, I find that the composition and the storytelling are compelling; viewing close up, I lose myself in the meticulous technique and detail, the whimsical narratives of myth, nature and mischief, and the variety of materials she utilises (mushroom prints, hole-punch circles, felt, although her painting and drawing craft is always in charge). Every square inch is packed with further pictures. Like an optical illusion, each work bamboozles your brain into seeing first one thing, then another - and in Maki's work the alternatives are not binary but numerous.

The exhibition runs till March 28th 2009. Go see. Make a day of it - Haddington is a pretty town with lots of good walking around it. Take your cheque book, and arrange a large overdraft facility; this work is not cheap, nor should it be!

I see... a purple ABERDEEN ANGUS

2009-01-31T01:26:00.012Z

age: unknown
nationality: Scottish
type of visitor: unique
eating: nope -- just jumping about
drinking: filter coffee

The purple Aberdeen Angus jumping around in front of a cameraman attracts my attention, so I politely interrupt it and explain that I am a blogger with a commission to ask searing philosophical questions about great contemporary issues. "What's with the cow jumping around thing?" I ask. A very nice man emerges from the backside of the purple Aberdeen Angus to explain that he and his cow are connected to FRENZY, a Christian Music Festival that takes place in Edinburgh on June 6th. My understanding of the world is marginally enhanced. The very nice man re-enters the backside of the purple Aberdeen Angus. The purple Aberdeen Angus goes nuts.

I go for a curry, feeling mildly disoriented.

I bump into... film-maker EVA

2009-01-29T15:13:00.016Z

age: 22
nationality: Scottish
type of visitor: regular
drinking: tea
eating: chocolate & raisin cake

If you have several thousand pounds to spare, and maybe a talented grandmother too, then film-maker Eva Riley might like to hear from you. She's shooting her next project on film rather than digital - mm, expensive - and she's auditioning for a woman of mature years to play the Italian grandmother of a boxer...

Winner of Napier University Short Film Competition, Eva's previous films include Close, about a middle-aged man with ambiguous motives for inviting a younger man into his home (note to self - stop inviting younger male friends to my house) and a documentary about the 50-year connection between artist Violet Williamson and the Edinburgh College of Art.

I don't know Eva well, but whenever I bump into her I feel energised by her friendliness and enthusiasm. Today she's refining her script; I love people's notebooks and scripts so I take a sneaky photograph of the work-in-progress...

Eva talks about the compromises she'd have to make if she went into the mainstream film industry, her hopes to study film further in San Francisco, and her dark secret - she used to work here. The staff at the Elephant House are full of artistic surprises...

I talk to... STEPHEN and DREW

2009-01-23T22:28:00.011Z

ages: 22 and 27
nationality: English and US
type of visitor: I forgot to ask
drinking: coke, water
eating: "a kind of rice-crispies chocolate cake thing"

Stephen and Drew are engaged in passionate conversation about a shared interest; I like the creative tension in their interplay as they probe, challenge, disagree, agree, agree to disagree. I hear the words "idiom", "framing", and I feel sure that they are writers of some sort, but then I hear "Mike Leigh", "shots" and "Isabella Rossellini".

They tell me they're postgraduates in Film Studies at Edinburgh University. Stephen wants to go into media journalism (that sounds like a tautology, but I presume it means media about media), while Drew intends to become an academic. I ask them questions, and they answer openly. But although there's something about the energy of their talk that has attracted my interest in them, there's something about the attraction of my interest in them that has killed the energy of their talk. I retreat, sheepishly, to behind the barrier of my laptop screen. Soon they've forgotten me, and here come the words again: "trilogy", "scenarios", "dual-personality".

Just before they leave I ask Drew to recommend his "best films". He goes for Hitchcock's Vertigo and Robert Altman's Images and 3 Women.

I bump into... tango dancers ADAM and SHEILA

2009-01-17T15:31:00.021Z

age: I didn’t ask, but they’re looking good
nationality: English and Scottish
type of visitor: once a week
drinking: two cappuccinos - each!
eating: nothing

I stumbled across the tango scene in Edinburgh 18 months ago, and immediately became obsessed with it. Famous attempts to describe tango include “a vertical expression of a horizontal desire”, "the happiness of being sad" and "having an affair for three minutes".

Adam and Sheila have been tango-ing much longer than me, and dance much better. They often dance together. Sheila and I don’t dance together much because I'm a bit tall for her (being a tall man is not an advantage in tango) but when we do dance I am always struck with her fluid, graceful movements.

Fancy giving tango in Edinburgh a whirl? Here’s how to go about it:

1/ Ascend the mysterious red stairs of The Counting House, on West Nicolson Street (google map here), on any Sunday at 5.45pm – there’s a free lesson for total beginners every week.

2/ After the free lesson, hang around for a couple of hours – or all evening – to watch the experienced dancers. The best of them will get across how beautiful tango can be.

3/ Hooked already? There are social dances every Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and practice evenings every Monday and Friday (details at Edinburgh Tango Society). And you will need classes, lots of them, for years. It’s a couple of months before the follower (generally but not always a woman) can dance well enough to inspire pleasure rather than endurance in her partner, and it’s about six months before the leader (generally but not always a man) can dance in a way that isn't hell for his partner.

One more thing – if your idea of tango is two people with roses in their teeth prancing around like highly strung poodles, think again. Real tango is an intimate, improvised social dance. See you in The Counting House...

I see... THE DARK LUNCH

2008-12-03T00:11:00.007Z

Such a strange, dark, heavy light occurs at lunchtime today, so I take this photograph from the door of the cafe at 1.30p.m. On the left is the Museum of Scotland, completed in 1998; the church on the right is the The Bedlam Theatre (designed by Thomas Hamilton in the early 1800s when it was called the New North Free Church, but now the oldest student-run theatre in Britain); and in the middle, undergoing renovation, is Edinburgh University's McEwen Hall (magnificent inside, sneak a look if you can) designed in 1874 by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson.

I talk to... CHARLOTTE

2008-11-27T12:36:00.012Z

age: 24
nationality: Belgian
type of visitor: occasional
drinking: green tea
eating: a chocolate bar

painting: "C" by Yannis Psychopedis

Charlotte is reading books and taking notes. She works steadily and calmly. Her long hair is piled high over her head, as if it knows it mustn't get in the way of her work. She says she comes here because it's authentic and not too trendy -- plus she can "nearly" see her flat from the window. A student at Edinburgh College of Art, her final-year dissertation concerns the influence of Greek antiquities on contemporary art. She mentions an artist called Yannis Psychopedis.

Later I wikipedia him: "Yannis Psychopedis is one of the main Greek exponents of artistic Critical Realism, an art movement that developed in Europe after the political and social upheavals of 1968."

After leaving the Elephant House I see Charlotte again, outside. She is smoking a cigarette in the freezing cold, and doesn't see me.

I talk to... DEREK

2008-11-27T12:18:00.011Z

age: "kicking on 60"
nationality: Scottish
type of visitor: regular
drinking: two cups of coffee and a diet coke
eating: tuna & sweetcorn baguette, fruit scone

Derek writes on a pad of lined A4 paper that nestles in a black leather binder. The top page is numbered "2054". During the hour we share a table, he writes pages 2055, 2056 and 2057. There are no line breaks. At a conservative estimate of 300 words per page, he has written a 600,000-word paragraph. He listens to music - a folk group called Silly Wizard, I learn - as his giant paragraph accumulates more words, sentences, pages.

I ask him what he is writing. "Whatever comes into my head when I'm writing it." I ask him if he reads his journal, and he says no. No one has ever read it. It's purpose is not to be read, but to be the thing he writes in as he explores the present tense. I ask him why he does it, and he tells me that many years ago a section of the right temporal lobe of his brain "started to rot -- it's the opposite of a brain tumour, because tumours grow by feeding". The illness resulted in epileptic fits, 18 or 20 a day. To cure the fits, he had an operation to remove a small section of his brain, since when he has a different kind of memory, and is drawn to writing down the present.

He has retired from his role as the Director of an advertising agency, and is forward-looking and content. As he starts packing up to go home, I notice among his belongings an impressive-looking book on Nietzsche. We agree that life is a perplexing and adventure, and say goodbye.

I have a meeting with... COLIN

2008-11-19T17:35:00.015Z

age: 32
nationality: Scottish
type of visitor: regular
drinking: filter coffee
eating: nothing

Colin edits the short story website confiction.org and the anonymous submissions poetry magazine Anon -- both of great interest to creative writers. For a long time no one knew what Colin looked like due to the amount of hair emanating from his head and face; some doubted if there was a Colin underneath the hairiness. This exclusive photograph proves that Colin has had a haircut and exists. He looks so surprised because he can see again.

Poem posters

2008-11-13T16:27:00.015Z

The cafe has been exhibiting six poems from my book Folly as framed posters since August, but soon they're coming down. Here's one of the sadder ones...

Maybe next year we'll do something similar.

I talk to... IRFAN

2008-11-12T19:41:00.026Z

age: mid-thirties
nationality: don't know
type of customer: occasional
drinking: chamomile tea
eating: nothing

Irfan is a quirky, appealing-looking guy. The black fluffy hair on his head has fought a short war with a gust of Edinburgh's wind, and is standing upright in surrender. An emphatic pair of spectacles straddles his boyish face. He doesn't move much, and he only opens his eyes sporadically to sip at his chamomile tea, or to write notes in a black notebook.

He has a peaceful, still presence. When I introduce myself - in one of his eyes-open moments - his manner is open and trusting. He says he is meditating. "When I meditate, my mind disappears - or almost." He has studied many schools of meditation, over fifteen years, and is writing a book on the subject. Perhaps he'd say that unnecessary thoughts are merely the noise our fear makes, and that cultivating an empty mind when doing nothing is the absence of being afraid of things.

Two young schoolgirls sit down opposite us. Their excitable, inane, nourishing chatter is too rich; Irfan smiles at me and departs for a quieter niche in this world.

postscript:
I googled the name 'Irfan' later, and found that in Arabic, Persian and Urdu it means 'knowing', while in Pashto it means 'the most beautiful and knowledgeful person'.