Reclaiming the Cultural Quarter
Posted by a Contributor in June's Magazine
The latest Filmhouse programme appears and, as happens every month, I pick it up and scruffily circle several films that I’ll never go to see. Arthouse cinema programmes are constructed entirely for this exercise: the circler can feel intellectual validation for attempting to engage with high culture before going to see Kung Fu Panda 2 (3D) at Vue instead.
Then, SHOCK HORROR on page 13 of said brochure an act of marketing larceny has been committed. ‘We are the Cultural Quarter’ explains a vaguely turquoise advertisement…going on to list the Filmhouse, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Traverse Theatre and Usher Hall as the putative owners of this nomenclature. Your Honour, may I invoke the law of precedent? Let me quote from a Pen Portrait written by my, ahem, self and published in August 2010.
The author is describing a bohemian strip that begins dans le Kirkgate and sweeps up through Duke Street to the elegant lower reaches of Lochend Road: With a Pets & Things (what Things? A pertinent question I think you’ll agree), three bus stops complete with Tracker and the brand new Marksman quiz night, it is every inch the Cultural Quarter.
Further, Your Honour, in defence of said author, may I add that he has since repeatedly championed this (original) Cultural Quarter in his column. Indeed, he feels the CQ (again, his) has lately been improved by the addition of Ramsden’s ‘We buy Gold’ pawnbrokers.
So no, you absolute shower from uptown are not the Cultural Quarter, because we bloody well are. Indeed, how could anywhere with a flesh café called Bottoms Up be so?
Baby gets it
Currently running on TV is an advert for Bridgestone car tyres. In it, a couple are taking their newly born baby, Sarah Jane, home from hospital. Dad shelters Sarah Jane from the rain and carries her to the car.
‘3.4kg’ floats a graphic over the bairn, as if statistics might make her more appealing. ‘Her mother’s nose’, it continues, ‘[and] her father’s temper’, somewhat darkly (and let’s hope Dad has never taken his temper near Mum’s nose). At the wheel, cantankerous Papa’s eyes gape with fear: he is about to hit a rogue HGV, possibly errant from Five’s bewilderingly entertaining Eddie Stobart truck series.
Dad slams on the brakes just in time, managing to avoid disaster. ‘Still sleeping now’ says the baby ticker tape. After pausing while we realise it doesn’t mean ‘sleep’ in the morose, funereal sense, we see the family embraced in a roadside relief huddle.
Cue voiceover: ‘We make tyres that help you stop shorter in the wet’. Thus, the message seems to be: buy our product or the baby gets it, and I long for the day when more adverts are based on this threatening ethos. In the meantime, I wish Sarah Jane and father well in their parent-toddler anger management classes.
Food Review Extra!
Edinburgh Marathon time. Trundling up to take part was Matt, a friend from Manchester, along with his supportive entourage: partner Helen and former cellmate Paddy. As his nominated dietician ahead of Sunday’s slow dash, I took my responsibilities seriously. On Saturday I treated us all to lunch from a little place in Tollcross, the district sandwiched between controversy’s The Cultural Quarter and nice-but-dim Bruntsfield.
The azure frame of Greggs deli et patisserie is familiar to foodies across the land, but the artisan chain has, in recent years, shed its snobbish image to embrace customers of all social hues. Gone are the days of Kensington realm knights sauntering in for a foam goblet of tomato soup or squire ladies popping by for a week’s supply of sausage and bean melts to take back to Hampshire.
The aristocracy have been rumbled; Greggs is now a democracy where one is as likely to discuss Cornish pasties with Big Issue vendors as chicken and stuffing lattices with A-List celebrities (a London-based friend recalls a particularly illuminating debate over Yum Yum icing with Todd Carty – of Eastenders fame – in the Pimlico shop).
As my visitors had not experienced dining a la Greggs before, I ordered the pastry smorgasbord: four sausage rolls (fairly priced at £2.20 for the lot), two steak bakes and a cheese & onion pasty. We ate al fresco from achingly retro paper bags, which I noticed Helen carefully folding for subsequent, kudos earning re-use in the hipster joints of Canal Street. Matt and Helen were pleased with the steak bakes (‘It’s all about the carbs and the gristle’ – Matt), though Paddy was ultimately disappointed with the sausage rolls (‘immediately rewarding but, much like when excitedly scoffing fish and chips, they left an aftertaste of greasy nausea and moral anxiety’).
Score: 6/10
Damage: Under a fiver
Info: Dan’s Stramash: Tackling Scotland’s Towns and Teams (Luath Press) is still available online and in shops. Real shops. Shops without bargain bins, see: stramashthebook.com
*Correction. The sausage (or 'suasage' as a sign outside The Phoenix on Broughton Street used to say) rolls came in at £2.30. If you can, find that 10p and run with the idea.