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Edinburgh: A Lover’s Lament

by Dr Roger Watson
3 September 2023 1:00 PM

I have had a long love affair with Edinburgh. I recall many visits as a child, looking up at the castle, visiting the museum and eating sticks of Edinburgh Rock (an acquired taste). I was lucky to spend my final year of school just outside the city and then I spent four glorious years there as an undergraduate before returning to teach at the University of Edinburgh for a further eight years. Since then, any excuse finds me in Scotland’s capital. But over the years things between us have not been as cordial and a visit last week has killed my passion. I fear the relationship may be over.

When I was an undergraduate, Edinburgh was once described in the student newspaper as “a woman who powders her face but forgets to wipe her bottom”. This was a reference to the considerable beauty of the city but the poorly treated effluent that the city poured into the Firth of Forth. The effluent problem has been solved and it seems that while Edinburgh now wipes its bottom, it forgets to powder its face. The city, frankly, is a mess.

One of my favourite approaches to the High Street (more famously known as the Royal Mile), between the magnificent Edinburgh Castle at the top and the historic Holyrood Palace at the foot, is up Fleshmarket Close. The ‘closes’ of Edinburgh are historic sets of steep steps which join the lower levels of Edinburgh to the High Street; they feature in the tales of Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, and Ian Rankin used the name as a title for one of his novels.

Fleshmarket Close has two famous pubs: the Halfway House (which is half way up) and the Jinglin’ Geordie, named due to the ‘jingling’ of the bottles and glasses when, nearby, the Scotsman newspaper presses rolled in the evening. The Scotsman is long gone but the pubs remain, and the steps are still used. However, walking up the close is now treacherous. There is a resident scrounger at the foot (I have watched them ‘changing shifts’; it’s a scam) and then a cascade of rubbish to negotiate which includes cans, bottles and discarded food containers, many with food still in them. The smell is ghastly. The nearby Scotsman Steps also has a cascade, but it is a liquid one and it is not water. The smell is ghastly. The permanent and increasing piles of rubbish in the closes of Edinburgh’s Old Town have been described by residents as a “fire waiting to happen”.

Clearly, Edinburgh City Council is not spending much of its £11.24 billion budget keeping the city clean. So, what is it spending its money on?

First, we have the trams. Edinburgh disposed of its original trams in 1956. Then early in the new century, the City Council decided to reintroduce trams to the city centre. Few in Edinburgh wanted them; massive disruption was expected and delivered. By way of final insult, originally tipped to be a new route to Edinburgh Airport, the trams went nowhere useful. Essentially, when first built, they went from one end of the main street – Princes Street – to the other. If you stand at one end of Princes Street, you can easily see the other end. The City Council was eventually persuaded to extend the line to the airport, but the first phase of the project – described as ‘hell on wheels’ – was delivered £375 million over budget. And they are not finished yet, a further £207.3 million has been spent extending the line to Newhaven. Adding insult to the injury inflicted on the Edinburgh council tax payers the city has launched an inquiry into the tram construction project at a cost of £13 million to which a further £100,000 has just been allocated.

Then we have the cycle lanes. This £19.4 million project (but watch this space), due for completion in 2023 (again, watch this space), began last year. Again, disruption was expected and is being delivered. With the combination of tramways, widened pavements and cycle lanes in addition to bus lanes which operate for most of the day, traffic everywhere is reduced to single lanes. Remarkably, traffic can still penetrate the inner reaches of Edinburgh; but drivers spend increasing amounts of time stationary and the frustration among drivers who make incredibly slow progress through the city is palpable. On a recent visit, I saw many illegal U-turns and right turns accompanied by a cacophony of horns as drivers looked for shortcuts. Needless to say, this is all in the name of climate change as explained by the (deep breath) Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights, Patrick Harvie MSP:

We are committed to becoming a Net Zero city by 2030 and a key element of this is encouraging and supporting clean and sustainable modes of transport through projects like this.

I spoke to three cycling colleagues about the cycle lanes and none of them were in favour. Apparently one major thoroughfare into the city, in addition to all the above lanes, also has a lane for walking with a cycle. That thoroughfare is now a logjam. The construction of the lanes is unsafe and is leading to accidents among cyclists (one of my colleagues’ wives went over her handlebars) and that is over and above cycling accidents involving tram tracks which have cost the city £1.2 million in compensation. 

The final word should go to the long suffering residents of Leith Walk. Once a wide and busy traffic thoroughfare, long ago this was the site of an unfathomable system of multi-coloured lines indicating where cars could park, not park, drop off/pick up and give way to buses. This is now another mass of widened pavements, bus lanes, tram tracks and now cycle lanes. But these are not just any cycle lane, they are ‘zig-zag’ cycle lanes. Described as ‘moronic’, these have been ridiculed by residents, have been the cause of one serious cycling accident (referred to above) and, despite promises by the council in 2022 to ‘make changes’, they are still there.

Next up are the low emission zones, approved by the city council in 2022, implemented in 2023 and due to be enforced in 2024. Edinburgh was once the ‘seat of the Enlightenment’… what went wrong?

Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry. He writes in a personal capacity.

Tags: DeclineEdinburghEdinburgh City CouncilRubbishSNPWaste

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15 Comments
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NeilParkin
NeilParkin
2 years ago

Perhaps the first thing we should do is to give Emily a dictionary (no pun intended…), to look up the meaning of ‘Genocide’. I’ve had enough of this shit of inflammatory terms being hijacked by damaged and vengeful people and applying them to honest people doing their best for society. Emily, if you have male genitalia, and think you are also a woman, then you appear to be uniquely able to follow my instruction. F*** yourself…

258
0
GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
2 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Yes, it’s literally mass murder.

Gas chamber? Machine gunning people trench in the woods? Tutsi vs Hutu with machetes? Cambodia’s killing fields? Soviet-led starvation of the holodomor? Mao’s great leap forwards?

Hyperbolic nonsense. Laugh this GUY out of here.

106
0
Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
2 years ago

I think British Cycling have done pretty much the right thing, initially anyway. They might also like to change their statement about “sex assigned at birth” to say “sex observed and recorded at birth” as sex is not assigned, it’s determined at conception.

I hope the oddity mentioned by the Breeze ride organisers can also be sorted out, if it isn’t then this particular bit of madness is not yet dealt with.

127
-1
JaneDoeNL
JaneDoeNL
2 years ago

Genocide – give me strength! Someone likes to be overly dramatic. It is a bit irksome to hear these whiney comments about genocide because certain people are being prevented from making use of an unfair advantage in competitive sports, or grown men with beards and dangly bits are being prevented from popping into changing rooms with teenage girls. It is even more irksome when remembering how those of us who made the very appropriate comparison between the coerced vaxxing (which is a damn sight closer to real genocide than being kept out of a cycling competition) and nazi Germany, kept getting told off for trivialising the Holocaust, when we only wished to point out the frightening road we, as a society, had embarked upon. Why are these people never called to task for their offensive trivilising of genuine genocide, something faced by the Yezidis not all that long ago.

If Ems finds British Cycling so flawed, why participate in it at all? Presumably Bridges felt BC was homophobic, bullying, etc. for some time, boycott it if it was so bad.

As for non-registered events – boycott and organise your own with a selected invitee list, it’s the only way this will stop.

117
-1
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  JaneDoeNL

Genocide – give me strength! Someone likes to be overly dramatic.

Didn’t you notice this yet? Just like calling every public display of an opposing political opinions a coup, the woketards always claim they’re a victim of genocide in case of any real world setback. The more intelligent ones do this a little more covertly, eg, all out attack on humankind instead of genocide but they don’t do it for less.

53
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
2 years ago
Reply to  JaneDoeNL

It takes part because this is the only way mediocrity can be rewarded. hence the shrill faux outrage.

65
0
GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
2 years ago
Reply to  JaneDoeNL

Now THIS is belittling the holocaust.

I expect there will no outrage from the sanctimonious idiots who strung AB up.

43
-2
GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
2 years ago
Reply to  GroundhogDayAgain

For the benefit of the phantom downvoters, I’m referring to the word genocide being used to describe hurty-feelings. If AB is judged to have sinned, then so did “Emily”. But I think the latter was worse.

Do you want to comment downvoters, or just snipe from afar?

2
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
2 years ago

Oh dear, a mediocre cyclist who saw a chance of medals by tilting the playing field gets upset because someone got out a spirit level.
I have to give it its due, though, managing to tick so many boxes in one rant – racism, gender phobia, imaginary gender phobia, genocide, immigration – there may be others but I couldn’t stay the course.

Last edited 2 years ago by For a fist full of roubles
112
0
GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
2 years ago
Reply to  For a fist full of roubles

Waahhhh! I can’t cheat anymore.

Now I’ll have to git-gud at my sport through hard work, diligent training and gumption. And all this with no guarantee that I’ll succeed in the end.

And THAT’S why we applaud successful athletes. Because it’s hard to win (unless you invite yourself into the women’s category which is cheating)

Has everyone forgotten the awful way the IOC treated Caster Semenya, only a few years ago? She was well-built and fast but absolutely all woman. She had to have a physical to prove she was a real woman. There were snide comments about her testosterone levels. I’m sure that was invasive and embarrassing for her.

Now a bloke just needs a certificate to ‘compete’ (ha!) against women.

6
0
stewart
stewart
2 years ago

He’s jostling for an Amnesty International humanitarian award.

These days you get a humanitarian award by accusing people of being evil. Pretty easy really.

76
0
Boomer Bloke
Boomer Bloke
2 years ago

Delusional

68
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago

Let’s see. Eliminating two sexes essential for procreation and survival of the species – that’s genocide

Reinforcing the delusions of mentally disturbed people is unkind and can be dangerous.

72
0
ebygum
ebygum
2 years ago
Reply to  JXB

Not my own work, but I like this….

Put 100 women and 10 men on a deserted island and in 100 years you will have a thriving community of men, women, boys and girls.

Put 100 Trans women and 10 men on a deserted island and in 100 years you will find the skeletons of 110 men.”

92
0
GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
2 years ago
Reply to  ebygum

Those 10 men would likely have a wonderful time. Or else die from exhaustion through excessive snoo-snoo (thanks Futurama)

1
0
NeilofWatford
NeilofWatford
2 years ago

Motorcyclist who identifies as cyclist breaks world record.
https://youtu.be/ipvesqJP1e4

38
-1
GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
2 years ago
Reply to  NeilofWatford

Norm Hiccup is an inspiration!
So brave. I want a T-shirt.

6
-1
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
2 years ago

This is just some nonsense story designed to rouse your emotions. I would be sceptical of anyone who pushed such a stiry. I don;t care two hoots about transsexual cycle lanes. Just watch how you are manipulated.We have far bigger issues to condier.

6
-20
BurlingtonBertie
BurlingtonBertie
2 years ago
Reply to  Jabby Mcstiff

The push of the transgender agenda is an aspect of the evil cabal’s plan. By eliminating women, they eliminate family & procreation & it also promotes that masculinity is not a good thing.
The subject is also useful to promote division as a divided society is a weakened society & easier to control.
They are fighting us on multiple fronts & it is important that we understand what they’re doing whilst not losing sight of the bigger picture.

44
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
2 years ago

This is from the American Medical Association, and check out the quote from the doctor. These people are a major part of the problem on the ground, just like they are/were regarding the scamdemic and death jabs. People like this doctor should have their license removed for spreading such garbage and holding these views. It’s precisely these sort of Leftie idiots that are totally fine with mutilating kids and young people’s bodies or putting them on puberty blockers, which do irreversible harm.

”Aimed at protecting individual privacy and preventing discrimination, the AMA will advocate for the removal of sex as a legal designation on the public portion of the birth certificate. Under the policy, information on an individual’s sex designation at birth would still be collected and submitted through the U.S. Standard Certificate of Live Birth form for medical, public health, and statistical use only. The new policy aligns with existing AMA policy recognizing that every individual has the right to determine their gender identity and sex designation on government documents.

“Designating sex on birth certificates as male or female, and making that information available on the public portion, perpetuates a view that sex designation is permanent and fails to recognize the medical spectrum of gender identity. This type of categorization system also risks stifling an individual’s self-expression and self-identification and contributes to marginalization and minoritization,” said AMA Board Chair-Elect Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, M.D.”

https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-announced-policies-adopted-final-day-special-meeting

22
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
2 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Here is an example of the irreversible damage messing about with your sex hormones will result in. I’ve read Elle’s story of why she transitioned to male ( no surgery though, thank goodness ) and then detransitioned back. She had a traumatic experience and was also very mixed up so thought she’d be better off as a guy. The problem is that when these people often seek therapy the therapist can make things worse and supports and encourages the wish to become the opposite sex rather than focus on the mental health issues staring them in the face.

https://twitter.com/TransJusticeOrg/status/1659260913873190913?cxt=HHwWgoDQkdLA8IYuAAAA

16
-1
Adrisha
Adrisha
2 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Communist society wreckers

12
0
Shimpling Chadacre
Shimpling Chadacre
2 years ago

I’m disappointed in you all. Have you no sympathy for the mentally ill?

17
-1
Adrisha
Adrisha
2 years ago

She/he/it needs a slap to wake up

18
0
morganlefey
morganlefey
2 years ago

it’s not ok for any man to compete in women’s sports

21
0
Monro
Monro
2 years ago

Emily?

Surely the correct spelling of this bicyclist’s name is Emile…..

Last edited 2 years ago by Monro
14
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago

The deliberate destruction of female-only sports (girls are even more at risk than grown women) will only stop when ALL females refuse to participate in any sport at any level if biological males claiming to be women are allowed to compete with them.

21
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago

One of the reasons I no longer subscribe to the DT is because they continue to use biologically incorrect pronouns when reporting on this kind of nonsense.

13
0
LaptopMaestro
LaptopMaestro
2 years ago

Up to now,I’ve always been against genocide – after reading his rant, I’m thinking of reconsidering.

6
0

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