Blueprint 2010

Book of the Week: Death Message by Mark Billingham

We finally had the weekend we had talked about for years last Saturday: a night at the Scotsman hotel. It’s been on the to-do list since 2006 or something, so it’s been a long time coming, but man, was it worth the wait. A lush executive room that smelled absolutely delicious, with Highland Aromatics toiletries, flat-screen TV, DVD, five different kinds of tea and coffee, views over North Bridge towards Calton Hill... nice. There were all these little touches that made it extra-special/posh as well, like those leather-bound books by the bedside that looked like they had been pinched from the private library of a 18th-century mansion, and Monopoly (Edinburgh version) under glass on the side table. We spent most of the weekend indoors just enjoying the room, with a couple of excursions out for walkies and food.

Oooh... speaking of food, it was a pig-out weekend. Started with the Mosque Kitchen round the corner from George Street (our excitement at hitting somewhere that was so much like eating in a Malaysian back street was the cause of the only downer, a £30 fixed penalty fine for forgetting the parking ticket). It was a bloody cold morning and the hot pilau rice with sag aloo (for Gareth) and vegetable curry (for me) went down a treat. Later that evening, it was duck (for Gareth) and fish (for me) at the North Bridge Brasserie. And to end the day, a box of Hotel Chocolat (which had fortuitously arrived in the post before we left home that morning).

The Scotsman was a wonderful building to explore. It has loads of character and I could only imagine what it must have been like to have worked there when it was still a newspaper HQ. All that polished marble and mahogany and walnut panelling... the editors’ rooms must have been a dream. Though after what the doorman/porter Ivor told us, it might not have been such a fab place to work, not when there were separate entrances for ordinary staff and directors. Ivor also gave us a tour of the hotel (penthouse £1200 per night; Japanese businessman came in one day, said he’d heard there was a penthouse, looked at it and took it for 12 nights). Loved the stainless steel pool in the basement. Very chic / romantic / cool in that play of light and dark sort of way.

My only regret of the weekend was that we didn’t get to do any walking. The sun was shining, there was a nip in the air, the sky was silvery-dark in that beautiful Scottish landscape backdrop sort of way... perfect photo- walk weather. But maybe I’m nitpicking. There’ll be plenty of time for walks (or so I hope) now that the winter thaw has set in and spring is getting underway.

Anyhoo... so that’s the Scotsman done, another item crossed off the list. I’ve been thinking about what I enjoy doing, what I want to do more of, and what I’d like to achieve this year. Also known as resolutions. Like levels in a Super Mario game, they are imminently achievable, but getting there can often be frustrating with a ridiculous number of obstacles along the way. I know I can get all this done this year; I just have to be focused. It’ll be interesting to come back to this at the end of the year and see how I’ve done. So here we go, in no particular order...

Blueprint 2010
1. Get my NCE.
2. Learn how to ski / snowboard.
3. Learn how to sail (get RYA Level 2 Dinghy).
4. Go camping at least twice.
5. Bag at least five Munros (Ben Nevis being one of them).
6. Complete the Fife Coastal Path (only 62 miles to go).
7. Get full UK driving licence.
8. Lose at least 10 lbs.
9. Get country count up to 30 (currently at 26).
10. Make at least three new friends.

Wish me luck.

Factoids of the Week:
The Scotsman was launched on January 25 1817 (what would have been Robert Burns’ 58th birthday) as a liberal weekly newspaper by William Ritchie, a lawyer, and customs official Charles Maclaren. It started off as a weekly Saturday paper with a price tag of 10p and a circulation of 300. It became a daily in 1855.

It was the first British newspaper to run special early-morning trains from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Trains had a carriage with the newspaper’s livery, and with the time lapse from publication to arrival in Glasgow being just 70 minutes, Weegies could sit down over breakfast with their Scotsman at the same time as Edinbuggers.

The 190ft-high purpose-built Scotsman office on North Bridge (now the hotel) was built at a cost of £500,000 (about £40 million in today’s money) and completed in 1905.