The Annexe at Cornerhouse

Knowing that the food at Cornerhouse is good, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to find they cater well for events, too.

Yesterday – as Bookwitch – I went to a book event at the Annexe at Cornerhouse, and although they called it breakfast, I didn’t expect to be so well fed. After all, it was seeing and hearing the authors that was important. Meeting others. Networking a little.

Nice room. Easy to get to by train. The weather was good, but I’m guessing I can’t praise Cornerhouse for that. But it meant that the little outside area looked particularly attractive, and it made me want to sit there. Except then I wouldn’t have been able to hear Melvin Burgess and the other Chicken House writers read from their books.

When I saw the rolls – freshly made, and to a nice recipe – filled with sausages and bacon I wasn’t at all hopeful. But lo and behold; they had veggie sausages as well! I should only have eaten one, though. The reason for my lack of control was they tasted so good.

But so did the cake that came after. One cake or two? Carrot cake or blueberry muffin? I did what others did. Ate one and sneaked the other into my bag. (And obviously went without lunch, which is a severely under-used phrase in my life.)

And in my usual illogical fashion I began thinking about a reason to hire the Annexe. That must be a sign that either I am crazy, or they are good. It could be both. Probably is.

So far, so good

It begins with a machete in Kenya. I remember when I read it that I admired the great first line. First half page, in actual fact. More so, because I sort of considered Natalie and Roger Whittaker mere amateurs when it came to writing books. I’m talking about So far, so good, which is the autobiography they wrote together.

The book left me exhausted, because the couple seemed never to take a break. I couldn’t understand how they could live so frenetically and for Roger to produce his wonderful music, and for Natalie to do ‘all the rest.’

Because she did. It was home and family and admin for Roger and god knows what else. All over the world. And the pets! They must have had a real zoo at times. An unexpected side effect of reading the book was that for months I was so annoyed with Roger for putting Natalie through all this. I ended up being her fan instead, wondering how she put up with him.

Babe magnet, I suppose we would call him today. I’d had no idea that he was being chased by women all over the world. I mean, not quite like that. But Natalie gave as good as she got, I reckon. Fantastic woman.

And, I realised that he’d ‘lied’ in concerts. Or at least made the truth less obvious. Talking about their children, Roger made out it was really quite easy to end up with five of them. Whereas in reality they had to struggle to become parents, and there was a lot of heart-break involved.

But now, they have five adult children, and countless grandchildren.

Written when Roger was fifty, So far, so good contains all that you want an autobiography to have. It’s got things about which you’d had no idea, as well as the obvious stuff.

It ends with Roger’s appearance on This Is Your Life. I believe they have often intended to write the ‘second half’ of Roger’s life, but today when he is 77, I’m guessing they are too busy to get round to doing that.

That’s how life should be. Live it, rather than write about it. And from a singer, I’m sure we’d all rather have more songs, if we must choose.

Back when I bought the book, we’d searched the early internet for somewhere that would sell it, and found a shop in Canada. (There were other copies, but this one was signed.) I worked out when it would be daytime for both us and them and phoned the lady who ran the shop. She was flabbergasted someone would call from so far away just to buy a book. A paperback.

Today when checking again, I see it’s available from the famously tax-evading online bookshop, for only one penny, plus postage. It’s easier today, but it was more exciting back then.

I have stopped being annoyed with my favourite singer. I enjoy his voice, and I’m glad he’s got such a great wife. Roger probably is too.

Happy 77th Birthday!

Will my first time be my last?

I was so pleased to have found it, but now, a few months later it seems The Byre Theatre in St Andrews is to be no more.

In a way it’s not at all surprising. Everything is going under, except the government. And I blame them. Times are bad, and we can’t have everything in life, but we could do with some more encouragement and money spent on sensible things.

The Olympics are gone, but we are still here, and we could go to the theatre. If it can stay open. We have money for wars, but need to close our hospitals. There are Bibles (or was it Shakespeare?) for school children who can’t afford to eat.

My first visit to the Byre was a good one. It was for the St Andrews literature festival in October. As litfests go, it was small. But St Andrews is no metropolis, and a big festival is not necessarily better than a small one. I was quite satisfied, and I thought the theatre was fantastic, and set in the most beautiful surroundings.

You go through an old passageway, and then there are several small courtyards, and eventually you come to a brand new glass and wood (and stone) theatre.

As someone said when discussing this; the building will remain. Something needs to be done with it. Usually they seem to make obsolete structures into luxury flats. Maybe they will build more student halls?

Or, thinking university and theatre; I suppose it could be a new lecture hall. But really, it’s the wastefulness of having perfectly good venues just being cast aside that gets to me.

It was too good to be true.

Miserable, with music

I’ve been reliably informed that my company will not be required ever again when Daughter goes to see a film. I’m not allowed not to like a film, nor am I permitted to lie when asked for my opinion. It’s tough.

It was Les Misérables that clinched – or unclinched – my presence. I didn’t like it enough. I didn’t hate it, although it was long and slow. Felt it would have done better without the singing, or better with actors who could sing better. The females all sang well, so surely they could have unearthed a few male actors who can carry a tune?

He is nice to look at, that Hugh Jackman. But I won’t be buying his collected albums any time soon. It was good that they all sang as they acted, but at times I just wanted to speed them on a bit. Also, in this day and age when we have abusive adults on our minds at all times; a scene like when Valjean meets Cosette for the first time is pretty disturbing, even when it’s not bad.

The photography was excellent. Even the Paris sewers looked ‘good,’ albeit not very tempting.

And I cried at the end. How could I not?

Too long. But educational. Relieved I never saw it on stage, although the voices might have been better. It’ll get a lot of Oscars, this one.

Henderson’s

It looked good, Henderson’s Bistro. And it was conveniently placed for anyone already at the Albert Halls in Stirling for the Bloody Scotland book festival. The menu was OK (for me, not for my companion) and the tables and chairs looked nice enough.

But – and there has to be a but – they let themselves down. To me it wasn’t all that obvious I’d want lunch at 3.30 in the afternoon, and despite us saying we’d come for afternoon tea, we were told what the soup of the day was.

That’s once we’d actually sat down, and that took time. There were several free tables, but they needed to clear one for us, and I hope it’s because they felt it was a nicer table. Why did they need to clear it just then, when the place was already quiet? And why so slowly? Once we were seated we worried in case we were never going to see a menu.

The warm scone arrived well before the pot of tea. Very weak tea. Not terribly warm, either. And I was once more made to feel inferior for wanting milk with Earl Grey. The glass of water we asked for didn’t arrive until we reminded them. When a friend joined us, it took a long time for them to notice. Actually, they didn’t. They had to be hailed.

As for paying, that didn’t look like it would happen soon enough for me to get back to my event on time. Our server was gone, and the next waitress could find no evidence of what we’d had.

On the plus side, we sat comfortably for the free hour we had at our disposal, and it was good to meet up with a friend with no dashing all over town.

That was Edinburgh 2012, that was

People kept asking us if we were going to take in a few fringe events, as though we had both time and energy left over to do anything quite so frivolous. It would have been nice, but the books took everything we had, plus a little more still.

But, you can take pictures of the odd thing as you run past.

And Simon Callow won’t mind a second outing on CultureWitch.

Next time I’ll sit down on a park bench for a while and just listen to some music. Or something.

Maybe even sit out late one night if it doesn’t rain. It didn’t rain much this time, and it was warm. Perfect for those beer gardens and other tents that have sprung in the middle of George Street. All I had time for was a brief rest on a bench while ‘running’ for a train one evening.

Is this your first visit to Chiquito?

No. It isn’t.

And I’m beginning to wonder if they could rephrase that. They don’t need to recognise me, because I do realise they see an awful lot of customers during one week, especially during the Edinburgh Festival. But it’s nicer to be treated like a regular, than as the ignorant newbie.

We generally like Chiquito in Edinburgh. It’s well placed for our Charlotte Square induced hunger, and every time we’ve been over the last few years has been good. (Can’t say that about our local Chiquito, unfortunately.) Good friendly service, and good food, for a chain. Reasonable prices.

What really made us return to Chiquito this year, though, was the wifi. We had no internet where we stayed, and the bookfest wifi was slow to impossible for several days. A blogger needs to blog. They even need to read emails and to respond to them. So, setting up office next to the Chimichanga seemed a good solution to us.

Clearly it wasn’t annoying enough to the waitress, to make her remember us two days later. It was useful to us, however. A lifesaver the first day. I don’t know if the answer to attracting diners is to have free wifi, but in this instance it worked with us.

The view from the street outside isn’t bad, either.

Monty Palin

Michael Python? Whatever.

Mr Palin, that’s it. He pretends to shoot himself as he discovers he’s not been invited to John Cleese’s wedding after all. The one this week. Michael’s invite is for next month.

I am under the impression Michael has written a book. A real book. Not just travel and stuff. That’s why he’s in Edinburgh.

Avengers as art

You can’t go far before running into the Avengers.

The official opening of the Manchester Children’s Book Festival took place at the Holden Gallery on Friday evening, and at the same time the exhibition Graphic History of the Future opened. It will be open to the public for the duration of the festival, i.e. Sunday 8th July.

Well worth going to if you like your old film posters and other period posters, as well as some Andy Warhol and Russian space memorabilia and what have you. Children may have seen Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlett on television, and they will probably enjoy drawing cartoons on the – designated – wall.

Noises off, maybe

What with me going on about lost customers and noisy restaurants, I was thinking of another angle on this. I should have done an interview with an author last week. (The fact that it had to be cancelled due to my inconvenient illness, is beside the point here.)

The author and I spent some time deciding where to meet. She, who was in Manchester only briefly, suggested a couple of chain bars/restaurants, just because she knew they existed. I said I’d prefer somewhere quiet enough, so that when I sat down to type out the recording, I’d actually be able to hear what we’d been saying. I’ve done countless interviews in noisy bars, where the listening afterwards was a real pain, bordering on me making stuff up, because I couldn’t hear properly.

Background music can be very nice, and sometimes useful. At quiet times it’s good with something preventing an embarrassing total silence. But no need for disco volume while eating. And once customer numbers are up, there is very little need for WWIII levels of entertainment in the background.

OK, maybe a little, just in case we all stop talking at the very same second. Although, how likely is that?

In the end, we settled on someone’s house for the interview. That’s what’s best. No muzak, and no infuriating coffee-making monstrosities. No irritating laughing woman at the next table.

As a family, we used to go out for an Italian meal on Christmas Eve at one of those lovely Scottish-Italian restaurants. But we gave up on that too in the end, as we all got older and some felt they could no longer take part in the conversation because of the music and other noise.

What strikes me is that – yet again – businesses are losing custom this way. If you’re not clubbing, you are unlikely to say ‘Let’s go to XYZ to eat/drink coffee! I love the way you can never hear what people are saying in there.’

It’d be useful to have a ‘noise card’ to hand over to anywhere you can’t make yourself heard in. A bit like those red and yellow cards in football.