My Day in Victory Rolls

Oh, poppets. I have discovered what makes you look weirder than a punk rocker or a Goth, and it is a 1940s hairdo, especially if you have long hair. As I looked at myself in the hairdresser's mirror, my little heart sank. I sported modified 1940s hairdos in elementary school, when rollers fixed my fuzzy hair into smooth waves for Picture Days, but this was much, much worse. Instead of two balanced victory rolls, I had one huge victory roll and two pin curls on either side. I crept out of the salon half-expecting to be accosted by school bullies. Taxi!

However, I am not in school but a grown-up and I spent the day inside grown-up Summerhall listening to very grown-up topics as part of the Polish Scottish Heritage Festival.

The first lecture was Scottish Nationalist Party propaganda disguised with a thin veneer of history. The lecture was supposed to be about Scottish migration in the 16th to early 18th centuries to Poland, i.e. between the early days of the Scottish Reformation and the Union of Scotland and England. What economic factors sent the Protestant Scots to Poland, you might ask. Terrible restrictions because pre-union Scotland was in direct competition with powerhouse England? And what economic factors following upon the Union stopped Scots from going there, you might also ask. Astonishing Scottish economic growth? And although what I wanted to do was pass unnoticed (if such a thing was possible, given the size of my victory roll), I did ask these questions. AND DID NOT BL**DY WELL GET STRAIGHT ANSWERS. Because the whole point of the lecture was not to discuss historical realities but to exploit Polish sympathies for nationalism to get more "Yes" votes for the separatist referendum.

I asked the only questions because the other "questions" were actually just other Scotsmen listening to themselves talk, and I do not recall which one it was who tried to draw parallels between Scotland's role in the United Kingdom with the three partitions of Poland, but the speaker certainly did not say that was a stretch. Seven of Britain's Prime Ministers have been born in Scotland; pretending Scots have been groaning under foreign domination since 1707 is ahistorical, an insult and a lie. Not only is it an insult to generations of Scots in Britain, and to Britain in general, but an insult to generations of Poles who suffered in ways the vast majority of Scots born since 1707 could not possibly imagine. How interesting that Poles continue to be exploited, this time by Scottish pseudo-intellectuals prostituting history for their "Yes" votes.*

The speaker was wearing a "YES" button--believe me, it was THAT obvious. I was so angry, I thought the rest of the day would be ruined for me. First I had mad hair, and second the Scots Nats seemed to have hijacked the Scottish Polish Heritage Festival. However, I then heard two excellent testimonies from Scots about Polish experiences in the Second World War and after, in Poland and Scotland. One Scot had a Polish father, and the other had aided Polish displaced persons in Germany in the 1950s and become a Polonophile. The latter wrote a series of short stories, and I was so impressed by her reading that I bought her book. The former's book sounded interesting, too, but he hogged the question period as the woman sat there quietly, so he lost my buyer's sympathy.

Next was an American film called "The Officer's Wife", about the Katyn massacre and the deportation of two million Poles to Siberia. It was very good although natually very depressing. I was curious about the voice given to the actress reading the memoirs of filmmaker's Polish-Chicago grandmother; it sounded neither Polish nor Chicago. It was also political, but at least it wasn't a cheap ploy to get the Poles living in Scotland to vote against the Union (which is not, IMHO) in their economic or political interests AT ALL. No, the film is 100% anti-Soviet and 99.99% anti-current Russian regime, which--given the events described by the film--is fair enough.

Then there was a concert in the main hall by Polish folk singers, which was very loud and reminded me that, although I am a huge fan of Polish pop music of the interwar--and war--period, and have a soft spot for the 1950s stuff (condemned by Polish Pretend Son as Stalinist forced cheer), and enjoy Disco Polo and other modern Polish stuff (and Chopin), I do not like village stuff. I really do not like Polish village stuff. I dislike it so much, I wrote a note to remind myself because every time I think I will like it this time, I do not. And as the room was very crowded with enthusiastic Polish folk music lovers, and I already stuck out like a sore victory roll, I couldn't escape. Oh dear. But at least that wasn't anti-British either. And when it was done, I tied a scarf around my head, like your great-grandmothers, and went out into the outside world for coffee.

My self-confidence improved drastically an hour or so later when I put on my 1940s gear in the Summerhall toilet reserved for the disabled. I had proper 1940s corsetry (squeeeeeze) and tights with lines down the back. I had a long black dress that could have been from the 1940s, black gloves and shoes of a rather 1940s-looking design. I had chunky rhinestone jewellery. Above all, I had brown eyeshadow with which to 1940sfy my eyebrows and super-dark red lipstick. And so I no longer looked simply peculiar but like a 40-something woman in 1940.

The reason many of us all think we look young for our age is because nothing was as aging to our grandmothers and great-grandmothers as the great divide between Maidens' Clothes and Matrons' Clothes. Once upon a time, once you were of a certain age, you HAD to stop dressing like a young woman. And, lo, if you were over thirty in 1940 you might have looked like this:

My mother says I looked magnificent and my hair is just like that of my grandmother in a photo my mother keeps on her mirror, but she has not offered it to my view as proof. Frankly, I thought I was not going to make a very good wingwoman for my Single pal after all, for surely the male reaction to my hair would be to fall about laughing.

But no. After supper and the Katy Carr concert, there was a swing dance, and at this dance I was suddenly SEIZED by a Polish Pretend Pilot (out of uniform) of about 60 and made to swing-dance all over the floor. He had a huge grey moustache and was delicately scented with tobacco and was reluctant to speak in either Polish or English, but I thought I would introduced him to my Single pal anyway. At first she did not look happy with this, for although our saviour from wallflowerdom was an excellent dancer, he was also familiarly affectionate, as if we were his long-lost grand-daughters.

Personally, I expect to be squeezed just a little too much and kissed soundly on the cheek or forehead by slightly tipsy cigarette smokers I have never met before on the dance floor. It is the price one pays for partner dancing. Indeed, I bet generations of women would agree with me, although nobody would admit it. However, my pal is a little more fastidious, so she looked rather irked, but she is also endlessly forgiving, so she may have forgotten about the over-squeezing and face-kissing already.

So after we had both been rescued from wallflowerdom, we went to the bar fashioned out of a room across the hall. The Scots barman had three bottles of vodka behind him, but he literally thought I was joking when I asked for mine straight. He even laughed. "They told me this one goes with apple juice," he said, so I had my zubrowka with apple juice, and it was actually very good. It also gave me the courage for my next wingwoman manoeuvre, so pay attention.

"We must dance with younger men," said I to my Single Pal. She agreed and bewailed the new male tendency not to ask women they don't know to dance. Primed with vodka, I looked around the room for anyone I knew, even slightly. But the only person I knew was Kasia, who looked great, by the way. However, I did recognize one of the men as someone who goes to various of Kasia's Polish poetry events, so I carted my Single Pal along to where he was talking to another youngish man, and I said, "Hey! I know you! You're a friend of Kasia's!"

This of course flies in the face of "The Rules", but I did not care because, being married, I am not interested in male strangers at parties as anyone other than men who might ask my Single Pals to dance. If great cosmic punishment falls upon those who talk to strange men at parties, it will fall on me, not on my innocent Single Pals. Perhaps this is one reason why Single Girls should have Married Pal friends. The caveat is that the Married Pal shouldn't look too obviously married and as if she were merely trying to marry off her Single friend. No, no, no. The Married Pal must look interested in whomever for himself, so that if he shrinks from her brazenness, her friend will look better by comparison. If he recoils with maidenly disgust, the really Single friend can roll her eyes in sympathy and apology and thus create a BOND of shared feeling with the cute stranger.

"Which Kasia?" asked the Polish guy, smirking. "I have two friends here named Kasia."

Oooh. Polish surnames. You know, I see them on Facebook, but it is years before I actually sound them out to myself, let alone memorize them. Faking your way through them is not really an option but...

"Kasia Kokosanka", I claimed.

The Polish guy laughed and well he might, for kokosanka, I have since discovered, means coconut cake.

"That's not her name," he said, chortling away.

"So what is it?" I asked, and as he could not remember, I said he had a lot of nerve laughing at me in that case. I then introduced him to my Single Pal, and eventually he asked her to dance. Ta-dah! (Victory roll.)

I then talked to his non-Polish pal, and eventually asked him to dance, as I cannot resist Irving Berlin songs, and had a marvelous time. My Single Pal may have helpfully corrected any potential misunderstandings by mentioning, when the non-Polish pal made inquiries, that I was married. I think I was back in the arms of Mr Squeezy Moustache at the time.

At 11:15 or so, the crowd had thinned out a bit, and my Single Pal and I rushed off to our respective buses which, conveniently, came to the same stop almost simultaneously. And so I was safely home by midnight, and instead of facing dismay that his wife had run about town with attention-getting hair, Benedict Ambrose took a lot of photos.

"Did that really only cost forty pounds?" he asked, which as you may discover, is one of the nicest things a husband can say, combining flattery about your looks with the assertion that they didn't cost you that much. (Second victory roll!)

*Poles resident in Scotland can vote for or against the Union in September's Scottish so-called "independence" referendum. No-one living in any other part of the UK, including those born in Scotland of Scottish parentage, can vote. Four million people, including 16 year olds and people not born anywhere in the UK (including me), get to make a decision that will potentially worsen the lives of sixty-two million people. Nice, eh? Before the SNP got into power, "independence", never mind Scottish republicanism, was a fringe interest. IMHO this whole stramash is a vanity project for Scottish politicians without the talent or clout to get anywhere in the Union as a whole. As I said, at least seven Scots have been Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, a major first world power. Why we're going to chuck this in... Oh well. If the economy collapes, B.A. and I can always go to Canada, and the Poles can always go back to Poland or to England, which I hope would weather the storm.

The Prince, the Fogeys and the Sartorial Police

I have met only one prince in my life, and he was wearing stained jeans and a button-down shirt undone to the third button. To Mass. He wandered into the tea-room after a post-Mass restorative cigarette.

What was very funny about this scene was that the prince was surrounded by much plumper, much shorter young men all turned out like Evelyn Waugh: loud tweeds, red cords, shiny shoes. It was not a Young Fogey hour of glory. Compared to the prince, they looked like they were trying too hard. The word middle-class comes to mind, spoken like an insult (B.A. will cringe at reading this, head disappearing into shoulders) and I am middle-class---that is, I acknowledge that this is where I fit on the British class system chart, which vaguely reminds me of apartheid-era South Africa.

It is considered very rude and outré and possibly middle-class-as-a-bad-thing to ponder the British class system when one lives in Britain, and of course it has changed very much although I know elderly semi-aristos and public school men who still think they can get away with being simply disgustingly rude (they can't), and I encounter chip-on-the-shoulder working-class types from time to time. Once when B.A. went to the front of a loosely organized bus queue to peer at the bus schedule, a rheumy-eyed old man, slightly the worse for drink, angrily demanded that he get back: "those days are over." The implication was that tweed-coat wearing B.A. was the upper class oppressor, thrusting himself before the Honest Working Man.

Have I mentioned it is actually dangerous for me to wear any hat more ornate than a beret on the Rough Bus? I love hats, especially cute vintage ones with eye-veils, but I can't wear them on the bus or while alone on the public street. The one exception may be when I look as though I were going to a wedding. The sartorial police would probably then give me a pass.

"Oh I know," said a Scottish lady I know, who is always beautifully turned out at parties. "On the bus I wear a hoody and pull the hood over my head, willing myself to be invisible."

This may put the Young Fogeys' choice of clothing into perspective. It is actually brave to dress according to an older idiom in Edinburgh, especially if you leave the pretty Georgian parts for the grimier neighbourhoods, and the Historical House lies between two grimier neighbourhoods. If ever I am killed by a rock flying through the window of the Rough Bus, you may all consider me a Scottish Architectural Heritage martyr. The papers got all excited because boys from the right-hand grimy neighbourhood threw rocks at a Pole. Racist hate crime, shrieked the papers. But I snorted because those boys throw rocks at anything that moves.

I do hate the fact that actual fear of attack, whether verbal or physical, governs my sartorial choices. Of course, it is not as bad as it is in Egypt or Afghanistan. But, honestly, given where I live, I think I could be forgiven if I left the house only in long T-shirts, leggings and trainers (running shoes). I have never in my life--even as a middle-aged lady--managed to be invisible, but the T-shirt, legging and trainer combo would offend no-one as I tramped around the down-at-heels town to the left.

Edinburgh University, which is in a nice part of Edinburgh, is a different story, and my Polish Temporary Pretend Daughter mentioned yesterday that she gets more male attention when she wears a skirt than when she wears jeans. PTPD is a cute wee thing in her early 20s, but wearing a shortish skirt and a Nordic pullover makes her super-cute, and thus all the masculine attention and "Oh, you look very pretty today".

What I draw from this is that "pretty" is okay and indeed good in the area around Edinburgh University, at least for women under thirty. However, I suspect eccentricity is not okay there either, especially when eccentricity looks like a "middle-class" person trying to look "upper class". (In the narrow minds of the "socially excluded" people on the Rough Bus--no-one on Council having thought to do anything about the stultifying mental poverty the "socially excluded" are forced into--anyone on a bus cannot be authentically posh.) The poor of Edinburgh grudgingly respect poshness in the obviously rich, but loathe it in the possibly poor, in the "Who does she think she is?" spirit their more adventurous great-uncles and great-aunts took with them to Canada.

It strikes me as absolutely pathetic that I have to worry about looking like I am "putting on airs", and I suspect this is a problem that plagues young black women in American ghettos. "Acting posh" is the British equivalent of "acting white", and it is really very sad. Indeed, I am factoring it in as I decided whether or not to buy that absolutely beautiful tweed jacket for sale at Walker Slater.

So although they occasionally look silly, I must say that I admire the Young Fogeys of Britain for their counter-cultural stand. Compared to a Young Fogey, punk rockers are boringly conventional and cowardly sheep. And, now that I think about it, I admire even more the non-Fogeys who go to Mass with us Fogeys and Fogettes, and treat us like normal human beings instead of real-life versions of the most hated fictional character in Britain, Hyacinth Bucket. That is real Christian charity.

Update: As a Canadian of British descent, I am trying to understand how a real British person would read this. Am I like a Central European trundling up to a white American and saying, "Is it true that you are frightened of black people?" or to a black American and saying, "Are white people really that awful to you?" On the other hand, I live in this uniquely British class mess, so I think I have the right to complain and work to change it, insofar as that is humanly possible.

Update 2: At a party last weekend, I met someone who teaches Social... er. Actually, it was such an Orwellian phrase, I can't remember it. Basically she works in a "socially excluded", welfare-dependency neighbourhood in Glasgow, and has to teach teenagers social skills. "Like filling out tax forms?" I asked brightly. "Nothing so complicated," she said. She seemed a bit gloomy. "Like how to eat in a restaurant?" I suggested. (In Germany, applicants for Top Jobs are still taken to restaurants so that the interviewers can assess the interviewee's table manners.) But no. It seems it is mostly about staying off drugs.

Update Three: Actually, though, when I was an undergrad it was de rigeur at the University of Toronto for students to despise "the petits bourgeois", which quite often meant their own middle-class parents. Actually, now that I have finally looked up the term, I see that the petits bourgeois includs hard-working shopkeepers. So how dared they?

Assisting the Police in Their Enquiries

Oh exciting Scottish life!

There's just been a policeman around, asking me about that episode with the drunken wifies on the bus two years ago. I gave him coffee, and so had a coffee myself, and thus am pretty wired now. Caffeine and righteous indignation are a lethal combination for your humble correspondent.

But never mind coffee. I wonder what Scotland would be like if everyone gave up booze or, at very least, intoxication. Or, at very least, if the women gave up intoxication. I realize that it would be unfair to expect women not to get drunk while putting up with the drunkenness of men, but that's how it used to be in the UK. Public female drunkenness is one of the biggest social changes to British life in fifty years.

I was in Canada for four weeks, and I did not see a single drunken woman. I attended parties. I met up with girlfriends. I went out on different nights to bars and a dance club. I was on the subway almost every day. And I did not see a single drunken woman. The most I drank on any given day was a pint and a half of local beer (that was on bar + Goth night), and mostly I did not drink at all because nobody else was drinking anything stronger than a cappuccino.

This is a total contrast to life in Scotland, where alcohol is part of almost every social gathering and my husband opens a bottle of wine every night. Last night I didn't feel like any dinner, but it suddenly struck me that I would like a glass of wine wine. We didn't have any, so after fruitlessly encouraging me to have red wine, B.A. poured me a small sherry. My mother would have poured me a small glass of milk.

I am pondering why it is people around me in Scotland (and I) drink so comparatively much when people around me in Canada (and I) drink so comparatively little. I used to mention the abstemiousness of my family to my Edinburgh friends, who now note that whenever my family members visit they down gin-and-tonics with great enthusiasm. My protests that any of my family members in Scotland are necessarily on holiday is greeted with derisive guffaws. However, I really do believe it is a case of my polite family doing in Scotland what the Scots do.

It could be the cold. In rural Quebec, it could be that cars are necessary for transportation, especially when it is 20 below zero. It could be the comparatively higher price on alcohol. It could be a different culture in politeness, in which daytime guests are asked if they would like water, tea or coffee, not a sherry, beer or gin. It could be that a Presbyterian attitude towards alcohol persists in Toronto in a way that it does not in Scotland, and that Quebeckers keep to Continental habits. Continental European women are not seen drunk in public. You will never see an Italian woman drunk in public, for example. Public drunkenness is considered very shameful, and so British tourists are getting a very bad reputation in places like Krakow.

It could be that Canadian provincial governments still keep a heavy hand on alcohol sales. You cannot buy hard liquor in a grocery store in Ontario. You must go to an LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) store. And "The Beer Store" is also strictly regulated, too, although not as much as when I was a child. (When I was a child, no customer was allowed to handle a box of beer in "Brewers' Retail" before he bought it. The beer-buying adult would have to go to a counter, and eventually the beer he ordered would come rattling down a conveyor belt.) Unless things have changed very much, the strongest stuff you can buy at the supermarket is Canadian wine, and not all supermarkets carry even that.

This is not to say I did not see any tipsy people in Canada. I talked to one tipsy man who had been filled with beer so he would not suspect he was being taken to his surprise birthday party. And at 10 AM on this past Sunday morning, there were crowds of jubilant and perhaps tipsy young men hooting and cheering in the streets of Toronto because Canada had just won the gold medal in men's Olympic hockey. (The bars had been allowed to open at 7 AM for the occasion of the men's Olympic hockey final. "On a Sunday!" sniffed my mother.)

Frankly, I have lived in Toronto almost my life, and hockey or no, the idea that non-alcoholic Torontonians would get pickled from 7 to 10 in the morning stretches credulity. And I couldn't say for certain that the hockey fans were tipsy because, you know, ice hockey is one of the few things that actually inspires Canadians to rush outside and bounce up and down and honk car horns and stand in front of streetcars. No alcohol needed.

"I thought you'd be legless," said a member of the Men's Schola over the phone the previous Friday night. (I had telephoned during B.A.'s bachelors' supper to remind them all that B.A. is not actually a bachelor.) "What with Canada winning the gold."

"Men or women?" I said.

"Both of them!" wailed the Scot.

The men hadn't won yet, so I was confused.

"What sport are you talking about?" I asked.

"Curling!"

Oh, Scotland. I love you, but you do drink too much. And I'm sorry you lost at curling because because although apparently the Atlantic provinces love the game, Toronto couldn't give a hoot. (Naturally we'll accept a share in the gold medals.)

***
Update: In my outrage that one of the drunken women on the bus (both of whom saved everyone a lot of time and money by pleading guilty to disturbing the peace) called the Polish female ex-bouncer "You Jew", I completely forgot that one of the women had threatened me. I wish I had found this in time to tell the officer who questioned me this morning:

"And you," screamed one of the women, deciding to turn her ire on me as well. "Ah'll melt ye, ye fat cow with yoor fat hay-re and yoor fat....your fat heid... and ah'll remember ye. Ah'll see ye! Aye, ah will!" (July 1, 2011)

The CCTV does not pick up voices, so it does not pick up threats of bodily harm. Not that I thought the woman would be capable of remembering anything.

Glasgow Idyll

A terrible storm swept Scotland from Thursday night to Friday afternoon, and all the trains were cancelled. Fortunately for our plans, the trains were running again by the time my Polish class ended at 8:30 PM. B.A. and I went to Waverley station and caught the 9 PM train for Glasgow.

Edinburgers on the whole are rather suspicious of Glaswegians, and vice versa. It is the done thing in Edinburgh to make rude remarks about Glasgow. However, I have difficulty doing this because I rather like Glasgow. It reminds me of my native Toronto, or of what my native Toronto would look like if all the 19th century buildings were still standing and the population was still largely what is now called "white British." Glaswegians are not aat all like Torontonians, though, for as a people they are very gregarious. Striking up sudden conversations with strangers is not unsual, although suddenly striking conversing strangers is apparently not unusual either. (Gregariousness does have its shadow side.) Torontonians are more like Edinburghers: unless we are drunk, we like our space and we mind our own business.

Nevertheless, I really like Glasgow, which is cosmopolitan and lively, instead of pretty and relatively calm, like Edinburgh (outwith Edinburgh's sink estates, naturally). It is odd that Edinburgh, not Glasgow, is the capital of Scotland, but on the other hand, it is Ottawa, not Toronto, that is the capital of Canada, and Washington, D.C., not New York, that is the captial of the USA. Glasgow is the New York of Scotland. It has tons of good cultural stuff.

Of course, when we went down to breakfast in the dining-room of our Glasgow cheap hotel, we perceived what looked like a bullet hole in one window. Hmm.

We were in Glasgow because B.A. had registered for a one-day conference at Glasgow University, and I had tagged along in my Glasgow-liking way. The day broke fresh and cheerful and B.A. sang "Let Us Haste to Kelvingrove, Bonnie Lassie O" as we crossed over the River Kelvin to Kelvingrove. The university rose up before us, and after admiring the neo-Gothic buildings, we went to the brutalist university library and got me a visitor's pass.

You university women will smile wanly, but I cannot tell you how exciting it was to be in a proper university library again. The thing about the National Library of Scotland is that members have no access to the stacks and have to ask for everything specifically. There is no browsing. But the sheer joy of having a whole day free to be in a good library--not a brain-dead public library stocked with romance novels and DVDS--is browsing.

Not that this was my plan. My plan was to spend the day writing Part 2 of a story I am writing in Polish for a friend's birthday. Part 1 was 470 words, and I guessed it would take me the better part of the day to write Part 2. (When I don't have to look up a word in the dictionary, I have to check its conjugation or declination 2 out of 3 times.)

However, when the guardian of vistors' passes asked me what I wished to consult in his big, brutalist library I remembered that Glasgow University, unlike Edinburgh University, has a Slavonic Studies degree and teaches Polish. Real, university-level Polish with books and cruelly high expectations of students, not inexpensive, easy-going night classes for the masses. So I said I wished to consult the Polish literature collection and wrote this down on a form. Then, having received the sacred card and asked a gregarious Glaswegian security guard "Certainly, dear!") to buzz me in, I kissed B.A. good-bye and headed for the elevator.

Stacks! Stacks! Stacks!

Slavonic Studies shares a floor with a lot of other disciplines, not to mention long rows of computers on which long rows of students type. I have never seen so many computers on an upper floor of a library, nor so many students typing together in complete silence. It was a bit odd, really. And they were all drinking out of bottles, and they were all allowed snacks. Snacks! In a library! However, there were signs everywhere explaining what they were allowed to snack on, and what sort of containers they could drink from, and assuring them that Wi-fi and texting were fine, but talking was not. They could stay on a computer for only four hours at a stretch.

I felt a bit like a time-traveller from the past, so I was glad to leave the typing masses behind and find the annex storing all the Slavic volumes. And lo! After endless rows of Russian stuff, I at last came upon the Polish Literature section. Listen, in Edinburgh I get excited if I see in a charity shop some old deserted Polish translation of Lolita. So imagine my excitement when I saw before me all the riches of 19th and 20th century Polish literature!!!

Hmm. Maybe you can't. Well, it was huge.

I looked at every shelf, and pulled out every book I found interesting, and had to suppress my yelp of joy when I found Antoni Libera's Madame--which Marta gave me in English--in Polish. That was swiftly added to the growing pile on my blissfully isolated desk. And then, when I had reached the end of Polish and the beginning of Czech, I sat down at my desk and, like the hero of Madame, began to copy out striking passages and quotes from the books of my chosen foreign language.

Then, after this warm-up, I worked on my story until 1 PM, when I went across the street to the cafeteria for lunch. The food on offer seemed strangely healthy and inexpensive. I had a smoked salmon wrap and a small bottle of milk--£3.95. The place was cheerfully lit, and a large screen exhibited the time and the weather forecast. Apparently the sun had come up around 8:30 and was expected to set at 3:45 PM. Once again, I had the sensation of being a time traveller from the past.

After my quick lunch, I went for a walk to the Slavonic Studies department and had a look at the Polish bulletin board. Then I returned to the library and Part 2. When Part 2 was done, I went back to copying Polish phrases and came across something extremely creepy.

I had found a English-Polish phrasebook for Poles. It was all about describing people which, as a novelist, I thought very handy. However, as I read, I saw that these descriptions were not about what people looked like or enjoyed as hobbies, but about their characters, their politics, their religious beliefs, their morals and their war records. Sample phrase: "Now that so many things have failed him, religion is his only resourse" (sic), "No woman who respected herself would go out dressed like that", "He is strongly influenced by the social doctrine of the Church" and "He has a British passport."

There was so much creepy Commie stuff about how much "he" or (more rarely) "she" subscribed to the doctrines of "the Party" and felt about the Workers, that I began to feel guilty about copying from this book at all.(I admit, however, that I snickered at "He seems to be a sex maniac, doesn't he?") Before long, I turned to the title page to see when and where: 1984, Warsaw, [School and Pedagogy Publishing House].

This volume could have been written under martial law, and even if not, 1984 was not a happy year for Poland. It occured to me that this was a manual for interrogating Western traitors or captured Western spies about their friends and neighbours, especially their Polish or Polish-British or Polish-American friends and neighbours. And that made me feel a bit sick, honestly, although--my word--from a historian's point of view, what a find. How on earth it ended up in the Glasgow University library I cannot imagine.

When I couldn't stand it any more, I shut the damned thing and picked up a bilingual copy of Polish love stores and read Sienkiewicz's "Lux in Tenebris Lucet". As usual when I read Sienkiewicz's stories, tears sprang to my eyes. Sienkiewicz is a great antidote to anything base or wicked. And then, since the annex was cold, I felt thoroughly chilled and longed for B.A. to hurry up and get out of his conference. But, alas, the conference did not end at 5 but at 6, after a concert, so I put on my gloves and read (in English) about the tensions between Classicism and Romanticism in the art of 19th century Poland.

Then I met B.A. in the lobby and we went together on the funny round subway system to the Royal Exchange area, where we saw that the Catholic bookshop did not have my book in the window and ate a good supper in an Italian restaurant. Then we caught the 8:30 PM train back to Edinburgh and then the train to the station nearest the Historical House.

So that was our Glasgow day. I have never read so much Polish all at once in my life, and the moral of the story is that there is nothing like a good university library as a work space, especially when you don't have a password for the wi-fi.

Went to a Bar on a Friday Night

I so rarely go out on Friday nights, I'm excited that I went out last night. One of my Polish readers is in town, and I suggested we meet after she saw some sights. (Edinburgh Castle is amazing, but there are only so many times a permanent resident of Edinburgh  wants to wander around the Castle.) My proposed venue was the Polish vodka bar, as she has been living outwith Poland for years.

When I was single, especially when I was young and single, I thought it was utterly horrible not to go out on Friday night. And I could not understand why my parents did not go out on Friday nights. From what I saw on television, adults were supposed to be at nightclubs. And even in books adults were at nightclubs. Why did my weird parents not take advantage of their freedom, money and escape from the tyranny of their own parents to go to nightclubs?

It was because they didn't actually LIKE nightclubs. At least, my father didn't like them, and my mother hated what happened to pop music after the Beatles, except for the Swedish Beatles, aka ABBA. And no doubt they were too tired from a week of working and parenting to want to do much more than watch television and--in my mother's case--crochet.

I should really learn to crochet because on Friday night B.A. does not really want to do much more than watch television and I have learned from experience that the Goth scene in Edinburgh is pretty pathetic, and most of the Goths look sixteen years old, and I no longer get a buzz simply from being in a club that plays Goth stuff.

From a meeting-people point of view, going to any club is a stupid idea, for dancing at clubs (especially Goth clubs) is a solipsistic activity, and the music is too loud for anyone to say much, and the drinks are usually terrible. Now that I am 39++, I do not want alchopop, I want an excellent cocktail or vodka, and now that I know more about vodka, I do not want Smirnoff, I want Chopin.*

No, for meeting members of the opposite sex, I recommend that you all take up partner dancing, especially the tango, and  join a local partner dancing society. Partner dancing is a community activity, and you are expected to chat between breaks, and the drinks are besides the point. Drunkenness is definitely discouraged, and men are there primarily to dance, not to drink or pick up chicks. Men and women are prized by each other as people to dance with, and the rules of dancing offer is a return to old-fashioned gender roles and courtesy.

I am not particularly interested in meeting members of the opposite sex, so I am unlikely to develop an interest in partner dancing for my own sake. But I do like meeting up with women around my own age for delicious drinks, and I also like Polish stuff, including vodka so good one sips it like wine. Thus, I have been longing to have a good excuse to go to the Polish vodka bar, and my Polish reader provided it. Yay!

Although Top 40 dance hits blared from a speaker, it was a comfortable place to have a three-hour girl-chat and drink a lot of really good vodka. From now on, readers who want to see me in Edinburgh after six will be taken to the Polish vodka bar, so be warned. Polish, incidentally, is now the second language of the United Kingdom, except perhaps in Wales, so for a real taste of Modern Britain, you ought to do or eat or drink something Polish.

Meanwhile, the Polish vodka bar was interesting in that the men lined up along the actual bar were not all Polish. They were a mix of Poles and Scots, and I saw one South Asian man who might have been what is called a New Scot. Women did not stand there with them, but sat at tables with their friends. And although the men at the bar occasionally turned around and looked at the women at the tables, they kept to themselves. The servers--Polish girls all--were very nice and chatted with my reader and me in Polish and English.

At about ten my reader and I went out into the gloaming--at this time of year it does not get dark until about 10:15 PM--and went for a walk in the light rain before getting our bus. And I was reminded of why I really don't mind staying at home on a Friday night when I heard drunk young men baying at the top of their lungs. Fortunately, we were on our bus by 11 PM, which was still relatively early. What makes Edinburgh--and, indeed, many British cities--so unpleasant on Friday and Saturday nights are noisy crowds of drunken, shouting men and shrieking, stumbling women.

*As most North American readers will know, the screwdriver is a cocktail consisting of vodka and orange juice. For years I hated the taste of vodka without orange juice, and now I know that this is because the kind of vodka you mix with orange juice is disgusting and there is no excuse for it.

UPDATE: My friend lives in Pittsburgh, and that reminds me that it might be time to have Seraphic Singles evenings without me. I know there's a reader in Washington DC who wants to meet up with other readers, and there are multiple readers in many American cities. I am pondering how to make it easier for readers who want to meet each other to meet each other. Possibly I need team captains. More on this anon.

Love of Place

One clever reader said that she doesn't like trash-men, anti-Valentine's Day Valentine's Day parties, and I think she's onto something there. It is foolish to spit on something good, like romantic love, when deep in your heart you know it is good. It is a much better idea to celebrate it--although how to do that when you don't have a love interest, boyfriend or husband can be a puzzle.

One solution is to make Valentine's Day about love, not just romantic love, which is what you have done when you have sent cards, chocolate or party plans to your Single girlfriends.

But you don't have to rule out romance entirely. For example, many people, including many artists, feel passionate love for their own countries, their cultures, even their fellow countrymen. In the 21st century, with our worries about (or, sadly, embrace of) racism, this can make some of us--especially in shame-bedeviled English-speaking countries--rather nervous.

But thank heavens nineteenth-century poets and twentieth-century songwriters did not share our timidity about expressing love for our countries, cultures and people! If they had, how impoverished we would be, and some of us might not even have a country. If your nation has been free from foreign rule for over 200 years, you might take national identity for granted: not so the Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Lithuanians, Latvians...

Personally I do not see why loving your own country and your own folk better than other countries and other folk makes you more likely to go to war or be a hateful person than an old hippy like Gilles Vigneult, who wrote, "Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver." ("My country is not a country; it's winter.")

As a matter of fact I grew up in Toronto--which Hilary White often says is not really Canada--at a time when the chattering classes (mostly from Toronto) were taking apart the notion of what it was to be a Canadian in our post-1967, multi-racial, multi-ethnic country. As a child I longed to be Swiss, for the Swiss seemed to have a strong national identity and knew who they were, and didn't think being Swiss was reduced to just having a Swiss passport. I also envied French-Canadians, especially in Quebec, for their unique culture was not at all masked or swept away or (then) even threatened by immigration.

Migration does something odd in that it separates a culture or one's sense of oneself as belonging to a nation from a geographical place. One of the odder sights in my parents' neighbourhood is a Pakistani man who shovels snow in traditional Pakistani clothing. Whereas those clothes are probably absolutely perfect for the climate of Pakistan, they make absolutely no sense whatsoever in the northern parts of Toronto in February. But perhaps he is afraid Western clothing will make him Western, which he does not want to be, although he certainly now lives in the West.

I think one should live where one loves, and if one can't live in the beloved place for some reason, then to learn to love where one lives. If this proves impossible, then one should move. On the plane yesterday, B.A. pointed to Toronto out the window, and as I looked at the dear old ugly town, my heart sank and I felt very homesick for Edinburgh. I find it hard to love a city which constantly cannibalizes itself, and which constantly tears down the places I have lived and loved and even studied. In Edinburgh, the homes of my Edinburgh great-grandparents are still standing. In Toronto, my theological college has been ripped down.  Edinburgh preserves and offers its past; Toronto is about money and food. Torontonians don't preserve; we consume.

But Toronto does have snow and it does have trees, and so I can find my love for Canada as Canadians traditionally have, in the weather and the wilderness.

Mon pays ce n'est pay un pays, c'est l'hiver.

And there is also the romance of other places--particularly cities. Paris, for example, is considered wonderfully romantic by womankind, and this has nothing to do with Frenchmen--or potential French boyfriends anyway. (Personally, the concepts of French pastry chef, French baker, French chef and French designer have always thrilled me more than the idea of French boyfriend although I imagine many women would protest.) Just BEING in Paris--always within five minutes of a patisserie--is enough.

Rome is also very romantic and, again, this has nothing to do with boys, although at my age it is particularly flattering to have 20 year olds sigh "Bellissima" at me, the charming wee liars. Florence is very romantic. Venice is romantic. The Rhine Valley is very romantic, if you are lucky enough not to know 20th century battlefield details. Edinburgh is romantic. The Highlands are stunning.

Frankfurt is probably not romantic, but I am very fond of it anyway. I am also very fond of Warsaw.

Well, that is certainly enough from me. But if I am in a mood to celebrate romance on Valentine's Day, which is the day after my husband goes back to Scotland, I think I will read travel books or go for a walk in the snow.

What places do you love best, and which places do you think romantic?

The Evening After the Evening Before

Well, I am too tired to contemplate the Single Life, except that in Single Life you don't have a husband to come home at 4:45 in the morning, burbling with joy and brandy, "It wasn't my fault! I didn't have a watch! My phone was in my sporran!"

My guests left at 11 PM. They came in a bunch, and they left in a bunch, and we drank decorous amounts of wine and we remembered that it was a Friday, unlike the manly pheasant-munchers down the road.

After my decorous ladies left, I washed the dishes and tried not to imagine that the weird knocking and creaking noises below were ghosts. There are officially no ghosts in the Historical House, and the fact that I found the frame ripped from the icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa in the dining-room surely has a boring, natural and materialist explanation. I called up B.A. to bolster this opinion, but mostly all I could hear was a piano and men singing raucous songs. So I had to deal with the invisible ghosts by myself for hours until at last I woke up in the blazing lights of the sitting room and called B.A. again.

"It's four o'clock," I said in a tone all my mother's children would have recognized. "You're married."

B.A. didn't recognize this tone. Instead of quaking in his shoes, he greeted this information with shouts of jollity and appeals to the other men gulping brandy around him. Fortunately for B.A., however, he found a cab and came home.

The big news of yesterday, which one guest transmitted to the other guests, as I was too busy cooking to remember, is that B.A. and I are going to Canada on Thursday. More news about that on Monday.

Sporran is an inherently comical word.

"I wonder what I did with my sporran," said B.A. this afternoon. "I hope I didn't leave it in the cab."

"You left it on a chair in the office," I said. "You must have put it there when you hung up your coat."

"Sporran," mused B.A. "I'm a sporran again Catholic."

***
Update: Today is Candlemas, and here is my column about Candlemas in the CR!

Help for Squashy Auntie

The fitness-inclined among you may be wondering how your poor squashy auntie is getting along at the gym. The answer to that was "Not wonderfully well" until Monday, for it was very hard for me to leave the computer in the morning. You all know what computers are like. And there are only a limited number of hours in which I can use the gym, for I cannily bought the "silver membership." This means I can use the gym only when everyone else is at their proper job, e.g. from 9 to 4:30.

Anyway, so as to make sure I would stop scrambling to get to the gym on time, I came up with a plan: I would leave the Historical House every morning when B.A. left the Historical House for his office in the Historical Stable Block. And to give myself something to do on the days in which I am not lifting weights, I would sign up for some of the classes.

This has worked out very nicely so far, as I have gone to the gym four days in a row, which is unprecedented since at least 2006. However, I have not lost very much weight. This is to be expected, though, as muscle weighs more than fat, and it is harder to shift fat as you grow older. I do not expect to drop twenty pounds in seven months as I did when I was 25/26, although I admit I would be pleased. But the point to the gym membership is not primarily to reduce my size but to pump my sometimes gloomy and sluggish brain with natural feel-good juice.

The quickest way to get the feel-good juice into your brain is to do aerobic exercise, particularly one that involves bouncing up and down. This is what runner's high is all about, and why I put up with MTV and Jeremy Kyle on the tellies before me. (Note to pundits: if you really want to discourage Bulgarians and Romanians from coming to England, beam The Jeremy Kyle Show to them. Neither Himmler nor Stalin could have come up with better anti-English propaganda than that.)

I thought I would give myself a break from the treadmill, MTV and Jeremy today, so I signed up for an aerobics class called "Body Combat." It was led by a male trainer with a boxer's wiry, fat-free body, and we were mostly Scotswomen of the squashy variety. I thought I would be prepared for it, thanks to two months of desultory tread-milling and weight-lifting, but heavens. I think if I hadn't done the running and lifting, I would have had a heart attack and died. (Note to self: when the pamphlet says bring a towel and water bottle, bring a towel and water bottle.)

I had one very sad moment as I squashily tried to maintain a push-up position for forty-five years and failed. How terribly I felt about failing. When I was 27 I would have not have failed, and just as I thought that, a bead of sweat dropped from my forehead and a very wiry twenty-seven year old girl appeared beside me. It was me.

Seraphic, Age 27: It's okay. You're supposed to fail.

Seraphic, Age 39+: No, failing is bad.

Seraphic, Age 27: I know you think of this as an aerobics course, but what you are doing is a weight-bearing exercise. Pushing yourself until you fail is victory in a weight-bearing exercise.

Seraphic, Age 39+: I bet you could hold this position for the full count.

Seraphic, Age 27: I don't know. I was always a bit of a wimp about push-ups, to be honest.

Seraphic, Age 39+ (accusingly): How can you possibly have that little body fat?

Seraphic, Age 27: I have body fat. Here, look at my tummy. (She rolls up her boxing club shirt and pinches the skin.)

Seraphic, Age 39+: That's not fat. That's skin.

Seraphic, Age 27 (muses): I could never get my lower abs to do that washboard thing. Upper abs, yes. Lower abs, no. Maybe this time you could ask somebody about that.

Seraphic, Age 39+: I'd have to lose at least fifteen pounds before I could see evidence of any abs. Remind me again of your daily calorie count?

Seraphic, Age 27: Hmm. You know, I really don't think you should do what I did. Really.

Seraphic, Age 39+: Ha! You sound like Saint Ignatius.

Seraphic, Age 27: Really? Which one?

Seraphic, Age 39+: Which one?! Where have you been?

Seraphic, Age 27: Struggling to get out of you.

Seraphic, Age 39+: Ah ha ha ha. You at least enjoyed life. I was terribly depressed when I started packing on the pounds. But in so doing I have learned yet another useful life lesson to pass on, and it's Don't eat tubs of Ben & Jerry's when you're homesick, in culture shock and sad.

Seraphic, Age 27: Ugh, I can't believe you ate ice-cream. I never ate ice-cream.

Seraphic, Age 39+: And a hamburger and fries only once a year.

Seraphic, Age 27: That's right. Still, you managed to find true love as a squashy person rather than a thin person, which might be another life lesson.

Seraphic, Age 39+: I wasn't this squashy. Married people put on an average of ten pounds. Marriage sealed my squashy doom.

Seraphic, Age 27: Oh well. Stick with the gym and they'll come off again. Time is on your side. That reminds me, how's our fluency in Italian coming along?

Seraphic, Age 39+: Właściwie, nie dobrze.

Small Shrill Shriek of Rage

I don't usually post on a Sunday, but having recently complained about being hassled on the dark street by non-Scots, it is only fair that I complain also about being hassled by Scots. Young, male, Edinburgh Scots. Team of two. Both taller than me.

Dear men of the world, just don't touch or talk to women you don't know out on the street after dark, okay? If you don't like what we're wearing, look in another direction. If you feel a need to fight a class war, and you feel tempted to start it with a woman wearing a fancy hat, go join the Communist Party or something. If you need to bully someone, hire a therapist to tell you why.

Obviously no woman who is just minding her own business walking from point A to point B at any time of day or night deserves to be harassed. But I must say I find it particularly annoying to be harassed before seven o'clock at night. Seven o'clock. Sure, at this time of year Edinburgh is pitch-black by five. But this does not give young men license to act like complete and total jerks.

At closing time--okay--the local women can plan for the fact that the jerk quotient goes up exponentially and put our don't-get-harassed-by-jerks plans into action. But it's really unfair to harass women at an hour we can reasonably assume ourselves to be safe from cretins.

The number one thing I detest about life in Edinburgh (and mostly I love life in Edinburgh) is how just wearing a hat makes me a target for the chippy kind of Scotsman who think hat = Margaret Thatcher or, perhaps, woman for whom his mother was a charlady. The class system--which unlike gender really is a semi-imaginary social construct--really gets on my nerves; can you not get over it? It's absolutely ridiculous. Some rugby player with a broken nose actually married one of the Queen's granddaughters. There is no such thing as the class system any more; leave me in peace to wear my vintage clothes as often as I like.

Update: Another shriek. Someone tried to destroy the icon of our Lady of Częstochowa at Jasna Góra today. Fortunately, it is covered with really good safety glass and was undamaged.

Crowds of Drunk Men

To be philosophical about it, it could have been worse. The guy at the tail-end of the crowd of eight (or ten or whatever) only grabbed the top of my head as I passed. In that space of time, he could have broken my nose.

However, I didn't get a sense of violence from either this guy or the guy in front of him who had made a grab at my friend and missed: I just felt a wave of disrespect. I am not sure how if it was merely Disrespect for Women or Disrespect for LOCAL Women. All I really know about these guys was that they were all white ("very white" observed my friend) and that they weren't speaking English. I am good at recognizing languages, but I hadn't been paying attention.

I hadn't been paying attention because my friend and I had had a small dinner and cocktails at our favourite cocktail bar before donning our berets and long wool coats (mine tweed) to go back into the dark evening and walk to a ceilidh dance. We were cozy and comfortable and looking forward to the dance, which was only a brisk walk over Edinburgh's South and North Bridges and down Clerk Street, hey presto. We were chatting and although I saw the big group of 20-something men--too old to be language students--coming towards us, it simply did not occur to me to get out of the way.

It has been over fifteen years since a random stranger on a Toronto street suddenly screamed in my ear, and about that since a former-Yugoslavia demonstrator on another Toronto street blew a shrill whistle in my ear. (Idiot--I supported his political opinions and would have said so, had he asked.) But I cannot remember anyone grabbing me in the street, and I always put that down to a certain inner intimidation factor. I have a rapid, don't mess-with-me walk.

And although I have seen way more than my fair share of assaults in Edinburgh, I have not seen men lay hands on women. Solitary men or pairs of men (especially under 30) are at much more risk of attack by men than "lassies" or, in our case, "wifies." The idea that however "hard" a man you are, ye cannae lay hands on a lassie or wifie (especially if unrelated to you by blood or affection) was deeply entrenched in the Scottish male psyche for a long time. Thus, although not as safe as they could be, the Bridges are not Tahrir Square.

My pal thought the men were tourists. I hope they were tourists. Because if they weren't tourists, they live here. And as aggravating as it is to experience a gang of drunken tourists acting as though they owned the streets of your town (like hundreds of "England" fans in Frankfurt in '06), it is way worse to imagine blue-collar continentals working out their resentment of Edinburgh life by grabbing at (they would have presumed) Scottish wifies as they passed.

Or is it? Did the nationality of the idiot who grabbed the top of my head and give it a shove matter one whit? Would it not be fairer to assume that he would have behaved the exact same way in his native country, towards women of his native country? And I am reasonably certain he would be much less likely to behave this way had he not been in a big group of male drinking buddies, which makes the issue of the Group and the Drink rather more important.

One way to avoid harm as a woman in an urban environment, even in elegant little , Edinburgh at 8 PM at night, with a friend, wearing a beret and a tweed coat as if you were your own Edinburgh great-granny, is to avoid crowds of drunk men. As angry as I am this morning at the thuggish way this particular man acted in his crowd towards me, I am also a little angry I allowed myself to be caught unawares. Usually it is easy to avoid crowds of drunk men; all you have to do is back up or speed up and cross the street. But I wasn't paying attention.

However, as I said, it could have been worse.

(Idiots.)

My New Flat

This is totally off-topic, but since a large number of you seemed to be interested in historical romances and houses, I thought I would tell you that for the next few weeks I will be dividing my time between a flat in an early seventeenth century house in the city and my usual flat in a late seventeenth century house (with eighteenth century improvements) in what is left of the most local countryside.

The city flat is very small and modern-looking, although it is at the very top of a very steep and narrow turning seventeenth century staircase and has views of other ancient buildings in Edinburgh's Old Town. Spires and towers and ball finials abound.

The flat has a tiny front hall, really an antechamber between door to stairwell and door to flat, a sitting-room, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a bedroom with two narrow single beds, somewhat like those of Bert and Ernie or married couples in old films.

The sitting-room has windows on both sides of the room, dressed with Jacobean rose-print drapes, a wine-coloured sofa and armchair, a modern tartan rug on the sisal carpet and a cunning electric fire in the nineteenth century tiled grate. It has a television with better reception than to that which we are accustomed, and there seems to be unlimited hot water, "Just like in Canada, darling."

Sadly, there is no coffee machine. And even more sadly, there is no internet access, so I will not be able to blog or read your comments. However, there is internet access at a nearby library, so I will not be out of touch.

Here is an article I came across about Other Singles of Good Will that I found very moving. It is in The New York Times, so read the combox at your peril. I quit when I got to the "imagine what a wonderful world it would be without religion" comment. Mmm, yes. Because 20th century experiments with that concept turned out SO WELL (sarcasm). So never mind the combox. There is enough in the article itself hinting at controversies within religious communities, shared by observant women of many religions.

Seraphic Also Trashes Teddies as Outerwear

Cherubs. Oh cherubs. Cherubs, cherubs, cherubs.

Cherubs.

I have seen the new worst look in Edinburgh. And that is saying something.

It is the translucent, silk/rayon playsuit, quite obviously worn with a thong and a dark bra. And with tennis shoes and socks.

I call it a playsuit because I don't think it is actually sold as a teddy (loose, one-piece undergarment perhaps better known in the UK as camiknickers) although that is what it looks like.

And that is what one of the waitresses in the cocktail bar I was in last night was wearing. She seemed absolutely oblivious to her bad taste. And although her hair was loose and flowing--not really a good idea in a restaurant--her make-up was tasteful and her tan natural. So what was going on in her head?

She did not look sexy. There's a lot of artifice in sexy. She looked natural, animal, like a squirrel or a Highland cow. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed, done her hair, put on her nice make-up and had absentmindedly put her sleepwear back on over her bra.

All the men around looked at her, of course. When she bent over a table the already short "shorts" part of her playsuit clung to her ample--not fat, but ample--womanly behind. Did I mention it was see-through?

Across my table my friend moaned something about these men underscoring her need to find a man who was really decent. I pointed out that I, no less than the men, was peering through this woman's outfit. As far as I could tell, we were all thinking the same thing, which was "Whoa. How totally inappropriate."

Another waitress was wearing the black-tights-tight-shorts look so prominent in Edinburgh right now, but she didn't give off the same air of loucheness. I think if there had been two waitresses in clinging, see-through playsuits, we would have left. The thought crossed my mind anyway. I, the customer, the semi-regular, felt that uncomfortable.

In contrast was a young woman diner dressed according to the height of fashion in 1941. I know it was 1941 because my friend asked her. This young woman had dark hair--possibly dyed darker than it naturally is--carefully rolled and pinned and adorned with pink flowers. She was wearing a brown dress that was obviously a very well preserved relic of the 1940s and beautiful 1940s-style shoes. She had exquisitely groomed 1940s eyebrows and bright red lipstick. She was slim and looked fantastic, if a tad startling. (She really could have walked in right out of 1941; there was the slightest whiff of the supernatural.) And I tried to imagine how the cocktail bar--which is itself a beautiful Art Nouveau space--would look if all the women dressed rather like her. It would have looked incredibly elegant.

This is the second time I have seen a vintage fanatic in Edinburgh, and I must say that I hope hers is a sub-culture that becomes a little less sub. If people can feel comfortable dressing as 19th century vampires, then certainly just as many can feel comfortable dressing as 1940s damsels. It is intensely superior to dressing as if you had been suddenly awakened from slumber.

To repeat my theme of midnight, what women read, buy and do matters to the culture around us. My CR detractor, a man, scolded me to "Trust women for a change." This suggests that he has some sort of Rousseauian ideal "Woman" in mind, and has not reflected that saying "Trust women for a change" is as nonsensical as saying "Trust men for a change."

There are over three billion women alive right now. We are a mix of good and bad, and what we do has no less of an impact on society--and sometimes more--than what men do.

Speaking of men, men who buy good old-fashioned hats should know that they should TAKE THEM OFF indoors. There were a surprising number of young men around with hats, but unfortunately they were on their heads. None of the Young Fogeys I know would make a slip like this.

What's that? No, darlings. I am not being judgmental of people. I am being judgmental of actions. My waitress seemed perfectly nice. I just wish she had been wearing clothing that didn't make me, the customer, the customer who has developed an attachment to that establishment, feel so uncomfortable.

Is Outrage!

So yesterday I was walking through the New Town to get to Mass for the Feast of the Transfiguration... What's that you say? Old calendar, my dears. Old calendar.

Anyway, I was walking through the New Town with two charming Young Fogeys, co-religionists, of course, and we were rather snappily dressed although I say so myself. But nothing special, you understand.

The Englishman was wearing a perfectly normal tweed jacket, a Fair Isle jumper, tie, dark blue corduroy trousers, argyle socks and brown shoes.

The Continental was perhaps slightly more daring with his bright cherry red corduroy trousers, waistcoat, dark jacket, tie, brown shoes, dark hat, and, of course, his beautiful nineteenth century moustache.

And I was wearing some old thing: a dark green frock with a rather 1930s air although with a modified Empire waist--sort of between Empire and real waist--because I simply cannot wear a sack, my dears. So aptly named a garment, the sack dress, and so rrrruinous to curvy ladies like myself. I will have none of it. Anyway, let me see, I was wearing this dark green frock, large dark green button earrings, a green crystal necklace, lime green tights, green paisley shawl and little brown boots. Standard day wear, darlings.

The Englishman was holding a missal. I, of course, had mine wrapped in my mantilla in my green velvet handbag.

Well! We had turned the corner on Belford Road when who should approach us but two tall denim-clad people with guitars. And we would not have taken any notice of them had one not suddenly said, in Australian, with a hit of irony:

"Nice costumes, guys."

Well. You can imagine what we said.

"Thank you," said the Englishman with kneejerk polite hypocrisy.

"Thank you," said Canadian me with kneejerk polite hypocrisy.

The Continental uttered no word and made no gesture to acknowledge that such creatures as the speaker might exist although I suspect his upper lip curled ever so slightly under his beautiful moustache.

The musicians passed us, continuing in the direction opposite to our own, and I puzzled over the greeting. The Edinburgh Festival is in full swing, so the Australian may have made an honest error. But on the other hand, there was that hint of irony. Had the cherry corduroy trousers awakened dormant class hatreds?

"Unfair," I said suddenly. "I'm not even wearing a hat. Oh, wait. Yes I am."

But the chap was Australian, and surely not party to the seething hostilities and envies lurking underneath what we locals laughingly call democracy.

So what was with the Aussie's personal tone? Why had hats + tweed + frock + ties + jumper + pipes (for of course my companions were smoking pipes) elicited such disapproval?

Would he have made such a remark to punkers? No. To goths? Unlikely. So why us? Why us?

"OOOOOOOO!" I gasped, as a hypothesis dawned. "They could be a folk music group on their way to the Cathedral!"

We pondered this.

"Let's get 'em!" I cried.

Update: Dear folk Mass loving readers, I was kidding! :-D