This is Sailors Walk in Kirkcaldy. It's looking a bit sad so no surprise to find it on the Buildings at Risk Register. When I go to Kirkcaldy I often walk by it for old times sake. You see when I left school I took a summer job with a firm of blacksmiths and one of the exciting jobs I did with them was to install a spiral staircase in this building. It was sort of in its heyday then, having been taken over and restored by the National Trust for Scotland in the 50s. They still own it and according to this website page about an open day they were using it only last year but it seemed pretty well closed and shuttered last Tuesday.
The other exciting blacksmithing jobs I had that summer were installing railings on steps to houses in Cumberauld and lying on my back screwing steel mesh onto the ceiling of the armoury at Redford Barracks. They qualified as exciting when compared with filing off jagged bits from galvanised iron railings that I would spend all day doing in the yard back in Kirkcaldy.
Cumbernauld was in its heyday then as well. It had expanded from its designation as a new town in the mid 50s and was celebrated for its modern architecture, especially its town centre building. Times have changed of course and North Lanarkshire Council wants to knock down and rebuild. This Guardian article is an interesting discussion of the situation and there are a number of extremely good videos on Youtube, one explaining the architecture and raising the question of reuse, one talking about what went wrong. This one celebrates the life of the town and this one its countryside. My own further acquaintance with the town has been limited to one trip to the theatre there to see a great production of Edwin Morgan's translation of Cyrano de Bergerac.
I've got a bit sidetracked. I'd come to Kirkcaldy to see another old building, the Abbotshall Hotel which my grandfather, my father and then briefly myself had managed. Over the years a friend I made in Zambia but who had been brought up a couple of hundred yards away from me in Kirkcaldy had kept me posted about the hotel's changing fortunes. He told me earlier this year that it had recovered from the misfortunes that had affected it in recent years and was now quite a good spot for lunch. So I entered the building for the first time in 60 years and had a very pleasant lunch with Gordon. There have been multiple alterations to the buiding over the years. Unlike Cumbernauld's town centre it would not be a case of removing cosmetic changes to restore it to its former glory. But to be fair its present glory is not too bad.
The team behind Britain's America's Cup challenge managed to end a 60 year wait by winning the subsidiary competition and earning the right to compete against the holder. But they were thrashed 7 races to 2. I didn't watch many of those races but one I did see I thought the British, having made a great start, threw away in one unwise tack. The sort of thing I'd have done in my Enterprise.
The sponsor of their challenge, sponsored I believe to the tune of around £100million. was Jim Ratcliffe the billionaire head honcho of petrochemicals giant Ineos and part owner of Manchester United. I listened to a programme about him in an interesting series about billionaires where the presenters score the subject for aspects of their business lives. He did well on how he built up his empire and so on but had a few points deducted for going off to tax free Monaco and lauding Brexit but taking his Grenadier vehicle business out of Britain. Reminded me of Dyson moving his vacuum business to Singapore.
I went with Claire to see A Chorus Line which I thought to be one of the oddest musicals I've ever seen. Joyce Macmillan our local authority on theatre matters gave it 5 stars and Claire liked it a lot. I was less impressed mainly because it doesn't really tell a story. The dancing and singing and whatnot is all very accomplished but nothing much happens. I suppose you can say that about Godot but strangely in that case it works for me.
Dangerous Corner by JB Priestley was the Grads Autumn offering. Nothing much happens in that either. People sit around talking and the veneer of friendship and happy coupledom that it starts with gets sandpapered off. Staging and so on was excellent. Performances were good. I'd pick out Cari Silver in particular. So it was well done, but was it worth doing? In 1932 I'm sure it was but today maybe not.
In my last post I reported on the opening film of the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival and this time I can tell you about the other films I saw. The closing film which I went to last night was terrific, intense, gripping, moving, beautifully performed and directed and despite being the story of something that happened twenty years ago bang up to date. Soy Nevenka (I am Nevenka) tells the story of a young town councillor who takes the town's mayor to court for sexual harassment. The dire effect the harassment had on her, the complexity of the political and personal relationships in the council and in the town, the strength it took to bring the charges, the stress of the court case, the opprobrium she suffered afterwards were all important elements brought to life by the filmmaker who though Spanish actually lives in Edinburgh. It chimes so well with the recent revelations about Mohammed AlFayed.
Puan is an entertaining comedy from Argentina set in a university where the sudden death of the head of the philosphy department gives rise to the return from Europe of an aspirant for the post. He is portrayed as the bright up and coming modernist in contrast to the home team's somewhat plodding and conservative candidate. If you are Argentinian you can probably enjoy satirical swipes that bypassed me.
La piel mas timida is a drama dealing with a young woman's discovery on her return to Peru to sell some property from her mother's side of the family that her father who deserted her and her mother when she was a child is alive and in jail having been sentenced for his participation in a terrorist organisation. He doesn't want to know and his mother is suspicious of her but in the course of the film she develops a close relationship with her paternal grandmother. She goes back to Sweden strengthened by the experience.
La estrella azul is about a Spanish musician called Mauricio Aznar. I don't know how accurate the story is but it's about him kicking a drug habit (not too successfully because he died from an overdose) and going to Latin America to find himself. He befriends an old musician steeped in folk musical traditions and author of numerous songs who has fallen on hard times. Working with him he heals himself I guess and goes back to Spain a better man.
