For sale

I did the first two depth interviews for a new project today - one by phone and one in person. I am always a little nervous before the first ones, but it was no problem to get the respondents talking so all seems well for the rest.

Two weird things happened today.

The first was that I was walking along the Royal Mile and a guy in a very OTT 'Scottish' outfit was walking in the other direction. The full cheap kilt and tartan throw clobber - the sort of thing that only tourists and expats wear. As I walked past he said to me "smile, you're in Edinburgh!" He was of course American. I didn't realise I wasn't smiling - I wasn't sad, but then I was technically on the clock for work... but he was right. Edinburgh is the greatest city in the world and I should be damn pleased to be there. He's probably dreamed his whole life about this day (finding his roots, returning the homeland I expect), and I can have it every day. I liked his enthusiasm, and I was glad he was enjoying himself.

The second weird thing was that I was up at the Commie Pool for a swim, and in reception I took an 'arty' photo of the ceiling. A member of staff came along and said that there was no photography and she would need me to delete the photo. She said it was because of the children in their swimwear. I did delete the photo - and showed it to her as I did s0 - just pleasantly mentioning that there was no scantily clad kiddies in the photo, indeed no people in the photo at all. As it was of the ceiling. I didn't like to mention that even if I had been taking photos of the pool, there was no kiddies in swimwear in the pool at all due to it being entirely set up for lap swimming in 50m lanes and 2m deep throughout.

But I blipped a photo in a swimming pool yesterday, ha.

So you get a photo of Edinburgh castle from inside Debenhams instead. Probably not what Mr McAmerican had in mind, but that's how I like to enjoy the city.