Back in London, and I somehow managed to survive the entirety of Saturday, only keeling over with exhaustion at 9pm, when George told me that going to bed might be a good idea as I was falling asleep during COLLATERAL. Before then, the day had- to be honest- been rather nuts, with a bus trip that was lengthy and uncomfortable, followed by a hot journey on the tube, followed by an arrival at home at 7.40am, and a hug from an extremely grateful George. I only had two hours, but I did manage to open two birthday presents- an iPod Shuffle (which is giving me a few problems getting it to talk to my computer, but we’ll crack it…), and the gorgeously massive slipcase-enclosed hardback ‘Absolute’ edition of WATCHMEN. I was a happy camper, but had to head out immediately to a hotel in the centre of London for a two-part interview with Guillermo Del Toro. Thankfully, the guy was as much of a diamond as I was hoping for, and both sections of the interview went without a hitch. I was able to slump homewards, and the rest of the day passed in a beaming haze of relief.

Today was mainly a sorting out and cleaning day, and I also discovered that despite being certain that I’d lost George’s camera, what I’d actually succeeded in doing was somehow not noticing that it was still inside the rucksack. I located it today, and was very glad that it was safe and sound, as I’d been trying to figure out a way we’d be able to financially afford replacing it.

A wander onto Neil Gaiman’s blog sent me in this rather bizarre direction, and meant that I made this rather peculiar discovery:

You learn a new thing every day…

More fascinating thoughts on Charles Stross’s blog. I’ve just started reading his fantasy series ‘The Merchant Princes’, and it’s bloody good fun, as well as being fantastically thought out. It’s great to see a traditional ‘gateway to another world’ book that’s actually tackled in the same manner and with the same rigour as a sci-fi novel, as well as being inventive and wonderfully frothy. I may not write as well as he does, but I can at least link like crazy.

Plus- here’s a video from Youtube that I was particularly glad to track down. I first spotted it at last year’s Mirrorball season at the Edinburgh Festival, and while I don’t remember the track doing anything major, it’s one of those videos that takes a very simple idea and runs with it.

Enjoy “100MPH” by El Presidente…

At some point, I’ve got to actually sit down and work on my novel- as well as working out what the hell I’m going to do next. It’s safe to say, the idea is scaring the hell out of me…

Okay- as it turned out, the last update wasn’t completely final. I’ve fitted in two more, and now my mission in Edinburgh is (for better or worse) fully accomplished:

STEPHANIE DALEY- an extremely powerful, subtly played and ultimately harrowing drama about an American teenager who may have neglectfully killed the child she says was stillborn, and how her story impacts on the pregnant Forensic Pathologist who’s called in to judge her mental competence. Tilda Swinton plays the pathologist and is her usual stunning self, while this has a lot of very interesting things to say about the approach to teen sexuality in American life.
THE FLYING SCOTSMAN- It’s a full-on real-life ‘triumph over adversity’ story, as cyclist Jonny Lee Miller constructs a super-bike from old washing machine parts, and takes on all comers as well as attempting to tackle his potentially life-threatening mental disorder. It’s all very traditionally played, but there’s some good moments in there- it just doesn’t quite manage to escape the whiff of formula.

And that’s it. Edinburgh is, for want of a better phrase, over and done with. I’ve also found out that I’ve been given an extra ten minutes with Guillermo Del Toro tomorrow, so I’ve got a total of an hour- which is both fantastic, and a bit downright intimidating. Still, in 24 hours it’ll be all over. I’ve got a few things to do, and then a meal to cook, and then it’ll be time to get on the bus, and survive the journey back down to London.

Plus, Sean Connery just wandered casually past the desk where I’m using the internet, so I think that’s a surreal enough note upon which to stop.

It’s been a weird kind of fun, and I’m looking forward to being back.

So- we’ve reached the end, and it’s been a funny few days. I’m certainly glad that tonight I’ll be hopping on the bus and heading for home, but my return has ended up rather more complicated than I’d hoped for, once again proving exactly how tiresomely complicated the world of freelance writing can be. The Guillermo Del Toro interview is still happening- but now, it’s happening on Saturday rather than Sunday. I’ve also ended up with two slots, thanks to covering it for both a magazine and an online outlet, but the end result is that my E.T.A. into London is 6am, and I’ve got to be at the hotel for the interview at 10.40am. The second one is at 2.15, and it’s going to add up to 50 minutes in Mr Del Toro’s company. It’s not fantastic, and rather frustrating, as the one thing I was looking forward to tomorrow was getting to slump in bed and not do anything- but, at the least, it’s going to be talking to a filmmaker I find genuinely interesting (and who was an absolute gem of a quote-happy motormouth last time I interviewed him) about a film that’s highly impressive. Plus, as long as all goes according to plan, I should net a healthy amount of money from this. There is, as they say, an upside to everything.

I may have succeeded in losing a digital camera- it’s George’s, and I’m certain I packed it, but somewhere between London and here, it’s gone walkabout. It’s not impossible that I ended up not packing it (after all, I did end up forgetting a towel…), but if it is gone, I’m definitely going to replace it. It’s just rather annoying, especially as I have absolutely no clue as to how it happenned. If I’m going to lose stuff, I’d rather learn a lesson from it, rather than feeling like it’s just evaporated into the air.

Yesterday morning, I climbed the hill that defeated me last time- and then found out that the path I was on didn’t lead me all the way up Arthur’s Seat. Not to be defeated, I turned back, headed down, found the correct path, and stomped all the way back up again. There, I sat for a while, enjoying the sound of the wind blowing through the grass, and felt happier than I had done for a while. It’s been tough for the second week- and I find it very easy to get depressed about a whole selection of “state of the world” issues. It’s strange, but I sometimes feel like now that I’ve passed thirty, all my hope for the future of the planet is gradually draining away, and I can’t help feeling like the human race is currently behaving like a rabbit on a motorway convinced that as long as it stares out the big, roaring, glaring thing that’s racing towards it, there’s no possible way that it can come to harm. I just can’t help feeling that I want the world to turn out to be as weird and vibrant and full of possibility as I felt when I was ten years old, and I don’t want circumstance and the potential collapse of civillisation to hammer it out of me. Being afraid of worse-case-scenarios on an hourly basis is exhausting, let me tell you, and I wish there was a better way of handling them than just ignoring them.

(Apologies for the depressive tone. I haven’t been sleeping well either- people eating crisps at 5 in the morning or snoring like a walrus have been making certain that my sleep has been fitful at best. I think it’s just been a long two weeks, and I can’t wait to be back with George.)

Okay- I might see something today, but- for the moment- this is the final movie roundup…

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE- deliciously kooky and enjoyable comedy, with a dysfunctional family on the road to get an eight-year-old to a beauty contest. Fantastic cast, and some absolutely hilarious moments, this is the model of what Hollywood movies used to be able to do, and now you’ll only find them in the studio-funded ‘indie’ sector.
COLOUR ME KUBRICK- the tale of Alan Conway, the man who pretended to be Stanley Kubrick, is a fascinating one, but this is one excrutiating mess of a movie, sloppily thrown together and meshing Kubrick in-jokes with overdone seventies-style camp humour. The fact that this features a full song-and-dance number from Jim Davidson should tell you everything you need to know.
SHOOT THE MESSENGER- a very powerful drama all about a black teacher whose determination to improve black kids’ education backfires, leading him on an odyssey of madness and racial self-hatred. It’s an angry, difficult film, but it manages to make some powerful points while telling a decent story at the same time, and there’s some fantastic performances.
THE PAGE TURNER- cool, calm and incisive French drama, as a young girl finds her dreams of being a pianist flattenned by the behaviour of a diva pianist during a music exam. Years later, she seeks out the diva and, carefully, proceeds to destroy her life. Brilliantly played, it’s a tense and carefully mounted drama that packs a serious bite.
H6- DIARY OF A SERIAL KILLER- Great. More torture horror. Playing like American Psycho (the novel) without any of the satire, this is a pretty ugly portrait of a man who decides to ‘attain immortality’ by messily murdering a series of prostitutes. Behind the veneer of Catholic guilt, there’s very little here that’s interesting- and while it’s classily shot, this is little more than ugly torture porn that’s yearning to shock because it doesn’t know how to do anything else.
THE GREAT HAPPINESS SPACE: TALE OF AN OSAKA LOVE THIEF- probably the best title in the Festival, this short but absorbing documentary is a portrait of the ‘Host bars’ you can find in Osaka, Japan, where worryingly gorgeous guys sell love, dreams and (when required) sex to whoever can afford it. One of those documentaries that starts as a fun, frothy look at an alien world, this turns unexpectedly dark, and builds to a genuinely affecting portrayal of cultural difference and the fact that in certain places in Osaka, money really can buy you happiness…
THE PRODIGY- a low budget American action thriller, this is a bizarre mixture of SEVEN and THE USUAL SUSPECTS, and if you took it purely by its dialogue or acting, this would be a clunky but occasionally effective low-grade B-movie. What pushes it into more interesting territory is the fact that it’s got some of the best-directed action sequences I’ve seen in ages, giving the film a visceral impact that it badly needs. It’s still a bit of a mess, but one with promise.
ONE FINE DAY- A sweet French comedy, all about a man ground down by the miseries of life until- unexpectedly- everything starts changing, and he doesn’t quite know how to cope with his newfound happiness. The brief musical number might be a little unwise, but this is a genuinely sweet and heartwarming movie that will send you out with a huge smile on your face.
3 DEGREES COLDER- A headscratching German relationship drama, all about the unexpected return of a woman’s ex-boyfriend after five years away, and the effect this has on the man she’s since married. It’s well shot, beautifully acted and excellently put together, but it’s also one of those films that make you think that at least twenty minutes of explanatory scenes have just been edited out at random.

Okay- I’m going to sit down, write a few more Del Toro questions, and then I’m going to do my best to have a good day.

Things may seem downcast at the moment, but I’m determined to bounce back.

Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me-eee,
Happy Birthday to me.

32 years on the planet, and life still has the capability of surprising me. Certainly, when I was at Edinburgh last year, attempting to celebrate my birthday, watching Serenity (and actually getting a little annoyed by it), and trying to focus on the distant point when I would be leaving, I didn’t think that in a year’s time I’d actually have something that (vaguely) resembles a completed novel. I certainly don’t know exactly where I’ll be (or even where I’m going to be living) this time next year… but I can at least look back at some of the excessively nutty things I’ve done during my 32 years on the face of the Earth, and feel rather proud at the fun I’ve had. And hopefully, I’ve got plenty to do before my time is up. Hurrah!!

Right, from musings of mortality, to the world of films. Once again, I managed five films yesterday- although I think I was getting dangerously close to burn-out with the last one, as it was rather nicely done but I didn’t enjoy it that much because I was in such an unpleasant mood. I’ve got four lined up for today, and things are going to start settling down a bit this week as the press screenings tail off, and I might get a chance to actually enjoy being in Edinburgh rather than just sitting in darkened rooms watching patterns of light being projected on a white screen. I’m hoping to conquer the major hill known as Arthur’s Seat that lies just next to Edinburgh- I didn’t get all the way up last time, and I’m determined to at least try again, if not actually succeed this time. I’m also going to try and see some live stuff, but I think mainly it’s all going to feel like a shambling race for the finish line. Once I get to Friday, all I’ve got to do is get through another lengthy bus journey, and then Edinburgh will be over for another year, and I can start battling the novel (as well as considering exactly what to do next…)

The films themselves…

GRETCHEN- Anyone who’s seen NAPOLEON DYNAMITE or Todd Solonz’s HAPPINESS will find this very familiar. It’s an off-kilter tale of teenage woes as a dumpy girl falls for a pot-bellied bad boy and experiences major emotional trauma. There’s a couple of great sequences and it uses music very well- but it’s also grotesque, formless and downright annoying at times, as well as taking an absolute bloody eternity to end.
TWELVE AND HOLDING – a wry, intense look at growing up in American suburbia, as a young kid is killed accidentally when a prank goes wrong, and the friends (and twin brother) left behind all find different ways of dealing with the tragedy. Funny and heartbreaking, it’s beautifully played and very well directed, despite a couple of predictable elements.
loudQUIETloud- a music documentary all about the 2004 reunion tour of the Pixies, this was a very well put-together film with great concert footage and some excellent moments- but I don’t really feel that I learnt anything from it. Unlike some of the best music documentaries I’ve seen, like DIG! and SOME KIND OF MONSTER, I think you need to be a Pixies fan to get the most out of this.
AIR GUITAR NATION- a gloriously funny look at the seriously nutty world of the World Air Guitar Championship, and the people who compete in it. Packed full of great tunes and major laughs, this is great fun, but it’s also surprisingly heartfelt and respectful, not treating it as a freakshow but letting the OTT personalities of the competitors come through. Definitely one of the most entertaining of the festival so far.
SHEITAN- Very, very oddball French horror, with a group of rave-happy teenagers falling foul of a group of DELIVERANCE-style countrybound nutcases led by a maniacally grinning Vincent Cassell. Sexy and deliriously weird in places, but it’s ultimately too kooky for its own good, and ends up feeling like twisted silliness for the sake of twisted silliness. And don’t even get me started on the garbled and inconclusive ending…
SOMEONE ELSE- A very well shot British romantic comedy drama about a guy who dumps his girlfriend for another woman, gets dumped himself, and then slowly realises his mistake. There are some great elements here, and it’s a genuinely cinematic romantic comedy that’s aiming for a Woody Allen-style mix of laughs and melancholy- but the central relationship is actually the least interesting part of the entire movie, and it gets stuck between whether it’s going to be comic or dramatic, never really making up its mind.
WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY- a slightly over-whimsical but charming fantasy all about what lies in wait for you when you commit suicide- which turns out to be almost exactly the same as our own world, just “a little worse”. Patrick Fugit goes on the road to try and find his recently deceseased girlfriend, but is soon meeting up with beautiful drifter Shannyn Sossamon, and while not every element in this film works, it’s still a very imaginative and engaging film that has shedloads of truly twisted, eccentric and dark comedy.

More soon. I’m off to watch stuff, and have some fun as well…

The theory was that I’d be able to do large, expansive updates while in Edinburgh, to describe the ups and downs of life at a film festival. The practice is, to be honest, that I don’t have the time and my feet have barely touched the ground in the last three days. With the whole ‘obtaining interviews’ process being an arcane one that I’m simply not up to dealing with (although I have managed to bag myself another interview with Guillermo Del Toro on the subject of the wonderful PAN’S LABYRINTH, which will be happening when I get back to London), I’ve simply concentrated on seeing as many movies as possible. Thursday was three films, Friday was five and today- once I see the two I’ve got lined up- will total another five. And I’ve possibly got six lined up for tomorrow, depending on how much I can actually cope with.

The films…

APRIL SNOW- Korean melodrama, with a car crash bringing together a man and a woman who find out their comatose spouses were having an affair. Much angst and beautiful people being miserable ensues. It’s beautifully played, but the misery qotient gets a bit too high, and the melodrama A MOMENT TO REMEMBER is much better.
THE LOST- a dirty, nasty and frighteningly gripping take on the ‘delinquent teen’ movie, with a young psycho getting involved with a rich girl out to walk on the wild side, with disastrous and savage consequences. Full on extreme cinema, with loads of sex and seriously grotesque violence- aside from the climactic bloodbath, which could have acheived the same effect if they’d just put up a title card saying “SCENE OF REALLY NASTY VIOLENCE”, this was very impressive.
THE AURA- South American drama, with a Taxidermist getting involved with a Casino heist following a hunting accident. It’s a little too long, but very well put together with some imaginative and expertly crafted sequences.
THE RIGHT OF THE WEAKEST- More heist drama, but from France and the director of the… er… “Trilogy” trilogy, Lucas Belvaux. Working class men try to claw back some self-respect by turning to armed robbery. Naturally, it all goes wrong, but it’s very well put together and excellently played.
HOLLY- Dealing with Child Prostitution in Asia, this was never going to be a barrell of laughs, and does contain some very powerful stuff as American Ron Livingstone (from SWINGERS and OFFICE SPACE) tries to save a young Vietnamese girl from the sex trade. However well it’s put together, it can’t help feeling a little too worthy and far too much of an “issue” movie.
THE TREATMENT- a lovely, intelligent film that’s a proper romantic comedy (not in the general, bland, Hollywood sense of the phrase), where a New York teacher tries to woo a rich widow (played by the ever-gorgeous Famke Jannsen) and also attempts to cope with his hilariously nutty Argentinian therapist (played to perfection by Ian Holm). A genuine delight, it’s both funny and thought provoking without overdoing it.
RED SHOES- a truly nutty Asian Horror from Korea, that takes the very basic set-up of the Powell and Pressburger film and uses it to spin a delriously OTT tale of posession and psychosis, where wearing the titular shoes means that you’ll either lose your feet or your mind. Utterly bonkers, visually stunning, and nightmarish fun.
SHUT UP AND SHOOT ME- a Czech black comedy that seriously misfires, this sees a depressed British bloke who’s lost his fiancee in a freak accident hiring his driver to kill him, with complicated but not necessarily funny consequences. Violent comedy is a tricky thing to get right, and while this has its moments, it feels very lifeless and ends up somewhat turgid and annoying in the end, using crude violence for cheap laughs.

Okay. That’s your lot for now. I’m off to see two more.

One week to go. One week to go…

Film Festivals don’t seem to be designed for human beings- instead, they appear to be designed for the new, uber-efficient next wave of humanity who won’t have to worry about anything as prosaic as finding time for eating or sleeping. I am, to be honest, running on empty- I’m just about keeping up, but I feel like the man running to try and get enough speed to leap onto the Carousel, and some bastard keeps speeding the damn thing up. I am, at least, watching plenty of movies, and keeping myself occupied enough so that the next eight days doesn’t seem like an absolute eternity. I’ve also avoided doing anything at the Fringe Festival for the moment- I want to do some stuff, but I’m saving it for my birthday, which is approaching on the 21st of August. I will be 32 years of age, and life shows no signs of wanting to get less complicated.

Last night was the Tartan Films party, and as a mild sequel to last year, when I ended up on the roof of a building resembling UNIT H.Q., this time I fell foul of Edinburgh’s nightmarish habit of letting one street just transform into another without actually telling anyone. Twice, I ended up going in the wrong direction, and eventually I ended up arriving nearly an hour and a half late. It turned out to be relatively good fun- nowhere near as good as last year’s, and it suffered from a DJ convinced that playing early Sixties tunes non-stop was a good thing, but it did improve occasionally, and I did get to go wild on the dance floor to ‘White Lines’ by Grandmaster Flash, as well as ‘Express Yourself’ by Madonna. A blonde girl briefly shouted “We love you!” on the way off the dance floor, which is always good for the ego when you’re dancing like a maniac and not caring what you look like. In the end, at least, the traumatic journey was worth it.

Film wise… it’s been rather crowded.

JINDABYNE- Excellent, very powerful Aussie Drama. Gabriel Byrne, once again, is ridiculously good.
NEO NED- A Neo-Nazi falls for a Black Girl who thinks she’s the reincarnation of Hitler. Not quite as tasteless as it sounds, but not particularly good either…
THEM- Scary French shennanigans, as a couple in Romania come under attack from mysterious forces. A little one-note, but technically excellent. The Romanian Tourist Board must be really unhappy with all these Romanian-based horror flicks…
LOVE SICK- Sweet romance between two girls, thrown slightly off kilter by an incestuous sub-plot that took me a while to actually work out what was going on.
THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON- Bland, messy and exploitative. I don’t think the world needed a Mark Chapman biopic, and this hasn’t convinced me otherwise.
CLERKS II- Brilliantly funny and stunningly crude, this is Kevin Smith back on form. It may eventually wear its heart on its sleeve, but it’s also a worthy follow up. And Rosario Dawson is deeply, deeply sexy…
FIRST LOVE- Japanese drama all about a schoolgirl who ends up perpetrating a legendary robbery during the turbulent sixties. Beautifully put together, and gently paced.
BLACK SHEEP- Punky collection of stories in Berlin, with the emphasis on gross-out humour and pushing the boundaries of taste. Baggy and OTT in places, but also suprisingly effective in others.

Right- I’ve got Korean melodrama with APRIL SNOW tonight. I’m pushing myself over the weekend to see as many films as possible, so I can hopefully let myself off and give myself a break on my Birthday. I’m also having some good thoughts on the novel, and am starting to get keen to get back and start doing some serious work.

Time is on my side. Yes it is…

Okay- I was up at 5.30 am this morning. Not exactly what I had in mind, but sleeping in a dorm does do this to me at certain points. Anyway, I at least ended up having a lovely walk around Edinburgh Castle, and now I’ve got another day of movies to look forward to. It’s official- it never stops…

I don’t know if it’s the fact that the novelty has gone, or that I know I really can’t afford to splash out in the manner I did last time, or if I’m just trying to fill my time as best as possible, but I’ve yet to see an advert for anything on at the Fringe Festival that truly makes me think “Yes- I’d really like to see that…” The street walls and building sites are once again decorated in a massive collection of giant posters, but it just doesn’t seem as dazzlingly different as it did last time. Maybe, when it comes down to it, it’s the knowledge that I’m here for work. Last time, it was easy to forget, to say “Well, it’s just a matter of surviving and getting through to the end…”, but one of the results of that was I ended up missing quite a lot of stuff. I don’t want to make that mistake this time, and I want to be able to get to the end of the Festival having missed as few of the films I genuinely want to see as possible. (The fact that I remember exactly how uncomfortable it was to watch films in the Videotecque viewing area is only adding to my determination to get it all right).

The one thing I’m trying to make certain of is that I’m eating well. Film Festivals aren’t really designed to be survived in normal ways- and unlike the screenings I usually go to in London, there’s no chance of any food at any of them. The result of this is that you’ve got to either eat ridiculous amounts of sweets and convenience food, or you’ve got to factor in enough time to be able to eat properly. I’m generally doing a mix of both options at the moment, but hopefully I’ll be able to get it right sooner rather than later. There are going to be some seriously busy days coming up (If I wanted, there’s a couple of days where I could probably manage to see eight films in one day, if I really wanted to). Ultimately, it’s a mixture of trying to see as much as possible, and trying to pace myself so I don’t end up ill. We shall see what the final result is…

Okay- the films so far…

PALIMPSEST- a seriously disturbing Police drama from Poland that managed to feel genuinely Lynchian, without simply ripping Lynch off wholesale. It’s the story of a cop investigating the death of a colleague, encountering intrigue and complications, but also having to deal with the fact that he’s gradually losing his mind. Building up serious levels of menace and throwing in some horribly unsettling, dream-like imagery this was downright spooky, and also managed to throw in what could politely be described as a ‘twist’ without it feeling overdone or unoriginal.

SPECIAL- a low-budget, sweet-minded comedy drama, where a likable doofus (played by Michael Rappaport, who seems to have made a small career out of playing these kinds of roles) is looking for meaning in his life, and agrees to take part in a drug trial. Unfortunately, the side-effects of the drug mean that he thinks he has superpowers, and he’s soon dressing up in a white leather jumpsuit and attempting to fight crime. It sounds kooky as hell, and that’s how it starts, but what’s impressive is the way the filmmakers evolve the story in a gradually darker direction, and it’s ultimately a seriously touching film about finding your own strength. Rough around the edges, but no worse for it.

LIVES OF THE SAINTS- genuinely magical and thoroughly gripping, this British mixture of crime drama and magical realist fairy tale is co-directed by photographer Rankin, and was a hell of a lot more powerful than I expected. Set in a slightly skewed version of London crammed full of rich, almost theatrical dialogue, it follows the lives of a group of people connected to a corpulent Greek crime lord, all of whom are changed by the discovery of a spooky child with paranormal abilities, who may possibly be an angel… Starting off like a Lock Stock clone, this is soon dealing with powerful ideas of religious faith and salvation, this is impressive stuff with one of those lush, richly orchestrated soundtracks that doesn’t put a foot wrong.

THE HOST- Never have great expectations. I’d made the mistake of reading some reviews on Aint It Cool news, the home of hyperbole, and as a result was expecting an absolutely kick-arse monster movie from this South Korean CGI blockbuster. What I got was pretty damn good, and featured some wonderful moments, but didn’t quite balance out its flaws, and the jumping of tones between dark, bleak horror and campy slapstick didn’t always work. A slightly jumbled plot didn’t help matters, and while I wasn’t strictly speaking disappointed, it wasn’t as focussed or effective as the director’s previous film Memories of Murder, and didn’t manage to push to the breathtaking levels that films like OldBoy and A Bitttersweet Life have managed for me before.

The rest of today was taken up with shopping and sorting things out, but I should soon be neck deep in movies. The festival screenings properly begin tomorrow, and I’m going to request as many as I can- one of the main problems I had last time was not having enough to do, and I want to do as much as I can to avoid that problem. Keep myself busy, keep my head down, and the days will go faster.

Life in a hostel is a very strange thing- and it doesn’t help that I’ve ended up in a 6-bed room that’s slightly smaller than the one I was in last time. Space, as a result, is at much more of a premium, but I did at least survive my first night without too many problems. I also had a Seinfeld-fest on my laptop, and I’ve got enough viewing material to get myself through most of the dodgier moments.

Can’t talk for long- I’ve got three films today, including the South Korean CGI monster movie THE HOST which I’ve been really looking forward to, so I’ve got to get going right now. Hopefully, later on, I’ll be able to do a slightly more significant update…

Okay- I made it, despite the tendency for the bus to stop at random moments for no apparent reason, and the tremendously annoying kid in the seat in front of me, who didn’t seem to want to sit still for most of the trip. However, I’m here, I’m in one place, and I’ve been able to find my way around with very few problems. Edinburgh is mine for the taking- and if I can find a wi-fi hotspot somewhere, life would get an awful lot easier.

(I’ve just this moment spotted that the Festival Cafe has wi-fi. Hurrah!!)

Right. I’m off to get something to eat. The movies begin at 11.15.

Wish me luck…