Edinburgh - what is wrong with the place?

[tarapoa]

The railway carriage is called Bridgeview Station. I've been a few times and it is good.
Dundee is clearly the best city in Scotland. Highest percentage of Yes voters and lowest percentage of OF fans. 

Most places near the Tay - whether the waterfront by the centre, Broughty Ferry or Perth Road are fine.

Go three streets or so back anywhere though and very quickly a reminder you are in Dundee.

As for the stuff regarding the state of Princes Street and Union Street - could be applied to most UK cities’ main streets alas.
City centres need to reinvent themselves quickly or they could soon become the nuclear holocausts that many US “downtowns” are at evenings and weekends.


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[JamieThomas]

Now I'm on my high horse, wee places that are more or less a high street like Linlithgow, North Berwick and Burntisland are easy to enjoy too. 

Basically if you want to have a shite time, you will. Couldn't be me.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Jamie is now minutes away from belting out Letter to America.

[ICTChris]

17 minutes ago, JamieThomas said:

 

Basically if you want to have a shite time, you will. Couldn't be me.

Yeah, I put a jokey post about how shite Edinburgh and Glasgow are on here earlier but deleted it because I just can’t get as animated as a lot of people about this. I assume it’s the same everywhere but so many people in Scotland want to say that everywhere’s a hole etc. A guy in my work was arguing the other week that Linlithgow was a dump I mean it’s obviously not. Maybe you wouldn’t want to live there for whatever reason but it’s obviously a nice place.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

The bit around the palace and the water in Linlithgow is pretty cool, absolutely the opposite of a shithole.

It also has a pub on the High Street called The Black Bitch, so difficult to say if it's good or not.

[JamieThomas]

22 minutes ago, Namond Brice said:

Jamie is now minutes away from belting out Letter to America.

Almost green dotted this, then almost red dotted it. Let that be a lesson.

18 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Yeah, I put a jokey post about how shite Edinburgh and Glasgow are on here earlier but deleted it because I just can’t get as animated as a lot of people about this. I assume it’s the same everywhere but so many people in Scotland want to say that everywhere’s a hole etc. A guy in my work was arguing the other week that Linlithgow was a dump I mean it’s obviously not. Maybe you wouldn’t want to live there for whatever reason but it’s obviously a nice place.

Inverness always a great weekend too. 

 I DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN SEE THE CHANGES THAT HAVE COME OVER ME 

Edited October 2, 2021 by JamieThomas

[pozbaird]

37 minutes ago, OneBrianIrvine said:

Those specific four are all gone.

Schooner was lost due to development re Union Square shopping centre - a huge part of why our city centre is in the mess it is.

All towns/cities have bad/good bits, all city centres are past their best and need to adapt.

This thread is shit.

Don’t agree the thread is shit. Has developed into a decent discussion about Scottish towns and cities in general terms. Which has just made me think. Even a pretty much non-descript area, the road between between Cumbernauld and Falkirk, has two tremendous restaurants a mile away from each other - The Cotton House Chinese restaurant, and Mango, an Italian / Indian fusion place. In fact, continue down the road into Bonnybridge, and a new, fabulous gallery and gift shop has opened up in that otherwise wee ‘nondescript’ Scottish town.

Aye, wee gems in our wee country. Everywhere. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by pozbaird

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, Paul Kersey said:

I haven't been out drinking in Aberdeen for about 20 years. All that I can remember is tacky pubs on Union Street, like Cafe Ici and The Soda Fountain, and rough as f**k dockside boozers like The Anchorage and The Schooner. I've got no idea if these places still exist.

 

My old regular used to be the Bell, and I checked it out when visiting Aberdeen for the first time in ages a few years ago, just before it was knocked down to build a hotel. Most of it had already been gutted, but they were still serving a few despondent regulars. Depressing stuff, and it wasn't long before the oil price collapsed so the new hotel probably didn't survive either.

[Caledonian1]

5 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

My old regular used to be the Bell, and I checked it out when visiting Aberdeen for the first time in ages a few years ago, just before it was knocked down to build a hotel. Most of it had already been gutted, but they were still serving a few despondent regulars. Depressing stuff, and it wasn't long before the oil price collapsed so the new hotel probably didn't survive either.

Think you probaly mean The Bells Hotel on Union St - it was indeed knocked down maybe 5 or 6 years ago and a new office block built - it is so big that Shell are soon moving their entire Altens office there.

[lubo_blaha]

I really wish people would stop trying to defend Aberdeen. 

I think that’s what Stephen Glass said to his team at the start of the season.

[tamthebam]

What's wrong with Edinburgh?

Air B and B wankers buying up all the cheap housing

Too much student accommodation. There's a proposal to demolish the good 5 a side pitches at Chesser to build more fucking student accommodation. A loss of another amenity for profit.

The traffic "management" that just funnels cars into smaller and smaller spaces

Too much of a theme park

The Festival Fringe is far too big. The last two Covid years have been good in that it was cut down

Loss of medium music venues like The Venue, Cas Rock and Studio 24. They built yuppie flats next to Studio 24, the soundproofing was not completed to standard, the yuppie scum complained about noise pollution and despite holding out for years Studio 24 eventually closed.

Graffiti everywhere and no-one seems to give a f**k

The fact that pedestrians can't taser Deliveroo wankers for cycling on the pavement.

The state of the remaining public toilets. Everywhere else charges to use public toilets and they tend to be mostly well kept, Edinburgh's are free but a small charge might keep out undesirables.

The East winds. Brr.

The tension might also come from the fact that this city has always had its fair share of "Karens". 

However tense we may be though, which "friendly" city remains the murder capital of Scotland, hmm..?

 

 

[Baggio]

Don’t agree the thread is shit. Has developed into a decent discussion about Scottish towns and cities in general terms. Which has just made me think. Even a pretty much non-descript area, the road between between Cumbernauld and Falkirk, has two tremendous restaurants a mile away from each other - The Cotton House Chinese restaurant, and Mango, an Italian / Indian fusion place. In fact, continue down the road into Bonnybridge, and a new, fabulous gallery and gift shop has opened up in that otherwise wee ‘nondescript’ Scottish town.
Aye, wee gems in our wee country. Everywhere. 

If you are looking for another wee hidden gem, go for a walk from the Colzium in Kilsyth round the loch to Banton and head to The Swan in the village for some food. Grub is amazing.

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[JamieThomas]

3 minutes ago, tamthebam said:

What's wrong with Edinburgh?

Air B and B wankers buying up all the cheap housing

Too much student accommodation. There's a proposal to demolish the good 5 a side pitches at Chesser to build more fucking student accommodation. A loss of another amenity for profit.

The traffic "management" that just funnels cars into smaller and smaller spaces

Too much of a theme park

The Festival Fringe is far too big. The last two Covid years have been good in that it was cut down

Loss of medium music venues like The Venue, Cas Rock and Studio 24. They built yuppie flats next to Studio 24, the soundproofing was not completed to standard, the yuppie scum complained about noise pollution and despite holding out for years Studio 24 eventually closed.

Graffiti everywhere and no-one seems to give a f**k

The fact that pedestrians can't taser Deliveroo wankers for cycling on the pavement.

The state of the remaining public toilets. Everywhere else charges to use public toilets and they tend to be mostly well kept, Edinburgh's are free but a small charge might keep out undesirables.

The East winds. Brr.

The tension might also come from the fact that this city has always had its fair share of "Karens". 

However tense we may be though, which "friendly" city remains the murder capital of Scotland, hmm..?

 

 

I mean all of this is objectively true, but when folk from Glasgow etc say "Edinburgh", they mean "George Street".

Take a pub tour of Gorgie. Go for a pint in Musselburgh. Christ, if you're posh head down to Stockbridge and the boozers they've got down there. What not to do is go to the one place in Edinburgh where all the helmets congregate then say "Edinburgh's full of helmets"

[itzdrk]

Edinburgh is ok, no more no less.  My favourite place In England though, I'll give it that. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by itzdrk
What I wasn't giving was any commas

[NotThePars]

1 hour ago, tamthebam said:

Loss of medium music venues like The Venue, Cas Rock and Studio 24. They built yuppie flats next to Studio 24, the soundproofing was not completed to standard, the yuppie scum complained about noise pollution and despite holding out for years Studio 24 eventually closed.

Worst behaviour. Would gulag c***s like this.

[HoBNob]

The drive up the A68 takes you through Jedburgh and Lauder which seemed like really lovely towns. 

 

Prefer Edinburgh to Glasgow, weegies are odd. 

[strichener]

Edinburgh traffic planning is absolute shite.  Tried to cover it up by introducing 20mph across the city but even now that's more like an unachievable target than a limit.

Unfortunately it extends out to places like Kirkliston which makes it even more of a joke.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Edinburgh is by an absolute mile the most pretentious city in Scotland, possibly the UK, is torture to drive through and everything is as expensive as f**k. Glasgow is considerably better, but Dundee is a much better city than both. Aberdeen is depressing as f**k.

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[Thorongil]

I am proud of how this thread has turned out and feel like I deserve immense credit.

[BallochSonsFan]

I dislike Edinburgh immensely.

It's a horrible city to try and navigate by car. I occasionally go to gigs in Edinburgh on the few occasions that they have something worth going to. I have to drive there as public transport isnt an option. Trying to navigate Edinburgh by car, content with the bonkers 20mph limit  and find somewhere to park is a pain in the hole. Had the trams covered more of the city then park and ride might have been an option, but the tram system was a massively flawed project that isnt fit for purpose beyond it's link to the airport.

I mentioned going to gigs. It blows my mind that Edinburgh has such a poor live music scene compared to Glasgow. Big city with a decent sized student population and yet they rarely have decent gigs in Edinburgh,. Queens Hall is a decent venue. Thats pretty much it, although potentially the take over of Edinburgh Corn Exchange and it's rebranding as an )2 Academy venue might help.

Shopping isnt great either. You have a few interesting places. Assai have opened a record store in the city and there are a couple of others. You have stores like Penhaligon. But overall it always seemed to be a shite version of Glasgow - similar big store profile but just not as good. Too much of the place is devoted to tourist tat. There's really no reason to go through to Edinburgh for something a bit different because it doesnt really offer enough thats different. I'd be partially interested in the farmers markets if they were easier to get to (see car/parking issues above) but its just not worth the hassle when I can go to Perth for their market.

Tourist traps are everywhere in Edinburgh. The balance between tourist tat and stuff that the natives might actually want is off. Which seems strange since Edinburgh is increasingly a city that hates tourism. The council seem to want to hit back at the tourists despite it being a major source of income. Its difficult to some extent to avoid tourism in Edinburgh given that the castle dominates the city centre, but the abundance of tartan tat and shortbread tin pish is annoying.

Edinburgh as a capital city just doesnt seem to have the energy or diversity of other major capitals. It doesnt really have much that's definitively Edinburgh, other than the watered down Gold Star that they spray on the chips - and even then that's made on the outskirts of Glasgow. You look at Dundee getting the V&A and seeing the waterfront redeveloped and think that its a city thats improving. There's a very good chance that the redevelopment of Dundee with change it's image and will actually make it quite a nice place to be, You can't really say that about Edinburgh. For all that its got the national museum of Scotland and the festivals, the city itself isnt a particularly nice place to be for the majority of the time and that's increased during festival season when it becomes genuinely unpleasant to be in.