Edinburgh Open Doors weekend

Image via ifeecosse.org.uk

This weekend will consist of:
1) a baby shower
2) a children's party
3) a trip on a fire engine (if I play my cards right) courtesy one of my favourite free things to do in   Edinburgh.

For this weekend is Open Doors, the city's annual architectural event supported by Edinburgh's Civic Trust. This is when you can saunter into and choose to explore different buildings throughout Edinburgh which are mainly out of bounds to the public for the rest of the year.

Last year we visited the Lothian Region bus depot and rode around on old and new forms of transport, as well as open-top buses. This one is great for the kids. We also popped into the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop to check out the wonderful building there and meet the artists in residence. As previously mentioned, this year there has been a request to visit the Fire Service Museum. There looks to be a very good exhibition by Marseille-based photographer, Geoffroy Mathieu, at the Institut
Français d’Ecosse, too.

Make the most of it if you can, it comes but once a year.

In Another Country

Image via hancinema.net

Autumn is here and though we in Edinburgh are experiencing what I guess can be termed an Indian summer, it is almost time for us to start hibernating and dip into our stash of films that we have been saving up those chillier days.

In Another Country is my current recommendation for that time. By director Sang-Soo Hong, this minimalist comedy-drama is set in an undisclosed seaside town in South Korea. Slow-moving, cosy, with a quality that leaves you with a sense of detachment throughout (in a nice way), it also stars one of my favourite French actresses who, I feel, never disappoints. The graceful and ageless Isabelle Huppert plays the role of three different French women tourists, all called Anne, who in search of a mini lighthouse. Whilst having been met with mixed reviews, it was tipped for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.

I say no more and let you track it down to make you own mind up.

ahem

Walking around Venice this summer, we came across this poster. "Arrgh, why could we not have been in Paris for this?", we said, "Quick, take a photo anyway to show the folks back home". Such a line-up would have been a beauty to behold, right enough.

Turns out it was all a ruse. An elaborate fake by French-Portuguese graffiti artist, André. He posted this and others in several major cities around the world, some more obvious than others. Had we seen the one boasting Serge Gainsbourg, Boris Vian, Jacques Brel and Nina Simone, 'For One Night Only', we may not have been quite as foolish. I blame it on the sunshine.