The Little University on the Prairie

Apparently there is a plan in Scotland to pay students £8000 per year to study. Scottish students already have their fees paid by the taxpayer. The idea now is that they should be paid the equivalent of the "living wage" to study. This all begins to get rather expensive for the tax payer. But is it worth it?

A while back I came across an exam paper from the late nineteenth century. The task involved translating various passages from English literature into Ancient Greek. With a bit of effort I could imagine doing the reverse of this. Give me a few months, a dictionary and a grammar and I could probably make a stab at translating a bit of Plato or the Bible. But to translate Shakespeare into the language of Homer, to translate Milton into the language of Xenophon, this is a task I could not imagine being able to do.  Yet there were students from an unsung Scottish university able to do something that nearly all of us today would consider to be impossible.

We have a habit of looking down on the past as something superseded. Look at those awful late Victorians with their “white man’s burden” and their dreadful views about everything. How lucky we are to be so enlightened. How terrible it must have been for them to live in such darkness. But if you ever have the chance to read a work of scholarship from this period, you might be surprised to discover the level that was attained. Civil servants in India would produce scholarly editions of the Vedas as a hobby. Our man in Baghdad could actually speak fluent Arabic in various dialects and understood the history of the area and the people who lived there. It was for this reason that he could give sensible advice to the Government.

The reason these people could do these things is that university education in the late nineteenth century was of a very high standard indeed. Whatever people studied required hard work and serious intelligence. It didn’t much matter what someone studied, because any employer would immediately recognise that a degree from even the most humble Scottish university qualified someone to take on whatever burden was assigned. Does it do that now?

When I wander into the university library the first thing that I meet is a wall of sound. It may as well be Ronnie of the Ronettes telling me to be her baby for all that this present building resembles any previous place I have ever tried to study. I remember going to the University Library in Cambridge and finding silence. Anyone who spoke more than a couple of whispers immediately got a dirty look. No-one went to study with their friends. But we have progressed. Now we have a social space. Now we have collaborative learning. I would prefer frankly to leave collaborating to the French.

 I find myself frequently in a room where I am the only one actually reading a book. I open my book of Russian literature and begin reading. I continue doing this until I’ve read enough and leave. This is what I think studying is. But I am the only one doing it. The first thing that everyone else does when they enter the room is to open their laptop. They then open their mobile phone and proceed to switch attention from the one to the other until this becomes boring and they then proceed to chat with their friends. On the laptop is everything that they need to study. All the lecture notes have been written up with nice bullet points. Nearly everything that has to be read can be found on something called a “virtual learning environment”. It is rarely if ever necessary to even go and look for a book, let alone read it.

Some good work is still being done. Intelligence is a constant. The same proportion of the population is very able as was the case one hundred years ago. But a university degree no longer tells me that someone is even moderately able. Governments increased student numbers to such an extent that people with IQs of 100 and sometimes even less can obtain a degree. This logically follows from expanding numbers towards 50%. The standard has to be lowered otherwise those towards the bottom of the ability range would have to be kicked out. But this also means that those towards the top are unable properly to distinguish themselves from anyone else. It also means that there are courses I have come across where the set texts include Little House on the Prairie.

The tragedy is that I see able students who work hard, who find it impossible to get a job that is suitable for their ability. Sometimes they choose to do a further course to try to distinguish themselves, sometimes they start at the bottom doing a job they could have done at sixteen.  Many jobs that used to be done by school leavers now require five or more years of education, just to gain a piece of paper that is then used to set up a sort of closed shop to protect those who have it from competition.

Degrees that teach something objective have retained some of their merit. But many of the courses in the Arts and Social Sciences are simply teaching young people how to be unemployed. The problem is that far, far too many people are studying these courses. The only merit in medieval history or philosophy is that they provide a mental training that can then be transferred to for instance translating the Vedas or Shakespeare into Greek. But when you make these courses open to those of moderate ability they cease to provide a mental training for the ablest and cease to distinguish the ablest from the moderate. What then do they do? Well you might teach about life on the prairie in the nineteenth century America, but this won’t help you do anything and it won’t distinguish you from anyone else. Anyway we knew all of this already from watching television. 

The Arts and Social Sciences in particular have been taken over by the Left. We now have books dealing with Feminism in Spinoza and post colonialism in Macbeth. The only way to pass is to toe the party line. We now have safe spaces even and trigger warnings. Here's a warning. You are not going to like this blog. Whatever is the latest fad, we must import it. Dare not question it. Is this really worth paying so much for?

At some point in the near future someone is going to demand that I call them “ze” instead of “she” or “he”. Fair warning. I will laugh. I won't be able to restrain myself.  This is what is now coming out of our universities. We must accept without question and without argument whatever the latest left-wing fad is. But to accept in this way is to give up the ability to think for yourself. But the only purpose of going to university to study the Arts and Social Sciences is to question everything, argue about everything and think for yourself. Without this you have nothing and certainly nothing worth paying for.

Bought and sold for RT gold

Does it matter very much that Alex Salmond has chosen to appear on Russia Today (RT)? No. I sometimes glance at this site. It has a perspective, but then again so does the BBC, CNN and the New York Times. RT has a Russian perspective. It’s not a perspective we often have access to in the Western media, so in that sense RT can be useful. I find some of its reporting and opinion pieces to be very biased, but others are no worse than what we get in British newspapers or television. But then every story on every website has to be evaluated critically. The important point to remember is that RT is funded by the Russian Government and it has a goal. This goal is to further the interests and foreign policy objectives of Russia.

Does this make RT illegitimate? No. The BBC World Service likewise has a goal. Do you think that we fund radio programmes in obscure languages out of the goodness of our hearts? In Britain too I find that the BBC has a perspective that it relentlessly pushes. It is most often very fair and balanced in its coverage of politics, but at the heart of it all is political correctness. Most people, perhaps nearly everyone who works for the BBC believes in this or at least won’t question it. I doubt it would be possible to get a job if during an interview someone expressed doubts about aspects of feminism, gay marriage or climate change. So while it is possible to describe much of the coverage on RT as propaganda, so to it is equally possible to describe the BBC.

But why would Alex Salmond choose to appear on RT? It may be chance. He may simply have received an offer from the Russians. He lost his job earlier this summer and has the right to work where he pleases. But it might be worth reflecting for a moment on what he is doing.

During the Soviet Union various Labour politicians and Trade Union leaders made trips to see how socialism was working out. Many of them went to see a collective farm and reported back on how wonderfully it all was working out and how progressive and efficient it all seemed. When travelling around the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1930s they noticed no famine, nor in other parts of the Soviet Union did they notice any repression. This continued right up until the end of the Soviet Union. Various Labour politicians and trade union leaders supported Soviet foreign policy goals, such as nuclear disarmament and in return were given money by the Soviet state.

The Soviet Union was Britain’s enemy all through the Cold War. The greatest threat to our existence came from Moscow. We also, of course, were a threat to them. But let’s be clear. There is a word for siding with the enemy during wartime.

I think the West has made a terrible mess of relations with Russia since 1991. We have pushed the EU and NATO right up to Russia’s border and crossed Russian strategic red lines. There was a chance back in the early 1990s to include Russia in NATO and give it some sort of EU membership. We could have had a relationship of cooperation and friendship, but chose instead to continue the Cold War rivalry. No doubt the Russians were to blame also.

The Yeltsin years were humiliating.  Russians may have been treated with some friendship, the Americans even sent aid, but they were also treated as if they were all useless, second rate drunks.  The financial crisis of 1998 showed that democracy and free market economics could lead to poverty.  In order to avoid further descent they turned, or rather returned to the familiar pattern of leadership. Putin has brought Russia back to being something close to a great power again. But in doing so he has come into conflict with the West. He has become our enemy.

The final straw for the Russians was Ukraine. Just as the Americans would not allow missiles to be sited in Cuba, the Russians could not allow Ukraine to join the West. They fought to stop this and they won. But in return the Americans deliberately set out to wreck the Russian economy and achieved that goal. The rouble fell like a stone in 2014 and sanctions had an effect on the living standards of ordinary Russians. But at the same time Russian foreign policy was succeeding. Their intervention in Syria while brutal was the key to defeating ISIS. Russian intelligence actually understood what was going on because they had been in Syria for decades and spoke the language, knew the history and understood the differences between the people there. The CIA as usual understood nothing.

So not only is Putin an enemy, he is a dangerous enemy. His intelligence services are rather good and his military forces are superior to anything we can put in place. If Russia wanted to annex the Baltic States, it could do so almost instantly and there would be nothing we could do to stop them except drop nuclear weapons on Moscow.

The Russians didn’t take kindly to having their economy wrecked. Moreover they didn’t take kindly to how the West once more made a mess of the Middle East by first encouraging revolt in Libya and by means of that example enabling chaos in Syria. They were right of course. It is for this reason that the Russians are out for revenge.

Naturally Alex Salmond understands none of these things. He is bumptious, fanatical about Scottish independence, but not very bright. Putin like every other leader in history has made mistakes, but he is conducting foreign policy in a very clever way. Russian interests are being advanced, Russian power is being increased. Above all he is attempting to weaken the West.

One way in which the Russians are attempting to weaken the West is by encouraging secession movements abroad. The Russians have a rather paradoxical attitude to secession. It’s fine when it’s in Russia’s strategic interest, but otherwise it is forbidden. Thus Crimea is allowed to secede from Ukraine, but any attempt by Chechnya to secede from Russia will be crushed by force. Because Russia will crush by force any secession movement at home, it feels free to encourage, for example, the Catalans in their attempt to secede from Spain.

Spain, of course, is not exactly an important military power anymore and hasn’t really been since it lost its fleet in 1588. Britain on the other hand is rather more serious. We have nuclear weapons and we still have reasonable armed forces, despite David Cameron’s attempt to all but disband them.

Long term Mr Putin is trying to weaken the West and weaken NATO. What better way to do this than see Britain’s armed forces neutralised. If that happened in conjunction with renewed American isolationism, then NATO would cease to be a serious force. It would be left with the Germans and the French. At that point a dash from Smolensk to the Baltic coast in order to get back the Baltic States looks feasible.

So it isn’t accidental that the Russians would want Mr Salmond on their television screens. Mr Putin is happy to stir up trouble in Spain. He will give money, he will use the IT skills at his disposal to help the Catalan secessionists. It will be difficult to prove anything. Were the Russians really involved in the US Presidential Election? Did they interfere with the French presidential election? Who can say? But whatever they are doing they are doing it for a reason. They want to increase Russian power by destabilising the West.

Is Russia our enemy? Yes. I wish it wasn’t, but Russia is acting towards the West in general like a hostile power. I believe we should make peace with the Russians. Make a deal over Ukraine. But until that happens we are in the midst of a new Cold War. What is more Mr Putin has electronic means that were unavailable to his Soviet predecessors.  

So the Russians will give Mr Salmond a platform to preach secession. If he was a leader of a Russian Republic they would kill him for doing so. But that’s OK he is only trying to harm Britain. If he could only succeed in breaking up Britain Russia would have one less enemy to worry about.

Mr Salmond will probably do little harm. I can’t imagine many people wishing to watch his programme. But let us be clear, by taking Russian money and using it to peddle propaganda that the Russians are sympathetic too, he is acting in a rather ignoble tradition.

For long term strategic reasons the Russians would love to see the UK broken up. Russia is acting as a hostile power and is a strategic threat to our allies in Eastern Europe. Anyone who does not recognise this threat is simply uninformed. In any future elections the Russians are liable to take the side of those who hate Britain. They may try to interfere in our democracy too. Perhaps they already have. We must be clear about this. We look back on those who took Soviet money or who failed to see the awfulness of the Soviet Union as naïve, deluded fools or worse. Taking Mr Putin’s money is no better.

  

Bach’s wife

Many people think the greatest composer who ever lived was Johann Sebastian Bach.  There might be some debate about this. Some think Mozart was greater, others Beethoven. It doesn’t much matter. If you look at a list of the greatest composers these nearly always make up the top three. But who is the greatest female composer? Is there a woman composer who ranks with Bach? No. How many women composers would make a list of the top one hundred? Perhaps Hildegard von Bingen a medieval abbess might just sneak into the bottom of the list? Why should this be so?

The assumption made by feminists is that men and women are equal in every respect and that there is no real difference between us. For this reason whenever a difference occurs it must be explained as being not due to difference but due to something else. The absence of a female Shakespeare is explained by Virginia Wolfe as owing to the absence of a room of her own which the hypothetical sister of Shakespeare might have lived in. There is always someone or something else to blame for the lack of female success in any particular area. Usually the prime culprit is a man or men in general. There are no great female composers because women historically have been oppressed by a patriarchal society that prevented them from realising their talent.

The ability to blame someone else for your own failure is the key to that failure. Success is difficult to achieve, far, far easier to blame the dog for my failure to turn in my homework. If you give someone an excuse for failing do not be surprised when they grasp it. A struggling woman composer who is given a ready-made excuse that her failure is due to her sex will find that excuse far more palatable than that it is due to her lack of talent. This is the essence of the problem with feminism and one of the reasons why I am not a feminist. It provides a reason for female failure and someone else to blame other than the woman herself. It causes the failure.

If I count correctly Bach had twenty children. He had seven with his first wife Maria Barbara and thirteen with his second wife Anna Magdalena. Bach could achieve greatness and he still had the time to father twenty children. How could he possibly have done this? Could a woman have given birth to twenty children and still have had time to achieve greatness as a composer? My guess is that this would simply be impossible. While being pregnant it would be difficult to focus on composing and while looking after all these children it likewise would have been difficult to pay complete attention to your latest string quartet. Nappies and notes do not mix well.

The reason for the absence of female composers is probably due to the difficulty of combining motherhood with composing. But as many women know there is a difficulty in combining anything with motherhood. Having children is a full time job. It’s not the lack of a room that prevented Shakespeare’s sister from writing her plays, it’s that she married and looked after many children. If she hadn’t married she might like Jane Austen have become the greatest English novelist, but instead she chose to create something more important than novels. She created people.

I disagree with feminism and any other ism that strives for equality, because it fails to admit that there are real differences between people and classes of people. I don’t think that women are better than men, nor worse. We are different. Any particular woman is not limited in her talent and has the potential to be the greatest composer who ever lived. But it is contrary to experience to suggest that women and men in general have exactly the same talents. We don’t.

The fundamental difference between men and women is that only women can give birth. It is this general ability that defines who is a woman. It is this likewise which makes it ludicrous to suppose that someone can simply become a woman on a whim.  Approximately half the population can have children while half cannot. This is the difference that is at the heart of human nature. Disaster and nonsense follows if we ignore it. If a society wishes to continue, it is necessary that most women have children and ideally more than two. When Bach was composing many children died either in childhood or due to infant illnesses. It is partly for this reason that his wives had so many children. It was partly also because they didn’t have much choice. But the result was that Germany in Bach’s time did not face the problems that it faces today.

Partly because of feminism and partly because of the pill, Germany is slowly committing suicide. If you look at a list of countries by fertility rate, Germany comes somewhere near the bottom. Every German woman on average gives birth to around 1.4 children. In order for the German population to increase, this rate needs to be around 2.1. Germans are living longer than anyone else in their history, but the number of young Germans who are paying taxes to look after these elderly Germans is falling.

In most of the First World there is exactly the same problem. Japan also has a falling population because Japanese women give birth to on average only 1.5 children. But there is a difference. While the population of Japan may decline and this may bring with it major difficulties, the Japanese population will remain essentially the same. It will stay Japanese. The reason for this is that like other First World Asian countries, the percentage of the Japanese population who are from elsewhere is tiny.

In the Europe and the United States, on the other hand, we have responded to low birth rates by trying to import the missing part of our population. In many parts of the developing world there is a very high average birth-rate. It may not be as high as that of Bach’s wives, but there are many places where women have on average families of five, six or even seven children.

Where is Germany to find the missing children that German women don’t give birth to? It can’t very well get all of them from other European countries, because in practically every European country women have low birth rates. So Germany must look outside Europe.

If you continue long enough down this route, do you still have Germany? Perhaps, but Bach would recognise little about this future Germany. He might not even understand the language spoken.

If there is a solution, it is this. European governments have to make it easier for women to have children. It makes no sense to have free healthcare but not to have free childcare. There is no point spending billions on defence if there is no longer going to be a country to defend thirty or forty years from now. Women have a unique talent: the ability to create life. This is more important than all the symphonies ever written. Bach’s wives did not become great composers, but they gave birth to them. Not only to them, they gave birth to all the generations that followed them. We must pay women to have children or else pay their husbands enough to look after them. We must respect motherhood as the most crucial of roles in society. We must also accept that it simply is not possible to combine composing and childbearing.

Feminism is trying to turn women into men. It is saying we can only be great if we do what men do. But this is to misunderstand that our essence is to do what men cannot do. Women and men should not be limited. We should have the same opportunity and potential and the ability to choose what we do or do not do. But it is vital that we accept that there are inherent differences. The feminist attempt to eradicate this difference and insist that there is absolute equality between men and women means that women are unable or unwilling to fulfil the one role that we alone can fulfil. The role of the mother is more crucial to society than the frivolity of composing. If we had more women like Bach’s wife there would be no demographic crisis in Europe and no need to import people from elsewhere. But instead we prefer to elect women who will never have children and look to them and others like them as the example to be followed. We then complain about the immigration that results from this childlessness. Neither of Bach’s wives was a feminist. If they had been, there would have been no Bach. In striving to make people the same feminism instead sows discord and division. Instead of making people equal it strives to make one half of humanity superior. Far from improving the lot of women, feminism makes them barren, far from being a productive way of thinking it is quite sterile.

The trial of Effie Deans

Imagine if thirty years ago someone had been murdered in Cambridge. Suddenly the police arrive and knock on my door and accuse me of being the murderer. They take me into custody, question me and eventually charge that on the night of November 4th 1987 I did wilfully and with malice aforethought murder one Scott Walters.  What would I say in my defence?

The trial of Effie Deans

I might say that I’m fairly sure I was in Cambridge on that particular night, but I don’t remember anything else about it. All that I can remember is that I didn’t murder anybody. At this point no doubt I would get someone to defend me. What would my lawyer ask?

He would no doubt begin asking the police about their evidence. Do they have any DNA linking me to the crime? No. Do they have any objects, possessions or fibres of clothing linking me to the murder? No. Do they have any witnesses? No. Do they have a confession? No. Do they in fact have any evidence at all? No. Is there a case for me to answer? Obviously not. This we should hope is the same for every crime.

If I am to be accused of grievous bodily harm or burglary or even cheating in my exams there has to be evidence even for a case to be investigated. What’s more in order for me to be put on trial this evidence ought to be such that it can potentially convince beyond a reasonable doubt.

But what if I said that Scott Walters put his hand on my knee or groped my breasts while we were both at the college disco or even that we both got drunk and went to bed without my consenting to this? What then?

Likewise I should be able to provide evidence. Is there any DNA evidence? No. Are there any witnesses? No. Although lots of people were there at the college disco, no-one can remember that particular night in 1987. Is there any other sort of evidence? No. All that there is my testimony that Scott Walters did something awful in 1987.

Should the police investigate? What if Scott Walters says he hardly remembers me? We were at college at the same time, but he can’t even remember what I looked like. Alternatively what if he says that he did indeed sleep with me? He can remember it clearly, but it was consensual.

I might disagree with Scott Walters. I might say he was violent and afterwards I had bruises all over my body because of his assault. The police might then ask me do you have any photographs? No. Are there any witnesses to these bruises? No. Did you tell anyone at the time? No. Are there witnesses to your being distressed? No. Did you go to a doctor or a nurse? No. There is only conflicting testimony and memories that differ.

Under these circumstances is there a case? No. During a trial there is a commonly an accuser and an accused. If people could be relied on always to tell the truth there would be no need for trials at all. Law as we know it would never have developed at all. We would simply ask people to tell the truth and they would do it.

But, because people commonly tell lies we need evidence. If someone says I was assaulted last night we can find witnesses, we can find DNA we can find fibres or whatever, but we just can’t do this thirty years later.

It is for this reason that we ought not to even attempt to investigate let alone try such crimes if they occurred at such a remote time that there is no longer any possibility of finding evidence. It may or may not be the case that a crime occurred on November 4th 1987, but we unfortunately have no means of discovering the truth.

If I reported that my house was burgled thirty years ago, but that I have no witnesses to the crime and no evidence of damage or even that anything was taken, then I’m sorry but there is not going to be any sort of investigation. Whether or not there was a crime, there is just no evidence. It was all repaired or replaced long ago. There is therefore no case to answer.

Something very ugly however is happening at the moment. We are attempting to convict people without evidence, purely on the basis of testimony. In no other form of criminal investigation would this be considered an acceptable method of arriving at the truth. The best way, indeed the only way to arrive at justice is to make each case depend solely on the evidence. When we convict when there is a lack of evidence or even insufficient evidence to overcome a reasonable doubt then we are certain to have miscarriages of justice.

Sexual assault is an emotive subject, but it must be investigated and tried just like any other serious crime. There has to be evidence beyond a reasonable doubt in order for us to be certain that a conviction is justified. If a sexual assault occurs of whatever kind, the person assaulted should report it immediately. This will enable the police to collect evidence, gather statements from any witnesses and look for physical evidence that might still be available. But it cannot possibly be enough that I say he assaulted me, while he says he didn’t. I might be lying or seeking revenge, or trying to extort something. It is human to lie. We are all potential liars.

It cannot also be enough to say I was drunk. No doubt Scott Walters was drunk too. Did I obtain consent from him before sexually assaulting him? Maybe he didn’t want to have sex with me and woke up the next morning regretting it. But like many inhibited British people we had drunken sex. This happens every night on numerous occasions in Britain and between thousands of long term couples. Do we all sexually assault each other because we were all incapable of giving consent? If so we are potentially going to have to turn Britain into one rather large prison. Which of us has never had sex while rather drunk? Go ahead, you throw the first stone.

We live in a permissive society where people meet strangers and immediately have sex with them. This very permissiveness depends on us requiring evidence that sexual assaults have occurred beyond a reasonable doubt. Otherwise who would dare sleep with a stranger? If everyone I sleep with can accuse me of sexual assault based on no more than his testimony, then it would be irrational to sleep with anyone. It could send me to jail for years. This is no longer permissive. It rapidly becomes puritanical even tyrannical.

In order to determine whether a sexual assault has occurred we need the same standards of evidence as any other crime. What are these? We need witnesses, DNA evidence, physical evidence, or confession. We need something objective.

People’s lives and reputations are being ruined because of a simple accusation without any further evidence. Other people are being sent to jail simply because someone said they did something and they cannot prove that they didn’t. We would not allow this situation to exist with regard to any other crime, but somehow we have allowed a situation to develop where the mere accusation of any sort of sexual assault is enough to ruin the life of the one accused. This is unjust. This is dangerous.

I’m sorry but if you were sexually assaulted and there was evidence of it at the time, you ought to have gone to the police. Now that there is no evidence apart from your testimony, there is nothing to investigate. A crime worthy of a long prison sentence may have occurred all those years ago, but whatever evidence there was has long since disappeared. There can be no trial, because there is no evidence. There is no case.

We take as evidence that a serious crime has occurred that people immediately report them. My failure to report a burglary thirty years ago suggests that there may not have been a burglary or that I realised that although there definitely had been a burglary I had no evidence beyond my own testimony that it occurred. But if I didn’t have sufficient evidence thirty years ago, how can I expect to have it now. The fact that lots of people are suddenly accusing others of crimes does not lessen the requirement that I supply objective evidence.   

An ugly witch hunt is happening at the moment. People are being encouraged to make accusations based only on their own testimony without any other tangible evidence. They are described as being brave for doing this. This encourages more and more people to be brave. The mob whips itself up into a frenzy looking for new victims. The mob requires no more evidence than testimony. To accuse is the same as to condemn.

Halloween is past. Let us call off the witch hunt. Rather let the police investigate and if there is sufficient evidence try each case in the courts. But an accusation is not proof of guilt. The assumption of innocence and the requirement to convict only when we are without reasonable doubt is the foundation of the rule of law. The freedom to live our lives without fear of arbitrary arrest depends on it.  Without it we have no justice at all and no way of avoiding miscarriages of justice. Let us be clear. The foundation of the law is evidence. Without it we don’t have law. We have mere arbitrariness and the whim of the police, the caprice of a judge. Evidence is the only thing I have to defend myself with. Without it I have no defence.  But evidence cannot simply be that I remember that you did this to me thirty years ago. It cannot even be you did this to me last night, but I have no further evidence than my assertion. If that is going to be enough to send people to jail, then we will all very quickly fear the law rather than feel protected by it.

We look back upon the courts of the eighteenth century which tried my fictional namesake with horror because their laws were brutal and their punishments worse. But at least there was the rule of law when Effie Deans was tried. If I can be tried today and convicted in an atmosphere of hysteria without any evidence except someone else’s testimony I might wonder whether it might not be better to be locked up in the Heart of Midlothian waiting for my appointment in the Grassmarket.