The Use of the Apostrophe in Leith
by - 21:43 on 18 October 2007
But sometimes even the most awe-struck visitor must look beyond the castle ramparts and think that another Scotland lies beyond Edinburgh. (Actually, I don’t know. I once sat in the bar of the city’s Sheraton and got talking to a couple of elderly US visitors. When I asked them if they had visited the castle, they said ‘what castle?’ I pointed out the window to the fortress that blocked the view and filled the skyline. The moral is: never assume anyone knows anything in this business.)
More recently, Leith – at least, the old Leith – had its profile raised, whether it liked it or not, by the movie ‘Trainspotting’ (1996). This unhappy linkage to drug-taking was actually predicted in the romantic poet Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ in its opening lines ‘…as though of hemlock I had drunk,/ Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains/ One minute past, and Leithe-wards had sunk’ though this is not usually mentioned in those poncy ‘Literary Edinburgh’ tours.
However, all of that, in turn, has been swept aside and the place is very smart these days. The royals’ old yacht ‘Britannia’ helped in the renaissance, though I always think it looks really small parked next to the shopping experience of Ocean Terminal. There is also a whole clutch of bistros and restaurants to back up this massive building programme and revitalisation.
Even the old ice-factory where I once worked as a student has vanished entirely and has become swish modern flats. (I packed squid there for a summer. Yes, honestly. The squid were caught off Rockall in the Atlantic by Granton trawlers and landed locally to be packed into waxed cardboard boxes by a bunch of militant students. The squid were then exported to Spain, and fed, presumably, to unsuspecting British tourists as a local delicacy. It was so long ago that I distinctly recall we used to write insulting slogans about General Franco underneath the box lids. Ah, simple pleasures.)
Near the site is a fine hotel – one of those places that boasts the provenance of its foodstuffs on its menus. (Sorry, what I mean is, it tells you where things come from.) Mr Browns (sic) pigs(sic) trotters. Local cheesemakers (sic) old-sock-matured cheddar. You know the sort of thing. I hope I’m not making too much of this – but I’m never encouraged by an apostrophe-free menu. I mean, an apostrophe in the right place suggests attention to detail. (Typical bloody copywriter.) Anyway: there followed the worst lunch I’ve had in ages. Soggy, oily crepes and curious ship’s biscuit-like base for a tartlet-thingy which ricocheted everywhere when cut. Is there a correlation between fingers-crossed cooking (we’ll get away with it because we’re trendy) and sloppy ungrammatical menus? Or is it just that it doesn’t matter because there’s sure to be a new customer along in a minute?
Comment by keith newton at 20:14 on 14 December 2007.
I have become ever more enamoured by Leith since my son and his family move d there. It is a fascinating walk down the Walk from top of the walk to the foot. A place that is changing but hanging on to its roots. Let Leith prosper!
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