On Friday, I set off on a three-day trip to Edinburgh, to stay with mine old schoolfriend Smill (who's currently doing her fourth year an Engineering degree at university there) and meet longterm online friend Katherine F (who's doing a Masters degree in Philosophy there) for the first time.

Smill, it turns out, lives a few doors away from a goth clothing shop! How fortunate it is that I did not accept my offer from Edinburgh University, or I might have ended up living with her and being even more poverty stricken than I already am! Luckily, however, I have recently reached the unsettling point of being almost entirely happy with my wardrobe and was immune to its charms.

(I would rather like a pair of mid-calf New Rocks, for the days when I get concerned I look too much like a lion tamer in my knee-high ones. But when my parents saw that my big boots collection had doubled since last we met, I promised them I wouldn't buy any more until the next decade. But who's to say decades don't start in years ending with 5?)

I spent Friday afternoon looking round the Museum of Scotland, on the grounds that it could hardly be closer to Smill's flat and it was free to get in. (Naturally, in the years Smill has been living there, she has never been, even though museum-going should be in her family, as her Dad works as a curator.) There was an impressive amount of stuff in it, but rather too much information. My normal museum-going practise is to read all the labels, but there seemed to be several novels' worth present. The top storey was also highly bizarre: it was a 20th century exhibition, so I was expecting to see some war paraphenalia and 30s posters (how I love them!) and stuff, but instead, it was, "Things we thought represented the 20th century." Like blu tac and sportswear, which I've seen quite a lot of times already. I understand preserving such things, for the benefit of future generations, but not displaying them to us lot.

I also went into the neighbouring free Royal Museum, where I found myself surrounded by stuffed animals, and I don't mean teddy bears. These were all looked very impressive, and I found a Komodo Dragon, something I've long wondered about, but I feel somewhat uncomfortable about the existence of such objects and left quickly.

In the evening, Smill, myself and her flatmate went to see "Sean Of The Dead". I had no idea what it would be like, and when I asked Smill if she knew what it was about, she answered, "It's about a bloke." But it proved an entertaining use of ninety nine minutes, though far too self-consciously British to be truly great.

While we were there, we saw a poster for a film called "50 First Dates". As anyone with the slightest knowledge of New Model Army will agree, this is the best film title ever.

Afterwards, I dreamed that online friend Sergej had hacked into my livejournal account and added a Beercart Arms community to my friends list, and Vicky o Canterbury and myself went to a party held in a giant hot tub filled with lava.

On Saturday, I met up with Katherine F. Which was nice. We had lunch and wandered around for a while, passing a shop that sold Victorian lace undergarments. (To who?)

We passed Melanie, Formerly Of UKC! Now, it's bizarre enough that I should unexpectedly run into anyone I know in a city over a hundred miles from everywhere I've lived, but someone I went to UKC with and THEN saw at The Wendyhouse in Leeds? We can't decide who's following who.

In the evening, I went on a ghost tour with Smill and her boyfriend, apparently the best one going. And verily, it was somewhat creepy and incredibly entertaining. Until we came to the tomb containing a poltergeist.

Now, apparently, this thing really does exist. The section of the graveyard is locked off to the public and only this tour gets to go inside. A couple of people on tours in the past have been "inductors" (people poltergeists try to possess), and nearly 200 have been knocked unconscious by it, many others experience sudden drops in temperature and bruises and scratches the next day.

I don't believe in the supernatural. I acknowledge that so-called "supernatural activity" occurs, but I think there's a scientific explanation for it we don't yet fully understand. But even if there are poltergeists and they're dangerous, they're hovering at about number ten thousand in List Of Things That Scare Me, below chavs, fire alarms and seahorses.

Nonetheless, I was feeling somewhat uneasy about the situation, but not overly so. Nothing like how I felt while watching "Eyes Wide Shut" and the earliest bit of "Jeepers Creepers", both of which bothered me at a profound level to a mostly inexplicable extent. And surely I felt no worse than anyone else on the tour. I listened to the tale of rats and cats gnawing through human bodies quite happily, and wasn't concerned to hear there were so many bodies in the graveyard that we were effectively standing on top of a mountain of corpses.

And yet, in the tomb, I suddenly felt slightly nauseous and my vision became pixelated and the face of the guide was lost in darkness. Smill noticed my distress and pushed me to the front of the crowd, where I felt better for a bit, and then it happened again. Since I suspected passing out would soon follow, I got out of there. I felt fine and immediately recalled a similar experience when I saw Motorhead and assured the tour guide that this was just something that happened to me now and again.

But was it? At the Motorhead gig, it was evidently brought on by sipping a little water while I was very hot and somewhat dehydrated. My fear here had made me a bit thirsty, but not very much so; I felt fine outside the tomb. Both places were dark, but darkness doesn't bother me. Both places were crowded, but I don't mind crowds if they're stationary, and I was stood at the edge of the crowd here, rather than being crushed in the middle. Leeds Student Union had music, bright lights and a lot of heat; none of these were here.

So, all a bit weird. I definitely got my money's worth.

On Sunday, I looked round some more of the Royal Museum and walked down Princes Street. I wasn't expecting there to be a parade along it, but there was. I watched it for a bit, then foolishly went into a book shop, found a book I wanted in a three-for-two offer, and of course ended up indulging.

I have a rather distinct idea of what Scotland should "feel" like and Scotland has always felt pleasantly Scottish on my visits and when I've seen it in books and films. But Edinburgh was feeling disappointingly English for most of my stay. Even the parade seemed to be "what English people expect to see and hear of Scotland", whereas I like my Scottishness unselfconscious.

But just before it was time for me to depart, Smill's boyfriend drove us around Leith and Granton. Yes! Genuine Irvine Welsh country! [For those of you who didn't know me in 1999, my love for Irvine Welsh's first four books is boundless; they are about life as I know it, the written equivalent of The Smiths.] It didn't disappoint.

And then we went up onto a hill, and could see the whole city spread around us, hills on one side, sea to the other. A most excellent ending to a thoroughly enjoyable trip.

And, on a completely different note: today, I was walking across campus, when some boys on bikes came up and mocked me senselessly, in the way of all chavs.

But then one of them shouted, "Are you going to the café? For a cup of GOFFee?" I was truly stunned by the utter inoffensiveness of this comment, the level of word play involved (very impressive by chav standards!), and the fact that they'd even identified my subculture correctly! (I normally get "grunger!" and sometimes "hippie!" Of course, I'm really a death metaller, but I was wearing a Siouxsie t-shirt at the time, so looked every bit the goth.) Usually, I walk away from such experiences depressed by the stupidity of youth, but this one left me smiling for some minutes.