This weekend: went to Edinburgh to stay with UKC-friend ibid. She lives among hideous dirty grey 60s blocks of flats, but isn't far from the city centre, has a fantastic view, palatial living room and a playground essentially outside her door, which we of course took advantage of.

We:

a) Wandered around a lot, rating each street by how well it compared to the Edinburgh of our minds. Happily, the city performed a lot better than it did when I was last there. Our strollings encompassed typical landmarks, back alleys, free museums, shops, tennis courts and graveyards.

In case you needed further evidence of my lunacy, I bought a Children of Bodom longsleeve (I'm not a fangirl - I just only owned one black long-sleeved top beforehand and it was getting boring not to mention smelly in this eighteen-month winter), CDs by The Misfits, The Ramones and Deicide, a second hand book about Russian peasant education in the late nineteenth century, a novel based on the author's experiences in child welfare in the 50s which promises to be supremely irritating (for 40p), a novel that actually has the phrase "innocent abroad" on the cover and promises to be perhaps the most poorly written novel ever (also 40p), and a copy of "Seven And The Ragged Tiger" by Duran Duran, as it was a mere pound and on vinyl. No, I don't have a record player, and yes, I have been selling off my Duran Duran CDs lately, but there's something about Duran Duran vinyl that just demands me to buy it: this is my third piece.

b) Went to Vain, a goth night. (When Ibid's housemate's friend asked if we knew a Vain regular, she said we'd never been before, which of course prompted the comment, "Ah, Vain virgins!") As I said a few entries ago, I've gone off goth nights of late, but I highly recommend this one. While in a student union, it didn't feel anywhere near as student uniony as Leeds'. The music was rather too biased towards the darkwave for my liking, but it was all highly danceable. They played Human League's "The Sound Of A Crowd" which I used to listen to when I was about ten: this was probably the first time I've heard it at a club, but it worked well, and verily, the people looked good and the music was loud. Further, it was well-attended without being packed and while there were odd appearances from normal people at other events in the building, Edinburgh students seem to fall happily between being studenty students (sad) and trendy students (pathetic). A bloke spent a very long time trying to convince me that Carlisle was in fact a great place because the Roman wall ends there.

Proof that it's a small world #31702342: Geth, who I met in York, was there. He met Ibid a few weeks ago.

I didn't get particularly drunk (despite proper student union prices - yay!), but enough so to surely terrify everyone I spoke to. Sorry-if-you-read-this, I'm not usually that disturbing, honest!

Afterwards, in the kebab shop, two men in kilts started slagging us off for being English and not liking The Libertines. Ibid was delighted to have been the victim of racism!

c) Watched "The Crimson Pig" (Anime, cool), "Kiki's Delivery Service" (Anime, sweet) and "Heart Of Glass" (Werner Herzog, beautifully shot but totally off the wall) on DVD, and the Metallica documentary "Some Kind Of Monster" at the cinema.

I'm not much of one for Metallica. Though I acknowledge the mid-era stuff was brilliant songwriting, it irritates me. The early stuff was obviously groundbreaking and far from primitive, and yet to my mind hasn't stood the test of time as well as that of some of its contemporary albums: later bands have in various ways improved on them, but there's still particular genius in them that seemingly no one is going to be able to imitate, much less better. And what I've heard of their later work I don't like.

But I heard it was a good film to see, anyway, and it was interesting enough. Impressions: Kirk is a dude, Lars and James are supremely irritating, the latest album is better than I was led to believe, but I don't think much of their creative process. If "St. Anger" was such a struggle to write, why bother at all? Dave Mustaine apparently hated the bias in his appearance, but I thought he came across as sympathetic enough and noticeably more erudite than anyone else. And the fans destroying their Metallica albums on account of the Napster thing? Lame. If I got rid my albums whose perpertrators' deeds I wasn't wholly convinced of the rightness of, I'd have no CDs left. (But more on that another day - I'm really struggling to draw the line between "if the music's good, who cares what the band do?" and "I really can't justify showing any sort of support towards these geens.")

d) Continued to plan Our Masterpieces. I can say no more, other than come 2050 (spending about a week per year together doesn't do much for production rates) the world won't know what's hit it...