Well Readinburgh

Walking around Edinburgh it's easy to see how this atmospheric town would inspire great novels. From spooky castles to backstreet boozers to university lecture rooms, every corner seems to suggest a story or have a history rich enough for a bestseller.

Any tour of the city's should start at the Writer's Museum, which covers Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. Downstairs there's a cabinet made by Deacon Brodie, a nefarious character whose life informed Stevenson's work. A mild-mannered cabinetmaker by day, Brodie had a double life that saw him in brothels and gambling dens most nights. To pay off his debts he took on a nocturnal life of crime, robbing around town for two years before being caught plundering the General Excise Office. According to local legend, he ended up being hung on a gallows which ironically he'd designed and built. Stevenson was fascinated with the tale writing a play, Deacon Brodie or the Double Life which was a draft for his novel of dual identities, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Stevenson was just one of a number of graduates of Edinburgh University to pen novels. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, commemorated with a statue of the most famous proponent of the deerstalker, was a classmate of Stevenson. Many believe that Doyle based Sherlock Holmes on a university lecturer, Dr Joseph Bell, who encouraged keen observation as a way of diagnosing patients and may even have muttered "It was elementary" to explain his more brilliant pieces of medicine.

Recently another writer looked to Edinburgh for inspiration. A single mum sat drinking

coffee in the Elephant House cafe and while her

daughter slept wrote a manuscript that must have been inspired by Edinburgh's magical castle. In 2005 JK Rowling would return the favour to the city with packed reading of her Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince from Edinburgh Castle. The fame of this place has become so great that other cafes have apparently put up signs saying "JK Rowling didn’t write anything here".

Less fantastic, the hard-boiled writer Ian Rankin bases his Detective Reebus novels in Edinburgh: the crime-solver has eaten at Fenwick's and usually solves his cases in the grungy grandeur of the Oxford Bar. Rebus has become so popular that Rankin has written a non-fiction book, Rebus's Scotland: A Personal Journey
, in which he follows his own fictional detective around and makes the odd stop at a distillery.

But for real grit-lit, you have to make for Leith to get a peek into Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. A great authentic tour I went on takes you inside film locations, to Welsh's flat and even into Sick Boy's Pub. Not quite your teaspoon of heroin? Then there's always a literary pub crawl of Central Edinburgh with the literary pub crawl hosted by two characters that represent the dual natures of Edinburgh's writing - Professor McBrain and Clart, a Scottish slang word for muck.

Three Melbourne Art Galleries

If you ask any other Australian what they think of Melbournians, the word 'arty' comes up as often as 'coffee'. We're known for our black skivvies as much as our long blacks. On Saturday we went out on an art safari taking in three very different galleries which confirmed this reputation, but also stretched it to breaking point.

First up was Heide gallery – the sprawling property of the Boyd family which is a daytrip in itself. The Modern Times exhibition currently visiting from Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum races through Australian modernism (1917-1967). I was impressed to see the size of Australia’s involvement in this world art movement and even more pleased to hear they've developed a podtour to help you visit. Early in the exhibition a snapshot of Albert Tucker in Jack Kerouac’s New York apartment gives you an idea of Australia’s artistic influence. It’s a good companion to the current Brack exhibition. Swimwear and swim culture are a little over-represented, so bigger trends in architecture don't get quite enough time. But I was surprised to see Canberra’s Academy of Sciences (better known to ANU students as the Martian Embassy) in the same context as the Opera House – both use the sphere as their model apparently. A collection of Australian jazz records on the daggy Swaggie label also point to a much bigger culture than couldn't quite be squeezed into Heide’s space.

But size isn’t everything as Hell Gallery proves. It’s squashed into a backyard and first story of a house next door to Coles. The space is well taken advantage of by Dan Moyihan’s current exhibit: In and Out and No Funny Business. The artist has installed his version of a heist of the nearby supermarket complete with a mocked hole through the wall into the freezer. A spray of frozen peas shows the successfulness of the project. We were lucky to be there as the artist himself wandered through, blushing and bemused. He told us the grungy tools-down staff room the thieves have set up was a result of ‘many smokos I’ve suffered through’.

Finally on the way home we stopped off at Smith Gallery – a newer place in Melbourne's inner west. We’d gotten a flyer about Elizabeth Wirth’s exhibition but couldn’t work out how her spidery images were conceived. With an absence of family photographs, the artists has re-imagined them using lace and other fabrics. The effect is eerie black and white portraits sketched out in webs of material that are unpicked to their component materials as you get closer. You can only get the effect by seeing it, which really should be the aim of any gallery – to get you to spend your Saturday stretching the senses towards art.

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State of Papers

Running underneath the recent film State of Play there's a struggle between old and new media. It's represented by grizzled newspaper hack, Cal McAffrey (Rusty Crowe), and up-and-coming blogger, Della Frye (Rachel McAdams). The two spar with their different approaches to a meaty political story (with a few nods to All The President's Men) as McAffrey wisecracks about 'bloggers and bloodsuckers' rushing inaccurate stories to the web, while his editor (a suitably cranky Helen Mirren) points out that bloggers are cheap and file copy hourly.

It's a grim insight into the changing world of media and one that's being played out daily if not hourly. A recent post, sorry, story in The Australian takes aim at Australian political bloggers for not breaking stories but 'obsess[ing] about the mainstream media and their reporting'. There's a waggling of a finger at 'group-think' which creates self-involved communities where there is 'not only no room for news, but no tolerance of new ideas'. It seems an odd charge in a piece that doesn't allow users to comment or respond.

Another oddity for an article about online culture is that there are no links to the sites it mentions. Perhaps the newspaper is hoarding its traffic to replace physical sales or is it that articles aren't subbed for online publication to include features like links, comments or even an image? If old media is going to take a swipe online at new media, it probably should work out a few of the rules for writing online. Otherwise they're coming to a gunfight with a bow and arrow.

A real downside of this article as an online piece is that it has no context. Author Christian Kerr is an ex-Crikey writer and Liberal party ex-staffer, which you'd know if you read his column regularly but not if you just Googled your way here or came in through a link from another blog (of which there are so many - is this piece trawling the very blog audiences it attacks?). More importantly this piece should be filed under opinion or column, but it loses these labels on the web. But that might be just another concern of what he calls the 'fair-trade, rainforest alliance-certified, decaff and soy brigade'.

The Hollywood ending of State of Play has Frye deciding that the big stories need to be read 'with newsprint on your hands' and McAffrey shares his byline with the young journalist kickstarting her career. It's a nice passing of the baton but McAffrey hasn't really changed his approach much. He gets a rallying speech about the importance of old reporting, its thoroughness and deeper research, which he believes audiences still appreciate.

As a media buddy movie, it feels like one character has learnt and grown while the other has had their approach vindicated and hence doesn't change. The Australian's staff won't be choking on their popcorn at this conclusion. The final scenes are a loving treatment of the news story actually going to press - complete with old-school plates and huge rolls of paper fed into the vast machinery. The audience stayed glued to the whole process running into the end credits - as though witnessing a museum exhibit.

Is This Your Luggage: A Q&A with Luna Laboo

Ever wondered what people pack when they go away? How do they cram their dreams, their fantasies and their toiletries into a single suitcase? At Is This Your Luggage, the mysterious Luna Laboo opens cases and shows us what's inside. Part art-project, part-philanthropy, totally weird, LL buys lost cases at auction then photographs them for display on the internet in the hope of finding their owners. It's a story that interested me so I did a Q&A and found out that people rarely pack shoes and how hanky folding can show character.

Hackpacker: What made you start collecting and photographing other people's luggage?
Luna Laboo: Loads of luggage went missing when they opened a new terminal at Heathrow airport. I saw a few news reports on it and started to wonder what happened to it all. I discovered through the internet where it was being sold at auction and went along to buy a case.

HP: Are there ever items that you don't photograph when you open up some luggage (and why)?
LL: No. I photograph everything in the case, I think the airports take certain items out, like liquids for security reasons. I very rarely find shoes, I don't really know why.

HP: The luggage all looks fairly generic on the site - what makes you bid on some items and not on others? I noticed, for example, that there seem to be more women's cases - is that just accidental or do you look for something when you're bidding?
LL: On the auction list the only thing it says about the luggage is if it is women's or men's clothes. I don't pick luggage on what it looks like I just bid for all the cases and end up with the cheaper ones. They sell for between £16 and £60 so I have to have a limit I don't spend more than £30. I do try to get an even amount of men and women, so hopefully my next case will be men's and even it out.

HP: Have you ever found something you've been tempted to keep?
LL: Not really, there are some nice clothes in the bags, even some brand new clothes, but they are not mine they belong to the owners and it would be wrong for me to wear them.

HP: What's the weirdest thing you've seen when you've opened a bag?
LL: The nurse's outfit was a bit of a shock, but it's little things that are unusual or interesting. Like how they have folded all their hankies differently or balled all their socks with the odd pair. These things aren't really weird just interesting, these people didn't ever imagine that I would end up with their luggage so all these little things are insights into them.

HP: There's a very meticulous method to laying things out when you photograph items - even dirty socks are paired and straightened. Why is that?
LL: I want it to be clear what the contents are, I also really like the display element. A bit like butterflies in those gruesome boxes when their little wings are stretched out. The design of the images was very important to me, I wanted this everyday stuff to look special.

HP: To me each case seems to give little character insights into its owner - Blue case big, for example, has mostly boxers and some small carpets making for an odd traveller. You call another bigman which seems a nod to character. Do you find yourself imagining characters based on the luggage?
LL: Yes. I make stories up for all of them. They are all very real people to me, weirdly I feel like I know them. I was going was going to put them on the site but then I think people should be free to make their own stories up.

HP: Has anyone ever used them as writing prompts for short fiction?
LL: Not as far as I know. I have been asked to make a book of the pictures so I was planing on putting my stories of what they are like to me and how they came to loose their luggage in that.

HP: So far no-one has claimed their luggage from the site - what do you imagine will happen when they do? Will you meet them in person?
LL: I was going to mail the luggage back to them but as it has taken a while to find someone (no real owners have come forward yet) I have decided to fly with the luggage to meet the owner and hopefully to photograph them and find out what they are really like.

HP: Given the site has had a fair amount of international exposure - have you had any scammers tried to reclaim luggage?
LL: One or two, but they are quite sweet really. One guy claimed a case and when I asked him for more info he apologised said he was drunk and had been dared to email me.

HP: I love the site's look with luggage labels as navigation and a real simplicity. Was this so it could be easily expanded?
LL: Mainly it is simple because it is the first web site I have ever made. I am a designer of sorts but not a web designer, so I am very glad you like it. I did want to keep it simple so people were interested in the cases not any fancy stuff (not that I know how to do the fancy stuff.)

HP: Some websites have called this project philanthropy, others art and a few creepy - are you happy with any of these labels?
LL: Yes, I quite like that it has divided people a bit. I guess it is rather creepy if you don't really know that I want to get the stuff back to the owners and the site is a means to an end. I think people are very mistrustful of people who do something for free or because it makes them feel good, even my friends keep saying, 'You should put some ads on the site and make some money' but that's not what it is about. It's about helping people who have lost something to get it back. The more interesting things like the nurses outfit and the pants are the things that weirdly or not interest people and that's why the site gets passed around and the more it does the more chance I have of finding an owner.

HP: You're based in the UK but the site has been well promoted across the world. Do you think you'll eventually find the owners?
LL: I really hope so that is my main aim, so fingers crossed and if you know any one who has lost a case send them my way.

Image by Luna Laboo.

Loch Ness

Some friends are visiting Inverness and asked if they should check out the monstered waters around that way. Any actual natural beauty bestowed upon the area of Loch Ness has been completely obscured by the legend and mystery of an underwater beast and the few small towns that make a living off it. Since the 1930s there have been numerous reported sightings and scammings of what looked like a swimming brontosaurus, leading the loch to be dubbed a Scottish Jurassic Park. Despite key photographs revealed as fakes and a 1990s Ted Danson schlockbuster, people never stop trying to spot their very own monster of the deep.

And thanks to the plethora of tourist shops Nessie sightings are a certainty. You can spot the monster on mugs, t-shirts and pencil sharpeners, not to mention stuffed fluffy toy versions embroidered with slogans like 'Cheeky-Ness' (lizard with its tongue sticking out) and 'Drunken-Ness' (same reptile with crossed eyes). As I browsed Drumnadrochit's high street tourist shops, I was holding out for 'Crap-ness'.

Drumnadrochit is definitely the epicentre of 'Tacky-Ness' with two mini-villages of tourist shops duelling for the passing pound. Each village has its own rival short film about the monster - opt for the one that doesn't come with a tour of the concrete-looking Braveheart castle. The Loch Ness 2000 Show runs for about 40 minutes and as it was conducted in the dark I imagined I'd be able to comfortably get in a half-hour nap - partly to make up for the interrupted youth hostel sleep I had last night. But I got pulled into Loch Ness 2000. You wander through a series of atmospherically dark caves, each one tracing an era of sightings and fakes. It was all quite spooky and believable until I leant back on a fibreglass wall.

Further southwest, Fort Augustus has its own share of 'Mad-Ness', but there's another reason to stop here. Boats sailing up the River Oich are faced with the Caledonian Canal, a series of locks that they climb like a ladder to access Loch Ness. Massive yachts are led by pilots on rope so they look a little like marine Labradors slowly being walked on a sunny day. Sure, it's man-made, but it feels like a more genuine sighting. And if you want to escape the Mad-Ness completely, take the B852 around the lake's eastern shore where the scenery is just as spectacular but the tourists traps less frequent. It's so peaceful that any right thinking monster would much rather sun itself over there.

Parts of this post originally appeared as part of a Lonely Planet blog.

Back to Rosslyn

With Dan Brown's Angels and Demons currently posessing the box office, I was reminded of when I was researching a Scotland book a couple of years ago. In the midst of the 'Da Vinci phenomenon', Roslyn Chapel, just 10 miles south of Edinburgh, was on every tourist map because it played a crucial role in the film's climax.

After much map-muddling, I found the humble 15th century church near the village of Roslin. I should have just followed the tourist buses that formed a determined scrum around the ancient building. The first thing I noticed about Rosslyn Chapel was the scaffolding exoskeleton as the worn old nugget was renovated. The church reputedly pocketed £7000 a day as a location fee and it looked like much of that was being used to make sure there's something for the tourist throngs to see. Apparently it's still going on today with plans to re-open completely in 2010.

'Oh man!' an awed Canadian exclaimed as he walked through my photo of the entrance arch. 'This is all so freakin' quaint.'

The Chapel is massive, possibly freakin' massive, but anything this size is hardly quaint. Construction began in 1456 as the Scottish Earl, William St Clair, sought to build a church that could serve as a priestly college for the area. Another William St Clair was buried in full armour below the chapel in 1650, which would certainly have caught the imagination of author Dan Brown when he was researching his story of Knights Templar guarding the sacred relics of the church. The vault beneath the chapel became something of a Christian lost-and-found office through the church's history, so when Tom Hanks cracks the code at the movie's conclusion it's possible that he could have found the grail in this regional church.

When I visited, however, it was a challenge to even get a peek at a stained glass window as a thick wall of tourists shuffled in front of every relic. With the noise of so many accents and a lightning storm of digital flashes it was hard to believe Rosslyn could actually function as a chapel. There were still services on Sundays and tour buses were turned away for local weddings.

I tried to light a small taper up the back of the church and found myself the subject of a movie tie-in photo. Up on the gantry that curls around the chapel's roof, things were quieter. The crowds were wary of heights. I looked out onto the moist green country and the ruins of another castle yet to feature in a bestselling novel or blockbuster film.

The current sequel film might drag the odd extra tourist to the Vatican, but it certainly won't have anything like the effect the Brown's first bestseller had on this small town. I'd like to go back and visit to see if the film fuss has died down. If you're passing through, check it out for me and maybe even light that candle.

This blog is based on an earlier blog for Lonely Planet.