Windows

On Tuesday I attended the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh to observe further appraisal by the Petition Committee of my request that Scotland considers introducing a statutory Sunshine Act.

This post is to thank the Committee for considering the opening of a window.

I share John Betjeman’s disapproval of bureaucracy. However I reckon that we all share a love of sunshine:.

This post is a pattern of images of windows that I observed as I walked from Waverley station to the Scottish Parliament. It was Alexander McCall Smith who suggested that I might like to read this book:

 

Candia McWilliams is another acclaimed Edinburgh writer:

Candia McWilliam’s book, What to look for in winter, is about her “functional blindness”. It is a book full of light:

Candia McWilliams invited me for lunch at her home. Candia McWilliams opened windows in my mind. I made a film about what I gained from her (as I tend to do).

I left Bridge of Allan station reading the Herald. I noticed this cartoon. I wondered if this cartoon window might be indicative of my day?

As I arrived at Waverley Station the glass roof appeared clearer to me than ever before:

At Carubber’s Close this half-clouded window caught my eye. Carubber’s Close always turns my mind’s eye to Richard Holloway, another acclaimed Edinburgh writer. I make films and I once made a film about Richard Holloway’s wonderful narrative “Leaving Alexandria”:

Reaching the Royal Mile. I found myself wondering (yet again) how many windows to the world do we have?

Through a gap I spotted St Andrew’s House and the windows of the Scottish Government:

Impossible to miss, these spiked piers, similar to Roseberry, but here with a window behind reflecting the passing world in the ripple of old rolled-glass:

Next door, the whisky shop protects its wares with mesh-reinforcement to the glass window:

I always stop at the Poetry Library. Andrew Greig (another acclaimed Edinburgh writer) said “In Another Light“:  “Poems appeal to the engineer in me – such great size to power output ratio, wondrous wee gleaming machines, the best of them inexhaustible.”

Opposite the poetry library we have arguably Edinburgh’s finest poet. Robert Fergusson often poked fun at establishment and medical pedagogy:

Robert Fergusson brightens my spirits. But realising my tendency to be metaphorical, I stopped to show that I had not yet been locked up!

At least the policeman outside parliament saw no immediate need to detain me:

The Scottish Parliament is a wonderful building with windows of all shapes. As I watched the Petitions Committee light came in through every shaped window.

The Convener of the Petitions Committee, John Pentland, MSP: