Ouch.

[zotz]

I feel like I've had a heavy evening headbanging. My neck turns about half as far as usual and then hurts like a bastard. I think it's just me having slept in an awkward position, though. Hopefully it'll clear up during the day.

There's going to be a street party in Marchmont on Saturday. There were a couple of leaflets left at the front door last night about it. If you read the story, it's very strange (assuming you know Marchmont at all).

EDINBURGH residents and students who have been at loggerheads over claims that their area was becoming a "student ghetto" are to hold a massive street party later this month, designed to reunite the community.

Now, when I moved to Edinburgh in the summer of 1986, one of the first things I learned was that marchmont was a student ghetto, due to being very pleasant, within easy walking distance of nearly all of the University and not cripplingly expensive. I suspect - and those who've lived in Edinburgh rather longer than me may care to comment on this - that it was a long way from being a recent thing even then. So what's this bit about it "becoming" a student ghetto?

And while we're at it, who are this MAGPIE bunch anyway? I've seen them mentioned in the papers, but I haven't heard anything from them directly. As a local owner-occupier, surely I'm exactly the sort of person they seek to represent and whose opinions they should be interested in? "Residents are campaigning"? It sounds more like a few busybodies shitstirring to me. The flat above me's got students in it, and has done for the last couple of years, and for the period of a few years before I went to Cambridge too. I don't remember any problems. And some of the students are very decorative. I have friends who've had problems with noisy neighbours, and I haven't noticed any tendency for it to be students. Are students really more trouble than people generally?

David Stay, the secretary of MAGPIE, said the Executive needs to "realise this is a problem" and to prevent any more students moving in to the area.

Remember, all Lebensraum means is "living room". And we're all in favour of bigger living-rooms, aren't we? </injoke>

In other local news, there seems to be a little movement on the rebuilding of the Cowgate fire site. Not before time, either.

Finally, following the speculation a while back about contacting Kaija, I was wondering during a quiet moment yesterday whether the SCA-group member was particularly likely to actually be her . . . and I guess the answer's Yes.

Apropos of a vague coment by tals, the Beeb have the Toyota Hilux video up online. If you didn't see this when it was on the box, the story is simple : Top Gear decided to see how badly you could mistreat one and still have it drivable. The answer turned out to be "really quite badly".

Comments

[zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it was known as a student area when I was growing up in Edinburgh in the seventies!

Marchmont's lovely.

[zotz]

Indeed it is. And I was pretty sure the ghettoism would go back to the seventies. At least.

Hopefully it'll be a good party. I've half a mind to go along in the hope of buttonholing journalists and sharing my halfbaked opinions with them. Possibly forcibly.

[blu-matt.livejournal.com]

I've half a mind to go along in the hope of buttonholing journalists and sharing my halfbaked opinions with them.

Why not? It seems that more than a fair share of busybodies have already done so, with opinions that are probably even less worked out than yours. ;-)

[akicif.livejournal.com]

We lived in Marchmont from spring 1978 to summer 1980 in a flat that was not so much shared as let out as eight separate rooms sharing a kitchen and bathroom:

Jenny and I - one student, one working

Martin and Tessa - working (civil service or insurance or similar)

Mrs King - maybe working (married to a sailor who turned up very occasionally, but kept a suitcase in the hall cupboard)

Two girls, not far past school-leaving age, with a serious fondness for binliners, safety pins and hair dye - about to become students, but nver quite did.

That was downstairs. Upstairs we had

Peter and Mabel - Polish and German bohemian types - he painted (quite well. I've seen some of his stuff in shops since returning to Edinburgh), she Wrote. Together they fought crime a lot.

Richard - apparently once one of the most senior scientologists in mainland China.

Steve - scandinavian theology student. Hardly ever spoke.

The last room had between one and three students from Lewis at any given time.

So, just over a dozen people of whom about four were students, and maybe another four could have been taken for students by the neighbours.

Admittedly the other five flats on the stair were all families, so I'm not sure what, if anything, the above proves.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I'm betting someone saw the prices in the area, thought "ooh, that's a steal in Edinburgh", and then discovered that it was full of ghastly young people.

[zotz]

Marchmont's not a steal these days. Although possibly the flats would be even more overpriced otherwise. It is active social engineering, even though I imagine they'd deny it.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

More likely people want the prices of their homes to go up, either so they can get second mortgages, or sell up and move to the Newtown.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

The don't *want* them to go up just to shift out the students, jesus, (well perhaps they do, but that's not the point) - they *do* go up, because Marchmont is incredibly convenient for the Uni , one of the main employers in the area, *and* has very wide streets and low rise flats, gracious tenements and decent gardens, so it's one of the very very few areas in the inner town you can get a "period" flat with a decent sunny garden. this puts every flat there esp on ground floor at a massive premium. (says she who's been looking for a flat with a sunny garden of its own for 5 yrs,) and in consequence also miost the O/O flats have been done up to the nth enhancing value further. marchmont nowadays is this weird mix of Beverley Hills and Berkely more or less - no wonder there's aggro.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

A steal?? Are you kidding? Marchmont/Bruntsfield is now the most expensive area in the city outside the core New Town - dearer than Stockbridge which used to be much posher.
As the token old fart on your list (Graham), yes, I would agree that an area becoming almost entirely student-occupied is a problem for the owner occupiers and I can see where they're coming from. My stair (Bruntsfield) used to be mainly owner occupiers and is now mainly students (only 3 O/O s left apparently). Some are fine but some, naturellement have a tendency to play very loud music at 4am on returning from clubbing on school nights. Real workers for obvious reasons are less prone to this. One lot a few years back nearly drove me to violence.
But the main issue is that the infrastructure declines. To give an example, on my stair the collective payment for getting the back green mowed has collapsed; the collective stair cleaning is on the point of collapsing becaus the studnts won't pay the cleaners - why should they? they don't own it and they'll move on in 9 months max. Similarly for minor repairs like drains. Getting hold of absentee landlords, often in other countries is a nightmare. I have actually decided it is untenable to go on living in my own flat and I should get out before it starts to affect the price of my flat. The stair is increasingky manky and looks it.

So yes Marchmont is lovely (I would move there if I could afford it, despite the student occupancy, but I'd damn sure get a main door flat), but no, living with predominantly HMO occupancy is not all groovy fun stair and street opartie and lots of ganja every night, man :-)

Ps the street festival looks fun, thanks for telling me!! see you there perhaps..

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

How very odd. I wonder if they realize that if they drive all the students out and only have owner-occupiers, they'll never be able to park?

[zotz]

It's hard enough already. The council's talking about extending the parking-permit system right across Marchmont (I'm in favour, although it does mean I'll have to shell out for one) and I bet they'll oppose that too.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding, part 2? In Edinburgh the students have nicer cars than I do :-)

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I do recall a piece on the subject of high-student-fraction areas in Leeds which noted that many students are crap at looking after gardens and such. Mind you, I think that some of the opprobrium there should definitely land on the landlords' heads for not chasing poor tenants with a big stick.

[zotz]

Possibly. Having said that, though, I'm pretty crap with the garden too.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

They should get me to do it, I'm good with gardens. (Except here, because I'm scared I'll let the lawnmower drive itself into the pond since it weighs more than I do.)

[blu-matt.livejournal.com]

A quick Googlage[1] yields:
http://www.thalia.org/kender/Pics/Pennsic/Pennsic98/Kaija2.jpg
so I guess there might be something in it.

Haven't see her for years though, since the last time I bumped into her in Newington about a year after she left.

[1] is this a proper word yet?

[zotz]

is this a proper word

Well, it's instantly understandable.

Kaija was back in Britain with a friend called Vince about six years ago, and I saw her in DC a few months later. I mailed her a couple of years back, but that address seems to have evaporated since then.

[rdi.livejournal.com]

I just use "google" as a verb.

"Verbing weirds language."

[rdi.livejournal.com]

Is there an irony here, in that a goodly number of the owner-occupiers in Marchmont are ex-students who lived there in splendid studently squalor during their university days, then bought back into the place thereby driving prices up to the point where later generations of ex-students couldn't afford to buy there?

Or am I just bitter?

[zotz]

Like the Murphy's, you're barely drinkable.

This would, of course, make it a standard gentrification issue. I, of course, am an ex-student who helped drive the price up, too.

[grendelis.livejournal.com]

Do parents of students still try to buy a flat for their offspring if there are going to be a few students coming through the family?

I shared a great flat that way in Bruntsfield back in early 90s. The flat had been a student flat for generations it seemed. Full of victorian features and Rayburns to be discovered behind the wood panelling! I kid you not.

2" horse-hair plaster is not so good for hanging 5 person hammocks into though.

[sleepycinderell.livejournal.com]

They had a street party in 2000 (or maybe 2001) to try for some strange largely unadvertised unity. Some Beltane folk performed and entertained everyone/ smoked and annoyed everyone. It was quite good fun (though not for anyone who wanted peace and quiet)

As someone who needs to buy a ground floor flat in a good area, I've got nae chance of affording Marchmont. When all the ex rentals came up when some landlords sold rather than conform with HMO, they wanted too much even for the skankiest places.

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

nimby nimby nimby! basically. Where do they want the students to go, exactly? And who do they want to replace them? They should be forced to spend a month in dumbiedykes, or niddry, that would make them appreciate what a problem students aren't.

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

oh, apparently they've teamed up with similar groups in glasgow and st.andrews. Um. Where do the folk in st.andrews expect to put the students, then? In the sea? St.andrews has 2 local sources of revenue - students and tourists. Whinging nimby shits like to complain about both of them. grr.

[sibelian.livejournal.com]

Bless her little cotton bats, she hasn't aged a day....

xxx