This weekend we enjoyed the Edinburgh Open Day [pictures], organised by the Cockburn Association. We were able to visit the inside of the HBOS headquarters, the Parliament House used for High Court, the Fire Museum, the Reid Concert Hall with the Collection of Musical Instruments and the historical “Caves” in South Niddrie Street, which are a part of Underbelly during the festival but historicaly were built under the South Bridges to store whisky, but they were a bit too damp, so they were just filled with rubble, mainly Oyster Shells. Unfortunately we did not manage to see the historical Drumsheugh Baths Club, mainly because we weren’t sure if we should bring swimsuit or not to the Open Day.
In Nuremberg, the Human Rights Film Festival started. This year it’s run under the patronage of Ken Loach. I like the contrast of programming to the little, more grassroots-run Glasgow Human Rights Film Festival, and to compare the films and events in Germany to festivals here in Britain. There are some films available to the public which we have already seen here on Channel4/More4 and BBC4 some time ago, like “Iraq in Fragments” and “Sisters in Law”; however, when it comes mainly to Eastern European Films we are likely to be a bit behind here in Scotland.