Saint Johns church Edinburgh Easter sign - China and Olympics
Saint Johns church Edinburgh Easter sign - China and Olympics, originally uploaded by byronv2.
Saint John's church on Princes Street often posts up large paintings commenting on current events and social problems, which I rather admire, especially as this church, in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, faces onto Princes Street to thousands of shoppers, commuters and endless overseas visitors will see them and hopefully it might make a few of them think.
There is a great fair trade shop under the church and the One World Cafe which is a great spot to go for a break in the middle of the city. During the better weather the cafe (in the crypt-like space under the church) spills outside with chairs and tables in the sunken graveyard behind the structure so you can have your cuppa and muffin under a leafy tree by the crumbling old tombstones. The cafe also features as a location in Ken MacLeod's recent (and quite excellent) The Execution Channel novel. During the summer the old tree-filled graveyard becomes home to an open air craft fair throughout the Festival.
Given the events at the lighting of the Olympic torch this image seemed to me to become doubly relevant and since the TV crews covering that decided to be cowards and turn the cameras away during the protest (shameful of the camera crews) to avoid offending the Chinese government I thought I'd post this up here and should it offend anyone, especially from the murderous, totalitarian regime in China then they can kiss my Magnificent Celtic Arse. They are bastards and deserve to be humiliated and embarrassed at every single public event leading up to the Olympics. They wanted the Games to use as international propaganda - that goes two ways though and however much they like to pretend all problems are an invention of the Western media the truth is that they are murderous dictators and we should not be pandering to the sods.