Running for Cover

Edinburgh. Early July. The middle of the local trades fortnight. Which can only mean one thing as far as the weather is concerned - rain. I met my mother for a bacon roll in Edinburgh's city centre today and while the calendar said it was July it may well have been October. Damp, misty, far from warm - in fact, it was dreich.

Now we're less than a month away from the start of the world's biggest and best arts and cultural festival so Auld Reekie is already full of tourists - not that Scotland's beautiful capital city is ever without visitors from near and far. The rain doesn't deter those visitors from venturing from their stylish hotels and bed and breakfast establishments (and Travelodge...) however it does mean the visiting hordes unleash that weapon of manners destruction - the umbrella.

In Scotland, when it rains many people either use A, an umbrella, or B, wear a hood. Now clearly these are not the only alternatives. Nor are they mutually exclusive. In the middle of Edinburgh today in the rain I had opted for option B. If everyone else had chosen the same option then this rant would not be on your screen, distracting you from your Facebook page/emails/porn. But they hadn’t. And herein lies the problem.

Ignorant, gormless and downright stupid people carrying umbrellas - let's call them tourists - put people at risk. How? Those damn metal spikes for one. Whose idea was it to put metal spikes on an implement designed to be held somewhere around eye level? (probably an Englishman) And does this implement cure cancer or help make hydrogen into a usable energy? Nope. It protects people from the sweet loving rain that waters our gardens, fields and allotments. Now if one had full visibility in a street chock-a-block with tourists wielding umbrellas then things might not be so bad. A little dicey perhaps, but I think we could keep the casualty figures down in the low teens if we all stayed alert.

An ever growing number of people with umbrellas simply don't think. Mr Overweight American Loudmouth and his equally overweight partner amble side by side along Edinburgh's North Bridge - 'Gee, ya see the castle, honey?' - with umbrellas the size of a small gazebo sticking out on to half the street. Do they move to allow us mere locals to get by and get on with our daily business? My arse, they do. Street etiquette is fast   disappearing in any case but people with umbrellas not only don't consider what injury they may inflict on their fellow pedestrian - they don't seem to care either.

There is always, of course, option B. The hood. It's a far more sensible and indeed practical way to protect your napper from getting wet while walking in a busy city street where metal spikes are constantly coming at you from all directions. And there's far less chance of forgetting to take your hood with you after you've had a pint or three in one of the multitude of Edinburgh pubs. How many folded umbrellas have been left in Edinburgh's drinking establishments, I wonder? Now I have been known, on occasion, to take an umbrella to work. But I like to think I am considerate whilst doing so and not so stupid as to leave it lying in some bar somewhere (by the way, if the office cleaner happens to read this don't throw it out, I forgot to take it home on Friday...)

So, next time you head out in the pouring rain - and in Scotland this is a far more regular occurrence than is necessary - and you decide to take your umbrella, please consider other people. Before you have their eye out...