IN days gone by, the skirl of the pipes was used in battle to intimidate the enemy. In fact, so effective a ploy was it that in 1747 bagpipes were outlawed as a weapon by an Act of Parliament. And according to a story in Wednesday’s paper, Scotland’s national instrument still has the power to scare off some folk - only now it’s chasing away prospective tenants of a city-centre office block.
More than a year after it was completed, the prestigious new office development above the H&M store (the old C&A site) on Princes Street is still toiling to find a tenant, despite a string of inquiries - and the busking pipers who stand on the corner of Waverley Bridge are getting the blame.
It seems the thought of a day-long tartan/shortbread soundtrack accompanying office life is just too much for the building’s would-be occupiers to bear.
Now that’s understandable if, as has been claimed, not all the pipers are of a particularly high standard. As one shopper - a piper himself - commented: “There are a few bagpipers who take it in turns to play there. Some are very good but one, in particular, is not. I don’t think that on a hot day, when you have the windows open, I would like to have to listen to him for hours at a time.”
Of course, the development’s double-glazing should mean that the office workers will have their eardrums protected from the unwanted serenade, and surely, having had £60 million thrown at it, the block has some sort of air-conditioning installed that enables windows to be kept closed even on the hottest of Edinburgh days.
Perhaps making scapegoats of the pipers (even the grumpy one who turns his back on tourists when they try to photograph him if they haven’t popped a pound in his instrument case) is an easy option that hides a more worrying trend.
After all, pipers are as common on Princes Street as winos are in Hunter Square, yet other developments seem to be rented out fairly easily…
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