Edinburgh & Stirling - The Devil’s Share

Peter Brooker, February 2026.

Day 1: Edinburgh

The train ticketing system from Edinburgh airport to the city centre is a slightly complicated affair, made all the more difficult by a mild but annoying case of LoungeFill.

LOUNGE-FILL: DEF; self-inflicted hangover caused by getting to the 1st Class Lounge at least an hour early so one can get his/her fill (sufficiently pissed) of free champagne before boarding a flight.

The Oxford Bar, Young Street, Edinburgh

After safely negotiating the metro, and dumping our bags off at the hotel, we took a ten minute walk to The Oxford Bar on Young Street. Apparently Sean Connery had a pint in there once. Which was confirmed by the bar lady.

"Just came in once?" I pressed.

"Yes, just the once." She confirmed. A slightly older man sat at the bar with a full pint of ale in front of him that I'm guessing would take him the best part of the afternoon to consume, muttering in a confident tone through his grey mustache, "his brother Neil would come in here a fair bit." This particularly excited me and I interrogated him a little further thinking he may have seen all sorts come and go from his designated seat.

The man recommended I go see the Connery plaque in Fountainbridge where he grew up. I had already done this on a previous trip I mentioned to the man, proudly showing him a photo of me underneath the plaque, to which he had no interest in looking at. The interaction then took a slightly awkward turn when I suggested that the plaque was under-whelmingly small for a man as great as Sean Connery. He was keen to enforce that this is the standard size of any commemorative plaque in Scotland and no Scot deserves one bigger than the other. Although I disagreed, I acquiesced immediately not wanting to upset the man further nor stir any unwanted shit.

We endured an uncomfortable minute or two of silence before I retreated all of 3 feet back from the bar to join my wife perched on the radiator by the window, who was carrying that all-too-familiar look of bored embarrassment.

I later learnt that The Oxford Bar is more famous for being featured heavily in a series of Ian Rankin books that I've never read. Pierce Brosnan had come into this pub for this very reason once, as his mother is a huge fan of Ian Rankin. There's a picture of Pierce on the wall.

Later that evening the wife went to a business dinner whilst I scoured the streets of Edinburgh in search of some Haggis. Perhaps it's my English naivete, but I assumed the streets would be thronged with haggis restaurants. Much like Brick Lane has the Curry Mile, Edinburgh would have the Haggis Half Marathan. Miles and miles of inexhaustible choices of glorious haggis. I'd assumed you could even get a McHaggis in McDonalds, or a Haggis Bucket from KFC. Patiently I scoured all the menus on every entrance to every restaurant on Lothian Road, then onto Earl Grey Street, finally up-to Brougham Street before I arrived at what Al Gore might describe as, an 'inconvenient truth' Haggis was not as ubiquitous in Edinburgh as one might initially expect. In fact one could argue its completely fucking bereft of this-now illusory savoury pudding.

Fear not! Pete did find his 'Traditional Haggis' during the following days trip to Brea Scottish Restaurant in nearby Stirling.

Crestfallen, I tumbled into The Cameo Cinema (yes, Sean Connery came here too once according to local rumours) and bought a pint of stout. The Cameo, a century-old picturehouse and bar in the heart of Tollcross has a noticeboard boasting photos of all the luminaries that have graced the carpet from its 100 years in operation. From Quentin Tarantino to film critic Mark Kermode holding a chainsaw, presumably for some restoration screening of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I asked the young girl behind the bar if Sean Connery had ever frequented this cinema.

"Yes," came the cry of a middle-aged white man, over the shoulder. He came to open up the cinema after our restorations, we have a photo of him in the archives."

"Where are the archives kept?"

"In the basement."

"Any chance you could dig that out for me? I'd love to see it?" I said, attempting to go on the charm offensive without wanting to give over the waft of utter desperation.

"Oh," he teased as if to think of the hardship one would have to endure going down one flight of stairs and pulling a photo from an album that had 'THIS ALBUM HAS A PHOTO OF SEAN CONNERY IN IT. FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY OTHER PHOTO OR DOCUMENT IN THE ENTIRE BUILDING, incl. MARK KERMODE."

My lips paused at the lip of the pint glass as I waited with baited breath for the man to thumb through the list of excuses in his mind before he finally settled on, "no sorry." And that was that. Although he did attempt to make up for his laziness/shortcomings by informing there is a curry house round the corner with a photo of Sean Connery in the window. I went traipsing up Lochrin Place, Lochrin Terrace, Home St, before giving up altogether. As I idled back to the hotel where I polished the night off with a disappointing scotch from the minibar I assessed there really is a true lack of give-shittery about both haggis and Sean Connery in this neck of the woods.

Day 2: Stirling

Has anyone ever been accidentally locked in the cellar over the Easter Break and forced to drink un-matured whisky to survive?

After we disembarked the train at Stirling, a brisk scoot over from only a modest £24, we dumped the bags at Victoria Hotel, and took the short ascent up the woods to Stirling Castle.

Inside, I was keen to observe the Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries, and luckily there was a young girl in period garb on hand to walk us through the provenance.

Pete & Anastasia admire the recreated Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries at the Royal Palace, Stirling Castle, Stirling.

'But these aren't the originals are they?' I pressed.

'That's correct, they're a recreation,' she replied.

'And the originals are in New York correct? In the cloisters at the Museum of Modern Art?'

'That's correct. Rockafella bought them and had them installed there.'

A small hubbub of people swelled around us.

'Now these originals. Were they ever hung in this castle?'

"Sadly, we don't have any proof of that.'

'But they were on the manifest, correct? You have it documented in the archives of the unicorn tapestries.'

I felt the wave of human faces turn to me, and I could sense the young girl was slightly wrong-footed with these unusual pointed interrogations.

'That's, yes. That's I think, yes, how do you know..?'

'I read it in a book.' The Being a Scot book to be exact, Sean Connery's love letter to Scotland. He didn't care for the interpretations as much and found it rather incomprehensible that the Americans had the originals in an artificially built environment, and these were pale imitations in the original setting. I see both sides, but these imitations still took 15 years to make, and I felt fortunate to be there to see them.

The workers who created the palace back in the mid-16th Century didn't have it all bad. They drank beer all day as it was safer than the water. The food was fresh and by all accounts, lobster and oysters were not a delicacy, but a way of life. I've worked on many construction sites and no one came round and offered me any coal-heated treats. Although, in defence of the cricket bat factory I worked at for 7 years, the coffee machine was free.

Left: Pete's Osterley Safety Razor perched on top of one of Stirling Castle’s cannons (dating back to 1689).
Right: Pete's Osterley Safety Razor inside Stirling Castle.

At some point we decided a whisky tasting day at the Deanston Distillery would be a good idea. I've done my fair few whisky tours and have generally found one thing to be true, it's impossible to absorb any technical information, whilst simultaneously imbibing numerous flights of whisky. Instead I simply amuse myself by asking the guides more oddball questions such as, has anyone ever fallen into the mash tun? Why does the wife always complain of my whisky breath, despite confessing that she likes the smell of whisky? Has anyone ever been accidentally locked in the cellar accidentally over the Easter Break and forced to drink un-matured whisky to survive?

Deanston Highland Distillery. A former cotton mill transformed into the perfect place for making Award-winning whisky.

We had an Austrian lunch at the restaurant at the foot of the castle, the chef came out and we had a conversation that struggled to find any fluency or point and I was quite happy that he excused himself to talk to other diners. We had a bottle of french chardonnay and two shots of whisky each, losing track of time somewhat ergo a manic dash, thankfully downhill, to the station to catch the train to Edinburgh airport.

Once on the train, out of breath and with a mild preemptive hangover I ruminated on what is about Scotland that I love so much. For me, it's how direct they can be, without fuss or agenda. I admire their stoicity, their confidence. I'm convinced if you stopped any Scotsman and asked them the meaning of life, you'll get something profound. You simply can't catch a Scotsman out on anything, believe me I've tried.