Holyrood

I drove past our wonderful Parliament building this afternoon.
It looks not a lot from the cramped up-close view one gets. It certainly does not have the presence of Holyrood Palace across the way, set in a vista, and with a solid presence.
The Scottish Parliament building, on the other hand, looks now rather like a rather drab Swiss concrete 1960's building with some odd bits stuck on to bring it into the 90s.
And it's getting very grubby. But then, we are talking Edinburgh.
A Godfather of mine, a career diplomat, was asked, many years ago, about the Cities he had stayed in. The talk got around to dirt and grubbiness..
"The two dirtiest cities I know are Edinburgh and Hanchow", he averred. " But then, Hanchow does have a 5000 year start"