This is not the country you’re looking for

I DIDN’T audition for Rogue One, the new Star Wars spin-off released last week, but still I was disappointed not to be offered at least a non-speaking part. The critics will weep tears of sorrow in quantities not seen since Dermot Murnaghan left Eggheads: my impression of a Stormtrooper guarding a door is legendary. Still, their loss.

Luckily somebody realises the oversight on the eve of release – George Lucas himself, I imagine – and sets out to appease me (slightly) by inviting me to the glitzy London premiere. There I am to be wined and dined with the other stars attending, among them Felicity Jones (who plays kick-ass heroine Jyn), Forest Whitaker, Diego Luna and Riz Ahmed, a man who combines acting with a secondary career as a rapper, thereby proving that a public school education and a degree in PPE from Oxford is no impediment to advancement in Theresa May’s Britain.

But then there’s some other kind of disturbance in the Force – or, more likely, the Parcelforce – because that invitation also seems to go astray. Which is how Tuesday finds me in a half-empty Edinburgh cinema for a not-very-starry preview screening which involves first having to sit through a live stream from the very do I’m sure I’m supposed to be at – the glitzy London première.

In Cardiff and Belfast there are similar events to this one, and at points the cameras will be turned on all of us second-class citizens in “the regions”. When that happens we’re told by our master of ceremonies to cheer loudly. This we do. Ahead of the cheering we’re also told to move down to the front of the cinema and fill the front three rows, to make it look like the cinema is full. This we do. It’s a bit like the Eurovision Song Contest voting section only no-one boos the Russians and, as it’s being broadcast on Facebook Live, no-one will actually be watching.

The glitzy London premiere, the one I’m sure I’m meant to be at, has a proper celebrity doing the MC bit, Anstruther-born disc jockey Edith Bowman. Not that she’s on the ball enough to correct Diego Luna when he comes out with this gem: referring to the “Hello Edinburgh!” section of the pre-screening entertainment he says how nice it is that people are watching “all over England”.

I’d like to report that we in Edinburgh jumped up in unison and began to hum The Imperial March as a witty retort. But actually all we did was mutter darkly to each other between mouthfuls of free popcorn.

This is no , ya bam

ARE you addicted to emoji, those little icons you can add into texts and tweets in place of words? I am. But I find myself ignoring the section containing the national flags, for the good reason there isn’t a Scottish one and I can’t think of an occasion when I would want to use a Union Jack. Happily, however, a Saltire emoji could soon come as standard on new smartphones, along with the national flags of England and Wales.

Unfortunately, the rollout (unfurling, surely?) won’t take place until next year, which is a pity: at that screening of Rogue One we were encouraged to tweet as much as possible and, given Diego Luna’s “England” comment, it would have been useful to have had a Saint Andrew’s Cross to hand for social media purposes. Something along the lines of: “We’re in [Saltire emoji] not [St George’s Cross emoji] Mr Luna. Glad you ended up getting [spoiler alert emoji] French-kissed by that drunk Wookie in the Cantina scene.”

PS: Hope I haven’t ruined the plot for anyone.

Who next for woman of the year, Super Gran?

WHEN the United Nations was looking for someone to challenge female stereotypes, fight discrimination and act as an honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls, they didn’t choose Jyn from Rogue One or Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai or (the most egregious oversight of all) our own Fearless Leader. Instead, they opted for cartoon superhero Wonder Woman, reckoning that a leggy white American in a bustier and a leotard did all that and more.

Not so, as any fool could have told them and many non-fools did, mostly in the form of a petition which attracted thousands of signatures. Its authors, said to be UN employees, were of the opinion that a woman dressed in “a shimmery, thigh-baring bodysuit with an American flag motif and knee-high boots” (their words) didn’t exactly scream female empowerment. It did howl, though, but only because it was a dog of an idea. Now the UN has backtracked and someone more appropriate will be found.

But the UN isn’t the only organisation to have shown a degree of ineptitude this week over its choice of female role models. The BBC has been at it too, unveiling a so-called “power list” of the women who have had the biggest influence on female lives in the past 70 years. Now, it’s fair enough that Margaret Thatcher should top that list. After all, she put thousands of men out of work in the 1980s, thereby giving their wives and partners an extra pair of hands to help with the housework and the childcare. And it’s hard to argue with Germaine Greer, who proves that you can raise stroppy and irascible to an art form and still be allowed on the telly to talk about clever stuff.

But once again it’s a fictional character that’s dividing opinion: Bridget Jones, who smoked and drank too much, obsessed about her weight, railed against “smug marrieds” and famously wore “big pants”. Her presence on the list has met with about as much derision as Wonder Woman’s UN ambassador gig. Next thing you know Siri will be getting the Nobel Peace Prize for her calmness in the face of obscene requests from lonely male singletons. Perhaps we should restrict lists and ambassadorships to real women in future.

The sound of silence

IT’S bad enough that councillors in Edinburgh have played Scrooge with the Christmas lights which traditionally turn the capital’s outlying areas into festive wonderlands by axing them as part of a cost-cutting exercise – yes, even economically depressed Morningside and the hipster enclave of Portobello have had their decorations withdrawn. Now some among the council want to cut residents’ enjoyment of their twice-yearly pyrotechnic displays in half by trying to introduce silent fireworks. Not for nothing are they known as “the bangs”, yet the council has caved in to complaints from pet owners and those who think that hundreds of thousands of visitors and millions of pounds of tourist revenue are a bad thing and commissioned a report into the matter. Silent fireworks so the populace aren’t disturbed? Really? Only in Edinburgh.