We had popped in here, to what used to be the offices of the Scotsman newspaper, on a previous occasion. Impressed with the gracious surroundings and the helpfulness of the staff we vowed to visit again. The Grand Café is their restaurant area and they do a mini afternoon tea for mini people and it just so happened that today we had such a mini person accompanying us. So after phoning to book two cream teas and a mini afternoon tea we jumped on the train to Edinburgh full of excited anticipation. When we arrived they checked our booking and read it back to us … excellent! What could go wrong?

Where are the cream teas?

Then a waiter arrived at our table to find out what we wanted?? We repeated our order then he asked if we would like a gin drink or champagne with it. Unexpected but because we were in a happy mood we thought we would have the champagne. It arrived fairly promptly and then we waited .. and waited …… and waited. After watching people who came in well after us tucking into large lunches we had to ask what had happened to ours and were assured that it was being prepared. Eh, it’s a couple of scones and some jam!! Anyway, eventually they came with a mini afternoon tea and afternoon tea for two?? What happened to our cream teas?

Sounds of gun fire

The boss lady was summoned and she said that we had champagne so we had to have afternoon tea … arrgghh! We told her that we had given the same order umpteen times and that the waiter had then asked us if we wanted champagne. To which we gave the obvious if somewhat predictable answer. Obviously something had been lost in the eastern european translation. The afternoon teas, which had taken so long to prepare, were whisked away and replaced, shortly thereafter, by our two cream teas accompanied with profuse apologies. We thought we heard the slightly muffled sound of a waiter being shot but luckily he soon reappeared.

More please

All this was extremely disappointing because we had had high hopes for this place and the prolonged wait would have seemed even longer had we not had a mini person to amuse us. There was a plain and a fruit scone with each cream tea and they were quite big which meant that there was only enough jam for one … we had to ask for more. To make matters even worse the scones were delicious … what a dilemma! If it hadn’t been for the veritable catalogue of mistakes they would easily have merited a topscone but sadly not on this occasion.

To top it all off, when the bill arrived, although they had kindly given us a substantial discount they still got it wrong, they had overcharged! If this all this sounds like a complete disaster, it wasn’t … we did in fact have a very enjoyable afternoon but that was largely due to a five year old’s funny observations. The Grand Café is a beautiful place with its marbled halls and chandeliers. They certainly knew how to build newspaper offices back in 1905 when the Scotsman produced its first edition. Apparently we were sitting in what used to be the editorial section.

Left hand, right hand

As social media takes over from traditional print the newspaper industry everywhere is seeing plummeting circulation figures and the Scotsman is no exception. It is currently up for sale. The only newspaper with expanding circulation in Scotland is the National, the only one that supports independence. Anyway, we’re sure that we just had an unlucky experience at the Grand Café. The left hand simply didn’t seem to know what the right hand was doing. A bit like the Conservative party’s handling of Brexit.EH1 1TR          tel: 0131 622 2999        Grand Café

ps our Middle East correspondent has sent in a report from Ireland. We know it’s not in the middle east but he gets around. This time he has unearthed an albino K6 in County Wicklow in Eire.

Made in Kirkintilloch, the fact that it is outside Johnny Fox’s pub, world famous for its Hooley Night is entirely coincidental.