EMMA COWING: Things are bleak - thank goodness for Swift to help cheer us up

It's the penguins that tickled me most.

Such is the Taylor Swift fever that has gripped Edinburgh this past week that the penguins at the city’s zoo – including Major General Sir Nils Olav III, who moonlights as colonel-in-chief of the Norwegian King’s Guard – are wearing Swiftie friendship bracelets.

Sir Nils’s bracelet – in case you were wondering – is purple.

It has become quite something to watch our at times prim and proper capital go all out for the world’s biggest pop star, who last night embarked on three Edinburgh concerts, her first in the UK, as part of her spectacularly successful Eras tour.

Shop windows across the city have been adorned in sparkles and glitter.

A pipe band has been performing her songs outside Murrayfield in sequinned kilts.

The Scotch Whisky Experience is offering drams themed to Swift’s music.

And so many restaurants have got in on the act, changing their names and menus to offer Swift-inspired dishes and cocktails, that a specially named ‘Taylored Taste Trail’ has been born.

Even Perthshire has got in on the act, renaming Loch Tay to Loch Tay Tay for the weekend.

And why not? It’s all very silly – and really rather lovely.

Who wouldn’t want to munch on Steak It Off with Miss Ameri-salsa while sipping a Lavender Haze cocktail (if you’re not a fan, these are all nod-and-a-wink references to Swift’s enormously extensive song catalogue)?

Of course, there are big bucks to be made out of it all too. Barclays, in a special ‘Swiftonomics’ report, estimated that the star’s three nights in Edinburgh will inject a whopping £185million into the economy.

Just what the city needs after Covid, the cost of living crisis and the recent introduction of LEZs.

You can’t blame Edinburgh’s businesses for cashing in.

Particularly when Barclays says fans will happily be spending several hundred pounds on accommodation, travel and food which, given Edinburgh’s notorious prices, seems a conservative estimate at best.

Indeed, tourist spend alone in the city is estimated to reach up to £76.5million.

I’m not sure there’s another star on the planet right now who could create such a buzz, who could inspire an entire city to change everything from its menus to its zoo animals in an attempt to get into the swing of the thing.

This is the sort of city-wide fever normally associated only with huge sporting events such as the Olympics or the Euros –or, perhaps, Eurovision.

But that is the power of Taylor Swift. Far from being the sort of cotton candy popstrel who has all her songs written for her, toes the record company line and never has a hair out of place, Swift has got to where she has by resolutely being herself.

She writes all of her own songs and has real talent as a performer, which has matured as she’s grown.

When entrepreneur Scooter Braun bought her record company and the masters to her first six albums, instead of accepting she’d lost control of her own music, she re-recorded them all again, this time badging them Taylor’s Version.

She makes mistakes (her tangled love life is often explored in her songs), has public fallouts (her feud with Katy Perry lasted several years) and has such a strong work ethic that while the rest of us were faffing about with sourdough starters in the early days of the pandemic, she wrote and recorded two albums.

She has, during the course of the Eras tour, emerged as one of her generation’s great performers and has become so powerful in entertainment that Time magazine named her Person of the Year in 2023.

Oh, and she’s only 34. Talk about a role model for our young people.

This morning, thousands of Swift fans will wake up in Edinburgh having had one of the best nights of their lives, while thousands more thrum with the anticipation of knowing it’s all still to come tonight or tomorrow.

I hope they have a ball. The world is bleak, and times are tough.

Thank goodness for Swift to weave a little magic, cheer us all up and give our capital a much-needed boost in the process.

It has always been a bugbear of mine that the SNP at Westminster insist that they speak for ‘the people of Scotland’.

They don’t. They never have. And after this General Election, they might never be able to claim to again.

New polling suggests that the SNP could lose a whopping 41 seats in the upcoming vote. Sounds like the people of Scotland want to speak for themselves.

Heartening to learn that despite the cost of living crisis, Scots are staying loyal to their favourite local brands.

Irn-Bru once again topped a list of best-selling food and drink products in Scotland, followed by Stirlingshire-based dairy company Graham’s, Tunnock’s in third, and Bells pies in fourth. Talk about all the essential (Scottish) food groups. 

Picture of the week is undoubtedly that of the two runaway Cavalry horses, Vida and Quaker, nuzzling each other in a field after being spooked during a training exercise in April.

Back then, when the images emerged of them covered in blood and running through the streets of London, we feared the worst. What a relief to see them recovered, happy and far from the din of traffic. 

Stephen Flynn, leader of the SNP at Westminster, says he will not support England in the Euros.

To be fair, given that Scotland is actually playing in this tournament, I suspect many Scots will say the same.

But unlike the ‘anyone but England’ mob, I will be cheering England on, too. Just as long as they’re not playing Scotland, of course.

Indebted to Joe and the boys   

So many incredibly moving moments during the 80th anniversary of D-Day this week, all of them stark reminders of how much was sacrificed by those brave young men, some barely out of their school uniforms.

Of all the readings, speeches and performances, it was the words of Joe Mines of Second Battalion Essex Regiment, who landed at Gold Beach on D-Day aged just 19, that touched me the most.

Mines returned to France this week, aged 99, for the first time since the invasion, and watched on as his words were read by actor Martin Freeman.

‘I was 19 when I landed but I was still a boy,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what people say – I wasn’t a man. I was a boy and I didn’t have any idea of war and killing.’

Mines said he had chosen to return for ‘the last and only opportunity’, ‘because of the lads – I want to pay my respects to those who didn’t make it’.

Thank you for your service, Joe. To all who fought, and those who did not return home, we are forever in your debt.

Last week I bemoaned the lacklustre nature of the General Election campaign so far. Oops.

Now Nigel Farage has taken over as Reform UK leader, is standing for a seat and has even had a milkshake thrown at him for good measure.

Talk about a week being a long time in politics… 

Snow in June? Seriously? So much for Billy Connolly’s old joke about the only two seasons in Scotland being June and winter.

Now it would seem, it’s just winter…