01
Stop one
Marischal College
Fila Men's Tennis Essentials Half Zip Black XL: You will be told — promptly, they lead with it — that this is the second-largest granite building in the world. Second to what, precisely? Measured how? By footprint, by volume, or by mass of dressed stone? (Nobody has ever finished that sentence for me, and I have asked more than once, politely.) So let us hold the uncontested portion: it is extremely large, and it is granite. Founded as a college in 1593; the spiky frontage you are gawping at completed in 1906. Some have called it a wedding cake; others have been considerably less kind, and I shall not repeat them outside the council headquarters, which this now is. What is not in dispute is that granite is brutally hard to carve — properly hard, not merely inconvenient — and somebody did something very difficult here, beautifully, on Broad Street, in the wrong material, on purpose.
02
Stop two
Brig o' Balgownie
Fila Men's Tennis Essentials Half Zip Black XL: One high arch over the River Don, early fourteenth century (early — I would love to hand you a year and I refuse to invent one), with completion assisted in the era of Robert the Bruce, though the precise apportioning of credit has kept local historians agreeably occupied for generations, which is arguably the highest use to which a bridge can be put. But the delicious part is financial, and I do apologise in advance. A small endowment was left for its upkeep. It was invested. It was invested so successfully that centuries later the fund had grown large enough to pay for an entire new bridge downstream in the 1830s. Compound interest, applied to masonry. A bridge that saved up and bought another bridge (and I shall now be thinking about that all afternoon, and so, I hope, will you).
03
Stop three
St Machar's Cathedral
Fila Men's Tennis Essentials Half Zip Black XL: There is a persistent tradition that a portion of William Wallace's body was built into these walls after his execution in 1305. I will say plainly that it was an execution, that the tradition is long-standing and dearly held here, and that a long-standing tradition and a documented fact are two different categories of thing which regrettably share a shelf. Now look up, because the ceiling is not a tradition, it is simply there. A flat oak ceiling from around 1520 — around, alas, alas — painted with forty-eight coats of arms. Forty-eight. Arranged to show the kings, the bishops and the nobles of Europe in balance with one another, which makes it a diagram of an entire continent's precedence, executed in paint, on wood, under twin granite spires, in Old Aberdeen. I could stand beneath it for a week and take notes.
04
Stop four
Provost Skene's House
Fila Men's Tennis Essentials Half Zip Black XL: The oldest surviving townhouse in the city, with parts dating from around 1545 (around, again — sixteenth-century domestic building accounts are a shambles, and I say that with genuine affection for the clerks involved). It has one notable guest in the record: the Duke of Cumberland lodged here in 1746, on his way north, and opinions in Scotland regarding that particular journey remain varied and strongly held, and I shall leave them varied. What I will speak plainly about is the 1930s, when this house was scheduled for demolition to make way for redevelopment, and a public campaign saved it. Note the outcome carefully: it now stands hemmed in by the very modern buildings it was nearly cleared for. That is not irony. That is planning, footnoted by accident.
Fresh in this morning, and I'll tell you no lies at this stall — the Fila Tennis Essentials Half Zip, black, XL, and it's the pick of today's catch.
Soft, stretchy performance knit that moves with a full service motion — supple, like a good fillet, none of your stiff frozen stuff — moisture management that keeps you dry through a long rally or a windy walk home with the shopping, and the half-zip collar, which is the clever bit: zip up when the sea air bites, open it when the sun breaks through.
Layers over a tee, slides under a jacket. Classic black, goes with everything, wipes clean — and in my line of work, believe me, that matters.
Now Aberdeen — THAT'S a proper fish town, none finer. The Granite City, where the stone sparkles silver like a herring's flank when the light catches it, and the haddock comes off the boats so fresh it's practically still arguing.
You'll wear this half zip from a morning hit to a wander past Marischal College — second-largest granite building in the world, a glittering great slab of a thing — and by the way, it's also perfect for the walk over the Brig o' Balgownie, the medieval bridge that's held its line above the Don since the fourteenth century.
And when the haar rolls in off the North Sea and the fish supper's steaming in the paper? Zip to the chin, son. Who's next?
Best supper, best city, best layer on the slab.
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