John Gibson: Your pic from Porty’s in the post

By John Gibson
Published on 14/08/2012 12:00

People will get Postcards from Portobello before long, delivered by filmmaker Ian Rintoul. No joking. He’s hoping they’ll take it seriously.

“I’d never want to be seen as some kind of depressive,” insists Edinburgh resident Rintoul, “and I want them to see my latest film primarily as an entertainment. Hopefully it will help rid Porty of the knocking it’s suffered over the years.

“We’ve for too long, perhaps, the image of old men at the water’s edge with their trousers rolled up, paddling on the beach.

“I started on ‘Postcards’ 18 months ago. It has a running time of 35 minutes and the first showing will be a charity screen at St Philips Church down there.

“There’s a lot to Porobello, birthplace of music hall legend Sir Harry Lauder and New Barnie, the celebrated English Channel swimmer and location of the Marine Gardens, a haven of ballroom dancing in the dance band era.”

Trinity-based Rintoul’s award-winning work includes Hour of the Eagle, about the Luftwaffe’s raid on the Forth Bridge.

Banish the bores

The BBC’s front-line reporters at the Olympics, David Bond and Joe Wilson, are boringly unimaginative at their creative best. But the deathly sailing golden finale for Ben Ainslie at Weymouth was as much a drag and unimaginative as watching a football team at the start of this Scottish season. Naming that club would take me too close to the wind.