Edinburgh — home of the castle, the rain, the kilt, the rain, McEwans bitter, rain, and Gordon Simpson's music shop. A place where even the ducks are getting a bit down in the bill about the weather.

But before the big blokes with the Edinburgh Tourist Board insignia tattooed on their sporrans come through the door swinging their claymores, I must admit the castle's very nice, the kilt is good for those with heat-sensitive knees, McEwans is drinkable and Gordon Simpson is... well, read on.

It's in the West End — no, the West End of Edinburgh, for confused Londoners — a mere hundred yards or so from one end of the main drag Princes Street. A pretty good location, if you want to combine your musical and domestic shopping or have to pacify your loved one by sending them off somewhere more interesting while you indulge your deprived digits on the Simpson stock.

So your lover/sibling/parent/marriage-partner (note careful use of non-sexist anti-genderist nomenclature, all you feminists) is off pillaging British Home stores or getting quietly wazzed courtesy of Scottish licensing laws and you've managed to sneak off to the music. What do you see first?

Apart from the Simmons kit and sundry other electronica in the window, the first bit of the shop might prove a little discouraging to the diehard Rockist element; immediately ahead of you is a small Celtic harp, a few nylon-stringed guitars, and several accordions. So far, not so good — unless you're in the harp market.

But what you have to do to get to the group gear and loud stuff section is go up the flight of stairs cunningly hidden through a small doorway to your right. Very Alice in Wonderland, very Simpsons. But not very easy to spot, particularly if like some particularly extreme specimens of the Rock hordes you're peering through a haircut the size and shape of a knackered Dulux dog.

However, let's asume that you've located the stairs and somehow managed to scramble up them. Suddenly as you reach the top, everything seems bigger — more room, more stock, more up-to-date. Yes, it's the group gear department. Or someone's slipped a pound of mescalin in your tea. The upstairs is the size of two shops, in fact, and is laid out much more spaciously than its below stairs counterpart.

First stop is the keyboards — loads of Rolands, not to mention a fair few Casios and seasoned with a smattering of other makes both new and second-hand, and if you turn smart left from them you trip over the windowsill and fall to your death in the street below. Because the amps are on your right. Again a decent number of Rolands involved, plus a Carlsbro or three and odds and sods otherwise.

The guitars are a fine section, with Ibanez, Fender, Tokai, Aria, and Squier well represented and a fine collection of others putting the minority viewpoint.

One beaten-up but beautiful blonde caught my attention in that department — an old Hofner Jazz guitar, in fact, a bargain (if you like old beaten-up Jazz guitars) at £125.

And finally, Doris... the drums. Again a reasonably wide span of the percussion world is covered, including the Simmons sets which, it seems, they have some sort of monopoly on for the area thereby assuring their market. However, I did spot one thing which made me twitch a little — setup in the drum department was a brand spanking new SDS7 kit, you know the expensive one of the range. And attached to it was a label: SDS8. And it gave the cheaper one's price.

So after the Punter wander, the Punter pester test. As I mentioned earlier, there was an unjustly neglected gem, a blast from the past, a golden oldie, indeed my friends, hows about that then, oh shut up you stupid old idiot... there was a nice old guitar which I thought I'd try out.

However, attached to the front of it was a little piece of pink paper saying 'Sold out' on it. And as there wasn't an assistant about to ask I didn't know whether to try it or not. But hell, the kids wanna Rock and all that sorta stuff so I put on my best Bryan Adams face and picked it up and strummed. Nice, good neck, shapely body... and that's just me. Eventually when I'd been sitting there for a braw wee while, as they say up there, an assistant wandered up and asked me if I wanted any help. I enquired about the 'Sold' sticker and he scratched his head for a while then bumbled off to find out the meaning of the mysterious sign. On his return, he said that the guitar had been reserved for a week by someone — but they hadn't left a deposit, so if I came up with the ackers I could have it away with the axe. Or whatever that means in English.

I wasn't sure whether to be pleased at the fact that I could gazump the bloke who'd reserved the guitar of his dreams or to be displeased on his behalf. After all, somewhere in the back streets of Edinburgh some future Jazz giant could have been hoarding milk bottle tops, scratching down the side of the sofa and pleading with all his relatives in order to scrape together £125 for the instrument that could make him a star. And then some yobbish Sassenach comes in and whips it from under his very kilt. Is this standard business practice? It doesn't seem very trustworthy to me.

However, I didn't buy it, mainly through not having the loot myself, so if the laddie came in and collected it I expect a large percentage of his future earnings for being so considerate. Do you hear me, Jock Kessel?

But despite my fledgling doubts about their charitable status, I found Gordon Simpson's shop a good city centre store, well stocked with accessories and all those last-minute things you need when you're Rockin' anna Rollin' between Debenhams and Miss Selfridge. They've got the gear, they know what they're talking about when they sell you something, and it's a great place to go to get out of the rain...

GORDON SIMPSON (Contact Details)