DOBSON SITS ALONE AT THE KEYBOARD. HE STARES INTO SPACE. HIS EYES ARE DULL AND HIS POSTURE SLUMPED. ON HIS DESK IS A COPY OF HOGGART’S THE USES OF LITERACY.

Fade out…

THE END.

Fade to black, 

Schuyff (loud, to no one in particular): hey turn turn the lights back on!

Credits start to roll (for Labyrinth, 1986, with David Bowie)

Schuyff: (specifically to Dobson): turn the fucking lights back on! This is not finished!

Steph (as if the lights hadn’t been turned off in the first place): you remind me of the babe!

Signe (following through with the quote from Labyrinth): what babe?

Steph: the babe with the power!

Signe: What power?

Steph: The power of voodoo!

Signe: Hoodoo?

Steph: You do!

Signe: Do what?

Steph: Remind me of the babe!

Schuyff (getting angry): ah fuck, not this dribble again!

Dobson (from under the sheets, mimics, in the same key as Schuyff): ah fuck, shut up!

Schuyff (ignoring Dobson): hoohoo booboo cootchie coo that’s not a fucking argument!

Steph: it’s fucking brilliant!

Schuyff (finding the light switch and turning it back on): one would expect, as the result of puberty, to have let go of these crusty little sentiments, you were seven years old! What the fuck did you know? You were wrong, trust me on this, it was a mistake, it’s trash!

Signe: that’s exactly why it’s sacred, we were seven years old!

Steph (dreamy, thinking of David Bowie): it was fucking brilliant!

Schuyff: it was a mistake.

Steph (snaps out of the dream for a minute): it was fucking brilliant! And He, doesn’t make mistakes. I know this. I wrote my dissertation about Him, I studied Him, you know. For years. I know all about Him, every detail and it’s fucking brilliant!

Schuyff: the haircuts alone keep me up at night.

Steph: what haircuts? I love the haircuts! There’s nothing wrong with the haircuts!

Signe: so does that mean you hate my music? I’m covering a song from labyrinth on my new album, you know, that last song is from Labyrinth.

Schuyff: I never said anything about hate and yes sure I’ll bet you’ve made something beautiful out of it, you could make the theme song from Gilligan’s Island sound good! But what do my opinions on haircuts have to do with your music?

Dobson: (hasn’t moved from under the sheets): turn off the light on your way out!

Schuyff: I’m not suggesting it should not have had relevance for you or that it’s not good to look back on those halcyon mid-eighties when you were seven and I was twenty-seven but I figure that in these intervening twenty some odd years you would have learned to recognize it for the fucking pap that it is.

Signe (puts her hands up to her ears) I don’t want to know about this, I don’t want you to take this away from me, why would you want to take this away from me? I’m not listening! (hands back to the ears and makes noise to drown out Schuyff)

Coleman (upstairs, giggles) tee-hee-hee. 

Schuyff: I’m not trying to take anything away from anyone, I don’t see how recognizing that it was an almost suicidally tasteless career move for David Bowie could take away from it being a seminal moment in your childhood. You were seven, you didn’t know any better, you were a kid, you were wrong. It’s kind of cute when you think about it.

Steph (on her back, talking to the ceiling): you can’t talk about Him that way, he’s perfect, Him, I don’t think He’s capable of a bad moves except maybe moving to Switzerland and marrying that black bitch!

Schuyff: seriously, I was there, I was old and wise enough to recognize a sinking ship when I saw one.

Signe: you are boring, therefor your argument has no relevance.

Dobson: i think I’m with Peter on this, turn off the lights on your way out.

Schuyff: all’s I’m saying is here’s this brilliant guy who’s been important to me forever and suddenly he takes a year off to put on a stupid wig and dance around like a fucking clown. It’s embarrassing!

Steph (suddenly paying attention): that weren’t no wig!

Signe: well I think it was brilliant and I don’t care what you think!

Schuyff: well there you go, so whats the problem?

Signe: because it means a lot to me.

Schuyff: me too!

Steph (still to the ceiling, sultry, imagine a wolf whistle): me too!

Dobson: not me fuck turn off the lights on your way out.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/210085/trainspotting_shoot_the_dog/

It’s not the meadows though (I guess it was in the book), according to wikipedia: “The park where Sick Boy and Renton discuss James Bond, Sean Connery, and The Name of the Rose is Rouken Glen Park in Newton Mearns, near Thornliebank.”

Again, I think it’s an impression about the same level as Scotty from Star Trek. Take that how you will.

– I reckon Glue is his best book
– He’s written some great short stories with Begbie as the main character.

However, I still agree with your point – I have little doubt that time and distance from the Edinburgh of Trainspotting were fundamental to the development of the themes that run through the novel.