Apparently the Loony Dook was amazingly popular; everyone I talked to said there were hundreds of people there watching.

There was a very slight air of resentment to some of the comments: a lot of the onlookers were visitors to Edinburgh from elsewhere, who'd come up for the Hogmanay Street Party. Locals are certainly sniffy about that, because in the olden days people gathered at the Tron Kirk in the High Street for the bells. Now you can't get into the city centre unless you have a pass. And now it seems the Loony Dook is turning from a local thing into a tourist draw. Still, they did raise thousands of pounds for charity in the space of half an hour ...