A few steps away from Holyrood Palace and well within frowning distance of John Knox's house, is a unique shop. Tucked into Edinburgh's Canongate, it is the only one in Britain to specialize in selling playing cards. I wondered that the shop would be so close to John Knox's house. Wouldn't he have disapproved? At his time the Kirk had banned playing cards as an invention of the devil. I wonder what John Knox would have said on learning he was depicted as the Joker in one pack! The earliest record of playing cards was aroWld 1370, although it is thought the Chinese played cards in the 10th century. I wondered why hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs were the symbols on cards. I learned that these were generally believed to have come from the French - hearts for the church and scholarships, diamonds for merchants, spades for the military and clubs for the peasants.