I promised you madness. I promised you excitement. I probably didn't promise full-frontal nudity, but that's involved to. And here for one night only (and then the rest of the lifetime of the internet) is my post about Edinburgh. What a city. I went up for about 5 days as part mini-break to see the festival, and part to see my girlfriend. I'd been up before just casually during the year, and also during Hogmanay, the Scottish equivalent of New Years, except they slaughter swine rather than toast champagne flutes. It's very neo-neanderthal. But Festival is something else. Or rather festivals is something else, because, as I found out, Edinburgh Festival is not just one festival, but a whole stratification of them, layered on top of one another like some mighty cultural club sandwich. The Fringe is pretty famous for all its comedy, but so is the Book Festival, and the original International Festival. It's actually a really remarkable thing, and it's a testament to Edinburgh and its festivals that despite numerous emulations, nowhere really comes close. That's partly down to the geography and history of the city. I can't think of many other places at once historically and culturally prestigious enough, and yet topographically compact enough, to facilitate the network of performances that occur over the course of August. You pretty quickly get to the point where you are just staggered by the scale of the thing - if you watched 5 shows a day (a real possibility if you are strong-minded enough due to 50min running times employed by many shoes and relative proximity to other venues) all month, you wouldn't touch the tip of the iceberg. I think I've confused two metaphors there, but if I have, it only serves to underline the staggering scale of the thing. The whole city transforms from a collection of assembly halls, pub broom cupboards, and ancient monuments to a series of wonderfully eccentric performance venues. It's like Transformers for the high-minded.

I was lucky enough to see a really decent amount of stuff while I was there (and also some terrible stuff, but we don't mention that). On the first day proper we went to see a random comedy gig in the bottom of The Tron (a Scream pub) and excitingly, sat right next to the lead singer of Franz Ferdinand, Alex Kapranos. He and his very Kate Moss-themed girlfriend literally rubbed shoulders with us. I vowed never to wash again, and to try and replicate his hair as soon as he got home. Then we saw a spoken word gig about a German vampire by some poor first timer who was actually pretty good. Unfortunately, the whole thing feel around him almost as much as his attempts to do an impromptu Irish accent did in light of the technical failures that spotted the show, and it had to be cut half way through. Poor sod. He reminded me a lot of, well, me, as he said things like 'crikey' a lot. He was clearly a real ladies man, and had an excellent intellect.


We also saw some great comedy at a show called 'Spank', which involved a fairly cutting edge load of stuff. Jokes included a three-minute physical comedy piece about old men reliving their soggy biscuit days, a quiz show where it was asked whether it was normal, or indeed right to feed a cat a Vienetta (the answer was 'if you're rich'), and the actually rather interesting observation on testicles that they were probably the only thing in the natural world that was both crinkly and shiny. And a man paraded his wang out for a few minutes to some applause. Unfortunately we ended up seeing a slight variation of the same show a few days later, but it must have been aimed at a slightly different audience, as there was not so much cutting edge comedy involved as there was a kind of Royal Variety Act celebration of mediocrity. I have to say, I have seen some bad shows in my time (an am dram performance about Bacchus in a Camden Town pub springs to mind), but the ten-minute sketch which literally only consisted of men dressing up in drag and performing songs from the Sound of Music libretto took the biscuit. Truly bizarre. Probably the best thing I saw however had to be Kevin Bridges, who was really, really good. I was slightly surprised at this as my girlfriend bought the tickets when she was quite drunk, so presumably she would have found almost anything funny. Good job babe for taste making that keeps a clear head.


Although, saying what was my favourite thing makes me realised I have missed out an incredibly important part of my trip. The most important bit. I give you the arbitrarily spelt ceilidh, refuge of awkward Scottish middle-age loners since time long past. No I jest, it was actually such good fun, and quite a work out, and made me want to go out and buy a kilt. Not as much as the American family bedecked in Scottish tat-wear though. Awkward.

I will leave you on that dancing note, and with the charming thought that apart from seeing the lovely girl, doing the Dashing White Seargant was the most fun I have had in a while. Turrah Edinburgh!

Labels: Edinburgh, travel, yay

"The circle of human knowledge, illuminated by the pale, cold light of reason, is so infinitesimally small, the dark regions of human ignorance which lie beyond that luminous ring so immeasurably vast, that imagination is feign to step up to the borderline and send the warm, richly colored beams of her fairy lantern streaming out into the darkness ; and so, peering into the gloom, she is apt to mistake the shadowy reflections of her own figure for real beings moving in the abyss.

Sir James George FrazerThe Golden Bough

April 2010 / May 2010 / June 2010 / July 2010 / August 2010 / September 2010 / February 2011 / April 2011 / August 2011 / September 2011 /

The Big Issue / ULTRA-DORM / Shrimps on the Barbie / Mash up / Hello Canada / New, and arguably not improved. / Sherlock / BONJOUR MES AMIS! / Losing London / Plain old Texas /

The title of this blog comes from a poem by Coleridge, A Wish: Wriiten in Jesus Wood, Feb. 10th, 1792, Plus most blogs are moans anyway. Including this one. lol manuscripts

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I'm a 23 year-old student in London Cambridge London, studying English Literature Law. It's hard to really think of anything truly personal I can put here that might give you some idea of who I am, so I will just tell you that my favourite Shakespeare play is Richard II, my favourite chocolate bar is Snickers, and I have a bit of a thing for instant coffee, especially if someone else makes it for me.

I'm interested in Renaissance Literature, Higher Education policy, and libraries.
I'm completely in love with a Scottish girl.