Edinburgh Reviews - the Tattoo

Unmissible.

Opens with a flyover from an aeroplane so low that you really don’t want to be in the top row of the stand. Kilts. Pipes played so loud they should be classed as weapons of mass destruction. The lone piper on the battlements, a fitting tribute to Henry Allingham, my ongoing problem with dust in my eye (which also causes my nose to run).

And bravery. Not just because a lot of the bands contain soldiers that last week were pounding the mean valleys of Helmand and shooting at Johnny Afgan, but because the night we were there one piper, after doing his thing marched into the spotlight waiting for him and asked his girlfriend to marry him in front of a crowd of 8,000 and all his mates.

Now last week he was probably charging at a hoard of murderous Afghans but THAT was being brave. He was an Aussie as was his girlfriend and one can just imagine that as he rejoined his mates he was chided ‘you asked a girl to marry you. Mate, that is so gay!’. Ah, forces humour.

She said yes, by the way.