Postcard from Edinburgh – a guide to festival tourist types
This is an international festival of culture. That explains why there are so many bloody foreigners about. By far the most obnoxious are the English, and in particular young English types who are here to put on a show. Maybe it’s disappointing audience figures, maybe it’s the reviews, maybe it’s the crushing revelation that not only is the world just not ready for ‘The Diary of Anne Frank – the Musical’ (performed entirely in mime) but also the realisation that you are not as talented as you thought you were.
Italians were much in evidence this year and if you ever wondered who keeps those shops on the Royal Mile that sell tourist kilts in business, look no further. Lots of butch Italian blokes swanning around wearing what are essentially skirts, while their girlfriends worry that their macho boyfriends might start stealing their frocks when they get home.
There was a certain look among the Italian girlfriends this year. It was a pair of oversized sunglasses perched on a nose that looked as if it had just smelled something bad. It took me a while to work out what that look was. It was a combination of being really pleased that her boyfriend had taken her to the international arts festival (and let’s not forget, Edinburgh is amazing), combined with the fact that the boyfriend had neglected to mention that the arts festival, and indeed Edinburgh, is in Scotland, not the Bahamas. So all her friends are getting no culture and a tan, while she is seeing the greatest arts festival in the world but will be coming home with a cross dresser.
And of course there are the comedians. Festival fact: shouting out ‘Hi there!” in a really confident manner will get Stewart Lee giving back a ‘hi there’ with equal confidence only to be replaced by a look of confusion which can be interpreted as ‘I don’t know you, even off the telly, what the hell?’.
Italians were much in evidence this year and if you ever wondered who keeps those shops on the Royal Mile that sell tourist kilts in business, look no further. Lots of butch Italian blokes swanning around wearing what are essentially skirts, while their girlfriends worry that their macho boyfriends might start stealing their frocks when they get home.
There was a certain look among the Italian girlfriends this year. It was a pair of oversized sunglasses perched on a nose that looked as if it had just smelled something bad. It took me a while to work out what that look was. It was a combination of being really pleased that her boyfriend had taken her to the international arts festival (and let’s not forget, Edinburgh is amazing), combined with the fact that the boyfriend had neglected to mention that the arts festival, and indeed Edinburgh, is in Scotland, not the Bahamas. So all her friends are getting no culture and a tan, while she is seeing the greatest arts festival in the world but will be coming home with a cross dresser.
And of course there are the comedians. Festival fact: shouting out ‘Hi there!” in a really confident manner will get Stewart Lee giving back a ‘hi there’ with equal confidence only to be replaced by a look of confusion which can be interpreted as ‘I don’t know you, even off the telly, what the hell?’.
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