Postcard from Edinburgh - geography

The morning after the night before sees the streets gleaming, not so much with dew but more a weak solution of bleach that most shopkeepers and bar owners use to clean their doorways and shopfronts of misplaced pizza. As we wandered down the Grassmarket to a shockingly early noon start for the play 'Tearoom', Edinburgh was just about getting ready for another festival day. Of particular infest was a group of Japanese tourists who were conforming to stereotype by crowding round a shop window madly photographingsomething. It turned out to be a hog roast shop and the object of their attention was the full pig, roasted and lying invitingly in the window of the bap shop. Obviously, such generous displays of meat are rarely seen in the far East, where the preference is for delicate sushi arranged like a lotus flower, rather than an entire porker between two slices of white bread.


I was able to walk past because I had loaded up at breakfast. A large breakfast is an essential element of the Fringe experience. Once you're out in the city you don't know when your next meal might be, but it's a better than even chance that it will be after you have had your next alcoholic drink and so breakfast is not just a chance to prepare for the day but also to line the stomach.


Staying at a hotel with a buffet breakfast, the choice was good. One could have juice or cereal, one could even go continental, with cheeses and slices of ham, such as foreigners eat. I however went for the 'five meat breakfast': bacon, square sausage, black pudding, haggis and more bacon, with all that fat and grease offset with a tomato (fried), potato scone, scrambled eggs and mushrooms. I figured that as I was exceeding the recommended number of alcohol units every day, I had better also exceed the recommended calorific intake, for a giant.

Once again, every few yards there was somebody trying to give you a flyer informing you about their show, seeking your attention and trying to convey that your being in their audience would make their day, your festival and everyone happy. I know somebody who is performing at the Fringe this year and he was telling me about the challenges of leafleting. Apparently it is well known among performers that the public don't want any more leaflets, and so leafleting is something of a thankless task normally assigned to those who fluff their lines in rehearsal. Moreover, if somebody does show an interest you then have to try and explain where the venue is. With venues in obscure locations like the sports lockers of private schools and so on, this can sometimes be a challenge. My acquaintance explained that he had identified a quick and easy way of conveying the location, which was just that little bit outside the very centre of the city, by explaining that it was in the 'pubic triangle'. Everybody knows where this is. Even I knew where it was without his having to explain it. There are a trio of pubs in the city, set at corners of a road that splits off in a Y shape, and the pubs all have strippers.