Aye or Naw

Right, here we go.  After months of debate, debate bordering on ill-tempered bickering and countless hours of political pundits banging on endlessly with ill-informed speculation and scare-mongering, the Scots are voting on independence.  Every single Jock seems to have registered to vote and is off to the polls.  A high turnout is expected and of course 16 year olds have the vote, which is either inspiring or terrifying depending on which sort of 16 year olds you know.

So, obviously, I’ll be staying up all night.

This requires a strategy.  The last time I stayed up all night I was in my teens and was at a party and there were girls and everything.  Actually, that’s not quite true, the last time was probably travelling, on an aeroplane where free booze brought to your seat and free movies made sleeping something of a waste of time.

This time it’ll be something of a long haul.  The results are going to take even longer than bloody Eurovision.  And coverage starts at half ten, meaning the BBC coverage (always the best pundits and coolest graphics, and the presenters always get a little crazed around mid-morning) is going to consist of at least a few hours of speculation, recapping and desperately filling.

First up, a quick trip to Waitrose.  Obviously what’s required are snacks that will slowly and evenly release sugar throughout the night.  But sod that, nobody’s interested in virtuous flavours at the turning of the tide, so it’s crisps, and, oh my God I can’t believe it, a Ginsters pasty – the perfect three-in-the-morning hot snack, as when microwaved to perfection (nuked to buggery) it transforms into something akin to a phenomenon studied by vulcanologists and would certainly wake you up if you ate it before letting it cool.  Which takes a while.  It’s the only snack with a half life.

But mostly, let’s celebrate the fact that for the first time in a decade I’m able to have a cup of tea after six o’clock without worrying that it’s going to keep me up all night.

Crisps.  Chocolate.  A mango.  Put mango back.  Sorted.

22:30  Telly on.

22:32  Kettle on.

22:45  First chance to see how the BBC graphics boffins have risen to the challenge and it appears they have gone somewhat bonkers, with a huge graphic of a nuclear submarine seemingly navigating the depths of the news room.

22:48  A whistle-stop tour of the counting centres.  Scotland appears to be very well provisioned with sports halls.  Ironic given the health of the nation.

22:56  Oh Christ, looks like Jeremy Vine’s strategy has been to drink a shed load of pro-plus laced coffee.  Cool graphics though, got a whole 3D thing going on.  Looking forward to exhausted graphic technicians going doolally with exhaustion later on and really getting creative – ‘Let’s take a look at the results so far with the result represented as a caber being tossed’.

23:01  An expert has just announced that ‘More votes will take longer to count’.  Genius.

23:04  Montage!  Proof that even a Primal Scream soundtrack can’t make politicians look cool.

23:14  Oh shit, it’s a people’s panel made up of folk who didn’t get an invite to a referendum party.

23:30  Quick break for news headlines.  All presenters rush to the loo at the same time for a wee and a wee line.

22:35  Over to Westminster.  Andrew Neil co-presenting with a truly appalling hairpiece, no wonder this bloke only goes on after the watershed.  Luckily John Redwood is also on the programme and so Neill appears normal by comparison.

23:41  Huw Edwards is reminding us that Scotland is a ‘rural’ country and there are ‘logistical challenges’ to transporting a box to a sports hall.  Luckily, it would appear that the Scots have access to vans.

23:44  Leader of Scottish Conservatives looks quite a lot like ‘Scots funnywoman’ Susan Calman.  Suspect they have the same tailor.

23:45  BBC ticker declaring that Queen is following the vote closely.  I bet she’s having a party.  Wonder if she is serving Ginsters?

23:46  Apparently Glasgow normally has a low turnout, but having a say in the future of your nation, and putting polling stations in branches of Greggs, appears to have greatly increased turnout.

22:55  Cool graphic of a helicopter, representing Scottish Army.  Given state of defence cuts, presume this helicopter will be shared with England, with Wales getting it at alternate weekends.  Rotors spinning and everything.  Look forward to the helicopter strafing the newsroom later.

00:10  Now well past time would normally be in bed.  Usually midnight means New Year’s Eve, and ten past midnight means finishing the last of the fizz, saying ‘fireworks were good, Hootananny was shit…again’ and going to bed.

00:13  Ooh, have discovered ‘Trendsmap’ on the interweb.  Essentially this works out who is tweeting what where and puts it on a map.  It’s fascinating.  In Scotland you have a lot of #Yes and in the West of England, you have a lot of #Thunder and #Lightening.  Thank God for the English’s preoccupation with discussing the weather, it means you can track bands of thunderstorms in real time.  Also worth watching just to see if suddenly loads of hashtags along the lines of ‘Aliens’ or ‘Invasion’ pop up.

00:21  First interview of the night with bolshie Welsh person, who also wants more power.  Yea, right.  Like that’s going to happen.

00:45  Andrew Neil up again.  Of course, his normal programme is on so late it’s almost early, so he’s used to napping through the afternoon and appearing chirpy well after ‘Newsnight’ has finished.  He has a boffin on who is saying that there will be huge changes no matter what the result, and that there will need to be a lot of work done on the constitution.  Oh, he’s a constitutional expert.

00:53  Jeremy Vine is standing in front of a graphic titled ‘Battleground’.  You can just tell that everyone involved is already gearing up for the 2015 election.  Speculation starting to resemble desperation.  Fill.  Waffle.  And shout ‘Count faster you bastards’.

00:57  Edinburgh count appears to be taking place in an aircraft hanger.

00:59  Which of the workers in the high-viz vests in the background at the count is going to do something amusing and become a social media star?  My guess is the girl doing the dance moves.

01:00  BBC have apparently dispatched all of their reporters around Scotland.  The chap in Orkney is, judging by the fleece he’s wearing, is BBC Scotland’s rugby correspondent.  On radio.

01:05  Reporter in Midlothian is talking about ‘social factors’, classing people as posh if ABC, moving steadily into working class with D and E.  Something tells me that Glasgow doesn’t bother much with the first bit of the alphabet.  Reporter doing a really good job and seems very posh, obviously pitching for her seat on the BBC news copter back to London if there’s a ‘Yes’ vote and Scotland’s national broadcaster goes from being the BBC to being a bloke with a bell and a loud voice.

01:20  Huw releases the panel, who were all actually insightful, measured and charming.  Huw has promised them ‘something a little stronger than herbal tea’.  Boozing on the License Fee.  Excellent!  Must be massive temptation to try and drink the value of your Fee and pocket any BBC pens you can get your hands on.

01:27  Clackmannanshire result is in.  And it’s a No!  More importantly, how cool is the name ‘Clackmannanshire’?

01:28  Footage of celebrations at ‘Yes’ HQ show quite a few bottles already open, and LOADS more lined up ready.  Pace yourself chaps.  Luckily, the Scots are famously abstemious.

01:39  Jeremy Vine has a bloody huge map of Scotland that is apparently filling the newsroom.  It’s on a scale of the sort of map that a Bond villain would use to plot the destruction of the nation’s haggis industry.  Clackmannanshire is flashing red.  Jeremy then goes on to explain that the area is populated by members of the ‘DE’ social class.  Possibly this means that they have heard that if you vote ‘No’, Westminster will give you all sorts of goodies and are holding out for a Greggs gift card for every man, woman and child.  Areas populated by As and Bs will expect to get a Waitrose.

01:50  Oooooh, flash of lightening and roll of thunder.  Drama in the skies as well as on the telly.

02:01  Orkney declares.  It’s a HUGE NO!  Loving the bit where they read out the different categories of why certain ballots can’t be counted.  BBC always cut away from speaker before he gets to category of ‘crudely drawn cock’ on ballot.  Shot of No! HQ celebrating result.  Everyone looks marginally more refreshed than they did the last time.  I don’t need fancy graphics to illustrate a continuing trend of young people, excitement and alcohol meaning the only sort of political party that is agreeable.

02:07  Guests on BBC all look remarkably kempt.  Think the same people are doing a circuit of teevee shows.  Suspect those doing radio shows might be a little more casual.  But would love to see a guest turn up in PJs and dressing gown, possibly clutching a favourite soft toy.

02:21  After two o’clock, things are starting to get a little bit more relaxed.  First OB from a ‘Yes’ party, where the BBC journo is sporting a party shirt and begins by explaining that there has been stand-up and poetry!  Very nice too.  I hope the producer says that they’ll be going back to him at 6:00, so he can’t start in on the Babycham yet.

02:25  Jeremy Vine is explaining that people from lower social classes are more likely to vote for independence.  Presume this means UKIP will be courting the chav vote.

02:42  Andrew Neil appears to have a twelve year old as a guest.  Who appears to have modelled himself on Nick Robinson.  Thunder and lightening over Houses of Parliament in the background looks spectacular in HD, whereas Mr Neil most certainly does not.  Nothing wrong with wearing make-up on telly, but when it looks like it needs not so much touching up as reapplication with a trenching tool, maybe a rethink is needed.

03:43 Shetland says No!  Ponies love the union.

02:49 Huw is a bit bloody familiar with using first names, if you ask me.  Calling Michael Gove ‘Michael’ is just, well, unnatural.  This is the BBC, he should be addressed as ‘Mr Gove’ or ‘Twatty’.

03:00 Eilean Siar votes…who bloody knows, they’re speaking Gaelic.  Oh, English now.  And it’s…NO!  Something of a surprise.  Could No! pull off a clean sweep.  Let’s see those figures expressed as a wicker man.  Eilean Siar sounds like a folk singer whose music is used in a John Lewis Christmas ad.

03:14  Good to see that UKIP remain true to form, the bloke from UKIP speaking to Huw is a total bloody foaming-at-the-mouth nutter and, bonus, rude too.

03:33 Inverclyde declares.  And it’s…No.  Just.

03:35  Half three and the snacking is going well.  Ginsters is still in the fridge rather than the microwave.  But have discovered a cup a soup at the back of the cupboard.  Past the three o’clock hump, closer to dawn than dusk last night.  Tension draining out of coverage though and people are trying to move the story on already to what comes next, as that involves England.

03:51  Renfrewshire says…No!  79 rejected ballots, reasons muted again but ‘used to wipe arse’ has to have happened at least once.

03:53  Dundee bloke reading out spoiled ballots first.  Builds tension.  Dundee vote for independence.  If necessary, one gets the feeling Dundee will go it alone!

04:06  West Dumbartonshire says fucking AYE!  Pundits now back pedalling.  Lots of talking about working together as ‘Team Scotland’.  No footage of SNP headquarters.

04:09  Midlothian says No, no independence please.  No! party really looks like it’s hotting up.  Cheering, drinking, embraces.  It’s swung No, experts reckon we can all pack up and go home.  Cup-a-soup tasty, but with that oddly gritty texture you get from packet soups.

04:14  East Lothian says Naw!  Big win for the no campaign.  Also lady reading out the results very well turned out for past four o’clock in the morning, possibly rightly thinking this is her big chance auditioning for job involving standing up and talking on telly, weathergirl, lottery ball girl or something to do with Countdown, or at least a regional quiz show.

04:16  Stirling says NO!  Stirling also has least imaginative backdrop.

04:29  Falkirk says No!  Lady reading results is a stranger to hairspray.  Meanwhile back in the studio the politicians are having a bit of a bicker.  Past four o’clock, it’s an effort to stay civilised.

04:25  Jeremy Vine finally has some stats to render in graphic form.  Lots of coloured boxes.  Possibly after the vote this could be used in the gameshow the lady earlier was auditioning for.

04:28  Angus says No!

04:29  Dumfries is a ‘hefty’ no.  So, that’s a NO then.

04:32  East Renfrewshire have a backdrop with windfarms on it.  And they say no.

04:33  East Dumbartonshire go no.  Aberdeen go no too.  Huw keeps speaking to pundits, then cutting them off as the picture jumps to another sports hall with, if we’re lucky, a coloured backdrop.

04:46  North Lanarkshire go yes!  Creeping sensation that the yes campaign are now playing for pride.

04:47 Perth and Kinross lady go no!

04:52  Glasgow!  Here we go!  Glasgow go yes!  Glasgow wants to be independent from the UK.  Scottish Borders go no though.  West Lothian vote no.

05:01  North Ayrshire goes no.  Feeling very close to Huw and the team at the BBC.  We’ve sat up through the still watches of the night without any sustaining booze.  Well, Huw may have been sneaking a dram or two, but it’s been tea and cup-a-soup here.

05:05  South Ayrshire are a no.  Woman reading out the numbers does not like cheering.

05:09  East Ayrshire.  No.  Apparently this is a surprise to the pundits.  The pundits keep banging on about communities with high levels of depravation equalling voting for independence.  No formal link between desire for independence and aversion to vegetables made yet.

06:33  It’s getting light outside.  It’s all over, and it’s a No from the Scottish public.  The newscaster doing the short news bulletins throughout the night on BBC News 24 must have thought it was her lucky day, instead of having to read out the same bit of rolling news every half hour for half and hour and then start all over again, she basically did the headlines and then, presumably, had a nap for 25 minutes while Huw did his thing.  Some grainy still pictures of Alex Salmon being whisked away somewhere in a car and private jet, he actually looks like a foiled Bond villain.

6:38  Time for bed.  Question is, should I have a cheeky beer first?

Virtual Edinburgh Festival Goer

Music festivals, I am sure, are best enjoyed from the comfort of your sofa, where you can enjoy the music and actually see the band without the drawbacks of trying to find your way back to your tent in the dark afterwards, having to pay £4.00 for a plastic piss pot of Carling, having to piss in a plastic piss pot because the queues for the toilets are visible from space, and having to pay £400 for the privilege.  All of this and the threat that the headliner will only play new material.

Literature festivals should be better.  Except that anyone who is remotely good has already sold out, and if by chance you do get to see an author who you really, really admire, you will discover why writing is a solitary occupation as they reveal in the interview that they have the charisma of a damp sponge and when doing the reading why they get Charles Dance to do their audiobooks.

There is only one festival that is, from the moment you set out to go there until the moment you get back, sheer joy, the Edinburgh festival.

First of all, you can get there by sleeper train.  How fucking awesome is that!  You can go to sleep on a train and it’s official, you’re allowed.  You won’t wake to the sound of screaming because your head has lolled onto the shoulder of the teenager next to you and you have drooled on their mobile, you won’t wake to see your station receding into the distance.  Also, club car.

There’s the city itself, so marvellous that you might think you are in a Playstation game that will, at some point, involve the use of the term ‘Templers’.  When the Fret blows in the tops of the buildings are lost in mist and Edinburgh moves from beautiful to magical.  People complain that the ‘real’ Edinburgh of housing estates and working class people is hidden from the tourist city.  Great!

And the festival!  There are shows in the morning (apparently), in the day, in the night and long into the wee small hours.

Lots of it is free, thanks to the BBC.  The best comedy shows are recorded for the BBC so you get in for free and grin with anticipation because you know, you just know, that two years from now you will be able to say ‘oh him, saw him in Edinburgh, a couple of years ago.  He was good.  Back then.’ to friends who have just spunked £80 to go see the ‘new’ comedy sensation.

And even if you are having a shit time, if you have seen one experimental dance troupe too many (that’s one) and are wrestling with a hangover that needs a name, like a tropical storm (‘Hangover Henry, all hangovers are male), you are having a better day than the poor bastards who leaflet on the Royal Mile.  Because there can be no sensation quite like trying to interest people in a show you have been crafting for a year and then realising that people have no interest in your one woman ballet chronicling the importance of the role of church leaders in ending apartheid in South Africa, ‘Tutu 2 tutu’, in fact they have so little interest, they won’t even take a leaflet, although they might be avoiding you because you have blacked up for the part.

And that’s not even close to the elation you experience after steadily drinking all day when you are in a tiny club with sweat dripping down the walls, a plastic pot of warm lager in your hand and a comedian so utterly without fear that he has titled his show ‘FGMOMGWTF’.

Sadly, not everyone can go to the festival.  This is where technology comes to the rescue.

What you need is a festival goer fitted with a webcam to rove the city, sitting in pubs, queuing for shows, laughing like mongoose on acid at jokes he won’t recall the next day, while the subscriber sits at home with a shitload of Red Stripe and a bag of oven chips.

Until then, we’ll just have to make do with Twitter and the Tattoo on the BBC.

G&P Travel Special - Postcard from Edinburgh

There's more to the Edinburgh Festival than 'getting pissed and eating chips'.  Apparently.

Belt failure does not, in this case, result in unexpected tackle in the baggage area but rather long queues at check-in at the airport.  The BA staff scramble man and womanfully to cope, and as a result we are checked in at the First Class check-in desk, opened to cope with the backlog.

'Does this mean we get to fly first class?'

'No.'

Our luggage is now travelling in a better class than we are.

The departure lounge is the haunt of fragrance bandits, who stand ready to spray you with scent should you slow down.  If you are already a melody of malodours, they will spray it onto a little cardboard strip for you to smell at your leisure, or even to keep.  Frequent flyers are known to keep their sock draw smelling of sandalwood for years on end by replenishing their scented strips.

The bookshops of the departure lounge are unashamedly places to obtain holiday reads.  If you want to bulk buy Dan Brown in hardback, then this is the place to come.  My selection was 'World War Z', a novel about a pandemic that originates and spreads from China by, among other means, air transport.  My seat-neighbour on the aeroplane was a well mannered Chinese man and his reluctance to turn off his mobile 'phone meant that he was either not an English speaker or was arming something but was definitely not a zombie.  So that was a relief, eh.

The airport departure lunge remains, in the main, a mall, but with bars where people can start drinking (or 'getting in the holiday mood') at nine in the morning in preparation for drinking on a long flight and then drinking in a different time zone.  As call after final call after last call went out for four passengers to catch their flight to Barcelona NOW, I wondered just what might be more fun than catching your flight.  That said, it was Easyjet, so maybe they're had decided that another lager in the Sky Bar and a taxi ride home in disgrace was a sensible way to go.

The flight itself was brief and pleasant and thee was even time for a cuppa and your choice of biscuit or crisp.  The crisp packets had expanded like balloons in the relatively low pressure of the cabin and looked like those pillows National Express passengers drool into on long journeys.  I imagine that when opened they went up like some sort of snack based IED.  I settled for the biscuit as opening exploding bags and being showered in cheese and onion flakes can be a distressing experience, not least for the poor sod who has to clean up the crisps and nervous reaction afterwards.

On the cobbled, crowded streets of the city, festival visitors mix with people desperate to get you to go to their show and with people who have been in shows and are now on their way to see their mates' shows, or more likely get a drink.  Celebrity spotting is the order of the day but when 'The Shawshank Redemption' emptied out, it was like spotting celebrity fish in a boozy barrel as the actors emptied onto the street and headed straight for the pop up bar on the street right outside the venue.

Of course, 'celebrity' status is debatable and we cannot even begin to assess the damage to teevee careers that the cancellation of 'The Bill' has wrought.

The shows may not turn a profit.  The local printers do.

Rick Wakeman was spotted at The Assembly Rooms.  He has a show there, so it probably was him.  The problem with identifying the real Rick Wakeman is that Rick Wakeman looks a hell of a lot like a hell of a lot of other blokes up here for the Festival, blokes of an age where they think long hair is still a rebellious statement, even though it has been many years since there was ever any danger if them being mistaken for a girl from behind.

Esther Rantzen was in the audience for Marcus Brigstocke’s show (showbiz mates, she guested on his radio show and was, if I recall correctly, rather entertaining).  I hope she liked the joke about Rolf Harris.  It will be interesting to see just how much material the Edinburgh comics can wring out of Yewtree.  Normally of course it’s just puppets that benefit from peadoes.

The Book Festival, neatly corralled in the literature-friendly surroundings of Charlotte Square, is wonderful, with marquees arrayed around the green and a pop up book shop (a shop in a tent selling books, not a shop selling pop p books, although there may have been pop up books in the children’s section).

My god, I thought that young people at the Fringe could drink, they are amateurs compared to the middle classes at a literary festival, hoovering up red wine at ten in the morning.  It would appear that if you’re in a marquee normal rules are suspended and if it comes in a plastic glass, it doesn’t count.

Jonathan Coe was on fine form as the audience (average age = Radio 4 demographic) were confronted with the ugly truth that ‘the News Quiz’ is not satire.  Coe named Stewart Lee as the country’s leading satirist, leading the woman sitting behind me to gasp ‘my God!’ in a scandalised exhalation.  The Book Festival may be sponsored by the Guardian, but the audience know their real parents are Radio 4.

Stewart Lee, arguably the country’s leading satirist, attracted quite a crowd of young people.  Indeed there are many young people in Edinburgh at Festival time, all apparently very keen to hand you a leaflet; and of course they all go to one another’s shows.  Eventually, there will be so many shows that the Festival will consist entirely of drama students doing improv musical comedies, endlessly circulating as the audience for each others shows.

Stewart Lee, arguably the country’s leading satarist, was name-checked by Richard Herring during Herring’s show.  I’ve seen Richard Herring a couple of times at the Festival and he regularly mentions Lee, but Lee never mentions Herring.  It’s getting to be awkward, like when you stay friends with a couple who have separated and one has moved on whilst the other, around about the second glass of wine, asks ‘does he ever mention me?’.  The wrong answer, which is, ironically, the right one, leads to an evening of Lambrini flavoured tears.

The point is reached in the Pleasance Courtyard when you stop celebrity spotting and simply accept that the world you inhabit includes celebrities released into the general population, although it’s got to mean something if there are more celebrities in the audience than there are on stage.  Andrew (shagger) Marr was in the audience for a satire about the BBC news department.  So, no pressure to make it accurate, funny and successful then.  Still recovering from his stroke he looked frail as he leaned on his walking stick in the queue.  That’s the Festival for you, they don’t even fast-track you if you’re a celeb.

Certainly, it’s been the best food of the festival this year, mainly because a little bit of research and planning has resulted in at least one hot meal a day not eaten out of a polystyrene container with a plastic fork whilst standing up.

A ‘Scottish fruit bowl’

The hotel were kind enough to set out a ‘Scottish fruit bowl’ upon arrival – a selection of Tunnock’s delicacies, artfully arranged on a slate and dusted with what looked and tasted like icing sugar.  It looked almost too pretty to eat, almost.

Scottish healthy option – note salad leaf

Showing unprecedented levels of foresight, two restaurant bookings were made this year, instead of the usual tactic of turning up at the Magnum bar and promising to do three courses in 45 minutes.  The first was a fish restaurant off the Grassmarket where, it being Festival time, every table was taken despite booking two weeks in advance and we had to sit up at the bar.  What hardship! 

It was great, dining perched atop a barstool is always a treat, particularly at the horseshoe shaped bar giving great views of other diners, and of course I have the balancing skills of a jolly jack-tar aloft in a nor-easter.  The other reservation was made, on foot, on a smartphone, walking to the restaurant in question. 

The wonders of technology, I got the booking confirmation about the same time as I was opening the door of the restaurant.  The wonders of technology.

Top show – Rich Hall, without a doubt, the perfect mixture of raw seething anger, crowd interaction and comedy all wrapped up in a voice that comes all the way from the Old Testament via the heart of Texas.

Postcard from Edinburgh - Haggis and baggage

There's something about the last day of a holiday that makes one want to cram in the maximum level of enjoyment, especially if it relates to things that you can't get at home. That's why I fought and only narrowly won my battle with common decency at breakfast and did not return from the buffet with a plate simply piled high only with haggis.


And again, with the weight limit in mind, I didn't panic buy several tins of the stuff from the shop on the royal mile. I imagine that tourists from all over the world do and can just imagine what it must be like when some bloke from Tokyo serves that up as a treat for some honoured guests.

Back to the Pleasance, to see Sandi Toksvig. Ironically, we see the large Tim Vine in a tiny venue and the diminutive Sandi in a large venue. Sandi is, I think, on her way to becoming something of a Peter Ustanov, in that she has an admirable style as a raconteur, a dry wit, a surname that scores highly in Scrabble and judging by her waistline a fondness for biscuits. Dipped in lard.

Edinburgh fashion tip - ladies, if you are old enough to remember 'The Dukes of Hazzard' tee vee series, you are too old to wear Daisy Dukes.

Whatever the shortcomings of its venues, the Plesance Courtyard is an excellent place to spend some time. My advice would be to go to the courtyard but avoid the venues. The courtyard is the place to go to meet with friends, grab a drink, have a seat and become the proud owner of around 12,000 flyers. You are handed a flyer every 30 seconds. Like animal training, you must employ a firm 'no' and harden yourself to seeing hope die in the eyes of a young performer.

Next year am going to have my own flyers printed up and only take one of theirs if they take one of mine. Mine will be for a theatre piece where a psychotic nutter is driven insane by the constant badgering of those wishing to give him flyers and so goes to their shows, then tracks them down hand beats them to death with a bag heavy with accumulated flyers, or squeak toys, I haven't quite worked that out yet.

Alternatively, fuck it, one year I am going to allow myself enough time to engage in conversation and go to one show every day after auditioning the various flyerers and picking what looks like the best show, or the most attractive cast.

Of course the luxury project would be to only attend shows discovered by way of flyer, and the project to turn into a blog, to turn into a book, to turn into a show next year would be the flyer chain, where you go to a show via a flyer on the Royal Mile and every show you go to thereafter has to be as a result of a flyer you get at the venue of the previous show.


Given the sheer number of shows, they can't all be great, no matter how many stars the artist biros onto their poster, so 'Flying Fuck-that-was-bad' is the working title.

Postcard from Edinburgh - Views and Tattoos

The delight of the festival has been the book festival. The pop-up book shop is fantastic (to clarify, a pop-up book shop is a large marquee housing a temporary book shop, not a book shop that exclusively sells pop-up books, although wouldn't it be great if you had a pop-up pop-up book shop?). I could really have done some damage in here but thankfully had to consider the weight limit on luggage for the flight home and so confined myself to purchasing a paperback, and a hardback roughly the size and weight of a house brick about the history of the British Post Office (how could anyone resist a book that reproduces notice that gives instructions to postmen about keeping their firearms clean and ready at all times?). What was pleasing was that as well as the best sellers, thee was a whole aisle devoted to Scottish authors and Scottish publishers. Here was a wealth of Scottish literature, not all of it about smack.

From one cultural event to another with a trip to Hollyrood Palace to visit the Queen's Gallery, showing a small selection of the Queen's Collection. It's rather hard, looking at the collection, to gauge the tastes of the present Queen, as her acquisitions are based on complementing the pieces acquired by her predecessors.



Hence, there is a lot of stuff from the Victorian era, when even the most modest candle holder from Balmoral had to look at home in a room with tartan on the floor and stags' heads on the walls, so was six foot tall and marble.

There was a lot of stuff from India, where 'gift of' sounds so much better than 'looted by', and where the decorative taste appears to be: cover everything in precious stones, even the swords, although, in fairness, just the pommels, the blades were originally Persian and looked as though they had just been given a perfunctory wipe after last being extracted from somebody.

There was also, and let's be fair - some tat. Royal tat, but tat none the less in the form of Faberge eggs. One in particular was a platinum frame encrusted with diamonds held there only by their perfect cut. Inside was a broach. It must have cost a fortune, looked tacky as hell and was a long way from a 'Kinder'. The royal family have the largest collection of Faberge in the world, most of it acquired from the Bolsheviks after it was in turn pillaged from the murdered Russian royal family. No doubt acquired because it was too good to remain in the hands of murderers. Fair enough.

One stand out piece was a painting by Canaletto of the grand canal in Venice. Light seemed to flood from the painting and barges bobbed on the water. The whole thing was awash not just with canal water but with symbolism and hidden meaning. Like a Dan Brown book. But good.


Perhaps the most striking piece there was a crown. From Ecuador and about 1,000 years old it was a broad band of gold with a fan like the rising sun at the back. Simple and primal, there was no doubt that whoever wore this was top dog. Presented to Queen Victoria just because it was wise to keep a mighty monarch on side.


Out in the fresh air, just time for a scone roughly the size of a small car and then to the Plesance to see Tim Vine. Tim good, venue shite. It's one thing to crowd people into a small room with total disregard for dignity or fire safety laws, quite another to sell more tickets than you actually have unobstructed view.

No such problems that evening at the Tattoo, which was exceptional. The bloke in front was getting a bit over-excited and sprang up and down from his seat to photograph the action. I can sort of understand, as if you have not seen the Tattoo before, you must be thinking 'the folks at home will never believe this!'. The Tattoo is so good that it remains the only show in town that you don't have to be a little bit drunk to get maximum enjoyment out of. Pipes, drums, huge aggressive men in kilts. This is Scotland, especially when they project the St Andrew's cross onto Edinburgh Castle.


By the time the fireworks go off the crowd are in such a state that they are not sure if the pyrotechnics mark the end of the show or the opening salvo in the battle for independence but if the latter, they are for Scotland, and freedom!

An early night tonight - home before midnight, meaning time enough for a trip to the bar and a scotch to aid restful sleep.

Postcard from Edinburgh- Popping up and musicals

I'm in Edinburgh, at the festival, and so start the day with the traditional five meat breakfast: sausage, bacon, black pudding, haggis and whatever rendered fat they fry the eggs in. This sets one up for the day and is a site specific diet, just as when one is abroad one starts the day with fruit, cheese, some sort of ham or simply a fortifying glass of something cheeky depending on the circumstances.

Wandering the city we happen across the book festival in Charlotte Square gardens. This is a collection of marquees, tents and, thanks to the recent weather, the sort of duck boards used in the trenches. There are signs on occasional patches of planking that read 'hidden puddle'. The book festival is sponsored by the Guardian and features a pop-up bookshop. This means that the city is currently officially the middle-class epicentre of the planet.


The focus appears to be on children's literature. This may well be due to the success of 'The Hunger Games', possibly in itself riding the coat tails of the success of the Twishite saga. With the latter, Hollywood put pouting teens on the screen and the kids rushed to the book shop to find out what happened next. With The Hunger Games Hollywood put a smudge of dirt on a teen and the same thing happened. The teen fiction market has never been short of dystopian series (big shout out to all you John Christopher fans) and so they have fired up the printing presses with new covers for existing series and printed up a shitload of stickers reading 'If you liked the Hunger Games you'll love this'. I thought it was a stretch when I saw one on 'Jamie's Italy' but full marks for trying.

Apparently, sales in adult fiction are falling, while sales in children's fiction remain strong, despite the lure of the Playstation. Two things possibly explain this, the first is that soppy adults are buying Twilight books and not so soppy adults realise that writers of children's fiction have to be good because their audience are easily distracted and so are giving them a go, or adults are buying more non-fiction as more easily accessible non-fiction comes onto the market and is tied in with television programmes.


Bucking the trend is adult erotic fiction. I've not read 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and so don't have an opinion on it. Well, not an informed one anyway. By reputation, Fisty Shades of Shite is supposed to be appalling, but it is also a huge success and as a result publishers are dusting off their erotica and printing up those marketing stickers. So for instance, don't be surprised to see 'If you loved Fifty Pages of Bilge, you'll love this', adorning the front cover of another smutty novel with a picture of a high heel on the front cover or, if the publisher is showing imagination, the 'Woman's Realm', or a bar of chocolate.

At the pop-up bar in George Street I ask for a pint of Innes and Gunn. I am told that they only serve it in halves, 'because it is so strong'. I am told this by, and I mean no offence, a weasly undernourished English bar-man who would be better suited to selling cups of squash with the rest of his Brownie troop. As I said, no offence to the Brownies. I considered ordering two halves but as this may have been beyond his abilities, to serve as well as to carry, I comforted myself with the thought of him trying that shit on a thirsty Festival goer later in the evening.

As it was, a half was probably a sound tactical bladder management move as it was off to see 'Appointment with the Wicker Man' at the temple of shagpile, The Assembly Hall. Now, to be fair, I thought that this was going to be a straightforward, twisted, musical version of the famous book and film. Unfortunately not, it was a comedy based on an am-dram company putting on a musical production ofThe Wicker Man, with hysterical results. Quite. It may well work as a tee vee special but all in all it was a bit of a Lucas moment, when somebody takes something beloved and special and shits on it. And the thing is, a musical version of The Wicker Man would be great. I think even the great Sir Christopher Lee has described the film in such terms and you can have a sinister musical, after all, 'The Sound of Music' had Nazis, 'The Wizard of Oz' had flying monkeys and 'Mama Mia' had Colin Firth singing.

Edinburgh fashion tip - gentlemen, wear a kilt. This is an international festival and attracts all types from all corners of the world. But it's held in the capital city of Scotland and this is just about the only chance that anyone not from Scotland is going to get to wear their kilt on an everyday basis. Gentlemen who wish to make a 'statement', you can keep your Vans, your tats, your piercings, your stupid little goatee beards, your fucking fucking cargo shorts, your pony tails, your vintage look and your Buddy Holly glasses because when a bloke with a kilt walks in to the room , all eyes are upon him for two reasons. The first is that he is automatically the best dressed person in the room, the other is that everyone is doing a lightening calculation about clan rivalries and wondering if anything is about to kick off over a 200 year old dispute over ownership of a sheep.

After a day of gorgeous weather, the rain gods have obviously been angered and normal climatic service has been resumed. At the book festival, while 'The Guardian' was giving away a fabric bag with every purchase, 'The Scotsman' which that morning had been giving away a 'I heart Edinburgh' fabric bag containing a sachet of coffee and some shortbread (breakfast!) switched to giving away rain ponchos and instantly became the most popular paper in the city centre. Rain ponchos were much in evidence this afternoon, like some dignified, acceptable grown up version of the punk movement's beloved bin liner.

On to the rather corporate EICC to see Rhod Gilbert. Very funny, but at twenty quid for an hour not tremendously Fringy. However the audience loved him and for weary festival goers the comfy seats were much appreciated. The woman sitting next to me even took he shoes off during the show, not something one would recommend doing in a lot of the venues.

It being a Sunday night, the crowds have thinned somewhat. Dropped into 'Greyfriers Bobby' for a drink. This is a tourist pub, meaning it caters for Americans, meaning it is clean, has friendly bar-staff, has a tartan carpet, and you can find a place to sit. That and a bag of nuts was just what I needed.

Concluded at the BBC again, where a comedian was late, the show over-ran and one concluded that the BBC is saving money by hiring children as floor managers. Having said that, the girl who kept letting me in and out of the venue as I ran to the bar and toilet was very nice. I wonder if she wants to work for the BBC full time when she leaves school.

Postcard from Edinburgh - Fly and dry

The airport is, I have discovered, where couples of any age go to bicker and where parents take their kids to scold them. It's like Asda with cheap booze. So just like Asda then.

When cheap flights took the romance out of air travel by allowing the sort of people who wear football shirts when not playing football to fly, the airports tried to put back some glamour on the ground by turning the departure lounge into a retail emporium of delights, like a duty free Willy Wonka factory, but with more vodka and Toblerone.

Then 9/11 happened and now by the time people get airside they have been treated like a criminal, even if they are not one, at security - although in the interests of balance on-line check in means that a machine asks you if your bags have been left alone with a drug dealer or terrorist for any length of time instead of a real person asking this, so instead of being gripped with a mad urge to snap of the sort of sarcastic answer that sees you answering awkward questions in a small room lit with sickly fluorescents while your friends fly out to Malaga, you simply click 'whatever' to every prompt on the machine, paying about as much attention as you do to accepting the terms and conditions of an iTunes software upgrade and hey ho, you are good to fly and wondering if the booze trolley on the flight will be self service as well.

It's not.

The was glamour at the airport this morning though. TheTeam GB Paralympic team were milling about, obviously getting ready to fly off to their secret undersea volcano training base in preparation for conquering the world, or at least the medals table.

On the flight to Edinburgh, I don't think I have ever been in a more crowded aeroplane. We were packed in so tight that I thought they would have to relax restrictions and allow one of us to sit up front with the pilot, although being stuffed into an overhead locker was probably a better bet.

The flight itself was uneventful, apart from the overcrowding and everyone going through mobile 'phone withdrawal. You can also tell the exact point when you cross the Tweed in an aeroplane, that's when the turbulence starts.

Edinburgh though is a lovely airport to arrive into. It has that fierce national pride that inhabits all small countries, with large cheerful pictures of beautiful countryside or inspiring architecture and upbeat messages that translate into 'Welcome home!' if you are a returning native or just fancy yourself a wee bit Scottish and 'You Have Arrived At The Best Country On The Planet' for everyone else. There is a real 'Scotland - why would you want to be anywhere else?' sense to the place.


The taxi ride into the centre of town allows one to study the familiar landmarks, in particular the roadworks to lay down more new tram rails. They are still building the bloody thing. Either that or Time Team are here doing a special on a huge scale.

What was unfamiliar was the sunshine. All the tourists were sweating in their waterproofs, having not packed any dry-weather gear, while all the locals are wondering what the enormous ball of fire in the sky signified. Obviously not the end of recorded time and Doomsday, as one of the signs of that is predicted to be the tram line being finished. I'll tell you what sunshine in Edinburgh signifies, it signifies time to get something to eat and then start drinking, outside for a change.


There are hundreds of great places to eat in Edinburgh but fuck it, having found a decent pub last year that does good food the plan was to hole up there for the remainder of the stay.

But eventually, drawn out by the sun, it's time to wander.

Something of a surprise on George Street, the road is closed. In London roads have been closed recently of course to allow Olympic events, like the marathon, the cycling and the triathlon to take place, which have all resulted in road closures. But this is Edinburgh and so the only decent reason to close a road - apart from laying down some tram tracks - is to put down some artificial grass and erect a pop-up bar. Genius!


A pastoral scene with bar stools in George Street is not the only change for this year. The Assembly Rooms have been redecorated. This is entirely at odds with Fringe comedy, an art form associated with something sticky underfoot that smells of the ghost of binge drinking past. Instead Stewart Lee does his act in an elegant space smelling of new Axminster.

Stewart Lee's act is good, for over an hour he simultaneously performs and deconstructs his act. So, so much better than seeing his at the Strand, the comedy club that outlaws laughter.

Emerging into the sunlight with the feeling that we may just have seen the best show of the Fringe first, time for a beer before the next show. It's warm and people are walking round in their tee shirts.

Edinburgh fashion tip - one that fat men appear to have seized upon like a cheeseburger - if you are overweight and wear a character tee shirt, or a tee shirt with an amusing slogan on it, people will be too busy either chortling or thinking 'cock' to notice your shape and speed up their pace to get ahead of you in the queue at the chip shop.

From the Assembly Rooms to the Assembly Hall, Rainy Hall in particular. This is the sweatiest venue on the Fringe. They ought to be heading out fluffy towels, birch branches and Volvo key fobs as they take your ticket. Marcus Brigstocke is performing his new show 'The Brig Society'. Very good and surprisingly a lot of new material, considering the sheer volume, in both senses of the word, of ranting that he does on 'The Now Show'.


Finish off at the BBC pop-up village on Potterow and 'BBC Presents'. This show starts at eleven in the evening and it's fair to say that the real star here is the audience, a giddy mixture of sleep depravation, booze and BBC license fee payer belligerence and one can see the fresh young acts 'only doing a short spot' visibly pale as the audience fall quiet during their performance. Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a young man who aspires to fill a prized seat on a tee vee panel show quite like sleepy indifference.

Review - Alzheimer's the musical

Walked out of this one. Absolute shite.

Not sure what we expected but with a name like that we were prepared to be offended. The fringe has never been a bastion of political correct comedy or sensitivity, which is probably why I enjoy it so much, so we were quite ready to be shocked.

The reviews were good and the long queue, in the rain, boded well. We holed up under a bar table with a big brolly and tagged on to the end of the queue when it started moving.

This meant we were in the overspill area for the audience, a balcony with no seats but, what the hell, it's the last show of the fringe and we're are rock and roll enough to handle this.

Show was three Australian comedians doing comic songs about old age, dressed as grannies. I know of course that Australia is a cultural as well as an actual desert, but if your big opening number involved finding a rhyme of 'Viagra' and using your simmer frame as a dancing partner, you are fucked. We gave them half of the second sketch to redeem themselves but when it became clear that the biggest laugh was based around a lady who played bowls getting sponsorship from manufacturers of geriatric related products, we headed for the exit, quite pleased that we had not got a seat and hence did not need to make an exit that anyone would notice. We slipped out from the back and let the door close gently behind us...or it would have done if the springy arm thing that makes the door close with a gentle sigh had not been knackered, meaning a heavy fire door slam shut with the sort of bang normally associated with seismic activity.

After a brief debate about demanding our money back, we decided that a far better use of our now free evening was to make reservations for dinner at Magnum. Walking out was the right decision is just so many ways.

Review - David O'Doherty presents: Rory Sheridan's Tales of The Antartic

I know somebody who is related to an Antarctic explorer, her Irish ancestor was on Shackleton's expedition, the one that ended with the epic open-boat journey. And I've been to Ireland and seen a house with a plaque stating that a polar explorer lived there so I asked her, what is it about the Irish that compels their men to seek out the desolate waste? She replied that it's because it's the last place on earth that they are likely to have their mammies telling them what to do.

The explorer in this show went to the Antarctic for love, and love is probably the only thing in the world that is more likely to lead a chap into doomed folly than Antarctic exploration. So the combination of the two was going to be a winner.

The show was good. The venue was a sub-sub-sub basement of some council building, think underground car park with no lights and water running down the walls and you get the idea, I half expected to come across some lost cavers, or morlocks, as I took my seat.

A monologue of love, adventure, madness and the invention of the pub quiz, the writing and delivery was clever and funny, making some mileage from using modern references in the context of early twentieth century polar exploration, with plenty of straightforwardly funny stuff ('penguins, let me tell you, are stupid. They are more stupid than an bottle filled with meat') as well as a poignant conclusion.

In terms of performance, invention, charm, storytelling and laugh-out-loud funny moments, this show was the high water mark of this years fringe, just the sort of thing one hopes to see, deliciously different, wonderfully executed and will change your view of penguins forever.

Review - Tearoom

A show that starts at mid-day? What were we thinking? Surviving the Fringe means that late nights (or rather early mornings) need to be balanced out with late rises or stimulants by the fistful. The Fringe should not involve setting your alarm clock. And yet we rose at an (in)decent hour, took on the usual six to eight thousand calorie breakfast that is so necessary when your day is going to involve charging from venue to venue, drinking heavily, and wandered through a deserted city to our lunchtime play.

That's right, Edinburgh was more or less deserted at half eleven, one got the feeling that the last revellers had only gone to bed a couple of hours before. The city smells suspiciously of bleach at that hour of the morning and one would do well not to step any any area that smells more than averagely pine fresh.

Tearoom was an attempt at site-specific theatre. A couple of years ago, a theatre group had had great success in setting a play by Bukowski in a bar. Could this lot emulate that success in a tea total environment? Quite a challenge.

The play takes place in a large room, dressed to look like a tea room. The audience sit at tables around the edge and drink tea and eat cake while the actors sit at tables in the middle and drink tea and eat cake and act.

And act well. This was an excellent idea executed with all the elegance of a fine bone china teacup, occasionally as dark as black coffee, occasionally as light as a muffin. The triumph was that the premise of the play, that one was eavesdropping on a private conversation in a public place, worked and worked because one wanted to listen rather that pursue the natural urge in such situations - which is to plug in an iPod and raise the sonic screen.

The play played to a full house, and as we left there was a lady at the door of the venue asking about tickets for the next performance. A popular production and, with the price of afternoon tea included in the admission price, the perfect combination of culture and cake!

Full disclosure - I know one of the actors. He was excellent. I managed to suppress the urge to wave when he appeared. I also know that when he handed out the flyers for the show, he told prospective audience members that it was in the 'pubic triangle', that is, the area of Edinburgh that has three stripper pubs in it. In truth, it's just off the pubic triangle.

Postcard from Edinburgh - Magnum bar

What with the breakfasts and the hog roasts and the drinking, fitting in a decent dinner was a challenge. This is probably one of the reasons we ate at The Magnum bar for two nights running. There is a school of thought that when one is in a city in the grip of a cultural festival, one should try and enjoy as diverse a range of activities as possible, for instance you can go to a different stripper pub every night for three nights running. However, there is another school of thought which is the one that I subscribe to, that the Magnum is an excellent place to eat and that going anywhere else is too big a risk. Nothing can put a crimp in your festival quite like substandard batter around your fish. Or biting into batter expecting cod and discovering a mars bar instead.

Review - The Queen Art and Image

Next year is the Queen's golden jubilee and one of the ways it is being marked is an exhibition of paintings and photographs of the Queen called 'The Queen Art and Image'. Before it travels to London, the exhibition was showing in Edinburgh. It is fantastic. As an icon or image, the profile and portrait of the Queen is ubiquitous. Her profile adorns stamps and her face is on bank notes and well as newspapers.

It was fascinating to see how she had changed as a person over the decades, from a glamorous deb in the1950s to a mother and a head of state. One really got the impression that she was a constant in a changing world and that even in times of peace and prosperity there is still strife and suffering.

As an icon, her image was, if anything, even more remarkable. They had Warholes, which were good, the Francis Bacon portrait, which was stunning, and the 'god save the Queen' Sex Pistols artwork, which mashes up the image of the Queen and the Union Flag. Disrespectful at the time it may have been, but it seemed perfectly in place here among the images of veneration.