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 - Stewart Lee - Flickwerk 2011. Work in progress

Oooooooohhhhhhh, edgy. Stewart Lee has, in defiance of his status as a mainstream comedian who has been a continued television presence for a couple of years now, continued to play the Stand comedy club during his Edinburgh stints. So the audience that turn up are probably a mixture of people who like Lee enough to tolerate this frankly appalling venue year after year, and those who have seen the telly show and hope they will catch the live version, that is; as funny as the telly show but with more swearing.

It's not as funny as the telly show, but there is more swearing. It's funny, it's just not as funny as you'd expect. Then again, nobody could be that funny for an hour without distilling down hours of material and drafting in Armando to deconstruct the programme between sets.

There's warning signs a few minutes in when Lee explains that as a parent he never goes out and so has nothing to base new material on except Children's television. He does, however, really pull it out of the bag with a spectacular piece about his hate mail bag, and he had the best gag about the riots.

And, what was that...how could such social upheaval, with Greggs on fire, be so overlooked here, it was almost as if none of the comedians cold be bothered to build this into their sets because they had got the timing right and the construction just so and bunging in fifteen minutes of topical humour about chavs going on the rampage would upset the delicate balance of all those knob gags. Maybe it was that, just as the social unrest was apparently coordinated by social networking rather than the traditional method of scallys just telling asking other that they had just looted J.D. Sports but that, being innumerate, they had neglected to loot any trainers in their size and did they want a pair? The jokes were also posted instantly on twitter too and so the social media savvy Fringe goer would probably have read any punch line in the form of a tweet months ago.

The Stand is my least favourite venue by far. Small and pokey and painted black its the sort of place you wake up in after being abducted and know that everything is very much not going to be alright. And with self-important signs telling you to switch off your mobile phone and not to talk during performances. This was the sort of place that Hitler could have made an address from if the bierkeller had been busy.

There was, during Lee's act, the odd reference to Richard Herring, which was appreciated by the audience (you can't fit a crowd into the Stand, so...gathering? Group? Audience will have to do...fans! That's it, appreciated by the fans), but a bit odd, I bet the Beatles didn't name check each other after they broke up.

It was a good show to see so that you didn't wonder if you missed something special. If you missed it, you didn't miss anything special, apart from the hate mail thing - honest to god, I laughed so hard my colon almost came up my nose.