Memory of a free festival

It’s been a while since the last entry but a lot has happened in that time. Not least of which, there was the other royal wedding – the Royal Scot wedding. After trawling through over 2500 photos, shortlisting them and editing them I’m finally on the brink of getting some of the shots of the big day online. Stay tuned for further announcements. Then there was the honeymoon to the Basque country (photos here).

Both of these were thoroughly delightful but have been overtaken in the past weeks by the spectacle that is the Edinburgh Festival. The city has been invaded by arty types from Hoxton and less arty types from Houston. There have been thousands of shows in all sorts of venues across the city and we’ve seen a fair few of them. Not being at work my excel skills have become rusty so I thought I’d get in a bit of practice and share some stats with you. Here’s a breakdown of what we saw in the form of some sort of Olympic medal table:

	shows	of which, free ones
Comedy (I use this term loosely)	15	11
Music	6	5
Art	5	5
Photography	5	4
Mixed media	2	2
Book festival	2	0
Cabaret	1	1
Debate	1	1
Fireworks	1	1
Street Performance	1	1
Film	1	0
Total	40	31

Again, I’ve put some photos on flickr to give you a taste.

One of my favourite jokes goes something like this:

Q: What’s that programme on the telly where they tell you not to come to Scotland?
A: Oh, yes, the weather forecast!

The weather has indeed been grim – I think it has rained every day this year. In fact, I think the aforementioned forecasts should be amended: rather than having stats that tell you what the chances of rain are, tell us what percentage of the day is going to rain-filled i.e. we know it is going to rain at some point each day so the chance of rain is always going to be 100%.

Some of the comedy was truly dire but most of the shows were enjoyable in a variety of ways. Particular highlights include the two “unbound” events at the book festival – nights of music, readings, poetry, film and general mayhem.

The first was about James Duthie, otherwise known as Dummy Jim, a deaf and dumb guy from Aberdeenshire who cycled to the Arctic circle in the 1950s (see this site for more info).

The second was in memory of the writer Paul Reekie, a member of the mid 90s Rebel Inc counter-culture poetry and literature scene in Edinburgh that also featured Irvine Welsh and Gordon Legge, among others. The genteel book festival was invaded for the night by a selection of Leith’s more colourful characters (see the photos for a flavour). Music was provided by Vic Godard of Subway Sect fame, Davy Henderson of Fire Engines fame and a cast of other luminaries.

Now that all that excitement is over, I need to concentrate on the matter in hand – looking for some sort of gainful employment. After months of doctors telling me “it’s up to you now” and “you’ll know when you’re better”, the time has come for a return to the real world. What that will involve I’m not entirely sure but let’s at least start looking.