6 August 2017
Friday was the last day of our holiday and as soon as I awoke I switched on BBC breakfast TV. This was for two reasons – firstly to admire whichever glamorous and woefully underpaid female presenter(s) were oozing desirability from the sofa that day and secondly to discover how sun burnt and/or soaked I was going to get while packing away.
On the screen was an ignorant smirking sycophantic toad of a man reporting live from Edinburgh. It was the first day of the Fringe Festival and he had been sent to report from the world’s most fantastic performance event.
He oozed confidence and bubbled with enthusiasm but it was clear to even the most dim-witted viewer he really didn’t have a clue.
As he spouted ignorant cobblers and sycophantic crap, behind him a couple of still pissed jugglers dropped their clubs, a trio of barely awake gymnasts failed to balance on each other’s heads and a pretentious tit wobbled back and forth on a unicycle waving his arms in the air.
I cannot understand why the BBC always do this. I know it is 7.30am in the morning so the content has to be safe, but could the performers have been any less entertaining?
There are many Edinburgh festivals taking place over the next three weeks including the book, the music and the comedy (which is better known as The Fringe), so it would not be difficult to find a better performer. In truth you can see just about anything you like.
Want three fat Japanese men doing the complete works of Shakespeare in 15 minutes while dressed head to toe in pink lycra (spandex) using root vegetables as their only props? It will be there.
Or how about a dozen naked dwarfs from New York doing their own over 18’s show entitled ‘Snow White ain’t so pure no more!’ which is set in a taxidermist’s stuffery and performed to the music of Alice Cooper being played on the banjo by a Donald Trump look-a-like? No problem!
If the ludicrous and banal uni cyclist really wanted to make his act interesting he should do it blind-folded while riding up and down a narrow plank suspended over a tank of boiling oil and while juggling three live porcupines. Now THAT would be entertaining!
Having said all that, the Fringe is one of the greatest things you can ever ‘do’ while alive. We go every second year for a week and a half and absolutely love it. I spend 23 months in moist anticipation.
If you have never been, make sure you visit next year. If you do not have any money then why not rob a bank? Although the truth is money is not essential as hundreds of shows are absolutely free.
No-where to stay? So what! The weather is usually fine and I speak from experience when I say Edinburgh park benches can be surprisingly comfortable. If you are lucky you might even find something to eat underneath dropped by a previous incumbent. If the pigeons don’t get there first.
Those that live in Edinburgh tend to be either completely unaffected or moan like hell about all the people, the traffic and the general inconvenience. To which I say “Suck it up!”
All the restaurants, bars and tourist tat shops put their prices up by a factor of 3 and all the visitors hemorrhage money on everything they can find, including haggis burgers, stuffed green loch ness monsters and drink.
Ah yes – the drinking. I was once told that during the three weeks of the festival pubs only HAVE to close between 5.30am and 6.00am. Outwith this 30 minute period they can open when they like.
I believe this to me true as some years ago I entered a festival hostelry at 10am and left again at 5.30am. It was a rare experience and I was not a well chap afterwards. Physically or financially.
To digress a little – it was the second most drunk I have been in my life. My most drunk ever was on a stag weekend in Belfast (Northern Ireland) when I lost the ability to see. Temporarily anyway. While the Good Friday agreement was in place at the time, things were still quite lively. Looking back I was lucky not to get shot. By either side.
Anyway the fringe is on and I am not going this year and I am more than a little bitter about it.
To return to WharryFest, the week away was everything it was meant to be. Full fried breakfasts were cooked outside every morning come rain or shine. Long, heavy drinking sessions became the norm every night. Trips out and about were completed in between.
I would like to mention three of them:
1 Cragside
is famous because it was the home of the first chap to light his house with electricity which he generated using his own hydro electric plant. This was impressive, but my admiration diminished a little when I discovered that all that infrastructure only allowed him to have six bulbs on at a time. Plus the bulb was switched on by placing it in a bath of live mercury.
He had the equivalent of £136 million ($177.5 million) in the bank when he died. Which is pretty much what it costs to light six bulbs in our house these days. I’d call the supply of domestic electricity ‘daylight robbery’ but it only really happens at night.
2 Lindisfarne on Holy Island – The home of Mead
it was a fine place and negotiating the tidal causeway was fun. Thankfully this wasn’t us:
Saw this in a café:
They have clearly met the Domestic Manager.
Also despite his obvious glee I’m not convinced my brother-in-law has mastered the concept of how the scone and jam thing works:
3 Grace Darling’s lighthouse
we took a boat trip to visit her former lighthouse home. In 1838 at the age of 24 Grace became famous overnight. She and her father rowed out from their lighthouse and rescued some people during a terrible storm. She was the first female celeb. Bet she was still paid less than the men celebs of the time.
Alice was as usual enthralled by the whole experience:
The week after it was back to work. Just before I went on holiday a fellow toiler at the fun factory told me she was leaving to go and work in Dubai. She will do less hours, have less responsibility, more than triple her salary and pay no tax. What a bitch!
Murrays Musings 