There's just a few days to wait

TOMORROW IT'S AUGUST IN EDINBURGH

And, in this household at least, that means one thing.  It's Fringe time.

Of course it isn't just the Fringe.  There's the International Festival.  The Art Festival.  The Book Festival.  The Festival of Politics.  The Tattoo.  But, mostly, it's the Fringe.

It's the Fringe that's largely responsible for the population of the city doubling for a while.  It's the Fringe that prevents you from walking down the Royal Mile with anything greater than mollusc momentum and emerging at the other end with enough flyers to paper your bedroom walls.  It's the Fringe that's putting on well over three thousand two hundred shows in hundreds of venues ranging from plush to slimey.  It's the Fringe that Edinburgh residents either love or hate.

And it's the high point of the city's festival season.  We went to a few gigs at TradFest in April and May.  Saw our fair share of new, and old, movies in FilmFest in June.  And, only a week ago today, rounded off a week and a bit of the Jazz and Blues Festival.  But none of them offer the variety and stamina challenge that awaits the dedicated Fringe goer.  Last year we saw sixty shows.  Last year we were knackered.  So if we make it to fifty this time that will be enough.  We're not getting any younger....

We have just over thirty shows booked so far, enough to be going on with.  I have a timetable set up, the tickets now reside in poly pockets (one pocket for each day of course), there's a list of other possibles waiting to fill in the gaps.  Past experience of these things (and having lots of time on my hands) tells me that this OCD level of preparation will be something I'm grateful for come the start of the the third week.  By then I'm starting to suffer from that dread condition known as "Fringe arse" from sitting in so many unforgiving seats, and I just want to know when and where the next show is.

Of course August is immediately followed by September, and in this household that too can only mean one thing.  It's ice hockey season.  But excitement at the prospect of seeing the new Caps line up take to the ice will have to be contained.  There's some serious Fringe going to get through first....

Carnival time

The city is well into Festival Season now (more of which in another post) and buzzing with tourists.  One of the free events staged each year is the Festival Carnival Parade, which took place on 17 July.  Several hundred performers and participants assemble on The Mound and come down the hill and along Princes Street to the West End where many then continue into the Gardens and give performances.

The parade itself is a mixture of professional entertainers and community groups, with dancers, acrobats, drummers, pipers, a brass band, Chinese dragons and more.  I took a video as they passed by, trying to reflect the colour and energy and excitement they generated.  Sadly it was a dull, cloudy day, but at least it stayed dry and warm.

You can see the full 18 and a bit minute video by clicking on this link.

Or you can find the fourteen individual clips that have gone into it on my YouTube Channel.

Who? SNP? Never heard of them...

TAE SEE OORSELS....

We've just got back from a brief foray back to our old haunts down in England, staying with friends.  Given recent events, and the unfolding development of the new, unelected, UK government, it's no surprise that politics was a frequent subject of conversation.

Both the people we resided with, and other old acquaintances we caught up with, were, like us Remain voters.  All have a strong interest in politics, all share at least some of our left wing principles.  So it was interesting listening to what they new about the political scene in Scotland, and, more specifically, the personalities and names they recognised.

No surprise that Nicola was known to all, and featured frequently on the radar.  And that Alex remains a weel kent figure, no matter what people might think of him.  But the other 'bi' name that seems to have media recognition down there is.... wee Ruthie.  Yup, on the basis of my very small and wholly unscientific sample, it appears that Ruth Davidson is the third best known current Scottish politician in England.  If you were looking for evidence of the media's right wing bias....

Nobody could think who the leader of Scottish Labour was.  Kezia's name evoked some recognition when I mentioned it, but none immediately connected it with the position she holds.

But the biggest surprise, to me, was the total blank I drew with one name you'd think they should all be aware of.  The leader of the third largest bloc - over 50 MPs - in the House of Commons and often the only effective parliamentary opposition to the UK government..  The chief Westminster representative of the party that forms the government in a substantial part of the UK.  A party which can boast the third largest membership numbers of all UK political parties, not that far behind the figure for the Tories and comfortably well clear of fourth place.  A man who recently put in a strong performance on BBC's Question Time, where he was a voice of sense amidst the usual right wing drivel.  Yet not one of them seemed to have any idea who Angus Robertson was.

The events, and mounting sense of crisis, in British politics over the past three weeks has shown the UK to be dysfunctional and anything but 'United'.  The disdain with which Scotland's voice continues to be treated is ever more evident, and my finding felt like an indication of just how little we are listened to.

Feels like Independence can't come soon enough.  We need to get off the Titanic.