Fringegestion

It's easy to overdo it at this time of year and trot frantically from venue to venue trying to fit it all in. This greed can produce what I call "Fringegestion", a condition resulting in an overstuffed brain no longer able to discern entertainment from dross.

Some fringers have great tolerance and can take in as many shows as possible in one day, while others need more time between events so as to digest what they've seen. Four shows in one day is my maximum, with one or two exhibitions in between. Over that limit and my cultural lobes crash. Normally takes a day or two for the desire to gamble time and energy on more fringely opportunities to revive. But sooner or later, I gambol off to well trodden venues or in search of new (and more comfortable) theatre spaces.

Gazing vacantly at enthusiastic young acts in the High Street helps regain a sense of perspective in the short term.

Anyone familiar with the concept of the fringe will be aware, or at least guess that it is used to set up fringes to some of the other festivals in Edinburgh. So, the Book Festival has a fringe. The one event I managed was Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann reading from their book Answer Me This? A very popular event and sort of entertaining in it's way.

Then it was time for Jackie Kay at the Book Festival. This was one of the funniest events I've been to this month, if not this year.

Next up, Bumfluff and Brimstone. This is where the fringegestion kicks in, after the glorious wit of Jackie Kay to a woman in her first Fringe show having decided at 40 that she wanted to do stand up.  She tried, and some material was quite good, but, my perception of her was coloured by the previous event.

Following a short gap and time for a bit of a walk I finished the day with the reliably funny Kate Smurthwaite. After my last year's rant about her not getting enough TV, she is now making a welcome habit of appearing on comment pieces and discussion programmes and speaking up for rational feminism.

Next day brought a change of focus with the Festival of Politics at Holyrood. As with the Book Fringe, I could only fit in one event. Is the far north safe in Nordic hands? Chaired expertly by Lesley Riddoch with presentations from a Norwegian oil and gas exploration representative, and a woman from Murmansk asserting the ecological viewpoint, this did not disappoint.  I knew little of the arguments surrounding this discussion, so I was on a steep learning curve.  Pressure to find new oil, gas and fish stocks will mean that the nations surrounding the Arctic are looking at ways to exploit the resources, developing new technologies to do so and generally panicking those who don't trust nations or companies not to wreck the fragile environment in that area.

That had been all I'd planned to do as I'd had lots the day before and anticipated a heavy fringeathon the next day. But, little goes to plan and as I walked up the road, I was invited into a free Burn's show, free three course, Vegetarian Burn's Supper and free ten year old Tallisker whisky.
I'm not going to refuse that.  I'd not been in Monteith's restaurant before, but I'll be going again judging by the standard of the food. The vegetable terrine starter was sublime, the veggie haggis was ok and the raspberry Cranachan was scrummy. The show was really good fun, especially as this was the final one and they were more than a little demob happy.

Two good days on the fringe, demonstrating that if you wander about the city opportunities sometimes land in your lap.