The Edinburgh Fringe is officially the world's biggest annual arts and culture festival. We caught the last few days of this summer's Fringe last weekend, and the crowds and the energy were showing no signs of abating.
Edinburgh's population reportedly doubles during the three weeks of the festival, the atmosphere is festive and colour seems to burst from every stone grey facade ...
Performers line the Royal Mile and surrounding streets, advertising their shows and entertaining the crowds ...
The Fringe is held alongside a jamboree of related festivals (book, music, art, film ...). It began after the end of World War II, as an alternative forum (to the more formal, prestigious Edinburgh International Festival) for less well-known, more off-beat or experimental artists, and has grown into the huge event it is today.
Better-known performers and works sell out fast, but the fun of the Fringe is in the opportunity to see fresh talent and new ideas in thousands of shows ranging from stand-up comedy to classic revivals, from musicals to puppetry to the avant garde, many hundreds of shows performed for free and in every conceivable space (pubs, shopping malls, tents, attic rooms ...)
... though just walking through the streets is entertainment enough ...
Fancy a spot of public humiliation? This dour-looking gent raising one eyebrow archly at me will gladly place your head in stocks ...
If that doesn't appeal, Scottish mohican lady with the shapely turn of leg can induct you in the ancient art of spinning ...
Round about the town a bowl of porridge,a kilt or a custom-made set of bagpipes can all be yours ...
Edinburgh was still popping with bright summer colours and flowers ...
but at the same time transitioning to post-festival muted autumn shades ...
... my lassies, lightly negotiating the crowded pavements with joined pinkie fingers
Across town, in elegant Charlotte Square, the Book Festival was a peaceful haven compared with the frenetic artistic energy of the Royal Mile. I joined the massively long queues that were snaking round the square for some of these events, but we were all moved quickly and seamlessly along and I wished I'd been able to get to more ...
When one was gasping for a break from all the intellectual rigour, there were cosy cafés in which to do lunch ...
... and drinks in the Balmoral's plush Bollinger Bar ...
Later on, peering out into the rain for passing taxis at the Balmoral's entrance, after retrospectively perhaps a few chardonnays too many, I found myself riveted by the footwear of the man standing next to me ...
I thought he was an American tourist kilted up as a Scot for the benefit of the Scottish, but it turns out he was the Scottish doorman kilted up as a Scot for the benefit of American tourists - or a tourist like me.
Last impressions of Edinburgh through a rain-spotted car window ...
