Frigeworthy

now it's not usually my way to do the blog about days out and fancy holidays and such. no. i'm far more likely to jot down meandering barely-sensical ramblings about some dream i had or how i was scared by my own reflection and such idiocy. 

but i've just spent 3 days at an event that i now know i will return to every year for the rest of my life so it would seem disrespectful not to at least jot a bit down. i haven't been to everywhere in the world, but i can say as fact that edinburgh (the fringe and a bunch of other stuff) in august is the best event in all existance

i'm biased of course, as many of you i bore in person will know, if you were to for some reason drop the word Edinburgh into a conversation with me, depending on the timing, the end result would fall somewhere between me relentlessly wittering about how spellbinding the place is, and us actually being there 4 hours later. i could talk about how i feel as 'at home' on the royal mile as i do in my own flat, i could talk about how the shock of moving so swiftly between hollyrood park and princes street brings the world into focus and how beautiful it is outside the parliament building at night, and i would definatley talk about the underground vaults and the closes and i would fail miserably to describe how on the coldest nights it can be the warmest place.

first off though, having booked a hotel room late and having to find one a couple of miles outside the city centre, fate decided to do me the favour of putting arthur's seat between me and where all the fun was centered. To me this was brilliant, i got to walk through a national park on my way to town. well, i did have the option of walking round it, which if we're being honest was quicker, but if somebody sticks a massive green valley in front of you.. unless your soul as been eaten by an internal combustion engine, you're gonna fancy trecking through it, even if it does add 20minutes onto the trip.. you've got all your life haven't you.

of course, where there is a valley there is a hill, in this case it's a pretty big one and you get to thinking, bet if i wander up the side a bit there's a pretty decent view, as all you can generally see from the bottom of a valley, is the sides of a valley.. which is nice... but.. y'know. problem is once you've climbed a bit you start looking right up at the top, the peak, it's not really on your was is it.. but you've never climbed to the top before, it's something you should really do at some point

so a bit of a sigh and a deep breath and you start climbing higher and higher.. about half way up you want to sit down... fuck it, lie down, and recover, but there's a couple behind you who seem to be wandering up to the peak as part of a relaxing dinner time stroll, so you'd be embarrased to look like you were struggling. 

three quarters of the way up you are repeating to yourself the phrase 'i'm an idiot i'm an idiot i'm a massive idiot i'm going to die' as you see a man running... running towards you (at this stage you have taken to occasionally using your hands to make sure you don't trip over on the uneven floor and rolypoly back down the the valley floor) and find yourself wheezing out loud 'he's an idiot'

but you press on. you're 20rds (vertical) from the peak, the sense of achievement is going to be fantastic, and the view just as good. you're sweating, everywhere, you can hear yourself panting over your headphones, but it's ok, you're there, in a minute you can sit down and enjoy.

then this small girl (ok so she could be in her 20s, but she's 5ft high and, well, a girl) has the audacity to appear, ambling towards you, away from the peak, not a bead of sweat on her, the same facial expression that somebody would have while having a bath, not in the least bit troubled by the climb she has obviously recently made. and you have to suck it all in and pretend you're not dying from the superhuman effort that has been the last 30minutes.

it's a blow but it's ok, you've made it, you're at the top. you sit down and spend 5 minutes fighting the urge to throw yourself off, not for any medlodramatic reason, but just because it's the easiest way to get back down. then you stand up and survey the routes from where you are to where you want to be and obviously it's to go back to where you started in the first place. obviously.

100yrds down the return journey your sense of achievement, of pride, takes a bit of a hit. that girl. THAT GIRL! is walking back towards you FROM THE OTHER PEAK. it's been five, maybe ten minutes since you last saw her. that's quite a pace. 

obviously at this point all this was running round my head and i sat down to make a few nots on my mobile about how i was going to blog it, as nobody does anything these days without simultaneously thinking about how the will tell the internet about it. just like nobody thinks anything of switching from 2nd person to 1st person during a narrative. it's a post modern world and we love it.

while writing... not even giving me time to stop writing. that superhuman 5ft lump of attractively shaped muscle comes jogging past me... jogging. it's important to note here that previous to this point there was no indication that she was out exercising or training in anyway, the previous movement, the manner of dress, was all indication of a simple volcano sympathising tourist just like me she was simply not satisfied with making me look like a useless subperson with her accelarated and unflinching wanderings around the peaks and troughs of this park, she needed something extra to keep her interested, so she broke into a jog. HOW DARE SHE! my sense of achievement is squashed under her feet as they pad delicately past. i haven't acheived anything, i''ve failed, i've been beaten by a girl... and I haven't even been beaten by her at anything particularly impressive.. i've been beaten by her at CLIMBING HILLS! 

rubbish.

i got distracted there. sorry. but yeah. basically edinburgh fringe festival is amazing. i spent 3 days there and was never bored at any moment. i spent the entire daylight hours of first 1 and half days simply wander up and down the royal mile being entertained by the street performers and people trying to sell there shows. you name me one other street in the world that a person can spend close to 15 hours just walking up and down, sitting on, without getting bored. and that's before you even start to look at the shows. i watched a gothic shakespeare at midnight. i watched stuart lee AND richard herring. and yes both their routines dwelled largely on the problems of being a 40something comedian that used to be on tv. only one of them mentioned fist of fun, by using a joke from the show, nobody in the room got the allusion until it was pointed out in the nest sentence. a saw a reletively poor sketch show played out to a room of a hundred people. and i saw a young comedian try and perferm his routine to an audience of just 6 people. ok, so he didn't try and perform his routine. he sat and chatted to us for an hour. but nobody minded. because they could walk out of that room and into another at any point to find a different entertainment.

and i didn't even get involved in the 24hour party that was caused by tens of thousands of people, from every age group, from every country in the world, all decending on one small area of one scottish city.

i have to go now and book my accomadation for next year. you should come.