Edinburgh festival 2010

Astronaut
Originally uploaded by fred pipes

People say to me: never mind all this nostalgia nonsense, what we want to know is what did you get up to at Edinburgh? Well, the usual really: Stewart Lee (twice, in two different shows but with similar material - one at the Festival Theatre with Franz Ferdinand and Frank Chickens and the other a Gaza benefit with Daniel Kitson and others), the dependable Simon Munnery (but no AGM this year, and the show didn't appear to be about self-employment as advertised), David O'Doherty (some great jokes about cycle maintenance) and a whole raft of shows starring Brighton people: Tim Crouch's 'The Author' at the Traverse, Mim's 'Dinner for one', Nick Pynn, Beach Hut Mutts, Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer - plus some shows recommended by my infallible guides Peter and Lisa (who'd been up earlier in the month), notably the excellent Poland 3, Iran 2. We also celebrated Foz's birthday, and I went to see Brighton author Marek Kohn gave a talk at the Book Festival on his climate change book 'Turned out nice'

I didn't think the art was up to much (mind you I probably missed some crackers). Sam and I tried to get to the Modern Art Gallery and the Dean (showing surrealist art from their permanent collections) but no buses seem to go there any more (bring back the Art Bus!) and we ended up in Cramond, which was nice! Martin Creed at the Fruitmarket was OKish, esp the musical stairs and lift, but systems art - putting objects in order - can get a bit tedious quite quickly. My favourite exhibition was at the good old Forest Fringe, in the TotalKunst room: Mik Godley's iPod drawings of Nazi flying saucers, done using various apps: Brushes, Sketchbook Mobile and Paintbook 3 Vector. And next door, wannabe astronaut James Baker was attempting to get into space by climbing a stepladder in 30 Days to Space. By climbing a 6ft ladder 1467 times each day for 30 continuous days he hoped eventually reach a height of 50 miles - space. Each climb of the 6ft ladder was marked by drawing a chalk star onto the wall. Hope he made it!

Otherwise it was just lots of good food and great beer in fabulous pubs. Chance encounters on the Royal Mile with heavy metal ukulele players and balloon-blowing clowns, watching The Illusionist in the actual cinema featured in the film, oh and being roped in as judges at Tricity Vogue's Ukelele (that's how she likes to spell it!) Cabaret! In fact, another great week away at the Edinburgh Festival.



More photos on Flickr.