Lee Randall: The misery and ecstasy of falling in love with August all over again

Published on Friday 13 August 2010 12:01

WEATHER aside, this is one of my favourite times of year to live in Edinburgh. It is a tremendous privilege to reside in the city playing host to such a wealth of eccentricity, talent and outright insanity. It feels, though I'll whisper it, a bit like being back in New York City.

So far this festival season, I've met an Aboriginal tribal elder with a wicked line in juicy showbiz gossip stretching back more than 50 years. I have eaten breakfast with a pair of naughty sock-puppets who reduced me to helpless giggles, and cooked dinner for a Booker longlisted author.

While he made the acquaintance of my cats and my single malt, we upheld the time-honoured tradition decreeing that one's cleverness in setting the world to rights is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed. If I could remember even one of our grand plans, I'd be world ruler by now, but as I cannot, I'll have to keep the old orb and sceptre in storage until my next session with the corkscrew of inspiration.

I have laughed uproariously at an impromptu jazz musical devised around the theme of killer crab literature, and muttered silent prayers that a lovely Irish chanteuse, known for her way of filling a basque, would not tumble off her swing mid-song. (Little did I know that what she really needed was a prayer for leniency, aimed at the evil gods of electricity, who gave her a bad jolt two nights later.)

I drank pretentious tea while interviewing a famous actress up here on a flying visit to see her friend perform, and rode in a taxi with another well-known lady, who might scale those dizzy heights herself one day - of acting, not hoity-toity tea-making, that is.

I have swerved past thousands of flyering youths, and admirably restrained the impulse to smack them for being so perky and persistent (and young). I held back the urge to congratulate a young troupe of players I spotted outside a hotel the other morning, since my review of their jolly production has yet to be published, and I'm sworn to secrecy.

I sat in one show amazed to be fighting back tears, and had to remind myself over and over, like saying a mantra, "You know the ending; everything works out fine." At another show I was reviewing, I actually dropped my pen, along with my jaw, happily astounded by the peformance mesmerising me from the stage.

To be fair, I have also bitched and moaned about the funfair that's set up shop for the umpteenth time on the Meadows, with its noise and its lights and its churning machinery clanking away twenty-four-seven, polluting me in every imaginable way.And I have noticed, for the very first time, how loud those Lady Boys get - though I admit it sounds as though everyone's having a grand old time.

I have found myself overheated, underheated, swollen and damp - sometimes all at once, and so carry three layers of clothing, a cap, and a brolly at all times, shoved into my backpack alongside an increasingly dog-eared Fringe programme.

I have missed a great many shows I'm keen to see, and have resigned myself to the fact that I probably won't get to most of them. I am so bone-weary that my internal street map is shot. I spent 20 minutes the other day looking for Niddry Street - which I pass almost daily en route to the office from home. On the upside, while wandering about like a space cadet, I was plucked off the street by my favourite Thai masseuse, who kindly applied a bit of pressure to my sore spots and set me up nicely for a 12-hour stint of reviewing.

I am longing for a holiday and a cuddle. I really require a prolonged stretch of time - a week would suffice - asleep. I am miserable and I am ecstatic. Ain't August great? Bring on the rest of the festivals!