Dunno if it’s the Credit Crunch or the weather or I’m just fatigued, but I found Edinburgh distinctly dispiriting this year. Of course there were highlights: best of all was devastating airline crash drama Charlie Victor Romeo, which brilliantly utilised black box transcripts to bring home how little pilots can do to avoid most air disasters. Comedy wise, I struggle to raise a laugh. Reigning champion Brendon Burns ticked the boxes, Ed Byrne – playing to packed houses in the Fringe’s biggest venue – was his usual professional self, Scott Capurro didn’t quite push the envelope by not quite wanking on stage. The endless rain didn’t help. It was fugging dreich. All in all, pretty demoralising stuff.
However, every cloud, blah blah blah, and rather excitingly, I got stuck in to the fantastic Fabhatrix hat shop in the Grassmarket. So now I’m the exceedingly proud owner of an exceedingly beautiful felt fedora.