London
England, UK
Once again, I've outdone myself in the don't-post-for-months-at-a-time stakes. So let's get up to date.
Edinburgh ¦ Scotland, UK
I spent a few weeks in Edinburgh, where the highlight (nay, pretty much everything I did) was the Edinburgh Festival. Now, they call it the Festival - singular - but it's actually a whole collection of festivals crammed into August. There's the original International Festival (think Sydney Festival and Carnivalé). Then, there's also the EFF - the film festival, the EIBF - the book festival, the Mela - a festival of cultures and the Edinburgh Tattoo - a spectacular military to-do of marching bands, horses, dancers, motorcycles and anything else that might look impressive on the forecourt of Edinburgh Castle.
And then there's the grand-daddy of them all, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 'Fringe' is a misnomer. This has grown into the main event. It's drama, it's comedy theatre, it's stand-up, it's music, it's experimental, it's impressive. This year there were 2,050 shows to choose from, some of them running every night of the festival (30 nights). Incredible. Of course, with that many shows on, there's going to be some rubbish - it's unavoidable. But there was some brilliant stuff too. Of all the shows I saw, two stand-outs were Chaplin, a one-man show about later-life Charles Chaplin's struggle with his alter-ego Charlie; and Something Blue an all-female clowning show (and we're talking the full-gamut of clowning - comedy, tragedy, physical theatre, mime).
Oh, and if you ever get a chance to go to the Tattoo, do it.
Aberdeen ¦ Scotland, UK
Lake District, Newcastle, Leeds, York, Cambridge, Surrey, Birmingham, Stratford-upon-Avon ¦ England, UK
London ¦ England, UK
I'm back in London now, sitting in a £0.50/hour Internet cafe on Tottenham Court Road. The woman next to me just screamed and jumped up onto her chair. Most likely because of the rat that's running around in here somewhere. I guess you get what you pay for.
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