Enter the festival

and hope that it does not enter you. I'm already bored of this year's festivities. Trying to get my bike up to Ash's flat on the Royal Mile - it would've been far easier with a tazer or a cattle prod - the prevalence of performers as opposed to festival goers seemed pretty plain. Maybe half of the people hardening the arteries of the old town (and providing 95% of the London accents to be heard) were actors, stage crew or assorted hangers-on. The other half were Spanish schoolchildren slouching around in jeans so tight they impeded their ability to get the fuck out of my way.

This year the flyering masses seem to have hit upon a new way of distributing their forests of leaflets: that of hitting upon the public. Ash mentioned that a Canadian "comedian" had more or less attempted to chat her up in order to secure her attendance at his gig the next night, and I suffered a similar fate at the hands of a prowling young fashionista.

EXT. Royal Mile:

PYF sits down on bike rack next to RF. Personal space is encroached upon.

PYF
You look a bit sullen.

RF
You're damn skippy.

PYF smiles sympathetically and makes visible attempt to look winning.

PYF
It must be pretty annoying to have all these people with London accents arrive all at once.

RF grinds teeth.

RF
If you say so.

PYF produces flyer for comedy show.

PYF
Well, if you want cheering up, why don't you come along to our show?

RF
Kill me now.

Ash arrived in the nick of time and we escaped to Favorit for some lunch and chat in the sun. I was ravenous, having run the Water of Leith 10K earlier that day*, and felt suitably deserving of lunch and a pint. Ash had a coke float with strawberry ice cream, and upon sampling it I declared it to be like strawberry heroin. It was fearsomely good, and astonishingly bad for one's health. At first I thought I could detect the coke and the ice cream reacting fizzily but then perceived it to be my teeth dissolving under the onslaught of sugar present in the liquid almost to the point of saturation. Tasty stuff indeed.

We wandered over to the Meadows with a blanket and a bottle of wine and proceeded to alternately read wanky books and criticise the great unwashed sharing the park with us. I rolled my eyes at a group of hippy/punk hybrids, and we speculated that the Rastafarian types making surreptitious hand gestures at each other were all drug dealers. All in all, it was a very snobbish, middle class and marvellously entertaining weekend. Maybe I like the festival after all.

* I managed it this year in 46 minutes and 30 seconds - which is a minor miracle given how little training I've done this year. I have an unhelpful tendency to run as fast as I feel comfortable regardless of how far I have to go, and so I shot away at the start only to be hobbled by a fearsome stitch as I came to Stockbridge. I slowed right down and managed to speed up again a bit towards the end and somehow shaved a minute off last year's time. Thanks to those of you who sponsored us this year!