Satchel-Toting Wolves Emerging From Manholes,

Maybe it was because the Fringe Festival is grinding to a halt, maybe it was because it was 10.40am, the Pleasance Courtyard seemed calm, empty and peaceful, almost as if it was catching its breathe. People sipped coffees, read newspapers and novels in its midst. Then the people came streaming through the arches, they had come, like me, to see John Hegley for Elevenses.

John shuffles out onto the stage of Pleasance Two from a side door, sedately attired with jacket, cardigan, shirt and tie and shouts, ‘Are you ready to rock, Edinburgh?’. After delivering his song, the purpose of which to apologise for the 11.05am start (it could have been worse, it could have been 11am sharp), Heggers offers the audience tea and biscuits, one man accepts a cup of tea. Once he is confident that everyone is suitably refreshed, he takes up his seat on the swing (of course, he asks the members of the front row to part for their own welfare), similar to the one he had at the bottom of his garden, to reminisce about his childhood. He reads us poems and sings songs that are entertaining and funny but at the same time somewhat moving, poignant and thought-provoking. The crowd gets to join in on Luton Bungalow, What Will we do With Grandad’s Glasses? and are divided into 5 sections (A to E: E being one man sporting spectacles because ‘You can trust your own’) for Greatest Its, I think the line of my Section A was something like ‘It’s the door that creaks that gets the oil’. Not only is John Hegley a master of the English language, he’s better at French than Ted, the volunteer whose task it was to translate Poem de Terre into English for the rest of the audience. It was hard not to admire him taking time out to explain to the kids in the audience what some of the words in the song about Toby the Armadillo meant. I’ve only come to know about John Hegley through his few appearances on the Mark Radcliffe Show in its Radio Double One incarnation and it was the first time I’ve seen him, I’m beginning to wonder what I’ve been doing all these years because this was probably the best Fringe Show I’ve ever seen and I don’t just say that because I’m a morning person.

No leisurely day in Embra would be complete without a trip to the Parliament. The new Festival of Politics was in full swing, if that can be said. The act of calling a photo exhibition and a few debates with some respected faces “a festival” is questionable; relative to the scale of everything else that is happening across the city, it’s rather insignificant – but I hope it can grow and become more interactive in years ahead. All the debates (they’re either free or quite cheap) were fully booked, which was mildly disappointing as I’m desperate to learn stuff, so I was left to browse the photo exhibition. The World Press Photo exhibition features 200 of the best photos, some of them were really disturbing, they were a real insight into the injustices that occur around the world daily that receive no attention from our media. The overcrowding the Malawi prisons, the riots in DR Congo after the elections or the conflicts in Togo and Sierra Leone were all depicted in the exhibition and I was glad they were given equal billing as the pictures that involved American-led conflicts, I wondered where the self-appointed crusaders of world peace were in these scenes.

Outside in the parliament gardens, a woman tried to tempt a dog into the ponds but the dog wasn’t keen, old men downed bottles of Lambrini and reporters recorded their stories for that evening’s bulletins. I wandered up to Princes Street, in the courtyard outside the National Gallery, there were a number of stalls and street performers, one of whom was Vince Henderson, former host of that triumph of TV game shows, Chain Letters and also a presenter of Soccer AM in the early days before it became so dreary and predictable. He was doing magic tricks with a man named Rich (I didn’t catch his name, I do apologise). They were very good and really funny, they had a large crowd and the children participating (in the safer parts). Vince juggled two machetes and an apple and ate the apple at the same time. The pinnacle of their act was Rich on an 8-foot unicycle. Once steadied after a few heart-stopping moments, Vince ran across the courtyard and came back with a garbage canister. He mounted it and proceeded to juggle flaming torches with Rich. They were a class apart from the usual street performers.

I departed for the Assembly Rooms where I was to see Count Arthur Strong. I’ve known about the Count for years, long before his radio shows, Ross Noble said the Count was the funniest act on the Fringe in an interview and I pledged at that stage to see him one day. The Count is now a star of radio, on Radio 4 and as a guest of Mark Radcliffe on Radio Double One. I find him hit-and-miss, one minute, he can have me creased with laughter and the next, I cringe at how painfully obvious the gag is, but I reckon he’s worth sticking by - the good moments are really good. The stage show, Count Arthur Strong - The Musical?, had much the same effect for me, I’m glad I saw it but maybe I wouldn’t want to see it again.