A couple of weeks ago we had a weekend in Edinburgh. We tend to go every year around Festival time, usually as a family, always just for a day and always when the madness of the Festival is in full flight. The last time we did this though was a bit of a disaster; the four of us had very different ideas of how our day might look and none of us saw our unvoiced visions come true. I fancied a walk round the Old Town, just to take in the vibe, y’know, maybe even a casual jaunt out to Stockbridge, purely for the purpose of discovering new record shops, dreaming of pausing for a well-deserved IPA on the way. Daughter had her mind set on eating vegan croissants in Instagramable, pastel-toned, artisan bakeries. The boy had trainers money burning a hole in the deep pockets of his slim-fit combats and wanted to go to those hot beds of Edinburgh tourism JD Sports and Sports Direct. Only Mrs Pan was happy to fall into the heavy flow of human traffic on the Grassmarket, avoid the massed silent disco and take her chances to see where it all took her/us. We all fell out, we vowed never to return as a bickering four-piece, and we stuck to our word.
At Christmas the kids presented us with a pair of tickets for the Military Tattoo – the reasons for which stretch back to another family disagreement – and so Mrs Pan and myself booked a hotel and had a fairly civilised yet cultured weekend away. To be honest, the Tattoo, with its brass and buttons and ten gun salutes wasn’t really my kinda thing, but we had great seats, the evening weather was balmy (even up at the normally baltic Castle) and the whole thing passed by in an impressive blur of noise, colour, and military barking. The chieftain/military guy who compered and linked the whole thing together was a walking, talking, cliched shortbread tin of rugged Scottishness. Planting his legs firmly like the Barony ‘A’ Frame and looking like the artwork on a box of porridge oats, he swept his hand theatrically across the darkening skies while bellowing out the tourist-friendly guide to auld Caledonia.
‘Scotland! Will ye luk et hurrrr! Take a moment tae savourrr the scene. Wae hurrr bonnie hills and purrrrple mountains, rrrrrivers and glens, she’s stood firrrrm and majestic for centurrries, thrrrrough warrrrtime, peacetime, the best and worrrrst o’ times. Can ye hearrrr? The pipes and drrrrrums o’ the Rrroyal Higland Fyoozzileerrrrz! It’s a rrrare, stirrring thing o’ beauty!‘
And, with military precision, a massed band of pipes and drums floods the arena to the gasps of the significant number of ex-pats in the crowd. It’s a slick event, 75 years young and sold out every night a year in advance, so who am I to turn my tartan-averse nose up at it? Mrs Pan loved it. Luvved it, aye.
It’s the peripheral stuff – the fringe stuff, or Fringe stuff, even, that I enjoy the most. Super-smart magicians pull £20 notes clean outta the Royal Mile’s fresh air. Street piano players in evening wear rattle through the classics with all the elan of an Usher Hall headliner. An atom-sized human cannonball does death-defying stunts just because he can. And a troupe of young Asian men in tights and flesh-coloured codpieces (and nothing else) do graceful and bendy yoga/silent ballet to a confused but appreciative gathering crowd.
Welcome to Edinburgh in August.
The streets are packed, the busiest I’ve ever seen the capital’s cobbles, a noisy mixture of plodding tourists, annoyed locals and a never-ending gauntlet of flyer-thrusting young hopefuls keen for you, for anyone, to take a punt on their show. There are a lot of shows to pick from; comedians and clowns compete with free tequila slammers and Oxbridge am-drammers for your time and attention. One-woman reviews on the gender politics of Taylor Swift, one-man live art installations, “one-legged bicycles”, to quote Liam Gallagher a few days later. It’s all going on.
We threw our lot in with the comedians; the fast-rising Stuart Mitchell, the dry and droll Ian Stone, the superb Takashi Wakasugi and Australian Aidan Jones – whose whole show revolves around deconstructing the musical puzzle that is Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat major – being the pick of what was a high watermark of good quality comedy at sensible prices. 2.6 million ticket sales were recorded at the Festival and Fringe this year. Add to that the quarter of a million bucket-hatted mad-fer-its who rolled into town for the Oasis shows and you can begin to get a sense of the bonanza that the hotels and pubs and restaurants look forward to. Capital gains indeed.
It’s now a tradition that when in Edinburgh I stand self-consciously in Cockburn Street below the entrance to Craig’s Close while Mrs Pan waits for a gap in the tidal wave of tourists to take a quick picture. I must have half a dozen and more snaps from this location, from black hair to grey, 30″ waist to 34″. My pal Scott aped the very same pose just this week – get yr own close, McLuckie! My dear old work colleague Sharon even went so far as to sketch me from one of the pictures in recent years. I’m building up quite the portfolio.
Another pal (and Fall fanatic), Iain, pointed out a year or two ago that Mark E Smith and the rest of The Fall had poured out of the opposite end of Craig’s Close in one of The Fall’s videos. A quick bit of research shows that this occurs in – of course – the promo film for Edinburgh Man.
The Fall – Edinburgh Man
Edinburgh Man might be the closest Mark E Smith got his group to soul music. They were no strangers to soul covers over the year, but Edinburgh Man has none of the caustic and off-kilter backing or ranty vocalising that characterises most of The Fall’s discography. Sure, the guitars are kinda jittery and twangy and could break into a hundred mile an hour sprint with little encouragement required, but mainly they remain understated. There’s a high cooing backing vocal that wafts in and out like the haar from the Forth. There’s an understated keyboard line. And atop it all? Well, you might be inclined to say that Mark croons his way through it. It’s certainly heart-felt.
As I sit and stare at all of England’s souls
I tell you something –
I wish I was in Edinburgh
I don’t mind being by myself
Don’t wanna be anywhere else
Just wanna be in Edinburgh
They say you project yourself
But I’m an Edinburgh man myself
Smith moved to Edinburgh in the late 80s. He’d split with Brix, was finding Manchester too druggy and wanted a fresh place to start again. If we’re splitting hairs here, MES actually moved to Leith which, as anyone knows is to Edinburgh as Salford is to Manchester – certainly something that Mark Edward should’ve known. Still, the year or so he spent in ‘the real Edinburgh‘ as he called it, gave the world Edinburgh Man. Thanks for that, Mark.
Plain Or Pan 