Credit-crunch festival

Lloyd Evans goes in search of culture on the rain-soaked streets of Edinburgh

The crunch. That damn credit crunch. It hurt Scotland hardest of all. A worldwide reputation as a financial powerhouse? Gone. Dreams of independence? Severely truncated. Last year the Edinburgh Festival bore prophetic signs of imminent poverty, of homelessness, of doom. Free shows abounded. Bribes of wine, whisky and sandwiches were being proferred to choosy punters. This year I’m here on an austerity awayday, a recession quickie, a pared-down and stripped-back three-day in-and-outer. My accommodation meets the brief superbly. I’m in a dive, of the deep-sea variety. You have to hold your breath. The showers are communal. So are the loos. There’s no lift, not even one that’s broken. The carpetless staircases are lit by wildcat lights that stop working 30 seconds after you’ve switched them on. At check-in I have to leave a deposit for the door key and pay in advance for any extra facilities I may want to use like the internet or the fire escape. The towel I’m given is a dishcloth. My soap is a contact lens. My sheet is a moth club. My room is a priest hole. And my breakfast is non-existent. But at least the place is centrally located so I’m never far from the festival’s all-night ululation, its incessant thrash and hum.

The money’s gone but the energy’s still here. Each morning I wake up and venture out to seek art, and I come home at night, replete with culture, saturated, all resistance gone. I lie down in my lightless cell and the rubbery mattress curls up to embrace me. Bleating door-hinges and the parp of corridor floorboards keep me awake until the tiny small hours when my plastic window frames, overlooking the granite canyon of Cowgate, begin to rattle and echo with the sound of great creative minds, great writers and great actors, vomiting and making love.