Down and out in Edinburgh

Lloyd Evans mingles with sozzled Scots, benumbed punters and performers with nothing to lose at this year’s Fringe

It’s for losers, Edinburgh. The world’s down-and-outs come here in droves every August. This year I was one of them. Having failed to secure my usual lodging, a spartan cell on the university campus, I had to book a backpackers’ refuge on the Royal Mile. It was better than a park bench. Just about. The website promised ‘fitted sheets’ and ‘lounge with real fire (gas/coal effect)’ as tokens of its commitment to luxury. I rented a towel (20p, no deposit), which turned out to be fairly clean on one side.

The accommodation was rammed. Six rooms, eight bunks each. Nearly 50 of us sharing four showers. No soap. The dormitories were christened with the nostalgic titles of childhood. ‘Star Wars’, ‘Aliens’, ‘Muppets’. I was in ‘Gotham City’ where my bunk bore the alpha-tag ‘Batman’. Above me slept ‘Robin’, to give him the name his berth entitled him to, a young Bosnian who suffered ecstasies of nocturnal itching when he wasn’t having nightmares. He woke at
6 a.m., evacuated his cot noiselessly, and then spent two hours crinkling a plastic bag next to my head. ‘Riddler’ and ‘Penguin’, opposite me, were occupied by a handsome French couple in their mid-20s who — thank God — observed a no-rutting policy in barracks. The Frenchman, I reflected, must have been blessed with exceptional powers of persuasion. ‘Darling, let’s visit the home of the Scottish Enlightenment and sleep in a dosshouse full of twitching Slavs.’

Outside, I plunged into the ragged, swarming gaiety of the streets. There are three constants: zippy, elated performers; mooching, sceptical punters; and alcoholics roaming freely and touching the extremes of bliss and despair through mists of disorientation.