Strict bylaws in Edinburgh prevent you from buying off-licence booze after ten at night. You can, however, buy all the sauce you want from ten in the morning. (This may explain why alcoholism is so rare up here.) When midnight tolls, Festival revellers pour forth and fill the air with chanting and singing of variable aesthetic quality, and the only way to get any peace is to lapse into a Valium coma.

The next Joyce Grenfell at the Edinburgh Fringe
<em>Lloyd Evans</em> samples the delights of the Fringe

Comments
Don't miss out
Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.
UNLOCK ACCESSAlready a subscriber? Log in