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Published: June 20th 2017
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Saturday performance.
Saturday performance. Geo: 55.9503, -3.18761
This report covers the final days of my stay in Edinburgh.
The Royal Military Tattoo on Friday was wonderful so I looked forward to seeing it again on Saturday at 10:30 pm. This time my seat was on the side in order to get a different view of the tattoo. As it turns out this was a good decision: some of the performers never advanced down the parade ground – all their action took place in the area immediately in front of Edinburgh Castle so folks who had the most expensive seats did not get a good view. This is why there are no photographs of, for example, the New Zealand Maoris from Friday but there is one from Saturday.
In addition to the massed pipe and drum players recruited from units throughout the Scottish military and from a few other places such as Oman the tattoo features several guest military bands from other nations. At this tattoo these units came from Malta, Singapore, and Trinidad and Tobago. The first two units – Malta and Singapore – were ok but somewhat interchangeable. However the soldiers from T&T were terrific: they have the only steel drum (as in made from 45 gallon
oil drums) military marching band in the world. Very joyful music – you forget that it is military.
Other participants in the tattoo included: Zulu drummers and dancers from South Africa, Maoris from New Zealand who performed a haka (dance like movements intended to intimidate enemy warriors), ballet dancers who performed to the musical piece "The Gael" which was composed by native son Dougie Mclean and which was featured in the film “Last of the Mohicans”, another dance company (maybe the same one) who were outfitted in “middie” naval uniforms and danced to the music of the 40s and 50s.
The end of the show features a lone bag piper playing from a high point in the castle and a fireworks show. The fireworks were canceled when the still hot residue from the first firework landed in the crowd because of the high winds.
The balance of my time was spent attending several Fringe Festival performances including: the story of Oliver Twist set in 1940s Berlin where the orphanage was a Salon Kitty style brothel, a gritty play set
Marching band from Malta
Marching band from Malta in the Western Front trenches of World War I, a modern ghost story, and an excellent display of Haka by the folks from New Zealand. I also spent most of a day exploring Edinburgh Castle where I had an encounter with Mary, Queen of Scots, who taught us commoners how to behave in the presence of “Her Grace”.
Finally I enjoyed the street scene which all related to the Fringe Festival. In addition to the many folks who were promoting their performance there were the buskers many of whom put on great shows. The festival has maybe 3000 different acts, and each one is performed maybe a dozen times. This means that there was tens of thousands performances that took place in the course of one month. That is a lot of show power.
Some other comments:
I did eat haggis during my stay in Edinburgh. The free breakfast that was served to the residents of the dorms was Scottish centric: sausage, Canadian bacon, fried mushrooms, fried or scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes, hash brown patties like those served at McDonalds. They also served meat haggis, vegetable haggis and black pudding (black is from pig's blood). Both versions of haggis were edible; I
Marching band from Singapore
Marching band from Singapore could not finish the black pudding. For folks who were concerned about their health hot and cold cereal was provided as well as fresh fruit, and bread and meats with which to make sandwiches.
I have a complaint that goes back to my first visit to the UK in 1998. Unlike in America where the hand basin has a hot and cold water faucet but a single spigot, many places have sinks (and these are not old ones) where there is a faucet and spigot for hot and a faucet and spigot for cold. When I wash my hands I normally select hot which gives me a few seconds of warm water before it becomes really, really hot. No one has the time to mix hot and cold water in the basin. It is a wonder that this plumbing tradition still exists.
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The food pictures were disgusting. That's the greasiest food I've seen since my last cheap Las Vegas buffet.