What a week…shit has been going down, yo. Finally though, things seem to be clawing their way back to normality. Ash’s student visa has been granted, so having bought a flat in Glasgow we now have the privilege of being allowed to live in it for a while; various intrigues and skullduggery surrounding my job appear to be resolving themselves more or less satisfactorily, and it’s almost time to go on holiday. Again!

We went out last week to see Belly of a Drunken Piano — a Tom Waits tribute act Ash had fallen upon in the Fringe programme — at the Assembly Rooms. We met up with Ally G, Jez and Serena down at the Star Bar for some pre-show chat and a few pints, and somehow (I may have been plugging the RF‘s new layout) Ally and I ended up having an extremely rock and roll conversation about typography. (Maybe I’m being slightly disingenuous: Eric Gill for instance, designer of the ubiquitous Gill Sans, was a deeply weird chap into incest and bestiality among other even less savoury things, so perhaps it isn’t such a staid subject.) We headed up to the show at midnight, grabbed a drink in the venue and took a seat front and centre. I will be honest: I don’t quite see the luminous greatness in Tom Waits that Ash does, but with a pseudo-Tom in front of us, belting out drawly bar-room numbers through a light haze of alcohol and fatigue, it wasn’t bad at all.

We had a last, giddy jar in an almost deserted Grand Cru on the way home. The majority of the clientèle had tallyho’ed onto Po-na-na or Garibaldi’s, so we were able to take the booth of our choice and blether in peace for a while longer before the staff shooed us out at 3 am. I’ve been an unrepentant festival sceptic so far this year, but I have to say it was a great night out!