You don't bring me showers

St Andrews Square, sunshine and a girl in a white dress standing beneath a dripping curtain wall of water, cavorting to music or ridding herself of fleas, its hard to tell.

It must be Edinburgh in August, that one month of the year when people watching becomes celebrity spotting and any silly bugger messing about on the pavement is hailed as an artistic triumph.

Crowds of Asian tourists bemused and snaphappy, throng the pavements, mingling with Fife matrons in cagoules and sensible shoes, shouldering aside wispy grey haired gentlemen heading for the book festival where George Mackay Brown, unrecognisable in the flesh is pre-signing volumes.

The Assembly rooms spill over into George Street, where a "Speigletent (whatever that is)" in wood and canvas has been assembled causing buses to detour into Queen Street and causing further chaos to confused passengers.

Balding Radio Scotland presenter/comedian in Under Dogs, polling expert John Curtis and Lindsay Paterson in the Filmhouse bar, distinguished editor of the Telegraph in All Bar One, Chris Hoy in Hanover Street, Alan Little and Sheena Macdonald and a giggle of comediennes in make up. A hugely enjoyable but overpriced meal in Dusit, dinner in Kushis, disappointing lunch in Mussel Inn, Beers in the Bow Bar, Filmhouse provided three marvellous films, so thats the festival done then and time to head out to the country.