Of all the unlikely guises ...

Three years ago, when keeping a diary, I became conscious of a need to try out new things if writing new entries (to say nothing of reading them years later) were to retain some semblance of interest for me. It almost makes me regret that I'm not keeping one now, as later this month, I'm taking on a challenge quite unlike any other I have attempted.

If you're among that small number of regular readers I have, you will know that Edinburgh is in the midst of Festival fever. I'll bet you never thought the British première of a major ballet would see me on stage ...

To be honest, Die Zauberflöte (which also needed extras) was a lot more tempting, but that required trained dancers (ha!) and ten days' rehearsal, which was never going to happen. To be in Don Quixote, on the other hand, it's just a matter of having stage experience, by which I understand not looking like a rabbit caught in headlights - among other things, I get to be shackled and lead across the stage in the prologue, and later on I could well be a pallbearer.

This ballet is the very reason my mother's coming over, so she's going to get an extra thrill (I hope) from my involvement. That said, I'm having to find other people to accompany her to some of the concerts we had planned to attend as I will have a number of rehearsals.

Pictures will be published here, assuming anyone takes any.

Festival days are here again!

Today saw the official opening of the Fringe Festival, which vies with the International Festival for prominence in the Edinburgh calendar. To be honest, it's pretty well a dead heat: the latter gets to finish things off with a spectacular fireworks display in early September, the former gets the calvacade - a procession through the main streets of the city - on the first Sunday in August.

As it happens, today also saw the end of the Jazz and Blues Festival, though a good deal of the artists are staying on to perform during the Fringe. At work, this means we've got a week with no events taking place before the International Festival kicks in next Sunday. The first night is very much a big event, unfortunately frequently viewed as something to go to in order to be seen to be there, but for all that it remains on a large scale musically too - Strauss' Elektra this year, with Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet in the title role.

I prefer noisy fireworks to watching processions and don't believe in depriving someone of a ticket to something they're likely to appreciate more than me, so have bothered neither with the calvacade nor a ticket for the opening concert. Besides, I've got quite enough other things to attend; five events down, heavens only knows how many to go.

There's also been some good news on the job front: the day after my contract at the Festival box office runs out, I'm starting at the box office of the Festival and King's Theatres, which means I should be able to get reasonable seats for Alan Bennett's The history boys when it's on tour in the autumn ... and I'll be paid a whole extra 48 pence an hour!