Kiwis in the house

Listening to: The Black Seeds

Over and over, on CD, bought out of a battered kiwi suitcase at the Black Seeds gig in Edinburgh last week. Also Fat Freddy's Drop, bought from same suitcase. The sun's been shining, and Wellington dub is good sunshine music.

So, the gig. Never knew there were quite so many kiwis in Edinburgh. I think I was the most Scottish person in the crowd. How could I tell? Well, apart from the sea of hands in the air when the Black Seeds played a track for "all the kiwis in the house", they also have a look about them (we have a look about us?). A. describes it as "an extra layer of grunge". Guys with shaggy hair (here, they're more coiffed than the girls, a la Becks), jandals, grubby Ts. Girls dressed down, without fake tan.

We've had kiwis in oor hoose too. Actually, a Wellingtonian, currently resident in London, and his girl from Denver - Simon and the lovely Lesley. Their visit was nicely timed to coincide with Fringe previews, so we took in a couple of shows at pleasantly low prices. Definite highlight was Jump - one of those random picks which sounded intriguing in the programme, and turned out to be fantastic. A piece of Korean physical theatre, piled high in the air with comic, acrobatic and kung-fu capers. We laughed a lot at the sheer silliness of it, and marvelled at the gymnastics on show.

The whole Fringe seemed to be running late on Friday - not so good when you're going to a show at 11.59pm. More like 1 am by the time things kicked off. This was Best of the Fest - a pot luck selection of stand up. Apart from the dire, painful Fiona O'Loughlin (although a late and well lubricated Friday night Edinburgh audience, kept waiting for an hour, are not the easiest to please), there were laughs aplently.

Yesterday was rugby day. Enough said about that.