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There's a weariness you get at the end of five weeks of festival coverage. Partly it's the late nights, strong liquor and takeaway food but it's also the rich diet of culture which after a while leaves you longing for a copy of Grazia magazine and an episode of Coronation Street, at least for one night of the week.

Don't get me wrong. It's an enormous privilege and a lot of fun, and not as a colleague once observed the kind of weariness acquired when you're hacking coal out the ground. But it does reach a natural end, and it's long before the fireworks of the fifth - count them - week.

It started with Tracey Emin - a tiny bird voiced creature belying her fierce reputation or even fiercer artworks. She loved Edinburgh she said, and would have happily have bought herself and her scottish beau a wee flat in the new town. And perhaps she did because she rolled up at the end of this week, to the national galleries on the mound having read in the papers about the possibility of the Titians being put up for sale.

She suggested we all donate two pounds - the price of a packet of biscuits - to raise the £50 million pound price tag!

Out on the Fringe there were the usual ups and downs at venues - some like Aurora Nova closed their doors (or didn't open them in the first place) priced out of the market by soaring costs.

Others plunged in at the deep end. Bravery awards to Toby Gough and John Simpson who took on The World at St George's and made a huge success of it. So much so, that they ended the festival as they began with a party, music exotic cocktails and the possibility of a transfer to Dubai and New York.

The Usher Hall looked like a building site and that was because it was a building site. But the workmen downed tools, fixed up the frontage and came along for some of the concerts (the edinburgh international festival having offered free tickets as a thank you to those who'd got it done in time).

The shows went on and in true blitz spirit, even the champagne and Pimms flowed, albeit in little cans sold alongside the icecream to save people queuing at the makeshift bars.

The big news story on the fringe of course was the malfunctioning box office, which malfunctioned at the start of advance sales in June and was still malfunctioning when the fringe started in August.

Fringe director Jon Morgan was convinced it was just a blip. Others were less convinced among them Paul Huw - otherwise known as Chinese Elvis. I'd tell you he was all shook up - but really he wasn't in the mood for joking having discovered his show was being described as sold out when in actual fact he was playing to half empty rooms.

And he wasn't the only one. Across the fringe, small venues without the box office systems of the big venues were reporting lost tickets, double booked shows and angry customers.

The Fringe Society AGM, a normally sedate affair held half way through the fringe was an angry meeting which rambled on for hours. Bill Burdett Coutts accused the board of taking the fringe to the brink of disaster, others went further and called on the entire board to resign. They are after all responsible for just two things - the box office and the promotion of the festival - and on both counts, he felt they'd failed.

But the board - many of them venue directors and performers themselves stayed put, announced an inquiry into the box office and a review of their own organisation.

And in the end it was the director who resigned. Jon Morgan, just one year and two fringe festivals in the can, says he's been planning to go for a while but thought it unhelpful to go before this year's festival. Others believe with the box office down by 10% - the first fall in eight years - he had no option but to fall on his own sword.

So, now the Fringe Society has another task. As well as launching an inquiry into the box office, reviewing themselves, promoting next year's festival and finding a box office system that works, they now need to find a new director. Previous applicants need not apply.

Elsewhere Dorian Gray raised eyebrows and sent pulses racing with a saucy version of the Oscar Wilde novel by that bad boy of ballet Matthew Bourne.

Some Cambodian children completed the circle their parents began during Glasgow 1990, by returning to Scotland with a cultural programme which the Khmer Rouge tried but failed to wipe out.

Edinburgh welcomed Melbourne to the membership of UNESCO citys of literature - current membership, two. Alfred Brendel said goodnight and goodbye with his final concert for the Edinburgh International Festival. And Sean Connery proved you're never too old to try something new by launching his first book on his 78th birthday.

So, bar a burst of music at the Mela, or the pop of a firework in Princes Street Gardens, that's it all over for another year. And I'm off to find a darkened room wherein to lie down for a few days, at least until the next festival comes along. Where's my diary? I'm sure Wigtown Book Festival is next.

There's a sense of déjà vu about arriving in the National Galleries of Scotland this week.

The colour on the walls has changed a few times, the director general has moved on, but the paintings which dominate the ground floor gallery are the same, and so are the ownership issues.

Back in 2003 we were there for the successful handover of the Venus Rising, the glamorous Titian painting which the National Galleries of Scotland had bought for £11.6m.

It seemed to bring to an end, speculation about the fate of the collection following the death of the sixth Duke of Sutherland three years previously.

In the face of massive death duties, the new duke faced breaking up the collection for sale but in the end, thanks to the acquisition and some negotiation with HM Revenue and Customs, the collection stayed intact - all four Titians, three Raphaels, one Rembrandt and a room full of Poussin.

But the Bridgewater Collection - which has been in the Edinburgh gallery on the Mound since 1945 - is now worth a staggering £1bn and this year, the duke has decided to review his assets.

He could, of course sell off a lesser painting - and one which might cause far less concern to the UK government's strict export rules.

But he deliberately chose the Titians - Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto - as high profile paintings which will raise interest, and the necessary capital.

They are apparently worth three times their £50m asking price - although it's hard to imagine them ever coming on the open market (indeed the suggestion is that if the campaign is unsuccessful, the duke won't sell the Titians at all, but consider another sale.)

But for John Leighton, general director of the National Galleries of Scotland, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

"I don't know if we can raise the money. We only have four months to do so but we will give it our best shot. The important thing is to make sure these works stay in the public domain - and if we have a chance to keep them then we will do what we can."

Already the Scottish Government has signalled its interest in contributing - although it hasn't yet decided how much.

And the whole campaign is being run jointly with the National Gallery in London, which if successful will share ownership of the paintings with the National Galleries of Scotland, with the works rotating between Edinburgh and London every seven years. (there is already a precedent in the Canova sculpture The Three Graces - which was bought in 1994 for £7.6m by both the V&A and NGS. It's currently in Edinburgh.)

And visitors today were keen to give their backing - among them, the artist Tracey Emin, whose retrospective is currently showing at the National Gallery of Modern Art.

"I read about it in the papers, which is sad that it should be such a big story,"she says.

"If every single person in the UK gave two pounds - the price of a packet of biscuits - they could buy this painting. It's not much and everyone can enjoy it."

Coming so soon after the massive campaign to buy the massive modern art collection built up by Antony D'Offay - £26.7m, and the Link Project (£34.3m in 2004) - and in the midst of a recession, it's hard to tell whether the British public will have the appetite for such a scheme.

First off, let me defend the reputation of Herr Brendel who thanks to a slip of the finger has been paused forever mid movement (and it was my fingers that slipped, not his, in case I defame his reputation further).

He was, of course, between movements when he ticked a concert goer off for coughing.

It was a mild rebuke for what sounded like a full blown outbreak of TB. And good on him too.

Wish he'd been in the audience of the international festival theatre show I went to last night, in which the words could barely be heard above the whispers of a party of German students.

That was the ones who stayed - several had already clambered over and left in the first 10 minutes.

And if you want full blown bad behaviour, two Swiss tourists in the front row of the Spiegeltent's Sideshow last night had a full scale domestic before passing out.

And before you say the shows must have been really bad, they weren't.

The international one wasn't great but it was an hour long - so surely theatre etiquette dicates you sit on your backside and have a snooze until it's all over, instead of ruining the experience for everyone else?

Just a week ago, I found myself barely able to stand up straight in a crowded cellar while the English company Badac concluded their harrowing show The Factory, in which we've followed a group of actors playing terrified Jews through a series of corridors to this last room.

They're naked and crying amongst us and I'm desperate to get out.

It's hot and sticky and smelly and I can barely breathe.

I don't panic easily but I'm beginning to panic.

But I still don't want to leave because it will mean everyone's belief in the story will be suspended as I shuffle out.

So I stay put, and I discover afterwards that I'm not the only one who wanted to leave (some much earlier in the performance - read my colleague Angie's experiences on www.bbc.co.uk/edfest2008

I'm not of course saying you can't leave mid show ever.

I went to see Finding Neverland the day before I had my son - going into labour is, I believe one of several legitimate reasons to leave a performance half way through.

And coughing, snuffling and fidgeting can't really count as serious concert crimes.

It does though feel symptomatic of a much bigger problem, which is we seem to have lost all sense of performance etiquette.

If you choose to go see a show, don't the performers deserve the respect that says you won't bring your mobile phone and text your friends all the way through the performance.

Supper clubs aside - they do still exist - can you really not last two hours without eating your way through a bag of boiled sweets/stinky nachos/bucket of popcorn?

Maybe the new look Usher Hall will have some old-fashioned usherettes (or ushers) to cast a stern glance at misbehaving types, to slip a cup of water to coughaholics and to let the performers get on with what they came for.

If you, like me, despair of the desperate need to brand all classical music as "music from the feature film" or "as heard on the advert for..." (see ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Maestro for the best way to ruin an otherwise interesting idea), then you'd have loved last night's concert by Alfred Brendel in the Usher Hall.

That's if you were lucky enough to have a ticket - since it was last appearance at the Edinburgh International Festival. Ever.

Brendel is a piano-playing legend. And at 76, long enough in the tooth to say exactly what he thinks, and he frequently does.

No dumbing down of titles for him - this is Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert - just as their composers intended.

Brendel famously berated a member of the audience at a previous festival for leaving their mobile phone on.

Today, he's got it in for the coughers in the audience - and the Usher Hall has its share of them - pausing mid-movement to wag his finger at the culprit, like some disaproving schoolmaster.

We all sit nervously after that, clutching our water bottles and cough sweets, in the hope that we can keep that tickle rising in our throats.

Then there's inappropriate clapping.

The Mozart is not finished when the audience erupts into applause - Brendel sighs and tells the people in the choir loft that the piece has three movements. Sigh.

Not that there's anything schoolteacherish about his playing - an amazing performance which builds up a great swell of applause which results in a standing ovation and three encores.

It's almost as if Brendel doesn't want to leave.

But this is his final concert tour - his last performance will be in Vienna in December, after which he officially retires.

But he's already finding it tough and I'm told he's agreed to do an engagement next year as part of a classical/comedy fundraiser.

Only this time, he won't be playing the piano but reciting poetry.

"If they can't organise the business of their own meeting, how on earth can they organise a huge festival", muttered the lady behind me.

She has a point. The Fringe Society, set up almost 50 years ago when the Fringe was just a fraction of the size of today's event, seems at times like a parish council meeting.

There are only 78 members across the Fringe, the board itself - chaired by Baroness Smith - is a mix of performers, promoters, venue directors and well meaning individuals who just want to do their bit.

Their AGM is more heated than most because of the chaos caused by the box office system which the board agreed earlier this year. It's not helped that before any questions can be heard, the whole meeting is adjourned to vote some new members onto the board, while some members are complaining they haven't received their papers.

The question most people want answered is why the box office system wasn't tried out in advance of June when it was used in anger. Board member Simon Fanshawe says they shouldn't answer the question ahead of the inquiry into the box office, a team is due to be appointed shortly and they'll report back in November.

"We made a decision we thought right - why would we take a decision we knew wouldn't be right for the Fringe?," he says.

"It was wrong and we now have to move forward and learn from our mistakes."

Bill Burdett Coutts, director of the Assembly Rooms, wanted an apology.

"I think the board should apologise for bringing this festival to the brink of disaster. If it hadn't been for the box office of our venue and the other three big venues, everyone would have been in trouble."

Others went further. Tomek Borkowy of Universal Arts said he thought the entire board should resign and start again from scratch.

"It's not acceptable to say they cannot answer these questions till after the review. This is a whitewash."

Tommy Shepherd, director of the Stand and one of five new Fringe Society Board members elected says he's aware the Fringe Society has a massive challenge ahead but he says he believes it can be done.

"There are lots of different issues to be considered, including the work of the Fringe Society itself, but we have to work together, all the various people who make this festival what it is."

But Mike Duffy of St Ninian's Hall doesn't believe the concerns were taken seriously.

"I just don't think the board realised what a serious situation this is for all the people who put so much work into this festival. They need to look at moving this festival forward and if they can't do that, they should let someone else do the job."

Former Pleasance director Christopher Richardson referred back to a previous box office disaster which led to his venue making their own tickets.

"Our system lasted 18 and a half minutes and we spent the rest of the time writing out our tickets. Even today's problems aren't as bad as that. I'd urge people not to let go of nurse for finding something worse. We ought to treasure the fringe and we ought to keep the Fringe Society."

There are plenty of international performers on the Fringe - but few shows that are truly international.

But Mr Gong's Hair Salon, a mix of mime, slapstick and Korean romance, ticks all the boxes.

My three-year-old spotted them first - performing on the Royal Mile in oversized plastic masks, expressions unchanging so all emotions were communicated in the movement.

He's been nagging me ever since so we went along, and what a joy it was.

The audience is an eclectic bunch - Ben is far from the youngest, there's a baby behind us on his father's lap.

There's a deaf man a few seats along, whose friend signs the handful of words in the opening minutes of the show.

After that, she can sit back and relax - it's all mime and therefore accessible to everyone.

The company manager begins the show by joking about language barriers.

What do you call this, he says, brandishing a can of Pepsi. "Pepsi", I say, and the can is presented to me as a prize.

The three-year-old quickly cottons on and acquires a carton of orange juice and a biscuit.

But it's not just global brands and words which cross cultural barriers - but visual gags, like the bullfight that breaks out between Mr Gong and his lovestruck apprentice and the ticking box which is thrown from character to character - and out into the audience (sorry to the actor I hit on the head with aforementioned box!)

There's plenty of audience interaction as four energetic young actors/puppeters play 25 different characters.

Only at the very end, do we catch a glimpse of the slight sweaty and dishevelled players inside the costumes.

At an hour and 15 minutes, it's probably a little bit long, especially for the smaller members of the audience - but there were few complaints from the audience coming out.

Mackenzie Crook apparently saw it, and loved it, whether for its swashbuckling sword scenes or office politics, it's not yet clear.

And my three-year-old loved it too.

So much so, he's already asking to return.

No such luck, the company - the Dae Gu Metropolitan Theatre Company - are sold out to the end of their run on Saturday.

But keep your eyes peeled for them out and about on the Royal Mile.

This is also a record year for Korean shows - with 14 of them in Edinburgh this summer.

Since the hit show Cookin' came here in 1999, the Korean contribution to the Fringe has grown and grown.

There's even a not-for-profit organisation to assist companies who want to come to Edinburgh - the Korea Arts Management Service and this year they're sponsoring three shows - Mong Yeon (A Love in Dream), the Angel and the Woodcutter, and Junk Band Story ... Uh?! - who between them will share 30 million Won (about £15,000).

At this stage of the Fringe, the only thing most performers have to worry about is keeping awake.

A week of late nights and early starts and mixed reviews and trawling the Royal Mile for customers take their toll.

But the Fringe's malfunctioning box office means they have a lot more to worry about.

Claims by the Fringe that it's "all sorted" seem far off the mark if you talk to any of the performers.

I've found countless examples of performers who've found the Fringe is billing their show as "sold out" when it's not. The only reason they've known is that friends or family have reported back later.

Michael Edwards tells me his first performance of Harold Pinter's Moonlight had just 15 people in the audience.

The company just assumed it was because of the weather and the credit crunch, but later discovered it was being described as "sold out" at the fringe box office.

Paul Hyu, who's appearing as Chinese Elvis at Club West, says he takes down names as part of his act, so he knew afterwards exactly who hadn't got in because they'd been told the show was full.

Like other performers at the venue, he says he's furious that the very organisation he's paying, is failing to keep its side of the bargain.

Club West also admit they lost an entire show because of the debacle. A Korean company who planned to bring a major new work to Edinburgh were so concerned about poor advance sales, they decided to abandon the idea. A worrying trend for a festival which prides itself on international contributions.

St Ninian's Hall already have the hurdle of persuading audiences to travel out of the city centre to Comliebank - but they too have had poor advance sales.

Venue manager Simon Peer says their production of Blue Remembered Hills is genuinely selling out now - but he reckons he lost around 300 advance ticket sales because of the Box Office.

The scale of the problem may never be known - even if the Fringe records record sales at the end of this festival, how will you know how many people failed to get to get tickets, or bought tickets for alternative shows. Or avoided the Fringe all together?

Most of the bigger venues say it's a storm in a teacup - but then again, they have their own box offices.

Gilchrist Muir - whose show is at the Gilded Balloon - says if he'd been at any of the smaller venues, he's convinced it would have been a huge problem.

"I think it does damage the image of the Fringe, not just with the ticket buying public but with companies like ours. I don't know if I'd trust the Fringe any more," he said.

The Fringe Society - who hold their AGM on Saturday - have already announced their intention to hold an independent inquiry into the Box Office problems.

Their board is made up of 14 directors - who stay on the board for three years at a time.

But as most performers point out, if it doesn't report back till September, it's of little use to anyone appearing at this year's festival who have to muddle through for the next two weeks.

Expect lots of questions at Saturday's meeting - not least, what on earth is the Fringe Society for?

Standing outside the Usher Hall, where two men were attempting to hide the building works with a pile of posters on a handful of hoardings, it struck me that the International Festival audience have to approach their concerts as if it is the Fringe.

Few venues are theatres or concert halls beyond the time of the Fringe - most revert to more mundane activity at the end of August.

Toilets and bars and box offices are all brought in specially - and few have the luxury touches of the Usher Hall

frontage, with its fake grass and marquee with chandelier.

Admittedly the tickets cost a bit more at the Usher Hall - although not much, these days - so customers might feel somewhat peeved to arrive in their seats with their shoes caked in mud.

And the Usher Hall staff might rightly feel even more peeved since the interior has been scrubbed to within an inch of its life - the theory being that if they can't control the mess outside, they can at least make sure it's spotless inside.

The same can't be said of many of the Fringe's venues.

Ok, the spirit of the fringe, as discussed previously on this blog, is about make and do, finding any venue and making it into a theatre.

But there's a fine line between charming intimacy and downright grubby.

A few of the larger venues need to get their acts together with toilet facilities which might not raise eyebrows among sozzled students, but raise the hackles of those who've just shelled out £15 for one of their shows.

Old venues are another matter entirely as the incident at C3 Venue earlier in the week underlined.

A child was injured after a pane of glass fell onto the audience.

Accidents can happen in even the most seaworthy venue, but they're a worrying risk for the hundreds of performers and audiences in ancient churches, dilapidated halls and ad hoc accommodation across the capital this month.

And one of the oldest venues on the fringe looks like it's in jeopardy.

The Assembly Rooms which has been under the stewardship of Bill Burdett Coutts for the last 30 years is being developed by Edinburgh City Council.

If refurbishment goes ahead in 2010, the building may not be available for the Assembly Rooms to use and Mr Burdett Coutts would have to look elsewhere.

While I understand his concern, the Assembly Rooms is used all year round for a variety of events and it's hard for those of us who also live here all year round to see why three weeks worth of Fringe should get in the way of the development.

We're told he's in talks with the council to see if an Usher Hall-type arrangement could be made, meaning the venue can still exist.

If so, bring your wellies and meet you in the marquee in 2010.

Some shows defy description and the Aluminum Show at the Fringe is one.

In some ways, it does exactly what it says in the title - it's a show entirely devoted to aluminium.

The performers wear it, throw it, pass it over the heads of the audience, dance with it, fire it in strips from cannons and, at one stage, devour an audience member with it.

Devised by the Tel Aviv dancer Ilan Azriel, with designs by Yuval Kedem, it's an extraordinary showcase for the normally humble kitchen item but you do wonder how on earth anyone came up with the idea, or how they keep up with the mountains of tin foil they need for each show.

It opens with giant silver serpents which gradually come alive and start to coil their way from the stage into the auditorium, slapping the audience on their heads on the way past.

Then some performers, inside giant sized "slinkys" take to the stage and begin dancing.

The performance itself is funny and stylish - a choir of foil hoses sing a number, a giant robot emerges from the gloom shouting "save me", a smaller one turns cartwheels on the stage.

It's all done with a joie de vivre and endless audience participation - even sitting up the back won't exempt you.

There's some stylish modern dance in there too, from the energetic Israeli cast.

The audience seem to like it, leaving the auditorium strewn with tin foil, and themselves bedecked with ribbons of the stuff.

Where do they put it all? Who knows? Could be the making of another show.

Everyone always asks, what's the best way of choosing a show on the big, old rambling Edinburgh Fringe.

My usual tips - word of mouth, plus the advice of tried and tested reviewers - didn't seem to apply to me as I skimmed through the telephone directory that now passes for the Fringe programme.

All of the shows on my carefully compiled list (scribbled note on the back of an old programme) began before 6pm.

The next three suggestions began just before midnight - far too late for this early in the Fringe.

I considered walking the Royal Mile where amidst the amateur choirs, college Shakespeare and improv comedy, you can sometimes spot a gem.

And then I narrowed it down to two - an intimate drama in a small, sweaty space or a stand up comic.

Now stand up comedy is usually the last resort of the unimaginative.

But in this case, it was an excellent choice.

London comedian Josie Long, just 26, is a winner of the Best Newcomer category at the If.comedy awards.

Charming and whimsical, she's giving out hand-made programmes in the aisles when we come in, and insists on starting the show again for some latecomers (etiquette, Pleasance people, why are you letting customers in a whole 10 minutes after the show has started!).

It also contains one of the corniest but cutest jokes about philosophy I've heard.

Josie wants to build up an anthropological collection while she's here in Edinburgh - and she's appealing to her audience to bring her carefully labelled artefacts.

Maybe the comedy awards jury will be able to oblige - with another award for her collection.

The last week of July is a strange one for the Edinburgh Fringe.

Thousands of performers are in town, some shows are up and running but because it doesn't officially begin until Monday, it all feels a bit underground and unofficial.

Problems at the Fringe Box Office have added to the confusion, already compounded by the big four venues insisting they are staging their own festival within the festival.

But sometimes, you catch little glimpses of what the Fringe is supposed to be about.

People who come to Edinburgh, not for fame or fortune, but a chance to share their performance with a wider audience.

Last night, inside an old church on the end of Princes Street, with the rain pounding down on the roof, it was clear that spirit was well and truly thriving.

St George's West has for the past few years been an extension of the massive Assembly Rooms operation - featuring the best of world music and performances.

But their decision to pull out of here and Aurora Nova - could well have spelt the end for the venue, until enterprising promoter Toby Gough stepped in.

Edinburgh-based Gough, who has staged a number of productions in the Botanic Gardens, including Children of the Sea, which was performed by Sri Lankan children who had been orphaned in the 2004 Tsunami, was determined the venue should continue and set about finding shows to stage there.

Now renamed The World - he launched it to press last night, with a modest invitation to "come on in and see the world".

On a wet evening - it was a heart warming selection.

There was The Zawose Family from Tanzania, a wonderfully exuberant dance and music show, which belies the enormous struggle of this family to keep their culture alive.

Then there's the Children of Cambodia, who survived the Khmer Rouge and are now reviving the music and dance, which almost died with them.

And the fantastically fit Capoeira Knights - whose fancy footwork was seen in the film City of God and genuinely keeps these street kids out of drugs and gangs.

Between acts, it was all hands to deck to reset the stage.

Performers came out front to watch - Brazilians clapping along to the Cuban dance, everyone on their feet to applaud the Cambodian children.

It felt like the sort of good old-fashioned venue which got the whole fringe going back in 1947 before we all got bogged down with ticket sales, and profits and endless stand up comedians.

As well as having an exuberant ringmaster in Toby Gough, the show has some high profile patrons - Brian Cox was there en famille last night, his son Alan has a fringe show of his own. Peter Gabriel and Kylie Minogue hope to make it to Edinburgh before the festival is out.

So The World is not lost - it's fighting back. If you have a spare hour, it's well worth taking in one of their shows.