大象传媒

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 拢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.