Edinburgh Fringe Festival August is here and with it comes the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a highly dramatic event which offers everyone and anyone a heady mix of theatre, opera, poetry, dance, mime, comedy and general exhibitionism in all its forms. If you fancy heading up to Scotland to see some of the best and worst talent in the world, be sure you know how to get the most out of this extraordinary event.
Every July Atticus, Bambino and I visit our artist friend Magdalena at her sea house in Sandwich Bay, Kent. This large stucco and pebble fronted house reminds me of summer houses in East Hampton, Long Island. So it's no surprise to learn that the architect who built the house in 1910 was American.
Bordeaux 2009
You're not likely to drink enough Bordeaux 2009 to require a centuries old hangover cure, salad oil. Not unless you're an oligarch, or Chinese or a Far Eastern speculator, who are the lucky few now guzzling down fine wines.
Posh Festival at Goodwood Hang onto
your top hats because Britain's about to see the launch of its first posh
summer festival. Vintage at Goodwood, August 13-15,
celebrates music and culture from the 40s to the 80s, at no less a ravishing
venue than Goodwood House, the home of the Dukes of Richmond for 300
years.
Footloose, fancy free and twenty-six, Thierry Betancourt set out on an adventure. After post grad at Oxford studying history of art and four years specializing in eighteenth century French furniture at Sotheby's on Bond Street and New York, India beckoned. To be more precise, Pondicherry beckoned.
Eh, bien, I had to laugh when I read about my fellow
compatriot, Nicolas Sarkozy,
disciplining his ministers for their high-flying spending, chuckles the Countess du Ruel. And this came just as le Président was demanding that les Français work longer and harder before
retirement.
The RA's
2010 Summer Show didn't create any ‘eureka moments' for me, sighs the Countess du Ruel. It reminded me of other Summer Shows of the
last few years. In the big rooms where
the RA academicians show their vast, brightly coloured canvases I could have
sworn I had seen it all last year. This
hype about the show giving the amateur the chance to be hung alongside the best
artists is a joke. The show's about
making money for the academy, and the amateurs are kept firmly in place.
Who do
these Russian oligarchs and billionaires think they are? How dare they dictate to the art world and
auction houses? What are their art
credentials? ponders the Countess du
Ruel. Oligarchs and asset managers (who
are now afraid to call themselves hedge fund managers) are the driving force in the art
market.
The new
buzz word is "app", muses Mrs.
M. But what on earth is an app? Irritatingly,
the culture and lifestyle pages refer to "apps" as though this term is in common
usage. We read this word with no idea
what it means. I find it very annoying
that there is an assumption that everyone understands this slang.
August is here and with it comes the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a highly dramatic event which offers everyone and anyone a heady mix of theatre, opera, poetry, dance, mime, comedy and general exhibitionism in all its forms. If you fancy heading up to Scotland to see some of the best and worst talent in the world, be sure you know how to get the most out of this extraordinary event.
