Murrayfield rugby charity event was a singing success

SAW the wonderful Treorchy Male Choir on Friday. Forty-eight strong big blokes from Wales singing their hearts out.

Who’d have thought such dulcet tones could come out of them?

It

was at Murrayfield Stadium for Wooden Spoon, which is a great rugby charity that raises money for children which is spent locally.

When

we arrived we had to walk along the side of the pitch which proved too

much for the hubby, who pretended to score a try for Scotland.

He piped down when we got there and Gavin Hastings was conducting proceedings. The real McCoy.

Afterwards

we walked into town stopped in at La Bruschetta, a tiny Italian restaurant right opposite the station – it’s been there for a really long long time.

Small, intimate and wonderful food. With so many new places opening it’s easy to forget about the diamonds that are the backbone of the food world in the city.

In the current mess the fact they are thriving says more about their food than Edinburgh Council. Sorry, ranting again.

DID YOU

know there is a rather impressive BBC tent at the Festival? It’s up behind The Underbelly and all tickets are free.

Fred MacAulay’s show is coming from there every day in August and Janice Forsyth’s is too sometimes.

We

went to a recording for Radio 4 of three comedic short stories made especially for the event and read by the writers. They included Aisling Bee, a naturally engaging and very funny Irish woman whose show is selling out at The Gilded Balloon.

Also on hand was Jenny Éclair who can be seen in Grumpy Old Woman and Sanjeev Kohli from BBC comedy Still Game.

They were hugely creative and had the audience in stitches.

The

good thing is you can hear them too – they are being broadcast on Radio

4 later this month. Simon Mayo and Richard Bacon are doing their shows

live from there too.

All tickets are gone but make a note for next year – you can see everything for nothing if you plan well.

AS IF

the Fringe wasn’t enough The Foodies Festival was on at the weekend at Inverleith Park.

They held a comedy cook-off where the fabulous Mark Greenaway was allowed to leave his Castle Street restaurant long enough to show comics Tim FitzHigham and Benny Boot how to make pancakes.  

Benny flipped his into the audience! The compere was Tommy Holgate. Maybe Mark will have his own show next year! He’s a natural!

AS IF

there aren’t enough comedians lurking in the streets here in August, I slumped

on the couch watching Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow on telly at the weekend which was recorded in Edinburgh in 2009.

I know that because a couple of my pals were in the audience who I noticed have aged terribly. No, I’m joking they haven’t. Anyway, at one point Michael MacIntyre said ‘one thing I’ve learnt is you don’t get into a taxi Edinburgh and mention the

trams’.

But that was four years ago! Here we are with the latest cock-up being admitted – it is now a bloody joke. Why don’t the actual personalities who sanctioned this stand up and be counted?

FILMING IN

North Berwick for a new STV program with Elaine C Smith at hairdressers Melvin Friends on the High street.

The

crew from Solus Productions were great fun so it all went very quickly though they had to ask Elaine and I to shut up to so they could start filming as we were wittering on about Carmen Rollers.

Yes,

the red hot things you used to burn your head with. I spent the 80s trying to emulate Farrah Fawcett-Majors’ look and somehow ended up looking more like Lily Savage in her sluttish phase.

HAVING BEEN

strapped to a gurney most of last year the time has come to start getting fitter again. So feeling

about 652 I shuffled off to One Spa for the day.

The world-renowned spa is in the impressively shiny and refurbished Sheraton on Lothian Road and now I want to move in. Simple but true. It is the perfect place to let the stresses and strains of life disperse. A lovely bloke called Doug showed me round and I was delighted to see there were no Lycra-clad gym bunnies leaping about and everyone was super-friendly.

I

have joined for a month – yes there will be exercise but there will also be hot tubs and relaxation which is as, if not more, important if you ask me! Good luck to my new trainer – you may need it.

Murrayfield rugby charity event was a singing success