Please Ensure You Have Your Tickets Before Reaching Platform

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The Edinburgh FringeBreathe deep … are you catching that?

Ahhhh, the smell of the grease paint; the whiff of creativity; the sweet, sweet perfume of artistic endeavour.

Oh aye – and the distinct odour of luvvie b*llshit.

It can only be the Edinburgh Fesitval and Fringe and the buzz has most definitely started.

Like most Edinburgh people I have a love-hate relationship with the annual extravaganza.

The best in Edinburgh

What’s not to love about the sudden explosion of interesting drinking venues like The Pleasance and the Spiegel Garden? Or the chance to catch some cracking comedy or music acts in quirky settings?

But let’s not forget there are some pretty major downsides:

For a start there’s the horrendous traffic issues – which are likely to prove a singular joy in tram-locked Edinburgh this summer.

Or the locust-like hordes of plummy-voiced tw@ts talking existential mgumbo about impenetrable foreign language movies and torturous stage monologues.

Spare a thought then for those nice women over at Platform PR in Hanover Street – because this celebrated festival of the arts brings a very special torment for them.

Picture the scene:

There they are tapping away at their keyboards, garnering lovely coverage for all their favourite (lovely, lovely) clients and probably daydreaming away about (lovely) new shoes and (lovely) fluffy kittens and (lovely) romantic dinners (they’re a nice bunch, is what I’m saying).

Phone number for PR in Edinburgh

Then the phone rings. Wrong number. And it rings again. Wrong number. And it keeps on ringing. A shrilling, squalling daily torment of wrong numbers.

Awright. In the spirit of am dram, I might be hamming it up a bit here. But you get the picture.

The cause of this cruel and unusual treatment is the Fringe Box Office.

It will probably be the hottest phone number in Edinburgh for the next two months. And it is only one digit away from the phone number of Platform PR’s Edinburgh phone line. Oh dear.

Think about it. Two months of repeated, enforced politeness: “I’m terribly sorry you’ve got the wrong number … the number you’re actually looking for is…yes, they are very similar, aren’t they? No, I haven’t seen the show…yes, it has had really good reviews…Aaaarrrrghhh”

My thoughts are with Linda Bruce and Kate Trussler at Platform PR. It could be a long summer.