Arca Swiss for the free tripod

That tripod I took to Edinburgh didn't have the same clippy-in bit as my other ones.

The plate that goes on the camera is unique to the tripod. Actually, most tripod makers seem to have had a go at keeping their systems unique, until a system that originated in Switzerland has gradually crept in.

In fairness, the tripod was a free gift, and has now done a good job at the Festival. To keep things simple with my cameras, I decided to Arca Swiss-ify the tripod, so that it used the same type of plate I normally use.

It sounds basic, but it means that if a camera has a plate on its base it can clip into any tripod that has the same system clamp. Otherwise Quick Release is a misnomer because of forever looking for baseplates that match.

Arca Swiss is a well-known system in some circles and a 'Fairly Quick Release' system. The required components are robust CNC-machined aluminium and available widely (and at widely varying prices) around the internet.

It takes about 1-2 seconds to put in or remove a camera from a stand. I prefer this to the other spring loaded quick release which take half a second, for one basic reason. The camera and whatever else is clamped needs to be secure and only come out when required. The Arca system with its twist fitting to me is safer, whilst some other systems can be pinged and the camera can fairly leap from the tripod. Not always good.

So I found another Arca Swiss clamp and have installed it into the Velbon tripod. Curiously, it makes the whole tripod look more industrial strength, although it still needs some care in use.

Some would say this is over-engineering, but I can now disable the normal quick release and convert this interim tripod to the same system as the others. Increasingly handy nowadays as more cameras are video enabled.

Not bad for a freebie.

why the September spiders are a week early

Picture from Damian Barr's tweet - I like the nice touch of the wine listing.

I usually associate September with indoor spiders. Sure, there might be one or two tiny ones that get inside before that, but September brings out the big ones.

You know the kind of thing. You can hear them as they walk across the floor. They have a surprising turn of acceleration too, and although large, can squinch down small at the approach of a glass tumbler in which they can be captured.

It's strange too. In the garage, there are usually a whole range of spiders which only very occasionally do anything to startle. We keep a kind of balanced equilibrium there between two-legged and eight legged creatures.

Indoors is a whole different thing. It's usually my job to spot a spider and capture it without alerting anyone else. If I do there's a kind of short-term mayhem until the beastie is contained and then expelled.

I usually throw them into a bush or small tree near to the front door, but in the case of the recent large ones, I've taken them to the bottom of the back garden and released them far enough away to give them a completely different playground.

So why, this year, are they a week or two early?

My sceptical side would say that the media needs a story to fill a quarter page and spiders are a safe bet.

That would be so if I hadn't also seen two early monster arachnids indoors here over the last week or so. Maybe they have heard that the academic terms have been brought forward?

This one from a tweet by Lewis Gibbs - no wine listing on this picture

Of course, the ones I've evicted were AT LEAST as big as the ones in the pictures.

Oh yes.

The rumoured real reason for the One Direction split

One Direction claim to be the most successful band since The Beatles, at least based upon record sales.

I don't actually own any One Direction music, although I borrowed the lyrics from 'Drag me down' to write a Riverside Detectives track for Mixtape - yes - dragging the lake, Elvis Costello style.

I've also stayed in the same hotel in Barcelona as Louis Tomlinson, during some of his own recent rumour sessions.

Complete with the impressive gangway of teenagers watching the entrance to the hotel and the few that managed to sneak past the security cordon to the inside. I wondered at the time whether Louis would simply use the downstairs entrance via the car park instead of the main entrance lobby doorway. I suppose it is a celebrity thing?

The media reports that the success of One Direction is based partly on their use of social media, with millions of fans following each of the band.

Curiously, twitter isn't the automatic choice for teenagers with, instead, Facebook, Instagram and even Snapchat getting higher coverage.

The number one social media appears to still be person to person texting although I suspect WhatsApp would get a higher placing in any new survey.

Our marketing for the show in Edinburgh Fringe uses a mixture of the social media to generate interest. In a modest way, it's working for us, so I suppose the scale for One Direction to their Directioneers must enormously magnifies that type of effect.

As for the not-so-secret rumour: If 1D members have really amassed £45m each, then I guess they can realistically take time out to individually pursue sola careers.

For the Svengalis operating them, it also keeps the odds good for the future. Insulate current turmoil via solo projects and then promote a comeback tour.

Kerching.

As the female detective said to the male detective in the lyric rework: "Nobody can drag me down."

And yes. Tickets for Mixtape at #edfringe are still available: Underbelly and Edfringe office

featherweight tripod to the rescue

Amongst the Edinburgh Fringe stuff has been a small amount of video activity. Mainly recording a couple of shows as a sort of 'Archive'.

Practicalities for this Edinburgh trip means that I've been using a budget Velbon tripod which is mostly made from plastic. It's something that fits into a carry-on holdall that can go in an overhead locker. I did have a lightweight Manfrotto that I'd originally planned to use, but curiously about 5 of the leg clips on it had mysteriously fractured.

This stand-in tripod does have a small amount of metal in its leg construction, but the head, clamp, leg braces, winding mechanism and centre column are all plastic with a few lightweight bolts to hold it all together. Consequently it weighs almost nothing and takes up less space and weight than even my Giottos Monopod, which looks quite brutish by comparison.

I've treated it with great care (I like to think I also did with the disintegrating Manfrotto*) and with this one there do seem to be a number of obvious points that could break or bend rather easily.

The lightweight plastic head has a sort of swivel control and various other plastic taps to turn to adjust tilt. The trick is to turn everything very slowly.

Surprisingly, it has worked fairly well for basic video gathering. Admittedly I was using a fairly lightweight camera without too much attached to it, which probably helped. And it was mainly pointed and locked pointing in one direction.

Considering it was a free gift with a magazine subscription, I'll declare victory.

* My theory with the small Manfrotto tripod was that I left it in the car during all weathers and the changing temperatures caused the clips to crack.

A small sample of ways to negotiate the #edfringe Royal Mile

The Royal Mile eventually leads up to the Edinburgh Castle, after maybe a diversion onto the Whisky barrel tour.

At this time of year there's plenty of modes of Royal Mile transport on display.

We get fancy cars (though only a few dare attempt the largely road blockaded area).

Then there's the rickshaws (although I expect they have another name (or two!) in Edinburgh.

Of course, theres always a scenic way to head along the Mile, maybe dancing?

And some will just stop to busk for a while.

...or maybe even conjure a magic trick or two? I still don't know how he made the stick disappear.

Some will attempt to blockade the path with banners.

...or stand somewhere prominent to give the thumbs up. Notice the ever ready flyers.

And the Mixtapers will happily perform on one of the Royal Mile's special small stages as part of promotion.

Phew.

where is my mind? (#edfringe @ukmixtape @FollowTheCow)

I've been to the Fringe a few times, but the direct connection with the show creates whole other dynamics. There's so much to do beyond the actual show time.

The first time was with Machinal and that really only involved being a member of the audience. It was in the Pleasance Courtyard in the days when the BBC used the same space for their broadcasts. Nowadays the Beeb has its own village with tents and even The One Show broadcasts from on-site.

Then Warhol at the (old) Bongo Club, when the following act was Mark Thomas who at the time had infiltrated the British arms industry and was showing how easy it was to buy arms for a dodgy dictatorship.

This time it's Mixtape at the Underbelly Cowgate, which is a seemingly subterranean set of vaults underneath Edinburgh Central Library. It's a very bustling venue with an entrance adjacent to the King George IV Bridge and another 4 storeys below in Cowgate.

Between the 4 storeys are several performance spaces as well as at least three bar areas. Spiral stone staircases link most of it together.

In the evening it rocks and can be a bid mad as the varied shows start, generally spaced about ten minutes apart to manage the crowds of people coming in and out. At the Fringe? Underbelly Cowgate is a 'must experience' venue.

Understandably the venue itself is promotion neutral, so flyers are being handed out in the street below, or along the Royal Mile.

I've tried various Royal Mile walking techniques.

There's the busy person look - that doesn't yield any flyers except from absolute rookies. If I take a camera with a lens hood, I become part of the scene and then its easy to get shows to stop and pose for pictures. I don't get any flyers from this unless I ask. That's even for the shows that I snapshot.

As an experiment I put the camera away, slowed my pace and walked back through an area I'd just visited. It was hilarious. I was flyered about 10 times in the first couple of minutes.

And then for my own flyering technique. My rules.

1. Don't hand out flyers to just random passing people, prequalify in some way first.
2. Always swap a flyer with anyone that offers one. They are usually genuinely interested in the Mixtape show.
3. Ask the flyering person if they are in the show they are flyering. There are quite a few 'hired guns' just shifting leaflets for cash. I talked to one at length and she said she could shift about a 15cm stack of leaflets an hour.
4. Identify people likely to be interested in Mixtape (various giveaway signs) and engage them in a short conversation.
5. Stand around in prominent areas with the Mixtape tote-bag, logo and catchy saying visible. It's amazing how many people notice it. I've been asked to pose for photos with it.

Some ways to tell they would be interested.

1. Specifically looking at adverts for shows.
2. Several flyers in hand and smiling.
3. Discussing flyers or show on the street.

Of course, if Mixtape is performing on the Royal Mile stage then anyone is fair game, but otherwise its best to treat the flyers as a valuable item, requiring pre qualification before handout. And yes, we do have thousands of them.

Here's the Mixtape winners on stage collecting their Golden Mixtape from Saturday's sell-out show (crowdsourced photo)

An Illuminating Yarn at Space, Edinburgh

This time we were yarn-bombing at the Edinburgh Fringe. The show was in a rather posh venue within the Radisson Hotel, where the gin-and-tonics were a surprisingly robust price.

A charming little story set in Saltburn-on-Sea where mystery knitted dolls appeared on the pier. The two main characters Clare and Nina go out to take a look...

Knitted together by Jane Pickthall to provide social commentary as well as the main yarn, the two friends and a passing community watch officer make a surprising discovery.

It was a well-acted by the two main characters of Hannah Walker and Jill Dellow, and supported by Matt Howden as the patrolman. The script shines a torch on some aspects of British culture, the economy and unemployment, with the backdrop of the pier and the mysterious appearance of varied characters.

An enjoyable hour, featuring a simple premise with some sharp back commentary.

Camille O'Sullivan at The Queens Hall Edinburgh

Another fabulous show.

We'd walked from a prior show across to the Queens Hall to see Camille O'Sullivan perform an evening of Jacques Brel songs. Clearly some of her favourites as she explained how they were played at home whilst she was growing up.

Camille is a well known Edinburgh Fringe performer, and there's an interesting interview about her all-too-familiar starting experiences in Edinburgh in the Guardian, from a year ago.

We are treated to an evening of smoky, jazzy, sometimes raw and sometimes comedic songs, sometimes unaccompanied and other times with her accomplished jazz band.

She could control the whole atmosphere with a wave of her hand, changing the tempo, the volume of the accompaniment and throwing in some bendy blues tones to keep the right mood for the night.

The audience were in the palm of that hand replying with roof-shaking applause between numbers and at the end of the set.

And a different look for Camille, away from the sultry torch singer to a more jazz/rock based appearance, whilst still bringing out her own style of music.

We loved every minute.

Here's Camille singing Brel's Port of Amsterdam, from the Soho Theatre a couple of years ago.

An Audience with Jimmy Savile at the Assembly

We decided to see 'An Audience with Jimmy Savile' which features a very realistic Jimmy Savile portrayed by Alistair McGowan. It has been set in the 1980s, featuring a TV show interview when Savile was at the height of his fame, and then incorporates the various sordid back-stories, but still prior to the main disclosures.

There's accolades from the likes of Margaret Thatcher juxtaposed with a composite victim story being investigated by the police. Savile is presented both as a jester television personality and as a ruthless backstage villain who uses his power and force to deflect truth.

He is shown as manipulative with little real regard for his public as he climbs the celebrity pole.

Jonathan Maitland's play was to a full house and raises many of the obvious questions but also draws out the different establishment conventions of the 1980s when much of the original investigations were being conducted.

Some say this shouldn't have been made, but I think it digs into broader societal taboos from the era.

An obscene bruiser thug in a shiny tracksuit clown costume. Chilling.

Jenny Bede at the Pleasance

Along to the Pleasance Courtyard to see Jenny Bede. A hoot of a show.

We were seated in the front row, a few feet from Jenny and potentially in the line of fire to be selected for her questions.

It was a fine show, a mix of music and sharp witted comedy.

There was an enviable amount of fresh content, which flipped across several topic areas in the all-too-brief hour slot.

Caption: (improbability drive engaged) Drake the Canadian rapper

We had the demise of gangster rappers, a love poem to Drake, a possible feminist alternative genre of music, a whole love story built around emojis, a brief excursion into wedmin, useful thoughts on clubbing and a few stories involving cuddly dogs, writing capes and ways to slam the microphone (better onto a dressing gown).

Content rich, you could say.

Jenny is great as an all rounder, comedic, sharp writing, musicality, an engaging personality and able to bust the moves to keep it jiggy.

Here's an excerpt of her *ahem* interviewing 'Taylor Swift'.

Along the Royal Mile

Out and about around the Fringe today. The Royal Mile has become busy with festival people, both flyering and looking for shows.

Some shows are excellent, and I've only really been to one that, for me, was a bit of a nosedive. I had that feeling about 5 minutes into the show and even with the crowded stage of actors I wasn't able to recover nor escape. The long pauses whilst actors lifelessly tried to remember lines, the sudden jumps in continuity and logic left me and many others covering their faces with their hands to avoid offence.

But enough of that, there's still oodles of good stuff and many actors and characters promoting their shows along the Royal Mile and throughout large swathes of Edinburgh.

We're off to another show in awhile, and at some point I'll have to find time to write about another one properly. Meantime, my twitter feed is full of #edfringe and inevitably @ukmixtape messages, and I guess it will continue to be so until the end of August.

For now, here's Sweeney Todd:

And maybe some late night cabaret farce. As one audience member put it: "So funny I had to use my inhaler"

first #edfringe impressions for @ukmixtape

Time for it all to kick off properly in Edinburgh. This was me running into the Kenny Newman Show, on one of my trips along the Royal Mile.

We've been here since Wednesday/Thursday (tech arrived earlier), and at that time things were still comparatively quiet.

I took a picture of the start of the Royal Mile before the crowds arrive, although even at that point there's a few signs of what is to come.

Actually some of the street's posters were already looking in need of replacement, with the wear and tear of light foot traffic ahead of the main onslaught.

Thursday evening we'd taken a look along the street before the show, and worked out that most of the people there were - well - tourists rather than early evening punters looking for a Fringe show.

Now it's Saturday and things have changed.

The flyers are out in force.

I was offered several free tickets (which I refused) by people papering their shows to get early attendance.

For Mixtape, we'd already had two busy preview nights, although the first one was a nail biter because the queue looked empty until just before the start.

Fortunately people came along and we all had a fun evening. Here's the first winners of the Edinburgh Golden Mixtape:

Then Friday saw a bigger crowd and a high-scoring winning team, so things are moving in the right direction.

(We'll get the photo opportunities right sooner or later)

And the Underbelly Cowgate is a great venue, with the Belly Laugh space ideal for the show.

But hey it's early days and tonight is the official First Night for Mixtape, looking forward to a Mega Mix show.