Oh FriNge! I thought it said fridge, I was confused by why this made it onto the Register.

Why are people worrying about the Fringe so much. For much less money, tickets are available for official Festival shows with real, international stars and artists, and a mix of music, dance, theatre and so on. Personally, if the so-called Fringe disappeared, I wouldn't be upset at loss of the English public school types who come here to "put on a show" so they can say to their lawyer friends, "when I was at Oxford (or substitute another University name), i got a few pals together and we did a show at the Edinburgh Festival. Didn't win the Perrier but were a close second and SO many people loved us. It was SUCH fun, six of us in a new town flat, getting drunk every night after the show, disturbing the neighbours when we came back. Daddy had to pay one off after we painted his door for him - black, red and green stripes - he was SO upset for some reason. We thought it was an improvement on the boring white but not him. He was SUCH a bore, complaining about having to work the next day when we woke him up at 4am, and objecting to our party. I mean, only a couple of people were sick on the stairs and the stair cleaners cleaned it up the next week. He expected US to do it there and then. Of course, I couldn't, my butler was taking a holiday while I was doing the show and I just don't do that sort of thing".

Small minded provincial politics prevail with anything Fringe. Failing to book tickets is likely be a gain to the punter, who typically pays over-the-odds to see literally abysmal performances by the most ego-fuelled, talentless, amateur individuals ever to grace the stage.

Oh, and I'm led to believe that last-year's fiasco was largely down to Fringe faffing about so much in agreeing a contract that the poor guys at Pivotal had around 6 weeks to develop the system, which wasn't even long enough to cover the lead-time on the card-payment merchant account. Scapegoating by slimy maneuverers I think!