Kevin McAleer's Edinburgh Diary/Week Three:The 11th International Congress of Parasitology has just ended in Glasgow, but here to the east, culture will eat itself for another two weeks yet.
Vanity forbids me from saying too much about my own show's progress to date.
Suffice to say it's been a rollercoaster; there have been nights when the audience reaction has left me wondering whether I'm a comedian at all, or a blind poet from the 16th century writing exclusively in Irish.
(Memo to all promoters: there have been some stormers as well.)
In that sense I feel a close affinity with my fellow thespians at the Royal Shakespeare Company; their premiere of Troilus and Cressida on Monday had to be abandoned halfway through, when a wall failed to move.
I have had similar problems with the earth.
My five stars goes to the amazing Scottish heatwave.
As I pant across North Bridge, a notice in the window of Argos captures the temperature of the nation: "Due to the unusually hot weather we have had exceptional demand for fans, paddling pools, BBQs and garden furniture."
Given the local climate's reputation, thank God for the 16-day money-back guarantee.
Edinburgh narrowly missed out this week on another superlative to add to its collection, when it was voted only the second most-expensive British city to live in.
They won't like that.
Cardiff was the clear winner, with poor old London trailing in a lowly ninth.
Let me award some new superlatives of my own, by way of instant compensation. Monday being a rare day off, I take a bus from the city centre to a suburb saying "Welcome to Portobello, Edinburgh's seaside".
It's a sepia step back in time, and not a poster or fringe flyer in sight, a haven for the huddled masses yearning to be free (me).
I think I can safely bestow on Portobello herewith the title of "most charity shops per square yard of any high street in the known universe".
Never has so much fascinating, incongruous rubbish been put up for sale by so many for so few. It took me hours to get through it all.
Near the end of the high street, Jamieson's Victorian Tearoom has the most beautiful piece of art in the window - eight perfectly formed, knitted tea cakes displayed on a two-tier silver stand.
There's a pink iced square, a chocolate doughnut, a pink-and- yellow Battenberg square, and others beyond my powers of description, due to my limited knowledge of postmodern Scottish sculpture.
Van Gogh, eat your heart out, or bite your ear off, whichever is greater.
Back in the 21st century, I decide to pay a visit to Edinburgh Castle, but I am repelled at the gates by the tenner admission charge. They didn't really need that drawbridge in olden times, just a revised price structure.
I should warn the castle-keepers to heed the example of Ben Nevis, where dozens of memorials are soon to be removed because they are cluttering up the summit.
At the free tartan-weaving demonstration, I also manage to resist the offer to don highland garb and be photographed against a mountain for 20 quid.
There's more chance of the wee Dunblane lad Andy Murray beating Federer.
It's people like me who cost Edinburgh its title of most-expensive city.
Instead I head for Calton Hill, determined to stand on the top of something before the day is out. A very short climb is rewarded with a panorama of the city, the bay and beyond, all the beautiful acres of cut sandstone, like Tuscany rearranged by Presbyterians.
In an instant I forgive the Ulster Scots everything. Hell, I'm even looking forward to next year's marching season.
Once the sunstroke had worn off, it's time to head for the darkened room of the Performers Bar at the Assembly Rooms - there's only so much aesthetics a man can take in one day.
A beige gas meter high on the wall has the reading 1-9-1-6, and I feel some sense of political equilibrium return.
Simon Munnery, one of my favourite comedians, gives me a signed copy of his small book of linguistic gems, How to Live.
We discuss plagiarism in comedy, which is just as well - otherwise I would have been sorely tempted to quote my favourite of his aphorisms: "I wanted wine, women and song. I got a drunk woman singing."
On Wednesday night I did the shortest gig of my career - a minute at the Pleasance for Radio 4's "Twenty-eight acts in twenty-eight minutes".
I said my opening line, they laughed so long the minute was almost up, and the earth moved for me.
In the courtyard I bumped into Brian Boyd, he of The Irish Times, the well-known Irish newspaper. He and I discussed deadlines, which is just as well - otherwise I would never have made this one.