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The Olympic ode goes to…

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A gold medal the pinnacle of an athlete’s career but then the Olympic ode goes to…

Well, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympics whose XXXIII iteration gets underway on Friday in Paris, that’s who.

Who knew?… well, non moi until I was educated this week.

By my nouveau ami Guillame Le Roux, owner of golf travel firm Intro Travel.

Who helpfully fed me this nugget at lunch at the Engravers Suite.

In the company of Visit Hilton Head and Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport.

Games punctuated

There will be 329 medal events across 32 sports at the Paris Olympics, including golf, with breaking making its debut.

Times, fashions and sports, of course, change and many of the original line-up of Games events have been consigned to history.

With the full stop put on the literature competition.

Alas, as I reckon I could well have been in the running.

As a past performer at the Edinburgh Fringe with my group The Forth Stanza.

And judging by the reception to my impromptu offering at lunch…

‘There was a young man from Paris/Who slipped and fell on his aras.’

Let the Games begin

Now fellow wordsmith Pierre took gold for literature at the 1912 Summer Olympics for his poem Ode to Sport.

But good sport that he was, he used the pseudonym of Georges Hohrod and M. Eschbach.

The names of villages close to his wife’s place of birth in Alsace.

Even if we don’t have floppy-hatted dreamers waxing lyrical on daffodils and fair maidens to witness.

Channel your inner Olympian

All eyes will be on Paris these next few weeks.

But who among us can afford the inflated prices around the French capital now the Games is in town.

There are options thankfully and hundreds of tickets still available.

The best of which is Channel Tunnelling it to The City of Light from £69, Folkestone to Calais.

With Guillaume speaking for us all when he admitted he would attend in person.

Le course

Should an invite to the golf at Le Golf National to see new Open champion Xander Schauffele defend his title be forthcoming.

Now in the meantime I’ve been working on my limerick just in case they reintroduce the literature prize.

So that I can hear those magical words yet.

And the Olympic ode goes to..

Countries, UK

Darlings of the Fringe

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All the greats started out at the Edinburgh Festival… The Python Boys, Not The Nine O’Clock News, Robin Williams, Fleabag and the Forth Stanza, darlings of the Fringe.

You’ll obviously have heard of us, Martin MacIntyre, award-winning Machair and Edinburgh University Gaelic Writer of Residence.

Douglas Watt, who spawned the 17th century retrospective whodunit John McKenzie series of novels.

Stewart Mercer, Professor of Primary Care and Multimorbidity at Edinburgh University.

Ed McCabe, owner of London’s Ceilidh Club and Kelta Fit dance exercise programme.

And your award-winning Travel writer, globetrotter and friend to the stars.

Who 21 years ago this month rocked the international Fringe (well, got a dozen guests each night of our poetry group run).

Fringe benefits

And that’s the whole thing about the Fringe.

It is open to every wannabe theatrical thesp, coming comic or proselytising poet.

The Fringe wrapped up as all events and shows like to put it today.

And with being just 20 miles from Edinburgh, here in coastal North Berwick, I dodged the crowds to return up the Royal Mile to our venue.

Which, of course, I have done hundreds of times in passing… and still no plaque!

Dara’s darling

Now all of those greats had a dream in common and small beginnings.

As Irish comedian Dara Ó Briain reassured one Fringe act this year when only one person attended their show.

Before with Dara’s endorsement the said act Georgie Greer packed the audiences.

Fringe favourites

Back when we were wowing the aisle with such social observation as Ken, political wrap as A Wake Up For The People.

And Vasectomy on St Andrew’s Day, Tarraing Sorcha, Poem on a Till Roll and Letting Go.

Social media was in its infancy.

And so as we take a trip back down Memory Lane, or the Royal Mile.

For those who were there, or followed us on our journey, to perform at the Scottish Storytelling Centre further down the Mile.

Or Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on the Isle of Skye.

They can say they saw us when we were just starting out and that we were their Darlings of the Fringe.

America, Asia, Countries, Culture, Europe, Oceania, South America, UK

The Highland Games are back

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They were forced indoors to toss their cabers in lockdown, but now we can gawp at them showing off their special skills in public again… the Highland Games are back!

Ours, in North Berwick, east of Edinburgh, is on August 6.

And it corresponds with our Fringe by the Sea, our offshoot of the Edinburgh Fringe.

The Highland Games have, of course, their origins in the training of the clans for warfare.

Although what use lifting a trunk and then heaving it forward is anyone’s guess.

Unless, of course, you wanted to land it on a gentrified Englishman’s slippered foot.

If some of the events look familiar from Olympic Games you’ve watched then it’s because they are those events…

The stone put, the Scottish hammer throw and the weight throw.

Because Baron Pierre de Coubertin was influenced to renew the Olympic Games after watching a Highland Games Exhibition in Paris in 1889.

The Heelan’ Games

The Heelan’ Games, as we Scots like to call them, are celebrated around the world.

Ours in my youth were the Luss Highland Gathering which we would regularly attend in the summers.

The Cowal Highland Gathering in Dunoon in the West is held in August.

And it is thought to have the most competitors in the world, at 3,500.

The Americans though naturally do it bigger in terms of numbers of spectators.

We’re told the New Hampshire Highland Games & Festival is the go-to Games in North America.

New Hampshire being in our favourite New England… go figure.

Dance away

Glasgow Green: The World Piping Championships

The Cowal Games does though host the World Highland Dancing Championships.

I must give it a fling, particularly after attending the World The World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow Green back in the day.

With my wee Irish dancer herself, my Dear Old Mammy.

Now because us Jocks are a peripatetic people you’ve probably heard us coming before you even saw us in our wee skirties.

And that’s why they still have Celtic festivals around the world…

And may I recommend plenty of water when doing Eightsome Reels in the Barbados sun.

Games around the world

Of course Commonwealth countries and the English-speaking (well their English) USA are obvs to the fore.

But there are Highland Games too from Rio Janeiro to Jakarta with Brazil and Indonesia both getting into the twirling and the swirling.

While Central Europeans get in on the act too.

Well where there’s beer you’ll find Czechs, our meaty stews will go down a treat with goulash-loving Hungarians.

And well the mountainous Swiss already have a head-start on us for the fells running.

The Belgians are somewhat of an outlier in Western Europe.

But there are few more Brit-loving countries in the world… and again there’s the beer.

So get your Scottish vibe on and don’t worry if you don’t know the steps.

There will always be someone there to teach you how to do a Gay Gordon’s or a Dashing White Sergeant.

Aye, the Highland Games are back.