Edinburgh Festival: Week One: Edinburgh is an architectural delight, and is often referred to as the Athens of the North, just as Glasgow is the Argos of the West and Athens has long been known as the Stenhousemuir of the Aegean. This is due to its proliferation of columns, ranging from the ionic to the ironic, such as this one.
The word Edinburgh, I have discovered, comes from an old Picto-Viking term meaning "ford of the outrageously expensive accommodation".
I am lodged here in a two-star hotel of dubious quality; when I inquired of the manager about the two stars, he admitted that one of them was me.
The city centre is a deep valley caused by the railway line running through it. To the west is an impressive crag topped by the famous castle; to the east stands Holyroodhouse Palace, and joining the two, the Royal Mile, so called because of its historic connections with royalty and, legend has it, because of its length.
On a clear day Prince Charles can still be seen shooting grouse and deer on the narrow streets of the Old Town.
To complete the picture, the zoo was added in 1246 to house the growing numbers of lions, chimpanzees, snakes and crocodiles which were becoming a nuisance around Princes Street at the weekends.
The Protestant work ethic affects everyone here, even comedians. So I find myself doing 24 shows of one-hour duration; that's an entire day crammed into a month.
It's a slippery slope to the 12-day year, if we don't unionise and fight back.
The festival was founded in 1947 by the rebel William Wallace as a trap for King Edward's armies. In the past 60 years, over 4,000 actors and comedians, mostly mercenaries, have died on the makeshift stages of Midlothian. Wallace himself won the coveted Perrier Award in 1953, but when he went to London to collect it, he was torn apart by his critics, chief of whom was Edward himself. His head was displayed on Tower Bridge, while his limbs were exhibited at Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth, for which he won the coveted Turner Prize in 1954.
Following his negative experiences in London, Wallace changed his name to Billy Connolly, grew a beard to hide the scars and never looked back.
He has recently turned his hand to acting, playing the part of legendary Scottish outlaw Mel Gibson in Braveheart.
Back in 1947, only eight companies turned up for the first festival.
Today there are actually six different festivals rubbing shoulders during August, with 28,000 events to grab your attention. It is estimated that at present rates of expansion, by 2525 there will be more than 4,000 concurrent festivals and 20 billion performers crammed into 16-storey tenements and crumbling tower blocks.
Even at today's saturation levels, I have already witnessed the desperate sight of up to 40 comedians working a 12 x 12 room, all performing simultaneously at 10am, their voices weakened by hunger and lukewarm reviews.
No festival of art, comedy, jazz, books, opera, theatre, television, dance, film, blues, and multimedia would be complete without a military tattoo, overseen by Queen Elizabeth herself. A good royal review can make or break a regiment. For example, in 1900 the Scots Dragoon Guards, following a five-star thumbs-up from Queen Victoria, went on to win two World Wars, and are hoping to add a third at the next big event in Iran in 2012.
Competition is said to be fiercer than ever this year for the "Best Lone Piper" award.
Even ScotRail is getting the festival bug, and has announced extra late-night trains to Glasgow during festival time.
The aim is to encourage thousands more people from Glasgow to go home. Samples taken in August 2005 found that the Glaswegian count on the streets of the capital at midnight were 10 times higher than recommended EU safety limits, to the point of posing a serious risk to public health.
Edinburgh's real trump card of course is that even without its orgy of festivals, it's a tourist magnet in its own right.
Visit the Rosslyn Chapel, where Gordon Brown painted the Mona Lisa, and JK da Vinci wrote the first of her octilogy, Leonardo Potter and the Philosopher's Code. Drop in to the Museum of Childhood, which houses some of the oldest surviving children in Europe.
Or simply immerse yourself in golf, whisky and genealogy - now stronger than ever, it seems, judging by the clans of Americans on the streets looking for their nearest MacDonalds.
A cautionary footnote however, if you're thinking of coming to this year's festival.
Every year at this time the population of Edinburgh doubles, due to the amount of sex. Always wear a condom - or to use the local term, a kilt.