As I sat in a lecture theatre with 25 other audience members, watching an Irish lady dressed as the Virgin Mary's vagina sing Celtic chants about feminism, I thought, "I really hope she has some good merch". And she did. So I'm now a proud owner of a 'Growler Loves You' laptop sticker, and a fairly ambiguous jacket badge.

The Edinburgh Fringe is best known for comedians, but I, a known hater of laughter and fun, don't love a comedian. Unless they're a big name and you're 100% guaranteed a good time, I find the experience of stand up comedy fairly excruciating. I conceded to one free comedian with my work. It bolstered my stance. Never again.

But there's no need to torture yourself with free stand up comedy when you can see Trash Salad at midnight. It's hard to describe Trash Salad. She was French, and very funny. I suppose she was a salad-based clown, but not in the traditional, horrific clown sense. She stripped naked and ate a lettuce representing her baby, and did an underwater interpretive dance with the, also naked, sound man.

Peak fringe, was when we had a 2 hour gap between our JAM PACKED SCHEDULE of shows. There was a show on at an ideal time called 'We are all going to die'. It sounded suitably weird. We went in blind. After I'd bought the tickets, an extremely flustered girl from the behind the desk ran up to me and said, 'Shit. I was meant to say to you. The show is performed entirely nude.' I laughed. As if that was a deterrent. Anyway, it was a naked man living out various guises of existential crises for an hour, with a toilet. He was a very good actor, though maybe I wasn't quite smart enough to follow the plot. Incredible musical number to finish on.

But weird Fringe doesn't need to be all about nudity. Sam and I stumbled upon a confession booth called 'Not A Sin'. Being of Irish extraction, and naturally laden with cultural Catholic guilt, we clamoured our way to the front. An odd concept, and I imagine much of it fairly lost on the Brits (it was an Irish production), you go into the booth with a friend or a stranger. You put on headphones and an Irish priest voiceover (trauma) tells you to open the hatch between you. There's a stack of cards with sin-based questions. You ask each other, and think about the answers. The questions are of the poignant, 'what's one thing you used to think about yourself but no longer do' variety. Then at the end you write each other a note, pass it over and pin it to the wall. The problem with doing it with Sam was neither of us could take it remotely seriously. The couple before us were strangers, who, teary-eyed, hugged each other when they emerged. As we walked in I said 'Am I fuck hugging you after this.' She agreed. It's also difficult when your partner knows all your terrible (or, more accurately, pretty dull) secrets. I imagine they removed our notes to each other afterwards too. They didn't really fit the vibe.

A special mention to Sam's actual shows, with the International Ghost Appreciation Society - One, a sock-puppet based debate on the famous Come Dine With Me episode about Peter and Jane (Peter was the villain. You'll never convince me otherwise). We got to keep the sock puppets. I asked, as a special request, if I could possibly NOT keep my sock puppet, but keeping it was mandatory. Their second show was a ghost hunting class, and test. I didn't win, but I did get to keep a tiny ghost in a jar (Jarvis. I had actually made about 15 of these 3 days earlier, including Jarvis).

I saw 18 shows in total (which I thought was pretty great, until at the ghost one, a fellow ghost hunter told me he'd seen 32). Lots were good, but not that funny to write about, so they get no mention. Lots were average but not bad enough to write about. So they get no mention either.