Rose-tinted glasses or not?

According to the most recent reports (that I've heard) the Fringe Box Office resumes business today. Possibly. Technology is a wonderful thing, when it works. When it fails, we all complain, and feel powerless and frustrated when things don't work as we expect them to. We live in a binary world where everything is either right or wrong, and if you don't have the right code, the digital divide will kick you out.

Nostalgia is also a wonderful thing; slip on a pair of rose-coloured glasses and see the difference; a Fringe programme which isn't a slim paperback, simply a fold-out A3 sheet of paper, with all the shows listed on one side, and a wee black and white map on the other. Most of the tickets are priced at £1.00 or even less; there are perhaps 50+ (at most) shows listed, mainly theatre and some (mainly classical) music; there's no stand up comedy, in fact there's very little comedy, unless you count a couple of Shakespearian ones; welcome to the 1975 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The lady I was going out with then and I saw some 13 shows that year, and spent less than £25.00 between us on tickets. Yes, I know, happy days and of course unrepeatable ones. Tickets then were mainly bought in person (in Edinburgh, at any rate) from a hard-pressed but cheerful handful at the Fringe Box office on the High Street - roughly the same location but less well-equipped premises.

Experience tells me the staff remain cheerful and of late have certainly been hard-pressed; what's missing is the beautiful simplicity of being able to go up to a counter, present note of the realm in exchange for a ticket and come away having made a satisfactory transaction. There must be not a few who over the last couple of weeks who would have envied and wished for that simplicity - some of them behind the counter in the Fringe Shop.