Meeting Richard Demarco, Edinburgh art

Now here's the sort of Edinburgh experience you can't contrive or pre-book. Heather and I were admiring a piece on the wall at Summerhall, all about Joseph Beuys, when who should appear out of the blue but Richard Demarco.

If you don't know him, he's the legendary art curator who was responsible for bringing Beuys to Britain, and for bringing art to the Edinburgh Festival back in the 1960s. His collection is now housed at Summerhall, in the old Dick Vets building, which is a venue during the Fringe, and he has his offices here.

Seeing us admiring the Beuys, he took us into a room full of his private collection and told us lots about his work over the years. He is clearly the master of charming people and networking, and it was an absolute treat to be welcomed by him. After a few minutes, in which time we'd learned about his forthcoming lectures at Bath Spa University, his having gleaned that we're based near Bristol, we moved on to his offices, and found ourselves passed on to his assistants, as he went into another of his many meetings with people of greater importance than us.

It was a memorable and delightful meeting and will remain one of our outstanding Edinburgh experiences. Not least because he referred to Heather as "the beautiful girl" as he posed for a photo.

Our Edinburgh month has seen a few visits to art galleries, the most impressive so far being Phyllida Barlow at the Fruitmarket, and we enjoyed sketching with Phill Jupitus at the National. A film of painting by Taduesz Kantor at Summerhall from 1958 was a lovely find, as was most of Summerhall's art on show, though I think there's less of it than previous years, with performance spaces starting to take over more of their programme. Sculptures at the National Portrait Gallery (aka the Museum of Faces) were very good, as was the only paying exhibition we've been to so far, the Victorian Photography at the Museum.

Hev at Summerhall. We have the Modern, Ingleby, Talbot Rice and others still to come. To date I've only managed to see two actual shows (One Man Breaking Bad and the Buzztones in Buzzology, neither of which nudges the 4 star barrier), there being too much flyering to do to keep those bums on those seats.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre present Minging Detectives, every night at 10.30pm at the Gilded Balloon, from Aug 5th - 30th at the Edinburgh Fringe. Book now.