GREETINGS from the Edinburgh Fringe. Once a vibrant celebration of independent culture, now a bloated corporate trade fair where PR companies and venue cartels grow fat on the dreams of performers losing thousands of pounds chasing a review in the Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail and a spot on a brain-rotting TV game show. 
 
So hats off to Peter Buckley Hill who came up with a brilliant alternative. I’m doing the PBH Free Fringe at Bannermans Bar, get zero reviews in the right-wing press, zero spots on game shows, zero opportunities to advertise the urine of Satan masquerading as beer and don’t give a flying dog’s bollock. 
 
Like all those who choose to become part of our co-operative performing at events all over the city under the Free Fringe banner, I have a brilliant time playing to those who want to see me and all the money people put in the buckets in voluntary contributions after our shows goes straight to the performers. No venue rents, no fees; the venues sell beer and food to the punters. What a brilliant, simple idea to return the Fringe to its original roots as a celebration of alternative culture where all are welcome regardless of ability to pay. 
 
Cheers Peter, DIY originator: you did this for the punks! Now we have to sort out the accommodation, which is ridiculously expensive. I’m lucky, but not everyone has a mate’s Auntie Evelyn to put them up. If you’re around, I’m on at Bannerman’s 1.30 today and next Saturday and 4pm every other day until August 20, and I’m also doing my Early Music Show at St Cecilia’s Hall at 2pm on the 18th. Support the Free Fringe. It’s brilliant. 
 
And I came here straight from Rebellion Festival in Blackpool, our yearly celebration of everything punk.  It was the best one yet, which is saying something, and the line-up was so diverse and the atmosphere so brilliant this year that I decided to sum everything up in a poem. 
 
REBELLION 
 
‘I always look forward to Rebellion’
said the taxi driver. 
‘Everyone’s so friendly.
Some of you may look a bit scary
But you’re lovely. 
It’s the stag parties and the like who give us hassle – 
never you lot’.
Blackpool Council agree –
they welcome us with open arms
suspend the street drinking laws 
and give us the Winter Gardens 
as a weekend home. 
But from the self-appointed arbiters of taste 
come the sneers.
It’s just nostalgia.
Old people reliving their youth. 
Like tea dances in the old days. 
Like the cruise ship bands. 
The same tired old attitudes 
only louder and in bondage gear. 
 
But Rebellion is far more than that.
There are three generations here 
from all over the world. 
Bands a third of my age
A multitude of styles 
A cornucopia of interpretations 
because punk is simply being yourself
while thinking of others 
and that’s why the taxi driver likes us 
because that is what we do. 
 
As for nostalgia – 
if the past looks better than the future
as it certainly does to me
who reaped all the benefits 
of the Welfare State in its prime
who went to university on a full grant 
the first in his family to do so 
and remembers a vibrant NHS
plentiful housing 
affordable public transport 
bulging libraries 
clean rivers and seas 
and streets where I could cycle happily 
without annihilating my testicles on the crossbar 
due to potholes the size of bomb craters...
If the past looks better than the future 
Then rebellion isn’t nostalgia. 
Nostalgia is rebellion. 
And Rebellion is wonderful. 
 
Dedicated to organisers Darren and Jennie Russell-Smith and all those who make this brilliant weekend happen.

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