Tucked away from the Festival crowds in a posh tea-room in the Capital, the Bearded Ladies meet to swap the latest rumours and loose-talk. The Festival with all its salubrious scandal and controversy has started the ladies’ tongues wagging.

Star stirs sectarian rivalries
We bumped into potty-mouthed MTV star and New York socialite, Susan McIntosh. She had some juicy gossip to share with us. She’d met an Irish man (a good catholic boy) a couple of nights ago. One thing led to another, and she found herself in intimate clasp on Edinburgh’s Meadows. For anyone that doesn’t know, the Meadows is an outdoor park and not the sort of place for a lady to be late-night. Not learning her lesson, Miss McIntosh then met another man, couple of nights later (this time, a good protestant boy), and again, she found herself “chewing the cud” on the same grassy verge. In a country where Catholic and Protestant have long held a rivalry, we wondered if foreigner, Susan could confirm which of the two religions were the better kisser. She was unbiased in her opinion: “The men were both as irritating as each other. And crap kissers. No wonder they’re at war,” she answered.

Clinging on for dear life
We heard a ghastly tale this week. Nique Woodhouse, currently starring in Dear Future Wife at The Green Room, nearly suffocated himself on stage last weekend as he demonstrated a ‘Hot Geoffrey’. This, we ladies have learnt, is apparently a sexual fetish some people have for wrapping cling-film on their face and having a partner defecate over them. We were further relieved to hear that Nique uses brown sauce for this demonstration and is now ensuring a little breathing space is left between his mouth and the cling-film! A saucy tale indeed.

Caught by the throat
Poor stand-up comic Nick Wilty. The Essex mega-mouth is suffering from a sore throat as he continues to do three shows a day throughout the Fringe. Perhaps this was why he stopped his show at The Stand and demanded a “medicinal ginger ale". As the audience watched the veteran comic, eyes transfixed on the glass being brought to him, it was difficult to tell whether the "ginger ale" was for this ailing larynx or some more deep-rooted problem. The drink seemed to do the trick, as we heard Nick was much more upbeat after guzzling it down. It was so good he proceeded to drink another few more of the magical elixir post-gig. And at his next gig. The gig after that …

The Bearded Ladies ‘Careless Whiskers’ column will be appearing weekly.
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