Sometimes words fail me...

Sometimes words fail me. Rarely. But sometimes they do. And what is it they say? Why use two words when one will do (actually I have no idea if people say that but it seems the sort of adage my father would have come up with). 

What all this about words and what’s it got to do with Edinburgh? Well if I called it Edin Burgh you may find it more difficult to find in the Atlas? No, because it would be in the same place alphabetically. Google? I tried it. It assumed my folly and gave me Edinburgh. However, type in Chicken Shed as two correctly spelt words into the Fringe website and it gets confused, takes a while and then gives you a choice of shows connected to chickens but not cancer. However, type in one single word – Chickenshed and before you can hit the return button up pops Slender Threads. This would be bad enough if it wasn’t for the fact that this is the system the box office use as well. I was alerted to this by a colleague who tried to book a ticket for the Chickenshed show and was told “No. There’s no show on the system for Chickenshed”.  So I popped down to the Fringe box office and asked for a ticket for Chickenshed. The lady duly typed in Chicken Shed (I chose not to correct her at this point). “No.” She said “There’s no show under that name”. That’s not the show name I said, that's the company name. She tried again. “No. There’s no show listed under that company name”.

If you’re booking for the show please tell the box office it’s all one word. It’s difficult enough selling a show in this town without making the art of ticket booking then transaction equivalent of Count Down.

Dave Carey.