Broughton-based commedian Craig Hill demonstrated a number of ways to use a brush this lunchtime.
The technique shown on the right was probably the most practical, despite a conspicuous lack of rubbish nearby needing to be swept.
Hill had joined Council street-cleansing task force staff Stuart Hamilton and Kevin Manson to promote the fourth year of CEC’s scheme to better manage flyposting in the city.
This saves CEC as much as £350,000 per annum on the cost of tidying up posters and flyers.
This year, revenue from a deal with distribution and advertising firm Out of Hand is expected to raise over £80,000. The money will fund 70 extra street cleaners and super-size bins on the busiest streets during the Festival.
It’s a pragmatic response which partially allays the irritations local people expressed to Spurtle when Council adverts for recycling, adoption and voter registration began to clutter Broughton Street and Elm Row in the spring (Breaking news, 14.5.14).
So long as the scheme doesn’t become a year-round replacement of one visually intrusive nuisance with another, most people will welcome it.
Hill described Edinburgh as 'gorgeous' and 'too beautiful to mess up', and then began singing 'Chim Chim Cheree' under his breath for the rest of the session.
He mostly resisted Press invitations to jump into the air for the cameras, reasoning that what went up must come down, and when what went up was a sporran the downward results would most likely be eye-watering.
Instead he was prevailed upon to twirl, which worked well for the lens and was a tad more dignified for Hill, but had very similar consequences in the end.
Hill continues in his Festival Fringe show Give Him an Inch ... at the Cowgate Underbelly until 25 August.