There was a juggler. I had my usual reaction: “I can do that. I can do that. I can’t do that. Ooh, that’s cool. They’re not really that sharp. Yes, I’ll hold your giraffe. No, that’s not a euphemism. Here’s some money; go buy yourself something nice.”

Sadly there were no acrobats, an oversight only made up for by the abundance of crepes and ice-cream. That’s not to say that those things are interchangeable, just that a festival that lacked both acrobats and ice-cream would have little reason to call itself a festival. It would be about as much a festival as Picadillly Circus is a circus. Get your act together, London!

Interesting side-note (for ‘interesting’ read ‘tedious’) on getting home: The trains were quite crowded so we decided to walk one station south to get on before the crowds. For reasons entirely out of my control—and I’m not even saying that in an ironic sense that means it was entirely my fault; it really wasn’t—we missed two stops and kept walking until we found ourselves in Dalkey, my arch nemesis.