Cammie is a full-time clown, my friend, really making a go of it. When registering the birth of his new-born son, the clerk asked him his profession. It may have been the delivery – he was deliberately funny most of the time – or maybe she thought he was pulling her leg. Anyway, her reaction was derisive – something like, don’t be ridiculous, you can’t be a clown. “What else can I put you down as?”

He felt he was being put down, alright. “I’m a clown,” he insisted. “That’s what I do. Just like you’re a… clerk.”

It got heated – an impasse that Hannibal and his elephants couldn’t surmount. Cammie paced the room, pulling faces, juggling his thoughts. His status as a clown was being massively undermined. He demanded her superior.

This didn’t go down well. However, after some nail-drumming resistance, her superior arrived. Cammie announced, “I’m a clown.” “We can’t do that,” the clerk triumphed. “What else do you do?”

Cammie’s wife approached the desk. “He’s a clown, alright. I can vouch for that.”

The superior was unimpressed and more “you can’t have clown” exchanges followed.

Cammie wished he’d brought some balloons or a plastic jobbie to trump the argument. But after more stand-offs, the superior relented. “Okay sir, we’ll put you down as a professional clown.”

It was a compromise Cammie still regrets. Professional as a prefix was unnecessary, certainly not as funny as plain clown. It felt demeaning. We have an architect friend. He is an architect, never a professional architect. Cammie and I, could anticipate hearing his son saying, What’s a professional clown, daddy? But, we surmised, sometimes it’s wise to temper your artistic passion and compromise.

Often officialdom is desperate to shove us all in a box, make us fit into a dead way of thinking. Those of us with a strong sense of identity naturally resist compartmentalisation. Most funding applications are inevitably geared towards public bodies’ policies. We have to tick the right boxes or its rejected. Decisions, on who survives or thrives, are often made primarily on economic rather than cultural grounds. I like flexible, creative thinking. Sure, the value of our culture can be difficult to quantify and measure. But barren decisions create a cultural wasteland. Or ultimately, the bleak reality is it comes down to who you ken.

The Edinburgh Festival is the biggest gathering of artists and musicians in the world – 55,000 performances and attracting 3 million people. It is a beacon to the diaspora and tourists alike. Its box office success is no accident, having been run for many years by an amazing female Orcadian; someone who thinks outside of the box.

By the way, Cammie’s show is on at the Edinburgh Fringe right now. It’s called, The Flop: a band of idiots. Catch it or be trod on by an enormous flip flop!

Similar to Orkney, Canada has a short but packed summer of festivals. En-route to a festival site in Manitoba, I recall our driver proudly pointed out a ski slope – like a massive Maeshowe – in the middle of the same prairie where you can watch your dog run away for three days. Here was creative thinking: a man-made mountain to allow locals to enjoy downhill skiing in the gnaw of a flat Canadian winter! 

Only the tops of everyone’s heads were visible as merrymakers were happily bopping around to the ceilidh band at the Women’s Institute in Gateshead. Suddenly a huge commotion and a clearing formed around a supine figure – an elderly lady had collapsed. We stopped the Gay Gordons. A horrifying silence descended. “Quick get her pills,” her distressed friend screeched. Another friend frantically tipped the voluminous contents of Minnie’s handbag onto the dance floor. Suddenly, we saw another lady holding something aloft. She hilariously exclaimed in horror, “BANANA FLAVOURED CONDOMS!” Nobody seemed to notice that Minnie was dead.

Was it a heart attack? The brilliant young doctor smiled. “I think we’ll register this one as death by plain old good fun.”

PS: Do we know of any professional clowns in Orkney? I’m thinking of a few…