‘I was young and impressionable,’ she said, ‘and when this group of manly soldiers suggested I had one to please them, I thought why not?’ Edina says she was intoxicated by heady thoughts of rebellion and making herself attractive to those red blooded fighters.

‘I had the first tattoo in a back street near the castle,’ said Edina. ‘It was quite small, fairly tasteful and not really painful at all. But every year more of these guys would come along and persuade me to do it again and make it bigger, and before you know it I was left with this monstrosity that will never go away,’ said Edinburgh, who would have been shame-faced if her fringe hadn’t grown so huge as to  obsucure everything else.

For years, newspaper supplements and arts programmes have featured extensive coverage of the brilliant comedy acts emerging from the fringe, while other reviewers described how they were locked in a pub all night witnessing impromptu improvisations from Eddie Izzard teaming up with Ricky Gervais and Ben Stiller.

‘None of it ever happened…’ confessed Festival organiser Alistair Lorimer. ‘It was just a wheeze to get our own back on London. Sure, there’s a military tattoo and some blokes in kilts playing bagpipes, but everyone who comes up has always been happy to go along with the huge comedy festival lie, so they can be really smug when they get back to work.’

One West Country comedy fan was delighted at the news. ‘Every August we have to read about this massive party that we are not invited to’, said 19 year old Sarah Curtiss from Dawlish in Devon. ‘It always really pisses me off. Now I learn that was the whole point.’

TV producers, journalists and media executives have received countless paid holidays in the historic city under the pretence of ‘keeping their finger on the pulse’ or ‘looking for new talent’. And yet every year they would come back and give a new radio or TV series to the biggest name on the London comedy circuit. ‘You think someone would have suspected something earlier,’ said Mr Lorimer.

However none of the journalists or TV executives who have regularly boasted about the wonders of the Edinburgh Festival were available for comment. ‘They’ve all gone off to something called the Seychelles Film Festival, apparently.’