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Acting the fool, taking the mickey and other forms of entertaining banter

I like taking the piss. I like it alot. I’m no sadist…if the person you’re taking the piss out of doesn’t actually know, it can’t be at their expense, right?

Now that I’ve justified my immorality and silenced any semblance of guilt for my mischievious habits, let me relate my top three tactics for taking the piss out of unsuspecting strangers. It is important they are strangers BTW. Friends know you too well and after a while don’t find the joke funny anymore. Trust me. And because this is a site dedicated to all things Edinburgh I can assure you the following pranks have been tried and tested in our fair city.

1. Pretend you are a presenter for ‘Wild On’ Scotland and get the locals to show you how they get wild.

This one is great to use in a club. We pulled it off in the three sisters on cowgate. Fake an American accent, walk up to a stranger (or a group if your game) and get them to act drunk and stupid while your friends look on. Works best if you have a camera with you. And don’t feel bad…everyone wants to be a star at heart. Why do you think reality TV has been so successful?! I can’t think of any other reason to explain it…

2. (Mis) use your accent on unsuspecting locals.

My favourite was my Asian-Australian friend convincing a local lass that he was was an Italian pizza-kebab maker from Rome (the Romeo suburb to be exact, do you know it?) called Mee-Hung Low. Priceless.

3. Illegally join the festival parade.

OK, so this isn’t technically taking the piss…but it is a form of shenanigan, which is a close cousin of taking the piss and thereby acceptable. Disagree? I don’t care. It’s my blog 😛 Angered by the swarm of parade watchers that was going to make it impossible for us to reach our princess street hostel, we joined the parade, masquerading as a lost pair of performers from the fictitious Peruvian/New Zealand float (what?). Unbelievably, this utterly impossible excuse enabled us to get past seven police checks and halfway down Princes street in front of the estimated 100,000 onlookers! That was until a keen copper clued on that it would be impossible to lose your float, and that performers are usually dressed in some sort of costume, and kindly escorted us from the parade.

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