Holiday Season puzzle series

[John Gray]

I'd better claim the prize early, then!

[BobH]

Being only a parochial colonial, and a not overly intelligent one at that, I didn't get the reference to "fringe."

Could John or someone closer to that please inform me?

[StuartR]

The Edinburgh Fringe is an event that takes place every Summer involving lots of plays, shows, comedy and other artistic endeavours.

https://www.edfringe.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[John Gray]

Stuart could have continued that "the Fringe" is the (now very extensive) sideshow of the considerably-posher Edinburgh Festival, the 'low culture' associated with the 'high culture'. The venues for the events Stuart delineates can be anything from a theatre (during the day, when not being used for a Festival event) to a room holding as few as 20 people (for a comedy performance, say). When you walk around Edinburgh at Festival time fliers for various shows are thrust upon you every ten paces or so, by people desperate to get their performance attended.

[HansV]

Day 8.

Is this the capital of Middle Earth? (10 letters)

[Rudi]

Day 8.

Is this the capital of Middle Earth? (10 letters)

Day 8

Spoiler

My knowledge of fantasy worlds is as scarce as your knowledge on TV series's!
My guess with the help of Google is: Torontonia

[HansV]

Nope. At least, it's not what I had in mind...

[Leif]

Spoiler

Wellington

[HansV]

Yes, that's the one I meant! Have a , or (or a cup of tea of course).

[Leif]

Thanks, another espresso should keep me for now

[Rudi]

Please explain middle earth? TX.

[HansV]

Spoiler

Middle Earth is the fictive world in which Tolkien's books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place.
The movie series made from these books were filmed in New Zealand.
Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, renamed itself "Middle of Middle Earth" last year, when the first Hobbit film was released, and NZ immigration had a special passport stamp:

Welcome-to-Middle-Earth.jpg

[Rudi]

TX. I was close, but no cigar

Spoiler

I was scouring through inserts of Tolkien and references to middle earth in his stories, but none claimed to be a capital, though Torontonia stood out amongst them!

[HansV]

The language of today's city is written in a unique alphabet.

The name of the country in its own alphabet is

CountryDay9.png

And the name of the city is

CityDay9.png

What is the name of the city in western script? (7 letters)

[Leif]

That's not as easy as it looks...

[HansV]

Yes, this is the most difficult one in the series. If it's too hard, I'll post clues, but I'll wait a bit.

[Leif]

Georgian, or Brahmic, or...?

[HansV]

Georgian looks like this:

Georgian.png

Brahmic is a whole family of scripts used in South Asia. Some do show some resemblance to the script of this city/country, but ...

[StuartR]

Day 9 looks like

Spoiler

Yerevan

to me

[HansV]

Yes, that's correct! Have another , or

Spoiler

Yerevan is the capital of Armenia. The Armenian script is currently used only for the Armenian language; in the past, some Turkish and Kurdish documents were written in this script too.
For Leif: Armenia and Georgia are neighbours, but each has its own unique script.