We had heard good reports of Edinburgh German Market Christmas Fair in previous years, but the 2013 fair just did not cut the mustard. It had rather too much fairground and the expected rows of wooden huts contained nothing special – cloned bars manned by local students selling indifferent gluwein plus a couple of German beers, admittedly authentic but obtainable from any decent local wholesaler – traders offering mass produced German-style Christmas goods at well above the going prices at Amazon – plus the usual assortment of sausage stalls. We found but a handful of stalls offering German craft goods. Apparently the new organisers of the 2013 market had not only increased stall prices sufficiently to put off most of the traditional traders but been very choosy in letting stalls to local traders in order to create a new style European Market. The traditional market organiser 'She’s Got It!' plus the majority of the German traders relocated to Alnwick. The Germans have a word for the new-style Edinburgh market – ersatz.