Everything has been happening...

I've had a spectacularly 'Fringe' couple of days which due to only sleeping in groups of hours that add up to less than 5, have blurred into one long mish mash of things that I'm not totally sure are actually happening or are a mere hallucination.

So, here is my attempt to cover them all off for you. Ok.

Funny Women competition - it went well. Didn't it? I mean, it went well...? I think it went well. No, it went well. Well, I think it went well. But I have no idea. Was a strong heat I think. I was very pleased with my performance in general and thought it was one of the best 5s I've ever performed - but after a bill of 13 female comedians I got to the end and definitely wondered whether I would remember me by the end of it? I'm not sure there's anything particularly stand out-ish about me that might make people take interest. But hey ho. We shall see. See we shall. On Monday apparently - which will either be a really nice pick me up to the end of the Fringe, or a very dismal feeling on the train home as the phone call shatters my illusions of grandeur and good things to come.

The night after Funny Women...well. Let's have a think about what happened shall we? It started off perfectly reasonably with a bottle of red wine at the Three Sisters and some fun with friends. We then went to the Library bar...and suddenly it was 5am. It was 5am and another bottle of Rose and several pints of cider later...have you ever mixed two different wines with cider? Have you ever mixed them inside a hyperactive midget with a hip that's not working properly? You haven't? Well, it creates a little brunette monster that will stop at nothing to get her hands on a pie.

Any pie would have done. I just very, very badly wanted a pie.

We were turfed out of Library Bar at about 5am and myself and fellow comedian Nicola Bolsover decided the best thing to do would be to go back to her house and watch Jumanji - the connoisseurs choice. But I was a relentless pie fiend by now. I could literally smell it in the air. Partly because Nicola lives above a pie shop and they had turned the ovens on already. But they weren't open. So I made us travel on.

It was approximately 5:30 and I was pretty convinced that somewhere would be open and seeling pies to angry things with blunt fringes and a desire for meat and gravy. In my defense there was a rugged group of locals who completely agreed with me that the air smelt of pastry delights and that if we headed further down the road there was a pie shop open and we would be able to eat there. They then set off at an incredible pace and due to the minor dispute between my hip and its socket right now, we were not able to keep up.

At this point I found a very nice hessian Bag For Life with a naturally handsome peacock on the side. Deciding this was my prize for being such a convincing sack of alcohol, I wore it around my neck in the manner of a peckish horse. I felt a million dollars.

So there we were on the street, lost and alone (not lost, totally in sight of Nicola's flat, and not alone because we were together), having no idea where this pie shop was actually going to be.

This is when we met 'The Three 26 year Olds'. Now, these guys (as I remember it - and please remember to replace "as I remember it" with "severely sketchy retelling of details") were very proud of the fact that they were all 26. This made them happy. This made Nicola laugh. And it made one of the 26 year olds want to kiss people on the cheek a lot. Nicola needed to sit down because she was laughing so hard she couldn't see and I valiantly gave her my new Bag For Life with the Handsome Peacock to sit on so that her bum wouldn't get wet. The Three 26 year Olds were not terribly interesting as I remember it but they did want a flier for our show and we gladly obliged.

But the rumble in my tumble could not be ignored for long and my desperation for pie was outweighing my impatience with Nicola's incapacity on the floor. All but one of the Three 26 Year Olds left at this point leaving the 26 year old cheek kisser to stay and bother Nicola. Stay an bother Nicola? Where was I you ask? I had spotted a group of people up the road, they looked rowdy and drunk. I therefore assumed they were locals and would have a better knowledge of the local terrain than myself so I raced over (hobbled like Quasimodo with a butt plug) and asked them if they knew where I could get a pie...

They were not locals. They were French. French people with a camera who each wanted an individual phot taken with the brave pie hunter they had met at 6am on a Tuesday morning in the arse end of Edinburgh. I obliged for a short while but they were cramping my style and I still had to get Nicola off the floor and get us both to a pie shop before I died of hunger or disappointment. As I broke away from the clammering Frenchies to go back to my fallen friend, one of the Frenchies came forward and through the cidery fog in my ears I detected a note of Gaellic accent...he was a local!!!

He informed me that the mythical pie shop that the original locals had told me about did indeed exist! And if I just headed straight down the road we would get there and all would be well. I snaked a very special path back to Nicola, bid opur goodbyes to Kissy Cheek 26 Year Old and gathered up my handsome peacock. We were on our way.

We walked, and we walked, and we walked and we walked...and the only thing spurring me on was the thought of finally getting my precious pie! I was ablaze with the thought of my pie...it was all I wanted, it was all I could think about...it was all-consuming...

But then we saw a Tesco. And bought bacon. And Cheesestrings. And I ate 4 cheese strings in a row and felt very sick. The only thing worse than a bottle of red, a bottle of rose and several pints of cider, is a bottle of red, a bottle of rose, several pints of cider and 4 cheesestrings.

The Tesco people were neither amused nor thrilled that their first customers of the day had been so messy looking and loud but we now had bacon and bread and the loyal Jumanji disc waiting back at the flat. I was immensely pleased to have something to put in my handsome peacock bag - which was still around my neck.

The walk back took a very long time, there were some puffins in a window that both confused and amused us and there was the difficulty of trying to walk whilst unwrapping another cheesestring and regretting it at the same time. The walk was also punctuated by the feeling of sheer disappointment in ourselves that we were not yet home and yet 4 paces in front of us was a couple who had been to bed, got upm got dressed and were now off on a day trip up Arthur's Seat. In the 'do something meaningful with your life' stakes, we were not winning.

We reached the flat and made epic bacon sandwiches and settled down to watch Jumanji - the traffic outside was baring and I was ready for a nice sleep. On a sofa. Fully clothed. Under a towel. Perfect.

I then dreamt it was my birthday and it was so vivid that I can't shake the feeling that it genuinely was my birthday recently and that I'm actually going to have two birthdays this year.


All of these antics meant that yesterday was a pretty weird, sleep deprived day. The highlights of yesterday were -

1. 1 bird managing to poo on 3 people at once; me included! Hilarious but gross. It was like he pooed through a high octane sieve and just managed some kind of collossally amazing spatter effect. Funny!

2. My flatmate producing the second best quote I've heard from her this fringe - (you might recall Meatie 1 from a previous story delivering the immortal "I had to put shit loads of beef stock in to get it to taste like this" to the consumers of her 'vegetarian' cottage pie). Yesterday's was similarly badly thought out and equally as amusing, though with slightly less impact, as we got ready to go out into the rain our other, slightly miniature, flatmate puts on her anorak and I comment that she looks sweet in it. Meatie 1 quickly asks without missing a beat if any of us have seen "that film about the killer midget in the red rain coat?". Tiny flatmate is slightly put out at being likened to a homicidal dwarf and I am laughing quietly to myself and wondering if there's a way Meatie 1 and I can hang around together more often so these gems keep coming.

3. Seeing 5 shows in one day yesterday, despite intense exhaustion. These shows were -
"Laura" (Spun Glass Theatre) at the Hive - amazing, it's crazy that it's a free show.
"Loretta Maine - I'm Not Drunk I Just Need To Talk To You"- hysterically funny.
"3 Men and a Hoover" - one of the most insane hours I've ever had in an audience.
" Max and Ivan" - Good clean comedy sketches at C Venues.
"Phedre" - If you want to know about this show, phone me. That's all I can say here.


Today - I have been to see a doctor about my hip. The doctor's genuine prognosis so far has been -

"Yes, your hip definitely shouldn't do that. That is not normal. Does it hurt? It does hurt. Right. And your other hip doesn't do that? No. Of course it doesn't. Right. Ok, well I don't know what's wrong with it so will you take pain killers for me? Ok. Thanks. Yeah, I don't know at all what's wrong so I'm going to phone someone who does now and phone you later ok?"

Phone call later -

"Hi, well, I've spoken to orthopaedics and they seem to think as long as you're feeling ok within yourself you're ok to not do anything about it."

"Erm, I'm not feeling great within myself in all honesty - it sort of hurts to walk and there's a big thing popping in and out of my hip."

"Yes. That's why I've prescribed pain killers."

"Right but..."

"Are you fevery and sick?"

"No..."

"Well then you're fine."

"But, my hip is..."

"Listen, your hip joint is incredibly strong. It's a very secure joint and I just cannot imagine that it's coming out of its socket."

"So what is the big thing you can see and feel flicking out of my hip when I walk?"

"I don't know."

"But it's not my hip?"

"I don't know."

"Right..."

"You can go to hospital if you want? But I think paracetamol will work."

"Magic paracetamol?"

"Er, sure. Maybe try a shaman next time for medical efficiency."


Ok - so I made the last line up but the rest of that conversation is very true and I am therefore quite angry, annoyed and weepy right now so bollocks to the lot of it. I absolutely fucking hate medical issues and being made to feel like you're wasting people's time is not the right way to make sure the general public get things treated before it is too late. FFS.