So, all in all things could have been a lot worse yesterday... both shows happened and the first audience of Ink got treated to a very pacey rendition of the piece. Actually quite excellent. I mean, it's not that there weren't a few hiccoughs... the lights going down before the last two lines of the play probably wasn't exactly what I'd foreseen... but, you know what? We coped. Hells yes.
After that, my body jumped the Fringe schedule ever so slightly and had it's first breakdown at the beginning of week one instead of the start of week two. One minute I was eating a slightly dry sandwich in a restaurant, the next minute I was sobbing into the staler chips. It's not that the people I was having dinner with were uncomfortable, I think it genuinely was that they all suddenly realised they'd needed to go to the loo since we got there. Either way, a bottle of wine and some strawberry laces later and I was feeling like a prize moron. What kind of coping strategy for pressure and fear is weeping?
"Hello Creator of all things, I'm ready for my fight or flight instinct now."
"Ah, yes, Laura... now, we've got something special or you... you're kind of like a test pilot."
"Exciting! What am I getting? Am I getting claws so that I can gouge out the eyes of my attacker? Am I going to have a fearsome roar to scare off everything in a 2 mile radius? Will I be 9 feet tall when provoked, with muscles that bulge fearsomely through the cotton of my feminine sweater?"
"Right, not exactly... what's going to happen is, whenever you're scared - or tired, grumpy, angry, hungry, surprised, disappointed, in love, happy, excited, frustrated - your eyes are going to fill up with water!"
"Oh... cool, can I shoot the water out of eyes and dissolve whatever is annoying me?"
"No, what it's going to do is leak down your face and make everything a bit puffy. You won't be able to speak while this is happening - by all means try but it'll come out like a series of honks. Is that OK?"
"Well, I don't really feel in a position to argue... so is this fight or flight then? Can I run away while this is happening?"
"No, you're going to want to put your head on someone's lap when this happens. It's not really fight or flight - it's more, sort of, try and induce sympathy using dampness."
So, all in all I'm not very impressed with myself today. It helps a bit that Edinburgh is soaked through today so everyone looks like they've been voluntarily waterboarded by a member of Footlights - I don't stand out very much. I'm solving my issue by going for breakfast with Yoda.
Yoda is my comedy chum who is much more successful and funny than I am and so he is very pleasant about patting me on the head a lot and telling me it'll all be fine. For all I know he's just a total sadist who's just enjoying watching the comedy career swallow another naive young soul... but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the basis that he is a master of punning. Who can stay mad at someone with a one-liner about cheese greeting habits?
I hope today's lesson involves something about how to market the ability to spontaneously dissolve into orifice leaking in any given situation.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
(In which I am bored of listing Fringe Days) Our House
Well... this is it. There is absolutely no turning back now - I am out the door to do the first show of Ink. Blimey guv'nor it is nerve racking let me tell 'e. To hell with what people think of the show - it's my show, I didn't ask people to see it (well, that's not strictly true if they're somebody I flyered, but I certainly didn't force people to see it). Quite frankly they can all bog off if they don't like it. They can go and see some truly searching physical theatre if they have a problem with our fast paced dialogue and focus on people without melodrama.
Our house is slowly beginning to take shape as a house now which is a lovely feeling - I think we owe it to the plug in air freshener we just bought which is covering the slightly fausty reek of something that may or may not be dead or dying behind the washing machine. Our house consists of 4 of the cast of Ink;
Me (slightly tetchy so far and trying desperately to throw away people's flyers before we end up with a flat that is difficult to walk in without paper cutting your toes off).
The Swede (a beautiful young lady who claims to be Swedish but has olive skin, deep brown eyes and a bushy mane of brunette hair - I am currently sharing a room with her which is not helping with feeling secure about my body being a proper shape. I've taken to putting my pyjamas on in the wardrobe so I don't have to stare wildly at her legs while I'm folding my knee skin into some skinny jeans).
Birdie (a man who is marching us all down to see some swans very early on Wednesday morning. The Swede and I are quite petrified of swans so we're not being as nice to Birdie as we could be. Enough about him until we've survived the dawn swan raid and then I'll give him a proper character assassination).
Music Man (this is our final housemate who knows the words, guitar part and trumpet solo (even if there isn't one) to any song recorded pre 1995. He can sing in the morning, in the evening, walking around - he can even sing one song whilst listening to another. He's delightful. Turns out he also sings in the shower which makes sitting in the lounge for the morning cup of tea rather brilliant).
Having had a lot of responsibility thus far into the Fringe, I have barely been drunk at all - obviously quite different from last year where by this point I had yet to be sober. Last night I got well on my way to merry town for the first time and all of a sudden things started sliding into place and feeling a lot more like we were in Edinburgh... it's honestly not that I have a drinking problem; it's that Edinburgh has a sobriety problem and I strongly believe that "When in Rome..."
Absolutely anything could be happening in the rest of the world at the moment and I wouldn't have a clue... I've not looked at the papers (except the ones I've been hastily gluing together on our living room floor, meaning my fingers are now a slightly grey, gluey colour) and I've not seen hide nor hair of a television since last week... I really hope things are going alright for everybody that's not living knee deep in narcissism and ego stroking. I wonder if, actually, the world progresses at a much faster rate during August when everybody who doesn't really have a proper joke has wandered off and stopped distracting everybody else. A bit like doing the vaccuuming when your housemates have gone to the pub.
"The comedians have gone."
"Finally."
"Shall we sort the recession before they get back?"
"Yeah, could do. We've got 3 weeks."
"Cool, well I'll just finish this cup of tea and then we'll get on."
I think this is a wild overestimation of how much our hilarity distracts the rest of the public but I think just for today I'm allowed to live firmly placed in my own rectum. My ongoing nightmare for the past 3 months is that someone will come and review the show and give me my very own Bridget Jones scenario and say;
"This play is ridiculous. The whole idea is bananas. What on earth were you thinking?"
As long as one audience comes to see it and doesn't do that then I'll know that it's just down to personal taste... there's a lot riding on today. Hell, if all goes to pot at least we have an air freshener and a house that can simultaneously sing, seduce and wow a pile of swans.
Our house is slowly beginning to take shape as a house now which is a lovely feeling - I think we owe it to the plug in air freshener we just bought which is covering the slightly fausty reek of something that may or may not be dead or dying behind the washing machine. Our house consists of 4 of the cast of Ink;
Me (slightly tetchy so far and trying desperately to throw away people's flyers before we end up with a flat that is difficult to walk in without paper cutting your toes off).
The Swede (a beautiful young lady who claims to be Swedish but has olive skin, deep brown eyes and a bushy mane of brunette hair - I am currently sharing a room with her which is not helping with feeling secure about my body being a proper shape. I've taken to putting my pyjamas on in the wardrobe so I don't have to stare wildly at her legs while I'm folding my knee skin into some skinny jeans).
Birdie (a man who is marching us all down to see some swans very early on Wednesday morning. The Swede and I are quite petrified of swans so we're not being as nice to Birdie as we could be. Enough about him until we've survived the dawn swan raid and then I'll give him a proper character assassination).
Music Man (this is our final housemate who knows the words, guitar part and trumpet solo (even if there isn't one) to any song recorded pre 1995. He can sing in the morning, in the evening, walking around - he can even sing one song whilst listening to another. He's delightful. Turns out he also sings in the shower which makes sitting in the lounge for the morning cup of tea rather brilliant).
Having had a lot of responsibility thus far into the Fringe, I have barely been drunk at all - obviously quite different from last year where by this point I had yet to be sober. Last night I got well on my way to merry town for the first time and all of a sudden things started sliding into place and feeling a lot more like we were in Edinburgh... it's honestly not that I have a drinking problem; it's that Edinburgh has a sobriety problem and I strongly believe that "When in Rome..."
Absolutely anything could be happening in the rest of the world at the moment and I wouldn't have a clue... I've not looked at the papers (except the ones I've been hastily gluing together on our living room floor, meaning my fingers are now a slightly grey, gluey colour) and I've not seen hide nor hair of a television since last week... I really hope things are going alright for everybody that's not living knee deep in narcissism and ego stroking. I wonder if, actually, the world progresses at a much faster rate during August when everybody who doesn't really have a proper joke has wandered off and stopped distracting everybody else. A bit like doing the vaccuuming when your housemates have gone to the pub.
"The comedians have gone."
"Finally."
"Shall we sort the recession before they get back?"
"Yeah, could do. We've got 3 weeks."
"Cool, well I'll just finish this cup of tea and then we'll get on."
I think this is a wild overestimation of how much our hilarity distracts the rest of the public but I think just for today I'm allowed to live firmly placed in my own rectum. My ongoing nightmare for the past 3 months is that someone will come and review the show and give me my very own Bridget Jones scenario and say;
"This play is ridiculous. The whole idea is bananas. What on earth were you thinking?"
As long as one audience comes to see it and doesn't do that then I'll know that it's just down to personal taste... there's a lot riding on today. Hell, if all goes to pot at least we have an air freshener and a house that can simultaneously sing, seduce and wow a pile of swans.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Edinburgh Fringe Day 4 - In The Jingle Jangle Morning
It feels like Christmas Eve... like the original Christmas Eve, where it was less about opening presents and more about trying to squeeze a doomed child out of a donkey battered vagina and then keep it safe from a maniacal tyrant.
That's a fairly good summation of how I'm feeling on the day before the shows kick off.
It's like I have twins; I have QimP - thd golden child with no worries, no panic about his future, absolute confidence in his temperament... and then I have Ink; Ink has colic, has the aura of the beautiful about her but needs taming and likes to sneak out of her bedroom window and then return a few hours later smiling coyly and refusing to accept grounding as anything that might faze her. I love Ink; she is going to be the jewel in the crown of my life to date... once I've beaten the crap out of her and made her sit still for 3 weeks so people can get to know her.
The weather in Edinburgh seems to be playing some sort of "take it in turns game" of being solidly pissy for 12 hours and then blazing us with sunshine and wind so that we have no idea whether it's safe to leave the house in our clothes. I've found it's best to dress like a confused, layered eskimo who desperately needs a wife.
To make matters intensely more frustrating my delightful digestive system has just entirely ceased to work. It's less than ideal... I haven't been hungry for about 36 hours now and am occasionally throwing a rice cake in only for my stomach to look at me ambivalently and then make a mental note not to return it for at least a week. I'm not even sure what to begin doing about it now... do I take an old woman approach and swallow a series of weird animals in the hope of something kicking into life? Or do I just pretend it's all fine and watch myself begin to expand like some sort of asp? Of course, the third option is to just be as stubborn as my tummy and tell it that if it won't be hungry then I won't eat... unfortunately, as much as I anthropomorphise my body parts I occasionally have to concede that we're all connected and that it'll bite me on the ass eventually - flexible.
So am I going to get a really good night's sleep tonight in preparation for the realisation of the last 20 years' dreams? Am I heck. We're off out for a cast meal out and I've decided (in the last 9 seconds) to find out if red wine will do anything to induce labour on my rice cake baby (I am fully gross I realise but at this point I'm more concerned with health and brilliance than a future husband so just avert your eyes if you are offended). Then I am off to see a friend's show at The Gilded Balloon at 11pm, after which I will return home and continue gluing pieces of newspaper together... what a life! Wouldn't have it any other way.
That's a fairly good summation of how I'm feeling on the day before the shows kick off.
It's like I have twins; I have QimP - thd golden child with no worries, no panic about his future, absolute confidence in his temperament... and then I have Ink; Ink has colic, has the aura of the beautiful about her but needs taming and likes to sneak out of her bedroom window and then return a few hours later smiling coyly and refusing to accept grounding as anything that might faze her. I love Ink; she is going to be the jewel in the crown of my life to date... once I've beaten the crap out of her and made her sit still for 3 weeks so people can get to know her.
The weather in Edinburgh seems to be playing some sort of "take it in turns game" of being solidly pissy for 12 hours and then blazing us with sunshine and wind so that we have no idea whether it's safe to leave the house in our clothes. I've found it's best to dress like a confused, layered eskimo who desperately needs a wife.
To make matters intensely more frustrating my delightful digestive system has just entirely ceased to work. It's less than ideal... I haven't been hungry for about 36 hours now and am occasionally throwing a rice cake in only for my stomach to look at me ambivalently and then make a mental note not to return it for at least a week. I'm not even sure what to begin doing about it now... do I take an old woman approach and swallow a series of weird animals in the hope of something kicking into life? Or do I just pretend it's all fine and watch myself begin to expand like some sort of asp? Of course, the third option is to just be as stubborn as my tummy and tell it that if it won't be hungry then I won't eat... unfortunately, as much as I anthropomorphise my body parts I occasionally have to concede that we're all connected and that it'll bite me on the ass eventually - flexible.
So am I going to get a really good night's sleep tonight in preparation for the realisation of the last 20 years' dreams? Am I heck. We're off out for a cast meal out and I've decided (in the last 9 seconds) to find out if red wine will do anything to induce labour on my rice cake baby (I am fully gross I realise but at this point I'm more concerned with health and brilliance than a future husband so just avert your eyes if you are offended). Then I am off to see a friend's show at The Gilded Balloon at 11pm, after which I will return home and continue gluing pieces of newspaper together... what a life! Wouldn't have it any other way.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Edinburgh Fringe Day 3 - Comedian Goes Camping!
Today I have been to Glasgow, more specifically to Loch Lomond, because I am going to be on the cover of a magazine. Don’t worry I haven’t sold out and gone all Vogue on you dear readers… I am to be the cover girl of the November issue (naturally, printed in September) of… Practical Caravan Magazine.
Oh yeah!
Do you need a cara that is both a van and practical? To you need a van with some pre cara that is practical? Are you practical but homeless? Because, as of today… I can help you.
It turns out being a model is slightly less glamorous than being a comedian if I’m honest. I spent a large portion of my day sitting with my faux husband pretending to eat breakfast with him. We ate a lot of breakfast. Dry breakfast because the milk bottle was too big for the picture and looked weird apparently… this worries me that caravan users might get a little bunged up due to eating large amounts of dry cereal. We also poured much coffee from an empty caffetiere and looked entirely happy about it.
It has been entirely important to look happy all day. Even when just staring into the distance I had to smile as though this was the happiest I’d ever been. For me, this is the most basic flaw in the Practical Caravan approach to photography. I’ve seen a lot of campers and caravanners in my life and they rarely, if ever, beam at you incessantly as though there was nowhere else they would like to be. In fact, they often look a little glum. And damp. Today, we were all damp.
In case I had any aspirations to be the next Kidd sister, it turns out I probably don’t have the stature to be a proper model. I can hear the shocked tone in which you are reading. My fake husband was so much taller than me that we actually had to cart the steps to the caravan around with me to stand on so that I didn’t look like a midget that had been kidnapped and taken to Scotland. It was rather embarrassing to have to keep climbing off and moving my little steps every time the camera man asked us to shuffle a little to the left or the right.
I love the ethos of camping… it’s like a little two fingers up to the rest of civilisation. “I like shit.” That’s basically what you’re saying if you go camping… you’re saying, “Yes, we can have all the mod cons and whistles and bells and etcs etcs but I would rather sit under a large coat in the rain with my loved ones.”
Camping forces you to interact, it forces people to make do with each other and the world badly needs this. No problem couldn’t be solved by putting the instigators into a tent and leaving them next to a lake for 2 weeks with a camping stove and no tin opener for the ravioli. I know for a fact Paul Gascoigne agrees with me on this point.
Back in Edinburgh, the forces of the Fringe have been rumbling on without me… we are no only 36 hours away (ish) from our first show of Ink. It’s all coming together nicely and I am insanely excited. In fact, I’m so excited that I’m off to sew some crosswords into a jacket. Intrigued? You should be…
Oh yeah!
Do you need a cara that is both a van and practical? To you need a van with some pre cara that is practical? Are you practical but homeless? Because, as of today… I can help you.
It turns out being a model is slightly less glamorous than being a comedian if I’m honest. I spent a large portion of my day sitting with my faux husband pretending to eat breakfast with him. We ate a lot of breakfast. Dry breakfast because the milk bottle was too big for the picture and looked weird apparently… this worries me that caravan users might get a little bunged up due to eating large amounts of dry cereal. We also poured much coffee from an empty caffetiere and looked entirely happy about it.
It has been entirely important to look happy all day. Even when just staring into the distance I had to smile as though this was the happiest I’d ever been. For me, this is the most basic flaw in the Practical Caravan approach to photography. I’ve seen a lot of campers and caravanners in my life and they rarely, if ever, beam at you incessantly as though there was nowhere else they would like to be. In fact, they often look a little glum. And damp. Today, we were all damp.
In case I had any aspirations to be the next Kidd sister, it turns out I probably don’t have the stature to be a proper model. I can hear the shocked tone in which you are reading. My fake husband was so much taller than me that we actually had to cart the steps to the caravan around with me to stand on so that I didn’t look like a midget that had been kidnapped and taken to Scotland. It was rather embarrassing to have to keep climbing off and moving my little steps every time the camera man asked us to shuffle a little to the left or the right.
I love the ethos of camping… it’s like a little two fingers up to the rest of civilisation. “I like shit.” That’s basically what you’re saying if you go camping… you’re saying, “Yes, we can have all the mod cons and whistles and bells and etcs etcs but I would rather sit under a large coat in the rain with my loved ones.”
Camping forces you to interact, it forces people to make do with each other and the world badly needs this. No problem couldn’t be solved by putting the instigators into a tent and leaving them next to a lake for 2 weeks with a camping stove and no tin opener for the ravioli. I know for a fact Paul Gascoigne agrees with me on this point.
Back in Edinburgh, the forces of the Fringe have been rumbling on without me… we are no only 36 hours away (ish) from our first show of Ink. It’s all coming together nicely and I am insanely excited. In fact, I’m so excited that I’m off to sew some crosswords into a jacket. Intrigued? You should be…
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Edinburgh Fringe Day 2 - Of Mice and Friends
So... the sun is out, I've been incredibly productive and up until about 30 minutes ago I had no alcohol in my system. I'll be honest, it's not been the most obvious start to the Fringe... I suppose this is what happens when you grow up a bit and have responsibilities to some people who have gathered to re enact the script you have written at 3am.
Would you Adam and Eve it, there is also another show on the Fringe this year called Ink... of all the options for a play you could write why on earth would you steal mine? I mean, what's wrong with re enacting Macbeth in more face paint than any before? Could you not have done a retelling of The Clockwork Orange doing something monumental like using a woman? What ever happened to doing Berkoff productions in white sheets with a message about the Afghanistan war? Why did you have to do a piece of new writing and steal the name of my play?
I'm not saying you're selfish, but, I will just put it out there that I wrote my play about 3 years ago and you should have done your research... this is now officially a turf war. I've laid down the gauntlet now feel free to do some mime on it while I slice you up using fliers.
I think I've done a complete marathon on the streets of Edinburgh today; if I'd had the foresight to ask people to give me a few quid prior today then I could have seriously made some dosh for some hungry folk. Unfortunately, today has mainly been sponsored by me tripping over loose paving stones and swearing at slow tourists. Yet again I have been forced into my rant about how pavements should have lanes:
Stopping lane.
Pushchairs and people who are limping.
People who have nowhere in particular to be.
People who dislike other people and just need to be somewhere without having to weave around bumbags, window shoppers and people who don't know where they're going. Oh, and people who are texting.
This rant can also be exchanged for my rant about needing a "locals" lane on roads where a lot of tourists congregate. I can often be heard giving this rant if I've just had to drive to Somerset from London and have had an hour added to my journey by people who want to look at a loosely organised bunch of upright rocks. Stonehenge is just not that interesting folks, keep moving...
But! Back to the present, here we all are (well, possibly not you and I am truly sorry about that) at the Edinburgh Fringe. The flat has been moved into... it smells a little bit and doesn't really have any interesting features except the cast of Ink but it will be home for the next month. We're going to go out for a small beverage tonight but not too many because I am leaving for Glasgow in the morning for a highly amusing mission of which we will speak tomorrow... I promise ;)
Would you Adam and Eve it, there is also another show on the Fringe this year called Ink... of all the options for a play you could write why on earth would you steal mine? I mean, what's wrong with re enacting Macbeth in more face paint than any before? Could you not have done a retelling of The Clockwork Orange doing something monumental like using a woman? What ever happened to doing Berkoff productions in white sheets with a message about the Afghanistan war? Why did you have to do a piece of new writing and steal the name of my play?
I'm not saying you're selfish, but, I will just put it out there that I wrote my play about 3 years ago and you should have done your research... this is now officially a turf war. I've laid down the gauntlet now feel free to do some mime on it while I slice you up using fliers.
I think I've done a complete marathon on the streets of Edinburgh today; if I'd had the foresight to ask people to give me a few quid prior today then I could have seriously made some dosh for some hungry folk. Unfortunately, today has mainly been sponsored by me tripping over loose paving stones and swearing at slow tourists. Yet again I have been forced into my rant about how pavements should have lanes:
Stopping lane.
Pushchairs and people who are limping.
People who have nowhere in particular to be.
People who dislike other people and just need to be somewhere without having to weave around bumbags, window shoppers and people who don't know where they're going. Oh, and people who are texting.
This rant can also be exchanged for my rant about needing a "locals" lane on roads where a lot of tourists congregate. I can often be heard giving this rant if I've just had to drive to Somerset from London and have had an hour added to my journey by people who want to look at a loosely organised bunch of upright rocks. Stonehenge is just not that interesting folks, keep moving...
But! Back to the present, here we all are (well, possibly not you and I am truly sorry about that) at the Edinburgh Fringe. The flat has been moved into... it smells a little bit and doesn't really have any interesting features except the cast of Ink but it will be home for the next month. We're going to go out for a small beverage tonight but not too many because I am leaving for Glasgow in the morning for a highly amusing mission of which we will speak tomorrow... I promise ;)
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
North of The Border
Now THAT was a long drive... someone ought to give J.R.R. Tolkien a ring and tell him that if he wants to write about an epic journey just narrate the arrival of any comedian with spirit on their journey to the Fringe. We left at 6:38am and I've just sat down on the sofa to try and keep myself awake until a decent hour so I don't end up getting myself some kind of jetlag in wimpy comedian form.
The trip up to Scotland is beautiful and a lot of fun... I rather enjoyed marking the change of County at each point. It was like playing one of the simpler versions of Mario Kart and being very disappointed with the level upgrades.
Service stations are quite disconcerting for the weary traveller on a long trip - you feel like you've been driving for hours but every time you stop and look around you, you're at exactly the same Costa Coffee. It's occurred to me that English Service Stations also give a very false impression of how seriously English people take methods of relieving themselves. I've never before experienced so many different infra red flushes and taps, so many Twister force hand dryers, so many competitions to see how frequently the toilets are checked.
These toilets are checked every 60 minutes - if these toilets are not in the condition you expect them to be in please contact management.
These toilets are checked every 30 minutes - if these toilets are not in the condition you expect them to be in please contact management.
These toilets are checked constantly. If there isn't a small woman in ugly shoes squatting behind the door of your cubicle please contact the manager so we can monitor her ankle tag and find the snivelling bitch and give her back her J Cloth.
Is there really any need for these toilets to be checked quite so regularly? The rest of the service station is quite frankly a dumping ground for common children and baked bean infested trays, why do the toilets need to have a Duchess of Cambridge level of hygiene?
But anywho, arrived in Edinburgh courtesy of a few rounds of "Donald, Where's Your Troosers?" and "On Top of Spaghetti" and now the excitement is fizzing away in my tummy like a drunk rattle snake. How brilliant. It's hard to describe Edinburgh if you've never been here but it's like someone has created a city that's perfect to write about. You imagine it would always look wet, even if you upped it to Saudi Arabia the walls of the buildings would some how cling to their darkened bricks and mossy outcrops. Arthur's seat looms over one end of the city; proudly displaying people who already have the stamina and thighs to have conquered it. The castle sits in the middle and the winding streets around it with small shops and exciting cafes just don't disappoint... this city was built to make you feel something. Well done Scotland - I'm going to feel you for a month. Now please, be gentle when you're giving something back...
The trip up to Scotland is beautiful and a lot of fun... I rather enjoyed marking the change of County at each point. It was like playing one of the simpler versions of Mario Kart and being very disappointed with the level upgrades.
Service stations are quite disconcerting for the weary traveller on a long trip - you feel like you've been driving for hours but every time you stop and look around you, you're at exactly the same Costa Coffee. It's occurred to me that English Service Stations also give a very false impression of how seriously English people take methods of relieving themselves. I've never before experienced so many different infra red flushes and taps, so many Twister force hand dryers, so many competitions to see how frequently the toilets are checked.
These toilets are checked every 60 minutes - if these toilets are not in the condition you expect them to be in please contact management.
These toilets are checked every 30 minutes - if these toilets are not in the condition you expect them to be in please contact management.
These toilets are checked constantly. If there isn't a small woman in ugly shoes squatting behind the door of your cubicle please contact the manager so we can monitor her ankle tag and find the snivelling bitch and give her back her J Cloth.
Is there really any need for these toilets to be checked quite so regularly? The rest of the service station is quite frankly a dumping ground for common children and baked bean infested trays, why do the toilets need to have a Duchess of Cambridge level of hygiene?
But anywho, arrived in Edinburgh courtesy of a few rounds of "Donald, Where's Your Troosers?" and "On Top of Spaghetti" and now the excitement is fizzing away in my tummy like a drunk rattle snake. How brilliant. It's hard to describe Edinburgh if you've never been here but it's like someone has created a city that's perfect to write about. You imagine it would always look wet, even if you upped it to Saudi Arabia the walls of the buildings would some how cling to their darkened bricks and mossy outcrops. Arthur's seat looms over one end of the city; proudly displaying people who already have the stamina and thighs to have conquered it. The castle sits in the middle and the winding streets around it with small shops and exciting cafes just don't disappoint... this city was built to make you feel something. Well done Scotland - I'm going to feel you for a month. Now please, be gentle when you're giving something back...
Monday, August 1, 2011
Where Are You John Denver?
So here it is... here is that sweeping feeling of panic and desperation. I was wondering when it would turn up and now here it is... I am leaving for the Fringe today.
So far today I've managed to finish packing, unpack, sort my clothes into 4 piles:
Packing
Not Packing
Don't Know Why I Own
Don't Know Why Anyone Would Own
And repack without most of the stuff that I probably need.
Now I'm staring at an overly large suitcase and an enormous pile of newspapers that don't look like they'd fit into any car - let alone the one I'm getting in to go all the way to Scotland. I'm drinking herbal tea in an attempt to rescue my mental state from it's current perch somewhere akin to Kerry Katona. When I was writing a play about a mentalist who obsessively collects newspapers, it certainly didn't occur to me that I'd also have to collect them and then take them on holiday and then show what I had written to a hundred people.
It's not that I'm scared; it's my body that's scared. It sort of sees a suitcase and assumes we're off to Somerset. I'm trying to explain that there won't be an adorable 2 year old there - more like a drunken rabble of harassed comedians and truly irritating street performers.
My body is the one that's wimping out. Last night it tried to kill us so we wouldn't have to go. I had to get up and go and get a drink at about 3am and as I was sipping the water I noticed I couldn't see anything. Which was strange because the lights were on... then I noticed it was because my eyes had stopped walking and we were having to lie on the floor because we weren't upright any more. Now this isn't ideal in any way, we were obviously fine once we'd cooled down on the kitchen floor for half an hour but to be honest I'd just rather my body pulled itself together.
I'm sure Edinburgh will be amazing and there's the outside chance that my parents will spring a surprise visit and come and see all this nonsense I've been faffing about with and then my body will have at least been half right in why we were packing. I'm listening to Eric Clapton's back catalogue in an effort to steady myself for a month of complete nonsense. Eric is renowned for his relaxing tones... I'll hold on to the big guns (Mr Denver) for the drive just in case I start sticking my head out of the window in a blind panic.
The thing is, there's still quite a lot to get done before the show begin... only little things like sorting out the set, lighting, lines etc... but these are all things that I think we perhaps need to think about. If I ever, EVER suggest single handedly directing, producing, writing and performing in a show ever again please just give me a fairly might crack around the head and push me down some stairs. I think it'd be safer for all of us involved.
So far today I've managed to finish packing, unpack, sort my clothes into 4 piles:
Packing
Not Packing
Don't Know Why I Own
Don't Know Why Anyone Would Own
And repack without most of the stuff that I probably need.
Now I'm staring at an overly large suitcase and an enormous pile of newspapers that don't look like they'd fit into any car - let alone the one I'm getting in to go all the way to Scotland. I'm drinking herbal tea in an attempt to rescue my mental state from it's current perch somewhere akin to Kerry Katona. When I was writing a play about a mentalist who obsessively collects newspapers, it certainly didn't occur to me that I'd also have to collect them and then take them on holiday and then show what I had written to a hundred people.
It's not that I'm scared; it's my body that's scared. It sort of sees a suitcase and assumes we're off to Somerset. I'm trying to explain that there won't be an adorable 2 year old there - more like a drunken rabble of harassed comedians and truly irritating street performers.
My body is the one that's wimping out. Last night it tried to kill us so we wouldn't have to go. I had to get up and go and get a drink at about 3am and as I was sipping the water I noticed I couldn't see anything. Which was strange because the lights were on... then I noticed it was because my eyes had stopped walking and we were having to lie on the floor because we weren't upright any more. Now this isn't ideal in any way, we were obviously fine once we'd cooled down on the kitchen floor for half an hour but to be honest I'd just rather my body pulled itself together.
I'm sure Edinburgh will be amazing and there's the outside chance that my parents will spring a surprise visit and come and see all this nonsense I've been faffing about with and then my body will have at least been half right in why we were packing. I'm listening to Eric Clapton's back catalogue in an effort to steady myself for a month of complete nonsense. Eric is renowned for his relaxing tones... I'll hold on to the big guns (Mr Denver) for the drive just in case I start sticking my head out of the window in a blind panic.
The thing is, there's still quite a lot to get done before the show begin... only little things like sorting out the set, lighting, lines etc... but these are all things that I think we perhaps need to think about. If I ever, EVER suggest single handedly directing, producing, writing and performing in a show ever again please just give me a fairly might crack around the head and push me down some stairs. I think it'd be safer for all of us involved.
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