Shit In A Bag

On Sunday, after returning to my car with L and the very funny Tom Webb, we discovered, lying by the side of the car park, a shit in a bag. The afternoon, up until that point, had been rather nice. A brilliant Comedy Club 4 Kids gig in the North Pier theatre in Blackpool, a mosey along the beach front and a nice drive there. Yet all of this became quite quickly marred by this display of contained faeces. Sure, it was contained, so you might think that that is ten times better than a crap on the pavement, but the disturbing thing about the offending article was that it was very neatly placed in a bag and left in the middle of a walk way, meaning some thought had seemingly gone into its placement and many questions instantly arose. Was it a dog or a human turd? If human, had they shat into a bag and turned it inside out or merely had someone hold the bag underneath them in a team effort? More importantly than all of this, why? Why oh why oh why had someone decided that this was a reasonable thing to do? The road into Blackpool is filled with signs trying to promote the sadly now rather dilapidated area, asking you to ‘see it’, ‘feel it’, ‘love it’, before stating a number of exciting things you might be able to do whilst there. None of these for warn you of an unwanted encounter with a pre-wrapped gift boom.

I find myself more and more on a daily basis simply asking out loud ‘Why? Why would you do that?’ about members of the human race. I’m not sure if its my waning tolerance for such things, or perhaps I’ve become more perceptive to such horror since growing out of assuming everything is sunny and lovely, and skipping about in a delusional haze of joy. Or maybe, just maybe, its that people have become even more horrendous. The other night I saw Chris Packham on Room 101 say his least favourite animal was ‘The Human Race’ which Frank Skinner quickly dismissed by saying how wonderful we all are. Thing is, I often think the same as Chris. Lions won’t cut in front of you at 100mph on a motorway without indicting. Snakes won’t, like the maid did on Saturday morning at my hotel in Mayrhofen, burst in at 6.30 demanding to know ‘when are you leaving?’ despite knowing full well check out is at 10am. And while dogs may have their shits put in bags by others, I can’t see them ever willingly doing it by themselves. It us. Animals don’t vote for terrible governments, they don’t pollute the Earth and they don’t racially abuse and then attack teenagers. Ok, they sometimes attack teenagers. But they are stupid teenagers who step into their territory with food, rather than those who are in their own territory minding their own beeswax. So, fair I reckon.

I should have expected Shitbaggate. I had spent the entire previous week at the excellent Altitude Festival mingling with some incredibly nice people – comics and audience alike – and only ever feeling sad about humanity’s existence when speaking to 8 out of 10 Austrians who seem to have innate hatred of everyone. But even then, I’d see a mountain behind them and be able to imagine throwing them casually off it, and it was all better. So really, I had a whole week of amazing gigs, much drinking and lovely company, so it had to crash down somewhere. Blackpool – a place where the idea of a ‘Pleasure Beach’ is realised using run down casinos, a giant Poundland and ‘The Conspiracy Theory Experience’ – was the obvious place for it to happen. Fair play to it too. Just when I might remotely think about enjoying life, just when it might seem like the world is actually a brilliant place, the seaside resort brought me humbly back to Earth with a shit in a bag. Cheers humans. Cheers loads.

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Not In Their League

There are very few people in the world who make me feel a bit like a nervous idiot fan. Most of them are music based, generally because if you put me near an instrument, I’ll spend 5 minutes trying to work out how I’d hit someone with it, 5 minutes trying to blow into it, even if its a string instrument, then eventually give up and lean it against something that will cause it 3 minutes later to fall over and break. Even if its a grand piano. I am very bad with instruments, reaching only being able to play the ’12 Bar Blues’ in guitar at school before realising I could shout and make people just as blue, so gave up. As a result this leaves me to see most people that can play instruments or make amazing music as some sort of being that has been bestowed with powers by the gods. But there are also a few people who’ve done certain things in the comedy or acting world that make them just amazing to me. It’s become less and less over the years because – and yes, I realise how arrogant this sounds – as I get better at what I do (the current scale ranges from being abhorrently terrible at the start to now being mediocre at best) I can see and understand how they do what they do and so it all becomes a bit less impressive.

Last night I accidentally sat opposite someone who I still hold in my ‘slightly in awe of books’ on the tube. It wasn’t intentional, but he was sitting in the quietest bit on the carriage and as I had just got back from four days of shows in rural Wales and then gigged in central London I was slightly less used to people than normal and as usual, very wary of Saturday night drunken ones in town. Rural Wales doesn’t allow you to encounter too many people at once. There are far too many hills, trees and rivers to get in the way of people and so, instead, you start to remember what space, peace and quiet feels like and then get the shocking discovery that you like it. I have noticed this before, having only recently been to Scandinavia where they have so few people they spend far too much of their lives being happy. It takes a while to figure out that that’s what it is. There general joyful disposition, their constant politeness and hospitality when they do meet people, their constant lack of need to be in a rush anywhere. Its because there isn’t anyone to get in their way and slow them down and they are far less likely to encounter a total bellend at any point in their day to make them realise that being nice to people is utterly futile. Whenever I am somewhere like this, such as in Wales this weekend, I immediately remember that having less people is a bloody brilliant thing, then I return to London and within days just return to grunting at idiots who stop walking right in front of me, and find it difficult to sleep unless there’s sufficient car noise outside or the sound of someone shouting about how they need to vomit after ‘that jagerbomb’. But after this Welsh excursion – which included a visit to Big Pit (an underground coal mine) just days after watching The Descent for the fifth time. Not wise – I was still a bit uneasy around idiots and so sat right at the end carriage.

Taking my seat, I noticed the man opposite was Reece Shearsmith, a man who, ever since seeing him say ‘Oh yeah I hadn’t thought of that!’ in a stupid accent in Spaced, was a hero of mine. League of Gentleman was nothing less than a masterpiece and many things he’s done since have been brilliant. But far worse than me being in awe of him, I once performed one of the worst Comedy Club 4 Kids gigs I’ve ever done in front of him about three years ago. He was there to see the son of a friend perform, and after I very briefly met him beforehand, I went on to host to complete silence, fluster all my words and generally wish I was dead. I didn’t get to speak to him again and that was that. So I hid my head in my book wondering if he remembered me at all and whether it would be a plus or minus point. I should have just said hello but I get funny about these things. If I was introduced in a professional capacity it would be fine, but out in the real world its just not. Case in point was Simon Amstell several years ago, who I saw walking along in the West End with Miquita Oliver from T4. I was with my brother and friend Mat and despite having gigged with Simon a few times, I assumed he wouldn’t say hello as I was just an open spot. So instead I chose to keep my head low and just make it all easier for everyone. Then as we passed he said hello and I looked like a rude twat. I have had a very similar experience with a few ‘named’ people in the past and generally have decided that outside of the comedy scene I like to be as inconspicuous as possible, so I’m sure they do too.

So I spent 25 minutes trying to read my book, occasionally looking at Reece Sheersmith while he spent 25 minutes looking at his iPod, trying not to notice the weird beardy idiot that he probably vaguely recognised from somewhere but was generally just fed up with. If I’d just said hello I could right now be working on some amazing horror comedy with him. Or be being invited to be in the next League Of Psychoville as a new character. Or, shuddering as he shook my hand saying ‘oh yeah, you were that really shit host at Comedy Club 4 Kids that time weren’t you?’ Probably best I kept reading my book then. Sigh.

Who’s Way? Galway

I am in sunny, sunny Galway in sunny, sunny Ireland. By sunny I mean grey and pissing down with rain. Its odd how somewhere can still look so pretty when covered by dark clouds, but everytime I’ve visited Galway it feels as though it could be singing that dire Travis song out aloud, and yet it never stops me loving the place. Edinburgh is the same and in fact many places in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland who all manage to have constructed their landscapes on the basis that the weather hates them, that the environment has chosen it as its pissing ground and made sure it still looks like the sort of place Americans would say ‘quaint’ about. England has never managed this. England knows full well rain will happen most of the year, that summer is merely a concept and that a nice day is one where you don’t have to go outside. Sure I’m generalising and in recent years all the UK and Ireland have had an actually warm summertime, and there are places in England that are as picturesque as a, er, picture, but I’ve also gone to Leicester on a rainy day and thought ‘really?’ Wondering who on Earth decided that horrible modern redbrick structures or grey blocks would look like anything other than a suburb on the outskirts of Judge Dredd’s Mega City A, desolate in the ghostly post apocalyptic terrain, echoes of life having been there once.

Sorry, not sure where that came from, though it seems to happen whenever I am anywhere I like being that I just point out the flaws of home. Galway really is one of my favourite places on the planet. It somehow manages to combine a buzzing, fun atmosphere with cobbled stone streets, quiet pubs and a Spanish Arch. Its as though it’s a party, but a secret one that only certain people get invites too which makes it considerably less full of bellends than most. Even more so than normal this week as it’s the Galway Comedy Festival which means many of my comedy chums are gathered here for the next few days. Last night I popped along to see Tim Minchin’s awesome show at the Radisson which was superb as usual, and even more so as its so rare to see him play to only 450 people anymore, and today I fully intend to sneak along to Dylan Moran then see Rich Hall, Mike Wilmot and the Rubberbandits at Full Mooners tonight all whilst drinking lots of Guinness. Actual nice tasting Guinness. Guinness you can have more than several pints of without feeling like you’ve ate a brick and worrying about when you’ll have to shit that brick out.

I’m not just revelling in the secret party, I am meant to be doing stuff here as well, but I’m just performing Comedy Club 4 Kids at 2pm everyday, and its Halloween weekend so it really doesn’t feel like work. So far yesterday I spent 5 minutes explaining to the kids that as the clocks went back anything you do in the hour doesn’t count, as its erased when they go back to 12, encouraging them to set fire to their curtains or stomp mud through the house. Then Maeve Higgins made a dad wear a dress and made the most disgusting meal ever on stage. Much like every trip I’ve ever had here, work is very much fun. There’s no free wi-fi anywhere, which caused initial disappointment . I still don’t understand how anything that is essentially just floating about the skies can’t be for free. If a hotel is paying for Wi-Fi already then it’s not going to cost them any extra to let me borrow a bit is it? I mean, surely it’d be like charging me to use their air? Only air that I can illegally download music from. Which would make the world a horribly noisy place and getting planes a really dreadful experience as you float through many different genres all at once. But now over that concept, I realise that no one here can get hold of me, I’m not twittering my every move and I can actually relax a bit.

I realise that all this blog is, is boasting to you how much of a lovely time I’m having. Sure there have been things that have made me angry. L nearly cried last night when €5 and several different button combinations on the vending machine still wouldn’t let her have salt and vinegar crisps, instead firing three packs of cheese and onion and two false hopes at her, but this is merely the karma for having such a good day overall. I’m partly sure this may even be Ireland’s way of preventing us from having a heart attack from too many crisps. Though we did eat all three packs of Cheese & Onion so it has a weird way of showing it. Look, I’m just saying, its awesome here, and maybe it is just that every now and then you need to indulge in a slower pace of life, a change of scenery and the luck ‘o the Irish (which doesn’t seem to apply to vending machines). Or maybe I need to go home and cut off everyone’s Wi-Fi? We will see…..

Accidental Consort

I had themes for today’s blog. They’d been swimming around in my head most of yesterday and I held onto them tightly in the brain storage facility for further use today. Today, I had thought, was going to be one of those blogs people will talk about for centuries to come. Or at least a few minutes after they’ve read it. ‘Less a blog, more a literary explosion of incredulous amazement’ they would say. Others would say ‘I’m not sure why I still read Tiernan’s blog. It does nothing but make me feel empty inside and as though the minutes of my life it took to read it have been wasted unnecessarily.’ Many will just not read it to begin with. Sadly none of this will happen – except for the last two – as returning from gigging in Newport during the day, I decided last night, as it was sans gig, that I needed beer. I would normally not have been able to justify such activities but I had already performed at two shows at part of the ComedyPort festival including a kids show where a child heckled Tom Webb with the line ‘kill yourself’ proving that children need no kid gloves when it comes to doing dark material.

 

On my way to drinking something happened to me that seems to happen to me a lot. Due to TFL being run by the forces of evil who spend every waking moment ensuring that my life is made more difficult by their exploits (paranoid? Me?) the tube was closed on the only line I needed to use, and so a series of bus adventures took place. The final of these travels was courtesy of a driver who was doing his last route of the day and therefore cared not for the fact he was playing the human equivalent of ‘how many elephants in a mini?’ by cramming people into his bus as though he was padding himself with others flesh to survive an oncoming explosion. I was squished right by his driver’s booth and he spent some time telling me about it being his last journey before winking at me when my oyster card failed to work. This man disregarded rules like someone who doesn’t believe in stationary. Whilst sardining my life away (is that a term? It is now) I found myself befriended by a Latino journalist who took it upon herself to decide that I could get her to Old Street. I’m not sure when she decided this, and this is something that seems to just occur to my beardy face.

 

Only two weeks ago a lady from Los Angeles saw me get on the same tube as her and from that moment on I became her guide to traverse the underground. I agreed to do this as far as I could and hopefully she’s now no longer trapped in a tunnel somewhere under the streets of London wondering why the Brits live like Morlocks. It happened in Edinburgh too when a lorry driver stopped me and L to direct him somewhere, asking if we would hop in the lorry and go with him. He didnt seem like a mass murderer but my active imagination took over and we declined. That and the place was only 2 minutes away and I feel it would have taken me longer to climb into the front seat than it would for him to drive there. It might be my face, it might be some sort of smell I emit, but apparently I am someone people can trust to get them places. This leaves me in an odd situation where I feel compelled to help them even if I haven’t got a clue and sometimes I end up wondering miles out of the way and get us both lost to no one’s benefit.

 

Luckily iPhones now exist and I found myself escorting Claudia to her music gig, listening to her well thought out small talk about how long it had been she’d been to Old Street and why she didn’t know where she was. I darted through the Saturday night of Shoreditch twats with her and dropped her off at her venue before wishing her a lovely night and heading off to drink silly amounts. What does this mean? I don’t know dearest reader, but I like to believe that right now my karma levels are higher than the CN Tower and I could probably spend today kicking puppies off bridges without feeling any consequence. Not that I’d do that. And even if I did I’d probably meet someone on the way to the bridge who needed escorting somewhere. Anyway this can’t be true as all karma has given me is an unjust hangover for the amount I drank. Silly life. Silly silly life.

Grumpy Old Man

I am a grumpy old man. Here’s proof:

 

TRYING TIMES

Of all the days I’ve chosen to drive to Wales (I say chosen, but there is a Comedy Club 4 Kids gig there that needs hosting and whilst I may have had some part in choosing the date, I can’t take all the blame) I appear to have picked the one day Wales is playing France in the Rugby World Cup Final. Sure, I suppose that means the roads will actually be empty as everyone is stationary watching it, but it could also mean if they win, all my audiences (including the kids) will be mental. If they lose it could mean that all my audiences (including the kids) will be mental. It really feels like I’ve done this badly. It doesn’t help either that I have no interest in rugby at all. I mean, I prefer it to football on account of the fact that it seems to happen less, requires men not being all pathetic if they get hurt and the players don’t get paid such ludicrous amounts.

Thing is, I don’t think I can ever like rugby that much after having met the rugby team that went to my university who’d spend a large amount of time making an effort to be a massive bunch of dicks. Every year they’d do an initiation ceremony whereby they’d all have to dress up, mostly as women which I’m sure actually confused several of them being only 18 and not fully aware of who they are, and then run around with bananas between their legs stealing various things from campus to earn drinks rewards. Traffic cones, road signs, the usual banal toss. The only one I ever respected was the one player who was dared to steal a monk from the nearby monastery and he did. With approval from the monk. Seeing a bulky lad run across the uni walkways with a man in robes on his shoulder, fireman lift fashion, was fairly entertaining. Its just the group mentality I don’t like and never have. I’ve dealt with rugby teams at gigs who seem to need to prove that they have muscles and brute force by being loud at every opportunity and generally they aren’t my favourite people.

So today, much like every busy sporting event, while I hope Wales win with the tiny bit of loyalty I have to them being a) part of the UK and b) my grandad being Welsh, I also just wish they’d do it smaller, quieter and on another day. Or at least involve stealing monks as part of the process.

 

DOG SHIT

Two days ago (yes I meant to write about this then but Andrew Lansley got in the way) as L and I were walking past the driveway by our flat (driveway. I know. I know. We are Flash McHarrys) a family were walking past in the opposite direction with their whippet dog. The dog was sniffing around a small patch of grass near Nat’s car, and then, without hesitation, proceeded to shit there. The family gormlessly smiled as he did so and I stood in a slight state of shock that in lovely Muswell Hill people would have such a disregard for property. I decided to exclaim very loud ‘oh no, not in our driveway’ as someone doing this were I the culprit or culprit’s owner (the former sadly is more likely) that I would be so overwhelmed with guilt that I’d definitely remove my pet’s faeces from someone else’s home area. Instead they just continued to grin like moronic automatons, as the whippet continued doing the shit of all time. I walked past certain they’d do the pooper scoop thing most honourable people would, but instead they carried on smiling and just walked off. Yes, I should have said something more along the lines of ‘oi you fucking dickbags, don’t let your mongrel shit on our turf’, but if they were good people, that wouldn’t have been needed. Sure, maybe there’s some misunderstanding. Maybe hearing me say ‘oh no’ in such a negative way was translated into them thinking that I loved it when dogs shat in our driveway. Perhaps it was some sort of bourgeois code for ‘oh wait, I fucking love nasty dog turd right by our house and where our cars drive.’ Or maybe they were just the embodiment of evil. If you see three grinning idiots (mum, dad, and baby) walking around North London with a whippet, beware, they are merely there to shit on your doorstep.

 

LABOURING

I did a gig for the Labour party in Crystal Palace last night and bloody lovely it was too. Of course I omitted my ‘Ed Milliband is shit material’ and proceeded with 20 minutes having a go at the Tories and Lib Dems instead. All round lovely time. Then as I got in my car, I realised that what I had just done was comedy to order. Had I been less of a chicken I’d have explained to them that whilst I hate the coalition, I think they’re bloody useless too and I wouldn’t have pretended to have any such allegiance to a party who’s original morals have gone quite horribly array. But, y’know, I didn’t want to get heckled or die on my arse. Life’s tough eh?

Fringe 2011: The Penultimate Day

Ok so the title is a sort of lie. I’m here till Wednesday morning, and the fringe officially continues until Monday, but for me, today is my penultimate day of shows. So that’s why. And I like the word ‘penultimate’. Its make me think of super-powered stationary. Despite me spending most of my blogs this month moaning about illness and tiredness – yes I am sorry and I promise blogging and tweeting shall resume its usual exciting (sic) standards once the fringe is over and my brain is back to normal – but once again I am crumbling a tad. Yesterday was the day of brain fail. Again its something that happens every year, the point where having no days off, late nights and general trudging up hills means that your body just gives up a bit. My show yesterday started with me spilling a man’s coffee that he had precariously balanced on the stage between the legs of the microphone stand. My guilt at doing such a thing was superseded by the fact that it was a twattish place to put a coffee and I spent the next ten minutes trying to maintain my cheery persona while wanting to shout at him for his idiocy. It wasn’t easy. As a consequence I struggled through my show constantly wanting to hide in my tiny cupboard backstage and just have a sleep.

This was followed by an Adventurer’s Club show that was more mayhem than usual due to Craig Campbell being away at Leeds festival and us getting Tony Law as a replacement. Tony hadn’t got the script till he arrived which was stressful enough, adding to the fact that Tim had arrived 4 minutes befiore showtime due to an extra show he’d had to do earlier. On top of all this Tony’s awesome kids (who were very cute and funny) were in and took apart most of our props before we needed to use them, tipping fake snow all over the floor. It was hilarious, and Tony was ace, but my capacity for improvising around it had died somewhat due to earlier in the day and I carried this through to Comedy Club 4 Kids where I mumbled at people before Adam Buxton wonderfully closed the show.

I crawled into bed by 11pm last night and passed out immediately. This is the most unusual behaviour for a man like me. I am king of the night owls. I am the Dark Night. If I was a horse I’d be a nightmare. Yet, here I was, in bed earlier than I’ve been in years. Damn you the fringe! Six shows left. That’s all I have to do to survive….

I’ll stop moaning now. Promise. It’s been a bloody good fringe so far. Let’s hope no one else leaves their coffee on the stage.

Fringe 2011: Day 11

My friend Jacqui is up at the Fringe today with her boyfriend Ed. Well she was up yesterday but I had foolishly planned my life wrongly as always and after meeting her at the station and catching up for 10 minutes, I then had to run off, do 3 shows at the Fringe, then jump on a train to Glasgow to do a gig at The Stand. It was a long day, starting with a fun show to a very small, very soggy crowd, then moving onto the return of the Great Arctic Caper show with Tim, where one small girl spent the entire time jumping from bean bag to bean bag like a frog before ruining things by pointing out the map we’d ‘lost’ was just behind us. Grrrr. Then Comedy Club 4 Kids where Mark Thomas did the Children’s Manisfesto, the winning results being ‘all children over 3 should be allowed to drive’ and ‘everyone should have a pet penguin’. This was a close call though as the suggestions ‘free medicine for people in Africa. And half price Lego’ & ‘ water flumes to school’ nearly pipped them to the post. Its amazing what happens when you ask children what they’d change about the world as it appears to be a wonderful blend of nonsense and the best ideas ever. ‘Ban Red Peppers’ alongside ‘let’s not use money and instead just swap things we have like in old times’. Amazing. Finally I had the longest journey in the world to get to Glasgow. Me and L sat on a train for ages due to ‘flooding on the tracks’. You’d think Scotland of all places would be used to this sort of thing, but clearly they weren’t. Time restraints meant I got to Glasgow, cabbed it to the gig, did the gig which was amazing and a needed break from the fringe, jumped back in a cab, then got the slowest train in the history of human kind back to Edinburgh. Nowhere should pass a place called Addiewell or Curriehill. They can’t be real.

So yeah, today I actually get to see Jacqui and Ed. After I’ve done my trazillion shows. I’m looking forward to their perspective on the fringe. Neither have been here before which, you might presume, could make it all a tad overwhelming for them. But no, not these two. Yesterday evening after deciding that there was a lot on everywhere they chose instead to sit in the pub below our flat and do the quiz. Brilliant. Take that the 3000 shows in Edinburgh! A pub quiz was more enticing than you. This sort of unique attitude about it all needs to be spread around. I can’t wait to walk them round the city as they bypass the big upside down purple cow in order to hit up and get excited about Monster Mash instead and such things. I’m dragging them to one of the member’s bars later and I already know that the chances they’ll be phased by anyone in there are slim to none. Its brilliantly refreshing.

It’s sometimes what you need in this place. Otherwise its same faces, same places every single day and can become somewhat reminiscent of Groundhog Day without the constant joy of Bill Murray. Sadly. Yesterday’s trip to Glasgow and the appearance of a home town friend is a sure fire remedy to stave off repetitive fringe syndrome. I shall relish in spending today going ‘meh’ to things, helping J & E find shows with magic in and getting excited about pub quizzes. Joy!

 

I hate plugging things, but if you’ve been to my show and enjoyed it, or want to come to my show or have even just seen me do stand-up somewhere at some point and didn’t hate it, please will you tell people you know and that are coming to the fringe to come and watch ‘Tiernan Douieb vs The World’. Sales have been ok but I’m really enjoying performing the show and it’d be great if they were better. Tickets are available here:

TIERNAN DOUIEB VS THE WORLD

Thankyou

 

 

Fringe 2011: Day 4

Its concerning that I had to check my previous blogs of the last few days in order to work out what day of the Fringe we were on. I’ve asked three times today whether its a Friday or a Saturday and despite getting an early night last night I feel fully disorientated in the Fringe bubble already. Yes, an early night. Weird isn’t it? No, I haven’t been kidnapped by an alien who’s using my body as a vessel to be more boring than party hero Douieb, it is actually me. Shocking huh? Well it shocked me too. Lots. I think that is quite possibly the first night at the Edinburgh festival ever where I’ve fallen asleep before 1am. It was oddly comforting and it did indeed help that L is up here to, but a large part was sheer exhaustion. It turns out doing three shows a day is a tad trying on the physical health. Who’d have thought it? I mean who in their right mind would think that having three huge unnatural bursts of energy, performing for about two and a half to three hours all over a five hour period and filling the time off between that drinking what is essentially a poison, running on cobbled streets and eating like cholesterol is going out of fashion, would be taxing on the human body? I didn’t for certain and I most certainly won’t be making that mistake again. Well until I go out this evening once this blog is done.

Today’s blog arrives late due to the three show whammy which kicked off properly today. Starting with rehearsals this morning with Tim (of the Fitzhigham kind) and Craig (of the Campbell variety) my day continued on a hectic path. To be fair starting any day with those two is enough of a day to begin with, what with listening to two die hard adventurer’s swap tales of oddities. They both have an incredible knack to speak of things in a very matter of day way about stuff that is clearly bonkers and I’m slightly worried that spending time with them will lead me to do more ridiculous things than usual. Only yesterday I caught Tim talking to Alex Horne’s wife, and managed to interrupt him on the sentence ‘…and it was at that point he jumped straight out the window clutching a bible. Very sad.’ I have no idea what that was about and nor do I intend to ask. Its enough of a story already.

You only meet these sorts of people in comedy. No other field of work contains the eclectic mix of people from all sorts of backgrounds as the only qualification you need for stand-up is to be able to say interesting and funny things (and some manage without even that – meeeeeee-ooow) and you can do that with wherever you’ve come from in life. Hence stand-ups on the circuit being former wrestlers, boxers, adventurers, lawyers, police, football hooligans and whatever else. I was merely a drama student. There are too many of us and I sometimes wonder if we let the side down. Wish I’d been into arson or had been a zoo keeper or something to maintain the balance.

So yes, that followed by my show which went very well today and I really hope it continues being as such. Then our first Adventurer’s Club show which left a lot to be desired, not least learning a script and finally Comedy Club 4 Kids which today had a 7 year old called Adam who agreed that he was indeed ‘the first man’ and a boy called Eunice who had previously been to one of our shows in disguise as a grown up. Brilliant. There is only so much mental a brain can take and I think mine is brimming with oddities right now. Hence the need for going out and retaining my mostly broken semblance of humanity with some beers. It makes perfect sense that the bars are open till 5am otherwise the release for people’s individual potential barminess may be shown elsewhere and no one wants the penguins of Edinburgh zoo to be kidnapped do they?

Fringe 2011: Day Two

It’s sunny outside. I’ve been up since 8am. I’m not hungover. This may be normal for some of you, but if location and the googlemaps on my phone didn’t tell me otherwise, I’d be almost certain I wasn’t in Edinburgh at the Fringe anymore. These are all anomalies for this time of year and considering I only have one of my three shows to do today, I should have got well and truly twatted last night. And tonight. And the night after. And not got up till 11am at least before putting my rain soaked clothes back on and going out into the rain soaked world. Don’t get me wrong, I have had some booze and it has rained a lot. Its rained more than I’ve boozed which I suppose is about right as it always rains in Edinburgh. Sure people will tell you it doesn’t always rain and some days are sunny or snowy, but they are wrong. It’s in a state of consistent rain with just some rain being so slight you can’t really tell. Probably. I often worry that the local denizens will completely dry up should this situation ever change and scientists everywhere would panic that global warming has reached its maximum danger levels. I oddly quite like it. If its too hot the venues get horrible. Whereas the rain drives people indoors, where it’s still too hot and they are wet and the whole place becomes horribly humid and everyone gets sad. Oh. Oh dear. I hate the rain.

I’m still in this pre-show state of limbo that changes slightly after today with Comedy Club 4 Kids starting tonight, my show tomorrow and Tim and my children’s show ‘Adventurer’s Club’ starting on Friday. I need the panic and stress of a show to feel like I’m doing something as until then its just a city break for me in Edinburgh where I wander around aimlessly until I bump into someone I can drink with. This only happened twice yesterday. I bumped into several people but a rotten chesty cough that emerged last week has hammered some sense into me that excessive drinking should probably only occur once this has gone. I normally get these sorts of things weeks into the fringe, but this year my usual stress spot right on my nose appeared nearly two weeks ago and the hacking cough and sore throat popped by last week. Its almost as though they have arrived in anticipation. If I get a hangover without drinking then I’ll assume my body has just entered August autopilot.

So yes, limbo and therefore, not a lot to tell yet. Apart from this useful bit of info emailed to me by the lovely Cassie & Jeremy who are two New Zealanders who come to Fat Tuesday regularly and are currently travelling around Europe. The email, amongst other things, was to tell me that in Germany the word for Fringe is ‘pony’. This brought extreme amounts of joy to my easily excited child’s mind and I have now decided I will only be referring to the Fringe as ‘Pony’ from now on. This is definitely the way forward. Think of the fun that can be had? Phrases such as:

‘Let’s kick the fuck out of this pony.’

‘I’m gonna work hard this pony’.

‘Let’s drink through this pony till we die.’

‘Are you coming up to visit the pony?’

Endless fun. Nearly. God I need the shows to start. Sigh.

Here We Go Again….

As per every annum, here’s my blog from the train to Edinburgh. I always like to feel that by typing this as I am in motion onwards to world of Edinburghers, you, by reading it, can too feel the speed of my train (i.e. snail’s pace if that snail was crippled and still), the speed of the train’s internet (i.e. snail’s pace if the snail was crippled, still and somebody had shot it in the face and placed it in stasis) and the excitement brimming with me as I head towards the fringe (i.e. none). Any actual joy at the idea of heading up again for the month has been repeatedly beaten out of me as I lugged my suitcase around various tube stations this morning, with L behind me bashing people out of the way with hers and occasionally tripping up children. Now, out of needing to feel some reward, we have decided to sit next to each other on the train despite not having the right seats. The person who will urserp me from my position of comfort won’t be joining till Peterborough and we are currently concocting ideas of how to make said traveller feel so upset with the idea of breaking us apart that they would sooner throw themselves from the train rather than destroy our seating arrangement. So far we have nothing except to embrace tightly then cry as I get up to sit in my chair. I suspect that they too will have had a morning of luggage carrying that will have rendered them heartless, only combined with their general misery of being from Peterborough. I will lose.

I’ve already lost the ‘How many comedians are on the train’ game with L. She went for 7. I said 4. There are exactly 7 so far and so unless there are nega-comedians or anti-matter comics on board there is no way I can go back. Despite my usual joy to see such lovely people as Al Stick and Stuart Goldsmith, their being on the train has kicked off my position as a failure for the month before we’ve even begun and I’m secretly hoping them, Nish Kumar, Meryl O’Rourke, John-Luke Roberts and Nadia Kamal all get off the train at the next stop. If nothing else, it’d also mean me and L could definitely sit together. Some people are so bloody selfish.

Anyway, I could harp on about the delights of the buffet cart or how quickly my arse will go numb on the East Coast train seats designed only to be sat on by humans who’ve had their buttocks replaced by a single triangular plastic funnel, but instead I thought it might be useful to you if I recommend my suggestions for this year’s Fringe, so if you’re heading up you can get some ideas of what to do, see and fall into:

SHOWS:

Ones I’ve very much liked so far include Jigsaw, Stuart Goldsmith (I’ll like it better if he gets off the train), Matt Green, Sarah Millican (though you just try and get tickets for that. Bet you can’t), Glenn Wool, Carl Donnelly, Josie Long (hooray for another comic slagging off politics), Bridget Christie, Tony Law, Kerry Godlimann, Keith Farnan, James Acaster, Josh Widdicombe (the last two are doing their first hour and both are far too good. Maybe don’t see them out of spite. No do. They are brilliant), and Shappi Khorsandi.

Aside from the ones I have seen, two of my favourite comics to watch over the last year are Craig Campbell and Andrew Maxwell and both are well worth seeing for a comedy masterclass. Tiffany Stevenson’s show will be ace too, from the little bits I’ve seen. And I’m definitely going to see Colin Hoult’s show as last year it was immense.

Don’t know much theatre stuff but Theatre Ad Infinitum did one of the best shows I saw last year and I can only assume this year’s show Translunar Paradise will be done with the same high level of storytelling expertise and theatrical wonder. And I can also highly recommend Andersen 2011 and Brilliant Books for Kids, especially if you are a small person i.e. child not midget. Thought I suspect those of definitive stature will enjoy them very much too.

Lastly, I heard a show called ‘Tiernan Douieb vs The World’ is meant to be incredible. As is ‘The Adventurer’s Club – The Great Arctic Caper’ which has the best polar bear suit ever in it and the Comedy Club 4 Kids which has super hella awesome line-ups. No I’m not biased. Shhh.

OTHER THINGS:

Buy a raincoat. It’ll be shit all month.

 

There. That’s all you need. With those show suggestions and a raincoat, you’ll be fine. Oh and you should probably eat at some point too, though it can be overrated.

Onwards to the ‘Burgh! Or at least to Peterborough where someone’s going to kick my arse off the train….