Freedumb

I never have to say those words again! AHAHAHAHAH! Never! Never ever again! HAHAHAHAHAH! Never do I have to repeat the same jokes and words again and again blurting them out like a dead behind the eyes automaton, trapped in a verbal groundhog day! Never do I have to go hide in my tiny dressing room/cupboard peeking behind the curtain at people sitting on the front row wondering if they’ll be nice again! AHAHAHAHA! Never will I have to deal with being unable to see out of the giant polar bear outfit stumbling around an inflatable igloo hoping I don’t accidentally knee a kid in the face again (yes, I did it once. That along with the children yesterday that ate the polystyrene snow despite me and Tim telling them not to mean there will surely be a court case on our hands very soon). Never do I have worry everyday that the news might mean I have to rewrite bits to do with a bear/riots/MPs/anything else. Never ever do I have to be concerned that incompetent flyerers are selling my show as ‘brand new Irish comedian’. Never ever do I have to go through the whole ordeal of this ridiculous month all over again! Ever! Well, until next year. Maybe. And until I do my solo show in Shoreditch in two weeks time. And the Adventurer’s Club over Christmas. Sigh. But until then….never ever again! I am a free man! I am not a number etc etc.

 

I’m bloody pleased it’s all over with again. Not that I’ve had a bad time. Far from it infact, but by Jove and who ever else it may be by, I’m a tired man. Last night, being the last night, I aimed to have a late one, drinking till the birds sang, and still ended up yawning by 1am and going home like Johnny Loser of Losertown. And you know what? By having a tame one, more good stuff has happened than ever before. Yes it could be just because I’ve (not my words or opinion. Or in fact anyone’s words or opinion. Merely a suggestion/lie) got a better show/s than usual. It could also be that I’ve now been going for 8 years as a comedian and so things are finally clicking. Or, and more likely, it could be because because I wasn’t drunk and/or hungover every single day and actually worked my arse off instead of working on drinking it off. I don’t want to put two and two together and conclude that the fun has drained from my existence but it seems to make sense. Even worse, and yes this is even worse, I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed not waking up every day with booze blues, whisky taste in my mouth, wondering where I am, before trudging off and hoping the nurofen will get me through my show and that I won’t sick on the front row (though that’s an impossibility as I’ve only ever been sick from booze 6 times in my life. 4 from downing 8 pints in a row, one from a milky coffee post drinking and one due to cigar smoking. FACT. I have a stomach of steel. And a body that hates me). Horrible isn’t it? It’s almost like I’ve been grown up about it all. I promise it’ll stop soon. Promise. Maybe.

 

What next? Well as the comedian’s new year will pass this evening – at least that’s how I like to think of it – I aim to spend the next day at Edinburgh zoo, and then go home and be in a coma till at least Saturday, at which point I’ll check my answer phone messages and then return to coma until Bestival where I will actually ruin myself to make up for my sensible month. And post that? We’ll see. Though ‘Tiernan Douieb Schmiernan Schmouieb’ won’t write itself…..

 

FREE! FREE I TELLS YA! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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Fringe 2011: Day The Final

So today is it. One of each show left before I can return to the sanity of not repeating the same words every single day in the same rooms and regain some level of variation in my life. Once again, as per every year, its not been what’s expected. If anything, its been brilliant all round, with all three shows doing very well, but in the case of one of them, that really wasn’t expected at all. The Adventurer’s Club show I do with Tim Fitzhigham shouldn’t have happened let alone done as well as it has. Planned many months before Edinburgh with a structure created in a Starbucks at 10am with myself and Tim very hungover and trying to ignore the constant fire alarm going off, it was then left untouched due to various injuries Tim gained for his solo show. Weeks and weeks went past and I instead focussed on my solo show and Tim focussed on being spazzed out on painkillers, both completely neglecting our kid’s show writing duties. Then, finally, a week before Edinburgh, we gained a polar bear outfit, scribbled a script over three hours in a pub getting more and more drunk. We rehearsed twice in Tim’s little London abode, both times getting distracted by one thing or another (the other being the pub or one of Tim’s many zany tales) and I went home, finished up the script and emailed it over. Further attempts at rehearsal were scuppered by Tim’s broken finger getting a bone eating infection and a doctor’s appointment that could have meant he wasn’t able to make Edinburgh at all. Eventually we had our first rehearsal as our first show at the festival.

Three shows kicked off with script half learnt and props missing, before a family bereavement meant it was cancelled for four days and it seemed like it would never really get going. Yet three glowing reviews later ( a 5 star in the Scotsman!), quite serious amounts of telly interest and a constant wonderful cameo from Craig Campbell here we are, perfuming to very big audiences. It seems that the show I was least prepared for may end up being my Edinburgh golden trophy. Odd huh? I find it truly baffling. Brilliant, but baffling. What does this say about Edinburgh prep? It reminds me a lot of writing an essay at university the night before whilst drunk, only to get a 1st, whereas the essay I spent two weeks researching and writing only gained me a low 2:1. I am starting to wonder if I should just rock up next year with a few post it notes and wing the whole thing. Being unprepared is the best form of preparation. That’s not a saying but I might try and make it one. Pretend a superhero has said it or something.

Hopefully that will spread round the comedy ranks and everyone will start to believe it. All the comics would just stop bothering to prepare for this month of stupid and we’ll all become self righteous improv groups. Then when its trickled into theatre and art as well, I’ll start preparing again and win everything. Mwhahahahahahahaha. Plan of the century. Or y’know, I might have a year off next year. Or do a play. Or just be an adventurer with Tim. We’ll see what happens. Three more shows to kick the face off today and after that the comedy new year will begin again and we’ll see what it brings. Onwards the end!

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 25 (and 24)

There was no blog yesterday. I know this. Should any of you be unsure about this, I can be certain that no blog happened and it wasn’t just that I had typed it in transparent font or an ancient archaic text that only descends of the first blood line of the Aztecs could read. No. Far more complex than that, I just couldn’t be bothered to write one. Shock and indeed horror. I know. Thing is, we are now in the last few days of the fringe when a deadly cocktail of things start to happen. Firstly your body understands its nearly time for sleep and vegetables and starts just giving up a bit. I woke up this morning coughing so hard I thought I might puncture a lung, with one obscenely sticky eye and a nose that’s more blocked than the M25 on a Friday night at 6pm. I fully expect in the next few days to dislocate something, get measles and have my appendix implode as part of Operation: Shutdown Douieb. This series of bodily occasions isn’t helped at all by the second cocktail ingredient: free booze parties. There are lots this week, the last two nights being prime examples of a lack of restraint in the also gulping stakes. I will one day learn that when booze is free, although it seems like it, there isn’t a challenge to drink it all before anyone else does. I have been better this year, knowing full well that I am not a prime competitor or bookies favourite in such events this annum what with illness and my stupid three shows a day, but there has still been some attempt.

Consequently, yesterday was sans blog. And there ends a paragraph and a bit telling you why I haven’t blogged. Never has anything felt more pointless. Except for a ball. HAHAHAHAHHA. So tired.

Right now down to the nitty gritty. Not that its particularly nitty, nor gritty, but here’s some thoughts from the last 48 hours of Douiebdome:

- I am not as good at stopping people falling upstairs as I thought.

- It is my fault that booze has been banned from the stage at Karaoke Circus. I feel quite bad about this.

- I had the joy of being on at Political Animal on Wednesday with John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman hosting. Watching the two of them bounce of each other with top repartee was just incredible. I had forgotten just what a great double act they were and trust me, it was a scary act to follow on stage.

- The world is now officially even smaller than it was two days ago.

- It helps if you know where the queue to a show is to get into it, rather than wait on the opposite side until its all full and you have to go away. Idiot.

- After having attended the same party for many years I finally have an apt description for the horrible mojitos they serve at the So You Think You’re Funny Party every year: ‘It’s as though an alcoholic man has downed some lime cordial and sicked it up back into a cup.’

- I do not like having wine spilt on my face, despite I assuming I might.

- Luke Benson is increasingly becoming known as a festival meeting point.

- There are a lot of people with the surname Dawson.

- Everyone loves my racist dressing room. FACT.

- Someone has complained on edfringe.com that Adventurer’s Club is unplanned. Yes. Yes it is. I can’t work out why this is a problem.

- Also despite only having written Adventurer’s Club in 3 hours in the pub a week before the fringe and having our first rehearsal as the first show, The Scotsman have said this:

SCOTSMAN – ADVENTURER’S CLUB REVIEW

 

I’m sure there’s more but I’m caught in a flurry of excitement because Adam Buxton is doing Comedy Club 4 Kids today and he’s just texted me. I am aiming to persuade him to be my best friend by the end of today and then we can hang out and eat ice cream. EXCITING!

 

 

Fringe 2011: Day 20

This will be a quick blog as I’m just back from doing the Three Weeks podcast with Tim Fitzhigham. I had no idea what it was all about, and merely received a call to arms text at 10.45 this morning asking all comedians that were awake to join him in the studio. There was a good 10 minutes of mad banter before we had to end as due to Tim, the whole show overran by 20 minutes. I have grown to love this aspect of Tim. Everyday at Adventurer’s Club there is another mini-crisis as he wanders off just before we start the show to start a conversation with someone he hasn’t seen for 15 years, or decides that to do the ‘doors open’ announcement he has to stand atop of the most unsteady sandwich board in the Pleasance, an accident just looming over him like a petty Final Destination shot. I never have any clue how our show will pan out and where it will go, but to be honest, its immense fun, so I assume this morning will be similar. So before I race off to do my show, here are some quick things:

BERNARD

We have a small mouse in our flat. Correction: there is a fat mouse in our flat. Its really fat and yet somehow quite capable of squeezing itself under the gap in our toilet door so it can scare the crap out of me at 4am in the morning when I’m on the loo. I’m not scared of mice by any means, but if you’re bleary eyed and in the most vulnerable of positions seeing a grey blur race at your feet is never calming. Now having seen Bernard a few times I’m a bit more happy about his existence though more cautious when using the loo. I’ve taken to leaving him a few cornflakes by the fridge – under which is where he lives – and seeing if he eats them all and despite Nat doing the stereotypical thing of jumping on top of a stool on first sight of him, we’ve taken to seeing him as part of the flat. Although if he doesn’t start buying in loo roll and more cornflakes soon I will start to plan how to trap him and send him up Arthur’s Seat.

FESTMAG REVIEW

I got this review yesterday:

FESTMAG – TIERNAN DOUIEB VS THE WORLD

 

And that makes me very happy. Especially the term ‘ursine jester’ which I may have to use as a show title in future years.

SOUNDCLOUD

My cough has developed into a hack so bad I’ve pulled a muscle in my side. If there was ever an indicator for my body starting to fail itself, its this. Anyway, I talk about it here. Note: It contains some things I wrote about in yesterdays blog. Sorry:

SOUNDCLOUD – BRILLIANT COUGH

And the aforementioned Three Weeks podcast should be up this afternoon so keep your ears peeled for that. Proper blog tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

Fringe 2011: Day 15 – Critics Schmitics

This blog is whiny and a tad self pitying. Sorry about this but its my blog and I’ll cry if I want to.

Reviews of my show are out, and they aren’t great. It’s bad enough waiting for something to appear so you can adorn your poster with symbols that mean nothing outside of Edinburgh, but when they arrive and don’t even provide you with that, its even worse. I am at no point pretending my show is anything other than worth three stars, but its pretty disheartening when you spend months working on something only to be told its merely average. Sure its possible to say that the words of one critic mean nothing, but its the resulting consequences that are more upsetting. For a start, you’ll only get national papers reviewing if you get 4-5 stars from other smaller publications first. Then you’ll only sell tickets if you have 4-5 stars to plaster on posters and flyers, and you’ll only gain a buzz from selling lots of tickets and having those stars and that will result in you gaining telly types to come and watch. If however, like my show, you only get threes, generally the whole show goes unnoticed by everyone and once again I end up owing £5-6k from Edinburgh, paying it back over the next 12 months and once again being broke. Bah.

My two reviews are:

THE SCOTSMAN

and

BROADWAY BABY

Now I’m sure its advised not to do this, and to rise above such things, but I feel I should respond to some of what’s been said in these reviews. Jay, who reviewed me for the Scotsman is a) a lovely bloke, b) a good journalist and c) has already said he doesn’t know how his review has been edited and that his comment on me not mentioning the massacre (which I do and did) was more that I didn’t mention it enough. Fair enough, though the killer’s motives don’t fit into the theme of the rest of the show and much like with everything, its hard when you only have an hour to cram everything in. But yeah, perhaps I should say more about it. He does also mention my ending about storming parliament as misguided, but its not the ending, it has a disclaimer and then we end properly. So there. Anyway, I won’t say more, because as I said, Jay’s ace.

But the Broadway Baby one made me actually annoyed. There is really nothing quite as hurtful as being called ‘average’ in terms of comedy, not least when someone has based this on your first 15 minutes of show rather than the rest of it. I’m just very tired of hearing that because I do nice comedy that its ‘safe’. What do I have to do to gain the extra star? If it means becoming overly aggressive, crude, misogynistic or something like that then I’m really happy on three. Being friendly and being safe are two different things. All in all I’m either going to have to return to Edinburgh with a show called ‘Tiernan Douieb has Just Killed A Man’ or not return at all. The latter seems far more preferable at the moment.

Yes I know I should read them, and yes its all just one person’s opinion, but sadly other people’s opinions don’t get printed and left on the internet for years to come. Its my day off today, which still means I have to do one show which is a shame. Could very much do with trundling off out of the city for a while. Bloody Edinburgh. Every bloody year.

 

On the plus side, in the Scotsman today there is a huge picture of me and Tim Fitzhigham looking stupid alongside this lovely article:

HEROIC ACTS – EXPLORATION ON THE FRINGE

 

 

 

 

Fringe 2011: Day 14

The Edinburgh Rally. Not a car race, far from it in fact, but more a tactic used by many a festival stalwart, wherein a text, tweet and Facebook message is shunted around all those that you know may help a friend in need to draw a crowd on an otherwise dead day. I have never ever used this before but often receive them from people saying that a reviewer is in or some other big occurrence. I will always try and help but this year I have been generally rubbish at doing so and its very bad form considering how today, on my first usage of such a system, the crowds came out in force. Due to a screw up in the Edinburgh Fringe programme – and let’s face it, my lack of TV appearances or profile – I had a whole zero people booked in to see my show today. This in itself is the opposite of fun. However when that is combined with the fact that a reviewer (who has in the past not looked on me kindly) was going to be in as well as a film crew recording the whole show, my day started off in a panic. Well that’s not true. It started with an egg and marmite muffin, which is a brilliant way to go, but once that had been digested, figures had been discussed and the reality of the situation has hit me in the face, the combined power of yolk and yeast in awesome dough had well worn out and dissipated into the mere memory of my gut.

So a tweet went out, a humble text sent and a rather distressed call to my agent made, all the while me praying I didn’t have to cancel the show. I didn’t at all. Thanks to many a brilliant comic and a Twitter follower my message was resent over and over again, while several responded to my text message and arrived in force leaving me with a really lovely and packed room of brilliant people. And a reviewer. And a film crew who got the sort of recording I could only dream of. Huzzah! What with my show being strong the message of unity and solidarity it felt very much like it had all pulled through. Us comic types can properly stick together like glue when necessary, yes indeed. Now all I need is for my reviews not to be shit and to start coming out and we should be on a roll, only a week and a bit in. Which yes, is later than others. Bah. Still day off tomorrow, from two of my three shows, so I can rest the vocal tones, switch off my mind from political ramblings and hope I needn’t get texting and tweeting everyone again on Wednesday when I return. The Edinburgh rally much like antibiotics, mustn’t be overused. No siree.

 

Last bit of waffle, me and Tim’s ‘Adventurer’s Club – Great Arctic Caper’ got a lovely review in the Stage today despite it being merely an hour of bonkers nonsense. The reviewer, who was an awesome elderly gent on two crutches an donning a dear stalker hat which made him look like a prime member of our Adventurer’s Club, has insisted on calling me ‘Tiern’. I have no idea why. Enjoy reading that over and over again whilst sniggering to yourself.

THE STAGE – ADVENTURER’S CLUB REVIEW 

Fringe 2011: Day 5

Do you ever suspect the world is out to get you? I don’t mean in a minor, ‘oh no someone has surrounded my house in banana peels and rakes just to spite me’ type way. Nor do I mean in a ‘oh just one of those days. Can’t believe I stuck my hand in the toaster again’ type way. I mean in a huge, massive, international, ‘the actual whole world is trying to ruin my life/Edinburgh festival way.’ ‘Surely’, you might say, ‘you are being a tad paranoid Mr Douieb?’ Firstly, don’t call me Shirley (I’m aware this joke doesn’t work in text and I honestly don’t care. It’s a necessary addition whether you like it or not.), secondly, that’s Lord Douieb to you, and thirdly, no. No I’m not. Let’s survey the evidence shall we? All sit tight for CSI: Edinburgh.

Example 1: My show has a whole lovely bit about Norway being a brilliant and delightful country with lovely and relaxed people, and how chilled out it is. See then a few weeks back where one of the worst massacres of recent times takes place in Norway by a Norwegian extremist, something I didn’t even think existed. Yes it would be both ridiculous, insensitive and churlish of me to say that any of that happened specifically to ruin my show. Clearly it was a terrible awful tragedy and I’m hugely sad for everyone involved. However, it really messed up a bit of my show as well and that’s bloody shitstormy. Especially when you take into consideration….

Example 2: BBC News last night had, as one of its top stories, an item about a 17 year old boy being mauled by a polar bear. Not nice stuff at all. However what’s worse – and yes I will be selfish and inconsiderate about this one and hold your horses, and ponies and goats for I shall tell you why in a minute – the show that me and Tim are doing has a huge polar bear in it and we’re somewhat concerned that may ruin things. I mean, we shouldn’t care really. Not least because the whole story is ridiculous and its hard to have any sympathy for an Etonian boy who thought he could fight a polar bear by punching him in the face. This is all made far worse by them being outside Svalbard, a place that when I was in Norway, I was told you shouldn’t go outside unless you have a rifle as there are more polar bears than people. And of course Horatio and the 4 he was with left without a rifle and died and now its a tragedy. That’s not a tragedy. That’s a rule and advice affirming story. The moral? Don’t go against the advice of people who know how to live in a place without dying by a bear attack. Still though, proper shitter for our show.

Now do you believe me? Now all I need is for Cameron to leave office and a news item saying comedy for children is bad for them and I may as well quit Edinburgh and leave. Its bloody lucky I’m as adaptable as a comedic McGuyver. Fo Sheezy.

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.