I am in full winter coat already. If I were a dog, I'd have moulted around the August Bank Holiday. I feel like a confused hedgehog, not knowing when to start hibernating; it feels like it should be right now.
Saturday, 22 October 2011
Baby It's Cold Outside
Before I moved up North, I used to have an unwritten rule that I wouldn't put the heating on till the beginning of November. This year, in another first, I had the heating on in the evening before the end of August. I'm resisting putting it on in the morning, but only just. I put my winter jacket away for all of six weeks over the summer. When people joked about the 'summer' in Scotland, I thought to myself, 'Yeah, but I've been to the Festival in August and it's been boiling'. Those, my friends, were the halcyon days, it seems. The sun shines here and there are beautiful blue skies, but don't be deceived. It. Is. Bloody. Freezing.
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
The Seven Ages of (Wo)man
I have had my first real instance of thinking, 'I am properly old' - I woke up on Saturday morning and totally forgot it was my birthday. You know when old people say, 'Oh, I missed my birthday' and you think, 'How could you miss that?' Well, I lost track of the days, and even though I was getting together with my family, specifically because it was my birthday (very kindly organised by my aunt), I didn't go to sleep on Friday night thinking, 'Ooh, presents and cards tomorrow!' and I woke up and had to remind myself it was my birthday. Very different from last year, when I was planning the damn thing six months in advance. I blame the fact that I was caught between being excited about giving my dad his belated 70th b'day present (a Glen Baxter print that my sister had tracked down, through actually emailing him - always cool) and being excited about going to my old school friend Shelly's wedding on the Sunday, which was going to be in a cocktail bar in South Kensington, aka a superglam drinkfest of unparalleled proportions.
I managed to prove how properly old I am by only drinking two cocktails (these were free from 4.30pm till 11.00pm. Free, I tell you!) because I was worried about getting embarrassingly drunk and falling over, then having The Fear the next morning whilst hungover. I had a bloody brilliant time. Although if last year is anything to go by, when I didn't drink on my birthday, and had a bloody brilliant time, I will get totally shit-faced this weekend and will spend all of Sunday catching up on Strictly Come Dancing and The X-Factor on iPlayer and thinking, 'Maybe I should just give up drinking'. I think I have what the experts refer to as 'a balanced lifestyle'.
I managed to prove how properly old I am by only drinking two cocktails (these were free from 4.30pm till 11.00pm. Free, I tell you!) because I was worried about getting embarrassingly drunk and falling over, then having The Fear the next morning whilst hungover. I had a bloody brilliant time. Although if last year is anything to go by, when I didn't drink on my birthday, and had a bloody brilliant time, I will get totally shit-faced this weekend and will spend all of Sunday catching up on Strictly Come Dancing and The X-Factor on iPlayer and thinking, 'Maybe I should just give up drinking'. I think I have what the experts refer to as 'a balanced lifestyle'.
The Rule of Three
Cheerful James and I have at least one thing in common - we are both Librans. Yes, well balanced, with elegant homes and dress sense, plus a marked inability to make a decision. That's what my horoscope profile always insists, at any rate. As I've never seen Cheerful James out of his regulation Virgin Active PT kit (black T-shirt, black shorts), I have no idea what his dress sense is like. Naturally, I have no idea if he has an elegant home. I've never asked him to make a decision (other than when best suits him to make me flail around doing lunges, boxing, tricky manoeuvres with large rubber tubes called ViPRs - no idea why; makes them sound like an iPad crossed with a snake, and they resemble neither - and other ungainly but improving things for an hour at a time.) You get the idea.
But yes, we both had birthdays over the weekend. I asked him how old he was, knowing perfectly well he'd just turned 29. He's never asked me how old I am, even when, last year, I said one of the reasons I was doing all this Bionification (that's definitely a word) in the first place was because I was having a Big Birthday Party, and wanted to look, as the young folks say, Amazeballs. He never asked, so I never said. But of course when I asked him how old he was, he had to ask me how old I was. So I made him guess. This has turned into my favourite game of late - not long ago, I was out in a very dimly lit bar and a boy (no other word for it) was talking to me. I asked how old he was, as he didn't look as though he was even legally able to buy a drink, and he said 24. I then made him guess my age. It was, as I've said, dark, and he was really drunk. He said, '27', which made me laugh like a hyena. 'Is that the oldest he can possibly imagine a woman being?' I wondered.
Mind you, I've decided I'm going to have to start lying about my age - it was one thing saying, 'I'm 40', it's going to be quite another saying, 'I'm in my 40s'. People in their 40s have their lives sorted - they organise holidays more than a fortnight in advance. They have a capsule wardrobe. They get their shoes re-heeled before said heels actually fall off. They hoover regularly. They have pints of milk in the fridge, just because that's what you're supposed to do, not because you're having people to stay and they might want milk in their tea. They don't have teetering towers of Grazia that date back three months by the bedside. They probably don't buy Grazia at all! They've moved on from caring about whether Poor Tragic Jen is over Brad and whether Cheryl Cole has a 'job' in telly and they now read The Economist. Gaaah. I've decided I really liked being 38 - you didn't have to worry about any of this stuff.
So, Cheerful James has been seeing me, at close range, in the glaring strip lights of Virgin Active for over a year. Most of the time, I have my hair in a ponytail and practically no make up on, as it's the end of the day. I am a sweaty mess. How old did he think I am? '32'. 32! 'So, you think I'm three years older than you?' I asked. He nodded, a bit bemused (he'd given it a bit of thought). Aww, could I love him more? I told him how old I was and that the Big Birthday last year had been in aid of me turning 40. I have come to the conclusion that if you imply that you're a bit older than someone they either a/ just assume you mean 'about three years older' or b/ have such a great fear of being punched in the noggin that they will only venture an age that's three years older in order not to cause offence.
Either way, I know it's incredibly vain and shallow, but being told you don't look your age is the best free ego boost you can get. Let's just hope that when I suddenly age overnight, I've managed to save up enough cash for industrial amounts of Botox and fillers to fix things. I'm aiming for a look that's between Kylie Minogue and Lulu on the age spectrum. Alternatively, I suppose I could just add a decade on to my age. Which would be infinitely cheaper and no more deceitful.
But yes, we both had birthdays over the weekend. I asked him how old he was, knowing perfectly well he'd just turned 29. He's never asked me how old I am, even when, last year, I said one of the reasons I was doing all this Bionification (that's definitely a word) in the first place was because I was having a Big Birthday Party, and wanted to look, as the young folks say, Amazeballs. He never asked, so I never said. But of course when I asked him how old he was, he had to ask me how old I was. So I made him guess. This has turned into my favourite game of late - not long ago, I was out in a very dimly lit bar and a boy (no other word for it) was talking to me. I asked how old he was, as he didn't look as though he was even legally able to buy a drink, and he said 24. I then made him guess my age. It was, as I've said, dark, and he was really drunk. He said, '27', which made me laugh like a hyena. 'Is that the oldest he can possibly imagine a woman being?' I wondered.
Mind you, I've decided I'm going to have to start lying about my age - it was one thing saying, 'I'm 40', it's going to be quite another saying, 'I'm in my 40s'. People in their 40s have their lives sorted - they organise holidays more than a fortnight in advance. They have a capsule wardrobe. They get their shoes re-heeled before said heels actually fall off. They hoover regularly. They have pints of milk in the fridge, just because that's what you're supposed to do, not because you're having people to stay and they might want milk in their tea. They don't have teetering towers of Grazia that date back three months by the bedside. They probably don't buy Grazia at all! They've moved on from caring about whether Poor Tragic Jen is over Brad and whether Cheryl Cole has a 'job' in telly and they now read The Economist. Gaaah. I've decided I really liked being 38 - you didn't have to worry about any of this stuff.
So, Cheerful James has been seeing me, at close range, in the glaring strip lights of Virgin Active for over a year. Most of the time, I have my hair in a ponytail and practically no make up on, as it's the end of the day. I am a sweaty mess. How old did he think I am? '32'. 32! 'So, you think I'm three years older than you?' I asked. He nodded, a bit bemused (he'd given it a bit of thought). Aww, could I love him more? I told him how old I was and that the Big Birthday last year had been in aid of me turning 40. I have come to the conclusion that if you imply that you're a bit older than someone they either a/ just assume you mean 'about three years older' or b/ have such a great fear of being punched in the noggin that they will only venture an age that's three years older in order not to cause offence.
Either way, I know it's incredibly vain and shallow, but being told you don't look your age is the best free ego boost you can get. Let's just hope that when I suddenly age overnight, I've managed to save up enough cash for industrial amounts of Botox and fillers to fix things. I'm aiming for a look that's between Kylie Minogue and Lulu on the age spectrum. Alternatively, I suppose I could just add a decade on to my age. Which would be infinitely cheaper and no more deceitful.
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Cool Hand Luke
I was at a hen do in Harrogate this weekend; it was all very restrained - no drunken tarting around town dressed in T-shirts with the bride's name on the back, chatting up unsuitably young men. Thank God. Anyway, that's by the by. This was one of the conversations that I had:
Bride's Mum to me: Wow, your nails are amazing, nice manicure!
Me: Thanks, I did it myself, on the train on the way down. I've done them on the Tube before now, actually, I'm quite practised at it.
Bride to be: Hmm, so if you wanted an alternative career, you could be a...
[rest of table fills in the word 'manicurist']
... Sniper.
All: Eh?
Bride to be: She's got really steady hands! You need steady hands to be a sniper!
Brilliant.
This reminded me of two stories:
1/ The time I had to go out to dinner with a Russian author who'd written a book about his violent life in a tiny community in the middle of nowhere. I hadn't read the book, and had run out of small talk (rapidly). I knew he'd been a sniper in the army, so in desperation, I was forced to ask:
So, um, how far away from someone can you be and still kill them?
The thoroughly alarming answer was two kilometres.
2/ The one and only time I tried clay pigeon shooting. I was with a female friend and two blokes - none of us had done it before. After a quick run through with the instructor ('Hold it really tight into your cheek - otherwise the recoil will smash your cheekbone' - it was at this point I thought it might not be the sport for me), the boys of course were hitting everything in sight. My female friend had her first go, and was told dryly by the instructor that she was, 'nearly in the same postcode with that one'. I went one better and panicked so thoroughly that I loosed off a shot, and then shouted, 'Pull'. Steady hand or no, I think it's going to take quite a lot of training before I qualify as a sniper.
Bride's Mum to me: Wow, your nails are amazing, nice manicure!
Me: Thanks, I did it myself, on the train on the way down. I've done them on the Tube before now, actually, I'm quite practised at it.
Bride to be: Hmm, so if you wanted an alternative career, you could be a...
[rest of table fills in the word 'manicurist']
... Sniper.
All: Eh?
Bride to be: She's got really steady hands! You need steady hands to be a sniper!
Brilliant.
This reminded me of two stories:
1/ The time I had to go out to dinner with a Russian author who'd written a book about his violent life in a tiny community in the middle of nowhere. I hadn't read the book, and had run out of small talk (rapidly). I knew he'd been a sniper in the army, so in desperation, I was forced to ask:
So, um, how far away from someone can you be and still kill them?
The thoroughly alarming answer was two kilometres.
2/ The one and only time I tried clay pigeon shooting. I was with a female friend and two blokes - none of us had done it before. After a quick run through with the instructor ('Hold it really tight into your cheek - otherwise the recoil will smash your cheekbone' - it was at this point I thought it might not be the sport for me), the boys of course were hitting everything in sight. My female friend had her first go, and was told dryly by the instructor that she was, 'nearly in the same postcode with that one'. I went one better and panicked so thoroughly that I loosed off a shot, and then shouted, 'Pull'. Steady hand or no, I think it's going to take quite a lot of training before I qualify as a sniper.
Monday, 26 September 2011
Britain's Entrepreneurial Elite
The trees are starting to turn. The kids are all off for a new term, nay, year. I finally fancy buying some clothes (summer clothes just don't do it for me). Yes, it's a new season. So, it's time to find out what NEW, EXCITING things I've been trying recently. However, there are quite a few of them, so I think I'll split it into two blogs - business and pleasure. Let's start with business.
I opened and ran a shop
I now know how it feels to be one of the Apprentii. My business decisions weren’t captured on film for the cheers and jeers of a nation, but that was only because, thank God, no-one had the time to follow me around with a video camera. For the latter half of July, and most of August, I felt like episode seven of the last series was on permanent loop, and I was stuck in it.
My Apprentice-ing was because we'd decided a pop-up shop would be an excellent way to promote our books. August in Edinburgh: thousands of people here for the Fringe, loads of eager bookish types swarming around the tents at the Book Festival, streets thronged with eager punters. Business would be booming!
First problem: finding an actual shop to pop-up in. There have been alarming statistics recently about how many retail premises are currently empty around the country – Edinburgh is no exception. Once you start looking for shops to rent, you realise how many of them have promising ‘To Let’ signs outside them. But do any of them want to have tenants for a fortnight? No, they do not. You would not believe how tricky it is to find somewhere in close proximity to the Book Festival, that you can rent out for two weeks. However, we eventually managed it (I say 'we' - I, as Project Manager [PM in Apprentice parlance] had delegated it to an intern. Hey, it was fine, they were allowed to use Google, which the actual Apprentii are not. Which is never explained - they're not planning going back in time and running a business in 1982, are they?).
Three of us did what I shall grandly term ‘a site visit’. (Again, I know the rules of being a successful candidate: you need at least three people involved in any decision so that you can blame the other two if something goes tits up, thus saving yourself in the boardroom). The space looked dauntingly large, as it was entirely empty. Even the floor needed sorting out (bashed-up concrete wasn’t going to be a good look for our upmarket shop-ette). As the threat of more phone calls to organise furniture hire and flooring rose in front of me, I had my first Helen-from-the-Apprentice moment (ie an idea of enormous efficiency; rather than the many Tom-from-the-Apprentice moments I’d had up to that point – ie, ideas that were fine, but not going to be particularly useful). I suddenly remembered the company who build our book fair stands were based nearby. They had chairs, tables, and giant panels with our book jackets on them. They could probably sort the floor out, and some lighting. Our shop could look HEAVILY BRANDED without me having to brief a mass of extra design and print work. One phone call later and a delivery date was arranged. YES. I could feel Nick Hewer smiling in relief.
He’d have rolled his eyes heavenwards, though, when I missed an email and got texted by my colleague who was on a train, saying the guys with the van were waiting to set up the furniture, but didn’t have a key to get into the shop. Good job taxis are fast, and Edinburgh is small, is the lesson there, as I hared off to the estate agent’s... It also never occurred to me that anyone would buy more than one book and not be the kind of person who always carries a canvas bag, so none of us sorted those out either. I think I am the Bagpuss of shop-keeping: keen on stories, but not much of a business brain.
Next up: designing flyers, posters and borrowing an ‘A-frame’ for outside the shop from The List, who have an office above ours. First of all, we had to organise a daily event, involving two authors doing readings (Apprentice task No. 10: find out what they’re reading from and add it to the stock order. Also make sure we have plenty of the authors’ books available). A further stumbling block: I decided having Wi-fi would make hanging out in our shop appealing for budding JK Rowlings with their laptops. But no-one will do you a Wi-fi contract for less than 3 months, and if you have to sort a phone line through BT, they insist on you signing up for about a year. This is not the future I was promised. My dreams of a credit card reader were dashed. Cash only, for our baby bookshop. (Luckily, the shop was bang next door to a cashpoint. Canny.)
And there were more basic things we needed to do: wash the windows so people could see in, for one. Karren Brady's eyebrows would've shot off the top of her head in dismay at how long it took me – seriously, I should’ve invested in a professional window cleaner, who could’ve done the job in 15 minutes, tops. I was hindered by having no hot water, is my excuse. You’d also be surprised at how long it takes to assemble a shelf-full of books so that they look like they do in the shops. And then replenish them when someone has the temerity to actually buy one.
Another Apprentice moment – what are the health and safety restrictions around offering punters free cake? (Every little helps to encourage a sale). I’ll tell you: unless you’re fully authorised by the council, you can’t do anything with buttercream icing, in case it goes off and causes salmonella or something. Brownies and flapjacks it was; first time I'd made brownies and they were amazeballs, even if I do say so myself. As the week progressed, we promised free booze in the evenings too. This proved very popular, and profits rose accordingly. (Note to struggling businesses: offer wine for free and people will find that they are too drunk to care about paying money for stuff and also that they feel obliged to buy something; a colleague said people would be 'suspicious' about being offered free cake, so we put a mug on the front desk suggesting they donate to charity. We made about £50 just from that. People are weird, aren't they?)
We were open for a week (staffed by people from work, essentially working two jobs, only one of which we were paying them for, obviously), from 2-6pm, then I spent half of a Bank Holiday Monday putting all the unsold stock back in boxes to deliver back to the office.
It has to be said, running a shop is really hard work, and you can see why so many small businesses are struggling in the current climate. It is way harder than it looks, and there are about a million things to juggle (stock, staff, invoicing, ordering, packing up, unpacking, trying not to have the place look like Cardboard City because you haven't done the recycling, going home afterwards to make more damn cake); I thought running a shop just involved standing behind a till hoping people wanted to buy your stuff, so I take my hat off to anyone who does it full-time. And next time I watch The Apprentice, I may be slower to judge all those contestants who are given two days to arrange and run a business they probably have absolutely no prior knowledge of, and manage not to make a huge loss. Then again, maybe I'll just laugh even harder as they fuck everything up, whilst thinking, 'What kind of idiot doesn't think to get a load of plastic bags in when they're running a shop?'.
I opened and ran a shop
I now know how it feels to be one of the Apprentii. My business decisions weren’t captured on film for the cheers and jeers of a nation, but that was only because, thank God, no-one had the time to follow me around with a video camera. For the latter half of July, and most of August, I felt like episode seven of the last series was on permanent loop, and I was stuck in it.
My Apprentice-ing was because we'd decided a pop-up shop would be an excellent way to promote our books. August in Edinburgh: thousands of people here for the Fringe, loads of eager bookish types swarming around the tents at the Book Festival, streets thronged with eager punters. Business would be booming!
First problem: finding an actual shop to pop-up in. There have been alarming statistics recently about how many retail premises are currently empty around the country – Edinburgh is no exception. Once you start looking for shops to rent, you realise how many of them have promising ‘To Let’ signs outside them. But do any of them want to have tenants for a fortnight? No, they do not. You would not believe how tricky it is to find somewhere in close proximity to the Book Festival, that you can rent out for two weeks. However, we eventually managed it (I say 'we' - I, as Project Manager [PM in Apprentice parlance] had delegated it to an intern. Hey, it was fine, they were allowed to use Google, which the actual Apprentii are not. Which is never explained - they're not planning going back in time and running a business in 1982, are they?).
Three of us did what I shall grandly term ‘a site visit’. (Again, I know the rules of being a successful candidate: you need at least three people involved in any decision so that you can blame the other two if something goes tits up, thus saving yourself in the boardroom). The space looked dauntingly large, as it was entirely empty. Even the floor needed sorting out (bashed-up concrete wasn’t going to be a good look for our upmarket shop-ette). As the threat of more phone calls to organise furniture hire and flooring rose in front of me, I had my first Helen-from-the-Apprentice moment (ie an idea of enormous efficiency; rather than the many Tom-from-the-Apprentice moments I’d had up to that point – ie, ideas that were fine, but not going to be particularly useful). I suddenly remembered the company who build our book fair stands were based nearby. They had chairs, tables, and giant panels with our book jackets on them. They could probably sort the floor out, and some lighting. Our shop could look HEAVILY BRANDED without me having to brief a mass of extra design and print work. One phone call later and a delivery date was arranged. YES. I could feel Nick Hewer smiling in relief.
He’d have rolled his eyes heavenwards, though, when I missed an email and got texted by my colleague who was on a train, saying the guys with the van were waiting to set up the furniture, but didn’t have a key to get into the shop. Good job taxis are fast, and Edinburgh is small, is the lesson there, as I hared off to the estate agent’s... It also never occurred to me that anyone would buy more than one book and not be the kind of person who always carries a canvas bag, so none of us sorted those out either. I think I am the Bagpuss of shop-keeping: keen on stories, but not much of a business brain.
Next up: designing flyers, posters and borrowing an ‘A-frame’ for outside the shop from The List, who have an office above ours. First of all, we had to organise a daily event, involving two authors doing readings (Apprentice task No. 10: find out what they’re reading from and add it to the stock order. Also make sure we have plenty of the authors’ books available). A further stumbling block: I decided having Wi-fi would make hanging out in our shop appealing for budding JK Rowlings with their laptops. But no-one will do you a Wi-fi contract for less than 3 months, and if you have to sort a phone line through BT, they insist on you signing up for about a year. This is not the future I was promised. My dreams of a credit card reader were dashed. Cash only, for our baby bookshop. (Luckily, the shop was bang next door to a cashpoint. Canny.)
And there were more basic things we needed to do: wash the windows so people could see in, for one. Karren Brady's eyebrows would've shot off the top of her head in dismay at how long it took me – seriously, I should’ve invested in a professional window cleaner, who could’ve done the job in 15 minutes, tops. I was hindered by having no hot water, is my excuse. You’d also be surprised at how long it takes to assemble a shelf-full of books so that they look like they do in the shops. And then replenish them when someone has the temerity to actually buy one.
Another Apprentice moment – what are the health and safety restrictions around offering punters free cake? (Every little helps to encourage a sale). I’ll tell you: unless you’re fully authorised by the council, you can’t do anything with buttercream icing, in case it goes off and causes salmonella or something. Brownies and flapjacks it was; first time I'd made brownies and they were amazeballs, even if I do say so myself. As the week progressed, we promised free booze in the evenings too. This proved very popular, and profits rose accordingly. (Note to struggling businesses: offer wine for free and people will find that they are too drunk to care about paying money for stuff and also that they feel obliged to buy something; a colleague said people would be 'suspicious' about being offered free cake, so we put a mug on the front desk suggesting they donate to charity. We made about £50 just from that. People are weird, aren't they?)
We were open for a week (staffed by people from work, essentially working two jobs, only one of which we were paying them for, obviously), from 2-6pm, then I spent half of a Bank Holiday Monday putting all the unsold stock back in boxes to deliver back to the office.
It has to be said, running a shop is really hard work, and you can see why so many small businesses are struggling in the current climate. It is way harder than it looks, and there are about a million things to juggle (stock, staff, invoicing, ordering, packing up, unpacking, trying not to have the place look like Cardboard City because you haven't done the recycling, going home afterwards to make more damn cake); I thought running a shop just involved standing behind a till hoping people wanted to buy your stuff, so I take my hat off to anyone who does it full-time. And next time I watch The Apprentice, I may be slower to judge all those contestants who are given two days to arrange and run a business they probably have absolutely no prior knowledge of, and manage not to make a huge loss. Then again, maybe I'll just laugh even harder as they fuck everything up, whilst thinking, 'What kind of idiot doesn't think to get a load of plastic bags in when they're running a shop?'.
Monday, 29 August 2011
Fringe Benefits
Lawks, it's been an age since I've added my witterings to the interwebnet (I'm still resisting Twitter - I remain perplexed as to why you want to read only one half of a conversation between a famous person you don't know, and a person hiding behind an avatar, whom you are equally unlikely to know. I can't imagine any advantage to taking to the etherwaves myself, unless it's to restrict my usual daily complaints - the weather, my workload, the dearth of decent telly at the moment - to a more concise length.)
I've missed celebrating the anniversary of my arrival in Edinburgh (4th July), but there may yet be time for Contemplating What I've Learned in a Year Away from London. Most recently: that while most of England is being burned and looted, not least half of my erstwhile London haunts, it is incredibly surreal to be watching it on the news, entirely unthreatened by the possibility that it will happen here. The greatest danger I've faced in the last few weeks is being flyered to death by earnest students dressed in ridiculous costumes on the Royal Mile, promoting their edgy new production of an hour-long Hamlet. Set on Ibiza. Performed in txt spk. Via an iPad projected onto a back wall. (If I'd ever studied Hamlet, I could possibly have put a joke in at this juncture. As I never did, and am mainly enjoying my new-ish phone because it enables me to use semi-colons in my text messages, thus marking me out as practically Victorian in my communications, you'll have to construct your own).
I'm not sure exactly why Scotland was riot-resistant, but possible factors include: the fact it was something the English (and possibly a few Welsh people) were doing. Everyone knows that the Scots are furiously independent about everything, so are heavily resistant to joining in with anything the English are up to. 'We'll be different', was the thinking, 'we'll just let the English prove how hopelessly dickish they are by burning their own homes down and smashing everything, whilst we look on and prove that We're Better than Them.' I think the pissing rain also tends to deter all but the most hardy (it's quite hard to throw a brick through a window when the sleeves of your hoodie are totally waterlogged and you can't really get a clear view on what electrical items might be available for looting anyway). Plus, in Edinburgh, there are only about five shops, so looting would've taken half an hour and been shut down pretty quickly by the police. And at this time of year, if anyone had been attempting a bit of rioting, everyone would've assumed that it was some kind of immersive Fringe street theatre, gathered into an orderly semi-circle round it, clapped politely at the end and the Guardian would have given it three stars and decreed that it was 'mildly derivative'.
I can't believe the Festival's over for another year (my second as a resident; not sure if I saw more shows this year than last - the received wisdom seems to be that the longer you live here, the fewer things you bother to see). I've had the joy of being able to put people up in my flat who want to come and see stuff, but without re-mortgaging their flat because accommodation is so expensive. Last year I didn't have my own flat, so everyone wanted to come, but no-one actually did, unless they were here for work and were on expenses. This year, a selection of chums made use of the spare room, and I cooked a fair few breakfasts in the process.
I've sometimes had a fantasy of running a boutique B&B - ie having a really lovely flat, which has one very well-appointed spare room - there are a few in London which I keep meaning to try out, but they're in rather out of the way places. But actually, cooking breakfast, then having to wash up because you don't have a dishwasher, and then battling with trying to put on clean duvet covers before the next people arrive - a skill which I still haven't mastered, despite being officially middle aged - is a bit of a bore if you're as much of a domestic slattern as I am. And if you're paying for a room, then I don't think you'd do the washing up, as all my guests very sweetly have. I have very well brought-up friends, I've realised.
So, despite my intentions of really throwing myself at the Festival this year and going to see everything, I went on a blitz in the first 10 days or so, and saw about twelve shows, then got totally burned out, and didn't have anyone staying, so couldn't be bothered to sort anything out - plus had far too much going on at work - and have had a mad dash to the end for the last 4 days or so when more friends came to stay.
Here's what I saw:
Alex Horne - 7 Years in the Bathroom. I've never seen any of Alex Horne's shows, but he's good chums with Tim Key and Mark Watson, both of whom I'm big fans of, so have assumed he's a Good Thing. Also, I like his look - he's rather gangly, with a very long face enhanced by a big ginger beard. But he has quite small eyes and ears. I don't know why I find the combination appealing, but I do. He looks like a very tall teddy bear. Anyway, his show compressed all the time the average man would spend doing things, in a life of seventy nine years, into chunks. Hence the 7 years in the bathroom, 3 months queueing, days spent kissing, weeks spent looking for things, etc. It was a fun show, mainly enlivened by a man from the front row, who was sent out of the show with a clock for 5 minutes (can't remember which bit of life he was illustrating) and told to bring back 'leaves' to prove he'd been outside. The audience had forgotten he'd left, until he came back in with a massive crash. We assumed it was part of the show till we realised that actually he'd missed the top step and totally tanked it, falling face forward as he was clutching not only a pot plant, but a glass of red wine, which went everywhere. I think he also broke his glasses. It was kind of disastrous and will feature in many people's Fringe-based nightmares - replace your generic 'I've turned up at school/work/the theatre with no clothes on', with 'I'm a very tall man and I've just tanked it down the stairs in front of a roomful of people, then had to sit on the front row for the rest of the show while the comedian makes repeated reference to it'. Mortifying and file under: thank God that wasn't me.
I think the show could have been funnier (it may well have been by the end of the run - people seem to tweak their shows a fair bit as they go along), but was sweet, and on the plus side didn't set the bar so high that everything else I saw fell short. A 3-star effort.
Mythbunking - this featured the brother of my friend Clare, which was the only reason I was aware of it. He and another chap (again, appealingly gangly - do gangly men just go straight into comedy if they're not well co-ordinated enough to play basketball?) did a spoof lecture as the 'Myth Masons'. They're the people who release spurious 'facts' into the world and then get them accepted as common knowledge (for example, the story about Richard Gere getting a rodent stuck up his bum). Their high priestess is 'Doctor' Gillian McKeith, for her services to made-up science. It involved a Powerpoint presentation (at least 50% of the shows I saw this year involved Powerpoint), an amusing audience-participation re-working of the Billy Joel song 'We Didn't Start the Fire' and some very funny ad-libbing. Seemed like a show with forty minutes of good material that had been stretched to an hour, but it was fun for a Sunday lunchtime and I'm sure they'll go on to do good shows in the future. 2.5 stars from me.
Camille O'Sullivan - 2-for-1 night at the Fringe, so I and a couple of work mates took a lucky dip at the box office ('Um, what do have 3 tickets for which starts in about half an hour?') and decided on Camille O'Sullivan. A few years back, she definitely won the prize for 'most posters plastered all over the city'. I got a bit bored of the sight of her in burlesque-style rig, garlanded with increasingly deranged reviews about how incandescent she was. But I was quite intrigued, so off we went. She was playing a really big venue (me to colleague who hadn't done the Fringe before: 'This is not representative of Fringe venues - usually they're the size of a shoe box and are actually a container crate used for shipping Ikea furniture'). The stage had loads of random crap strewn around it (cabinets with knick knacks and odd lamps; disembodied dresses hanging from the ceiling with lights under them, etc) and the show itself was pretty odd. Camille came on dressed in a sparkly floor-length Red Riding Hood cape and did some odd business with a big book of fairy stories. Then gradually discarded all the costume bits (including a wig) and the fairytale elements of the show - no idea why they were there in the first place, as they didn't add anything, and the show was called 'Feel' - most of the songs were about doomed love affairs. She sings songs by people like Tom Waits (whose songs I don't know) and Arcade Fire (ditto). She does that thing where she'll go all whispery and fey and then SUDDENLY SING REALLY LOUDLY. Which works OK if you do it once, but when you do it every bloody song, it gets really annoying. Especially as, when properly deployed, she has a voice that could actually start revolutions. It's incredibly powerful. She interspersed the song with bonkers chat that involved her miaowing quite a lot; I wondered if she really is like that, and found out subsequently from someone who had to interview her once that she is. (My colleague: 'Cripes! She seems high maintenance, doesn't she?') Two stars for the singing; I think she's probably amazing if you see her doing one song in a very small venue - she's possibly a victim of her own Fringe success in that respect.
The Pajama Men - I've seen them once before, in London, and loved them. They switch very rapidly between loads of different characters, who seem at first sight to be totally random, but who come together to form a narrative. A joyous show which had me weeping with laughter, especially when one of them played a bird which basically imitated a woman in a porn film. Doesn't sound particularly amusing, but it was hilarious. Very clever, brilliantly acted and very funny - one of my picks of the Fringe; I spent the rest of August recommending it to everyone. Whoop! 5 stars.
Colin Hoult, Inferno - another one whose poster I saw everywhere in previous years (he was dressed up as Frankenstein). Recommended by Tim Key (ooh, get me, starry!) Went along with my Camille O'Sullivan colleague who must now think I have really odd taste, as this was another strange show. It's character comedy, but all the characters are awkward social misfits. I realised afterwards that they're all actually rather tragic; certainly, the dog who did a monologue about how lonely he was as he missed the rest of his litter, and the Alzheimer's character who addressed everyone as 'Billy', including ultimately an empty chair, reduced my colleague and I to tears, which wasn't what I was expecting at all. The show finished with us all holding hands and dancing round, which was nice. 3.5 stars.
Tim Key - Masterslut. Features a full-sized bath on stage, which he dives into at various points, getting increasingly soaked; these sections segue into short films projected onto a screen at the back. Very, very funny, particularly as he randomly throws a towel at a member of the audience to towel him down after the bath interludes, and managed to pick one of my colleagues' boyfriend (there were loads of us there from work on a jolly); it's always fun seeing someone you know having to be involved. Loved it, and I even got a kiss on the back of the head as he clambered over the audience to exit the venue. 5 stars (and not just because I had to flyer the queue at a subsequent show for his book, and ended up having an enthusiastic chat with Kristen Schaal, aka Mel from Flight of the Conchords. Ooh!)
Disco at the Caves - not a show as such, just a Festival thing. Much enthusiastic dancing to 70/80/90s tracks. A colleague was amazed at my comprehensive knowledge of 80s lyrics. I was depressed by the fact that everyone else in there was 23 - there's that horrible feeling that those surrounding you are finding all this terribly ironic, whereas I'm just going, 'Oooh,Wham's 'I'm Your Man'! This is actually a great song!'
Gentlemen of Leisure - The Death of the Novel. I'd read about them in the Guardian Guide, and obviously as I work in books I thought it'd be up my street. Another gangly man (this time with early-era Michael Caine black-framed specs) and his partner doing another lecture-style show. Fun, especially the sequence where they recreated the writing of Frankenstein, but not especially memorable. I do seem to have seen the Michael-Caine-glasses half of the act everywhere I've been for the last fortnight, though. Am I accidentally stalking him, or is it the other way around? 3 stars.
Holly Walsh - Hollycopter. For those who are young enough, she was a CBeebies presenter apparently. I've seen her a few times on Mock the Week and the like. This was another show where we just asked what tickets were available in the next half hour. More Powerpoint, this time about the fact that she's really risk-averse (she told a horrifying story about diving into a pool on the day the local leisure centre opened when she was at school, and having such a bad nosebleed that the whole pool had to be shut for the entire weekend). She decided to challenge this self-perception by taking part in the Worthing Birdman competition (fancy dressed people leaping off Worthing pier in homemade flying machines), in the process of which she smashed up her arm so badly that she now can't straighten it properly. Funniest part was probably her conversation with her brother, who was looking after her when she got out of hospital. One of those random realisations you have is that only having one arm that works makes it incredibly tricky to tear off loo paper, so she'd asked him to rip her off a load of sheets before he came back the next day. Which led to an awkward contemplation as to how much loo paper she usually used, and whether that was normal or not. Nice girl, fun show (nothing revolutionary, but plenty of chuckles), seems like she'd be fun down the pub. 3.5 stars.
Frisky and Mannish - Popcentre Plus. The big hit of last year's Fringe, but I never fancied it because a/ I didn't know what they did and b/ they seemed to be a bit burlesquey, which by that stage had got really annoying. Why I didn't read enough reviews to get what they actually do (very funny pop mash-ups - eg Kate Bush as sung by Kate Nash), I've no idea. A friend had given this rave reviews, so I was really looking forward to it. It was good fun (especially assembling a Take That band out of awkward 30-something men from the audience at the end, making them pose together - 'Right, you lie on the floor and everyone else crowd round. Now touch each other!' and then mime to 'Never Forget' - they were all very game). But the mash-ups weren't that funny - Ellie Goulding and Jessie J aren't really distinctive enough to create a mash-up out of, and going through Madonna's career phases based on a little-known Shirley Bassey song went on too long and again, wasn't that funny. I like them a lot as performers, but I was disappointed I didn't laugh more. 3.5 stars.
Isy Suttie - Pearl and Dave. Isy plays Dobby in Peep Show and I'd read good reviews of her show, which is a very sweet exploration of mildly tragic love affairs. It mainly revolves around her and her sister's attempt to get a pen pal when they were little by releasing a balloon from their garden with their phone number and address on it, in the hopes it would reach Australia. It in fact reached Dave, their neighbour 2 doors down, who was 25, but became their penpal nevertheless. (Sending each other letters involved the 2 girls going past his house to post the letters in the postbox and much discussion about what the various parties had eaten for their tea). Dave met a girl called Pearl one summer at Butlins and always regarded her as 'the one who got away'. Finally managing to track her down on Facebook years later, Pearl is stuck in a miserable marriage, and they end up having an affair largely conducted through Skype. Lots of it's told through songs. Very sad and very sweet, I thought it was lovely. Again, made me quite teary (think I must have had hormonal issues throughout August), as I persisted in believing the whole thing was true, which is highly unlikely. 4 stars.
David O'Doherty - he's become my 'must see' every year. I love him. Again, shambolic songs with a Casio, and, this year a piano (there was an elaborate bit where he put his chair on its side, then carefully hid the Casio behind it, before going over to the piano, sitting down and confiding, 'I don't want it to see'). His annual 'things that have fucked me off this year' song included a brilliant bit about Boots ads making women neurotic ('It's summer! WOMEN, it's time to stop eating and paint yourselves orange!') and identifying new bits of themselves to hate, which Boots happen to have invented a cream for ('That crease where your wrist meets your arm! We've asked men and THEY HATE IT AND FIND IT REALLY UNATTRACTIVE!'). 4.5 stars.
Sarah Millican - playing a massive venue, she's clearly the female Michael McIntyre. Pretty bog-standard material about relationships, but I did find it funny (unlike the man I was sitting next to, who'd clearly been dragged along by his partner, and spent most of the show inexplicably fiddling about with his wallet). 3.5 stars.
The Horne Section - daft fun at the Spiegeltent involving music, guest comedians (an American guy called Hannibal something; Kurt and Kristen, who did a wincingly funny ventriloquist act; Schlomo and Mark Watson), a Wheel of Fortune, audience participation (all of us had to play Twister at one point), and an audience member being dressed up in a crown and cape and trundled round the venue in a wheelbarrow by beatboxer Schlomo as the finale. The song that Alex Horne and the band did about being a rubbish boyband who really wanted groupies (the final chorus of which went 'We really don't want groupies' made me weep with laughter). Ace - I didn't want it to end, and wished I'd been more times. 5 stars.
Sam Simmons - I hadn't heard of him, but I think he was shortlisted for one of the comedy awards. He's like a cross between Vic Reeves and Harry Hill, with a dash of David O'Doherty, if they were Australian, and with an impressive moustache. I found it hilarious, but when I tried to explain it to people who hadn't seen it, it sounded mental, and not in a good way. Especially when I said, 'I've never seen a man sweat that much' despite the fact all he was dressed in was a snugly-fitting T-shirt, a pair of pants, trainers and a plaid flat cap ('I look like a paedophile on a fun run!')
Abandoman - didn't really know what this was before we went in (we scored some free tickets), but it turned out I'd heard them doing stuff before, but just didn't know what they were called. It's an Irish band (2 guitarists, drummer, trombonist and a trumpet player and an insanely smiley guy with a very fast brain who does the rapping), who do improvised hip hop songs based around the random items people in the audience have in their bags/pockets (top items: a bottle of ketchup and one of those big fat dobber pens from bingo) and the weirdest job anyone's had (the woman in front of us had packaged breadcrumbs for a living), amongst other things. Huge fun, and probably the first time I've ever really enjoyed hip hop. 4.5 stars.
Entering the final phases of the Fest now - I always try to go and see one theatre thing; I just pick the one I've read the most reviews of, which this year was Translunar Paradise. It was a blend of mime and choreography, accompanied by a girl with an accordion. It told the story of a couple's relationship, beginning when they were old and the woman died, and then flashing back to different stages of their life together. It was essentially the first ten minutes of Up, for an hour. Very beautiful, total sob-fest. 4.5 stars.
And finally... Humphrey Ker - Dymock Watson, Nazi Smasher. He's one third of the Penny Dreadfuls, who I saw a couple of years ago, and his show was a very funny 40s spoof with a lot of silly voices (including a small dog called Uncle Trevor, who sounded disturbingly like Adam and Joe's terrible radio dog, Boggins), twists, turns, spies, double agents, Nazis and even some genuine magic tricks. And - bonus! - Michael-Caine-glasses man in the front row of the audience! (He seemed to enjoy it a lot, if you're interested, but not as much as the man sitting behind me, who had the loudest laugh I've ever heard). A fitting way to end the Festival. 4 stars.
So, it's all over for another year. I've eaten too many burgers, drunk too much red wine and nearly drowned because it's been so bloody wet. I've raced around the same 4 venues on a continuous loop for 3 weeks and still can't quite remember the fastest route between them. I've developed an alarming cab habit (up to about 5 a day) and spent more than the GDP of Chad on tickets. I have, as mentioned, flyered Kristen Schaal, stood in relatively close proximity to Jack Whitehall (twice), seen Rhod Gilbert racing into at least 2 shows ahead of me and queued in front of Graham Linehan (at Sam Simmons).
It's time to return to normality: it's freezing cold, my telly's missed me and my sofa's looking particularly welcoming. Today it was the Bank Holiday, the last hurrah of summer. Tomorrow, it's autumn. Dear God, where has this year gone?
I've missed celebrating the anniversary of my arrival in Edinburgh (4th July), but there may yet be time for Contemplating What I've Learned in a Year Away from London. Most recently: that while most of England is being burned and looted, not least half of my erstwhile London haunts, it is incredibly surreal to be watching it on the news, entirely unthreatened by the possibility that it will happen here. The greatest danger I've faced in the last few weeks is being flyered to death by earnest students dressed in ridiculous costumes on the Royal Mile, promoting their edgy new production of an hour-long Hamlet. Set on Ibiza. Performed in txt spk. Via an iPad projected onto a back wall. (If I'd ever studied Hamlet, I could possibly have put a joke in at this juncture. As I never did, and am mainly enjoying my new-ish phone because it enables me to use semi-colons in my text messages, thus marking me out as practically Victorian in my communications, you'll have to construct your own).
I'm not sure exactly why Scotland was riot-resistant, but possible factors include: the fact it was something the English (and possibly a few Welsh people) were doing. Everyone knows that the Scots are furiously independent about everything, so are heavily resistant to joining in with anything the English are up to. 'We'll be different', was the thinking, 'we'll just let the English prove how hopelessly dickish they are by burning their own homes down and smashing everything, whilst we look on and prove that We're Better than Them.' I think the pissing rain also tends to deter all but the most hardy (it's quite hard to throw a brick through a window when the sleeves of your hoodie are totally waterlogged and you can't really get a clear view on what electrical items might be available for looting anyway). Plus, in Edinburgh, there are only about five shops, so looting would've taken half an hour and been shut down pretty quickly by the police. And at this time of year, if anyone had been attempting a bit of rioting, everyone would've assumed that it was some kind of immersive Fringe street theatre, gathered into an orderly semi-circle round it, clapped politely at the end and the Guardian would have given it three stars and decreed that it was 'mildly derivative'.
I can't believe the Festival's over for another year (my second as a resident; not sure if I saw more shows this year than last - the received wisdom seems to be that the longer you live here, the fewer things you bother to see). I've had the joy of being able to put people up in my flat who want to come and see stuff, but without re-mortgaging their flat because accommodation is so expensive. Last year I didn't have my own flat, so everyone wanted to come, but no-one actually did, unless they were here for work and were on expenses. This year, a selection of chums made use of the spare room, and I cooked a fair few breakfasts in the process.
I've sometimes had a fantasy of running a boutique B&B - ie having a really lovely flat, which has one very well-appointed spare room - there are a few in London which I keep meaning to try out, but they're in rather out of the way places. But actually, cooking breakfast, then having to wash up because you don't have a dishwasher, and then battling with trying to put on clean duvet covers before the next people arrive - a skill which I still haven't mastered, despite being officially middle aged - is a bit of a bore if you're as much of a domestic slattern as I am. And if you're paying for a room, then I don't think you'd do the washing up, as all my guests very sweetly have. I have very well brought-up friends, I've realised.
So, despite my intentions of really throwing myself at the Festival this year and going to see everything, I went on a blitz in the first 10 days or so, and saw about twelve shows, then got totally burned out, and didn't have anyone staying, so couldn't be bothered to sort anything out - plus had far too much going on at work - and have had a mad dash to the end for the last 4 days or so when more friends came to stay.
Here's what I saw:
Alex Horne - 7 Years in the Bathroom. I've never seen any of Alex Horne's shows, but he's good chums with Tim Key and Mark Watson, both of whom I'm big fans of, so have assumed he's a Good Thing. Also, I like his look - he's rather gangly, with a very long face enhanced by a big ginger beard. But he has quite small eyes and ears. I don't know why I find the combination appealing, but I do. He looks like a very tall teddy bear. Anyway, his show compressed all the time the average man would spend doing things, in a life of seventy nine years, into chunks. Hence the 7 years in the bathroom, 3 months queueing, days spent kissing, weeks spent looking for things, etc. It was a fun show, mainly enlivened by a man from the front row, who was sent out of the show with a clock for 5 minutes (can't remember which bit of life he was illustrating) and told to bring back 'leaves' to prove he'd been outside. The audience had forgotten he'd left, until he came back in with a massive crash. We assumed it was part of the show till we realised that actually he'd missed the top step and totally tanked it, falling face forward as he was clutching not only a pot plant, but a glass of red wine, which went everywhere. I think he also broke his glasses. It was kind of disastrous and will feature in many people's Fringe-based nightmares - replace your generic 'I've turned up at school/work/the theatre with no clothes on', with 'I'm a very tall man and I've just tanked it down the stairs in front of a roomful of people, then had to sit on the front row for the rest of the show while the comedian makes repeated reference to it'. Mortifying and file under: thank God that wasn't me.
I think the show could have been funnier (it may well have been by the end of the run - people seem to tweak their shows a fair bit as they go along), but was sweet, and on the plus side didn't set the bar so high that everything else I saw fell short. A 3-star effort.
Mythbunking - this featured the brother of my friend Clare, which was the only reason I was aware of it. He and another chap (again, appealingly gangly - do gangly men just go straight into comedy if they're not well co-ordinated enough to play basketball?) did a spoof lecture as the 'Myth Masons'. They're the people who release spurious 'facts' into the world and then get them accepted as common knowledge (for example, the story about Richard Gere getting a rodent stuck up his bum). Their high priestess is 'Doctor' Gillian McKeith, for her services to made-up science. It involved a Powerpoint presentation (at least 50% of the shows I saw this year involved Powerpoint), an amusing audience-participation re-working of the Billy Joel song 'We Didn't Start the Fire' and some very funny ad-libbing. Seemed like a show with forty minutes of good material that had been stretched to an hour, but it was fun for a Sunday lunchtime and I'm sure they'll go on to do good shows in the future. 2.5 stars from me.
Camille O'Sullivan - 2-for-1 night at the Fringe, so I and a couple of work mates took a lucky dip at the box office ('Um, what do have 3 tickets for which starts in about half an hour?') and decided on Camille O'Sullivan. A few years back, she definitely won the prize for 'most posters plastered all over the city'. I got a bit bored of the sight of her in burlesque-style rig, garlanded with increasingly deranged reviews about how incandescent she was. But I was quite intrigued, so off we went. She was playing a really big venue (me to colleague who hadn't done the Fringe before: 'This is not representative of Fringe venues - usually they're the size of a shoe box and are actually a container crate used for shipping Ikea furniture'). The stage had loads of random crap strewn around it (cabinets with knick knacks and odd lamps; disembodied dresses hanging from the ceiling with lights under them, etc) and the show itself was pretty odd. Camille came on dressed in a sparkly floor-length Red Riding Hood cape and did some odd business with a big book of fairy stories. Then gradually discarded all the costume bits (including a wig) and the fairytale elements of the show - no idea why they were there in the first place, as they didn't add anything, and the show was called 'Feel' - most of the songs were about doomed love affairs. She sings songs by people like Tom Waits (whose songs I don't know) and Arcade Fire (ditto). She does that thing where she'll go all whispery and fey and then SUDDENLY SING REALLY LOUDLY. Which works OK if you do it once, but when you do it every bloody song, it gets really annoying. Especially as, when properly deployed, she has a voice that could actually start revolutions. It's incredibly powerful. She interspersed the song with bonkers chat that involved her miaowing quite a lot; I wondered if she really is like that, and found out subsequently from someone who had to interview her once that she is. (My colleague: 'Cripes! She seems high maintenance, doesn't she?') Two stars for the singing; I think she's probably amazing if you see her doing one song in a very small venue - she's possibly a victim of her own Fringe success in that respect.
The Pajama Men - I've seen them once before, in London, and loved them. They switch very rapidly between loads of different characters, who seem at first sight to be totally random, but who come together to form a narrative. A joyous show which had me weeping with laughter, especially when one of them played a bird which basically imitated a woman in a porn film. Doesn't sound particularly amusing, but it was hilarious. Very clever, brilliantly acted and very funny - one of my picks of the Fringe; I spent the rest of August recommending it to everyone. Whoop! 5 stars.
Colin Hoult, Inferno - another one whose poster I saw everywhere in previous years (he was dressed up as Frankenstein). Recommended by Tim Key (ooh, get me, starry!) Went along with my Camille O'Sullivan colleague who must now think I have really odd taste, as this was another strange show. It's character comedy, but all the characters are awkward social misfits. I realised afterwards that they're all actually rather tragic; certainly, the dog who did a monologue about how lonely he was as he missed the rest of his litter, and the Alzheimer's character who addressed everyone as 'Billy', including ultimately an empty chair, reduced my colleague and I to tears, which wasn't what I was expecting at all. The show finished with us all holding hands and dancing round, which was nice. 3.5 stars.
Tim Key - Masterslut. Features a full-sized bath on stage, which he dives into at various points, getting increasingly soaked; these sections segue into short films projected onto a screen at the back. Very, very funny, particularly as he randomly throws a towel at a member of the audience to towel him down after the bath interludes, and managed to pick one of my colleagues' boyfriend (there were loads of us there from work on a jolly); it's always fun seeing someone you know having to be involved. Loved it, and I even got a kiss on the back of the head as he clambered over the audience to exit the venue. 5 stars (and not just because I had to flyer the queue at a subsequent show for his book, and ended up having an enthusiastic chat with Kristen Schaal, aka Mel from Flight of the Conchords. Ooh!)
Disco at the Caves - not a show as such, just a Festival thing. Much enthusiastic dancing to 70/80/90s tracks. A colleague was amazed at my comprehensive knowledge of 80s lyrics. I was depressed by the fact that everyone else in there was 23 - there's that horrible feeling that those surrounding you are finding all this terribly ironic, whereas I'm just going, 'Oooh,Wham's 'I'm Your Man'! This is actually a great song!'
Gentlemen of Leisure - The Death of the Novel. I'd read about them in the Guardian Guide, and obviously as I work in books I thought it'd be up my street. Another gangly man (this time with early-era Michael Caine black-framed specs) and his partner doing another lecture-style show. Fun, especially the sequence where they recreated the writing of Frankenstein, but not especially memorable. I do seem to have seen the Michael-Caine-glasses half of the act everywhere I've been for the last fortnight, though. Am I accidentally stalking him, or is it the other way around? 3 stars.
Holly Walsh - Hollycopter. For those who are young enough, she was a CBeebies presenter apparently. I've seen her a few times on Mock the Week and the like. This was another show where we just asked what tickets were available in the next half hour. More Powerpoint, this time about the fact that she's really risk-averse (she told a horrifying story about diving into a pool on the day the local leisure centre opened when she was at school, and having such a bad nosebleed that the whole pool had to be shut for the entire weekend). She decided to challenge this self-perception by taking part in the Worthing Birdman competition (fancy dressed people leaping off Worthing pier in homemade flying machines), in the process of which she smashed up her arm so badly that she now can't straighten it properly. Funniest part was probably her conversation with her brother, who was looking after her when she got out of hospital. One of those random realisations you have is that only having one arm that works makes it incredibly tricky to tear off loo paper, so she'd asked him to rip her off a load of sheets before he came back the next day. Which led to an awkward contemplation as to how much loo paper she usually used, and whether that was normal or not. Nice girl, fun show (nothing revolutionary, but plenty of chuckles), seems like she'd be fun down the pub. 3.5 stars.
Frisky and Mannish - Popcentre Plus. The big hit of last year's Fringe, but I never fancied it because a/ I didn't know what they did and b/ they seemed to be a bit burlesquey, which by that stage had got really annoying. Why I didn't read enough reviews to get what they actually do (very funny pop mash-ups - eg Kate Bush as sung by Kate Nash), I've no idea. A friend had given this rave reviews, so I was really looking forward to it. It was good fun (especially assembling a Take That band out of awkward 30-something men from the audience at the end, making them pose together - 'Right, you lie on the floor and everyone else crowd round. Now touch each other!' and then mime to 'Never Forget' - they were all very game). But the mash-ups weren't that funny - Ellie Goulding and Jessie J aren't really distinctive enough to create a mash-up out of, and going through Madonna's career phases based on a little-known Shirley Bassey song went on too long and again, wasn't that funny. I like them a lot as performers, but I was disappointed I didn't laugh more. 3.5 stars.
Isy Suttie - Pearl and Dave. Isy plays Dobby in Peep Show and I'd read good reviews of her show, which is a very sweet exploration of mildly tragic love affairs. It mainly revolves around her and her sister's attempt to get a pen pal when they were little by releasing a balloon from their garden with their phone number and address on it, in the hopes it would reach Australia. It in fact reached Dave, their neighbour 2 doors down, who was 25, but became their penpal nevertheless. (Sending each other letters involved the 2 girls going past his house to post the letters in the postbox and much discussion about what the various parties had eaten for their tea). Dave met a girl called Pearl one summer at Butlins and always regarded her as 'the one who got away'. Finally managing to track her down on Facebook years later, Pearl is stuck in a miserable marriage, and they end up having an affair largely conducted through Skype. Lots of it's told through songs. Very sad and very sweet, I thought it was lovely. Again, made me quite teary (think I must have had hormonal issues throughout August), as I persisted in believing the whole thing was true, which is highly unlikely. 4 stars.
David O'Doherty - he's become my 'must see' every year. I love him. Again, shambolic songs with a Casio, and, this year a piano (there was an elaborate bit where he put his chair on its side, then carefully hid the Casio behind it, before going over to the piano, sitting down and confiding, 'I don't want it to see'). His annual 'things that have fucked me off this year' song included a brilliant bit about Boots ads making women neurotic ('It's summer! WOMEN, it's time to stop eating and paint yourselves orange!') and identifying new bits of themselves to hate, which Boots happen to have invented a cream for ('That crease where your wrist meets your arm! We've asked men and THEY HATE IT AND FIND IT REALLY UNATTRACTIVE!'). 4.5 stars.
Sarah Millican - playing a massive venue, she's clearly the female Michael McIntyre. Pretty bog-standard material about relationships, but I did find it funny (unlike the man I was sitting next to, who'd clearly been dragged along by his partner, and spent most of the show inexplicably fiddling about with his wallet). 3.5 stars.
The Horne Section - daft fun at the Spiegeltent involving music, guest comedians (an American guy called Hannibal something; Kurt and Kristen, who did a wincingly funny ventriloquist act; Schlomo and Mark Watson), a Wheel of Fortune, audience participation (all of us had to play Twister at one point), and an audience member being dressed up in a crown and cape and trundled round the venue in a wheelbarrow by beatboxer Schlomo as the finale. The song that Alex Horne and the band did about being a rubbish boyband who really wanted groupies (the final chorus of which went 'We really don't want groupies' made me weep with laughter). Ace - I didn't want it to end, and wished I'd been more times. 5 stars.
Sam Simmons - I hadn't heard of him, but I think he was shortlisted for one of the comedy awards. He's like a cross between Vic Reeves and Harry Hill, with a dash of David O'Doherty, if they were Australian, and with an impressive moustache. I found it hilarious, but when I tried to explain it to people who hadn't seen it, it sounded mental, and not in a good way. Especially when I said, 'I've never seen a man sweat that much' despite the fact all he was dressed in was a snugly-fitting T-shirt, a pair of pants, trainers and a plaid flat cap ('I look like a paedophile on a fun run!')
Abandoman - didn't really know what this was before we went in (we scored some free tickets), but it turned out I'd heard them doing stuff before, but just didn't know what they were called. It's an Irish band (2 guitarists, drummer, trombonist and a trumpet player and an insanely smiley guy with a very fast brain who does the rapping), who do improvised hip hop songs based around the random items people in the audience have in their bags/pockets (top items: a bottle of ketchup and one of those big fat dobber pens from bingo) and the weirdest job anyone's had (the woman in front of us had packaged breadcrumbs for a living), amongst other things. Huge fun, and probably the first time I've ever really enjoyed hip hop. 4.5 stars.
Entering the final phases of the Fest now - I always try to go and see one theatre thing; I just pick the one I've read the most reviews of, which this year was Translunar Paradise. It was a blend of mime and choreography, accompanied by a girl with an accordion. It told the story of a couple's relationship, beginning when they were old and the woman died, and then flashing back to different stages of their life together. It was essentially the first ten minutes of Up, for an hour. Very beautiful, total sob-fest. 4.5 stars.
And finally... Humphrey Ker - Dymock Watson, Nazi Smasher. He's one third of the Penny Dreadfuls, who I saw a couple of years ago, and his show was a very funny 40s spoof with a lot of silly voices (including a small dog called Uncle Trevor, who sounded disturbingly like Adam and Joe's terrible radio dog, Boggins), twists, turns, spies, double agents, Nazis and even some genuine magic tricks. And - bonus! - Michael-Caine-glasses man in the front row of the audience! (He seemed to enjoy it a lot, if you're interested, but not as much as the man sitting behind me, who had the loudest laugh I've ever heard). A fitting way to end the Festival. 4 stars.
So, it's all over for another year. I've eaten too many burgers, drunk too much red wine and nearly drowned because it's been so bloody wet. I've raced around the same 4 venues on a continuous loop for 3 weeks and still can't quite remember the fastest route between them. I've developed an alarming cab habit (up to about 5 a day) and spent more than the GDP of Chad on tickets. I have, as mentioned, flyered Kristen Schaal, stood in relatively close proximity to Jack Whitehall (twice), seen Rhod Gilbert racing into at least 2 shows ahead of me and queued in front of Graham Linehan (at Sam Simmons).
It's time to return to normality: it's freezing cold, my telly's missed me and my sofa's looking particularly welcoming. Today it was the Bank Holiday, the last hurrah of summer. Tomorrow, it's autumn. Dear God, where has this year gone?
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Bikini vs Burkhini
If anyone's interested, the Gods of Weather read my blog yesterday and decided to grant my wish for consistent weather. Sadly, they did this by crying with laughter at such a request, which resulted in pissing rain. All day long. Accompanied first by grey cloud, then in the early evening (when I escaped the office) by swirling mist. Very atmospheric and that, but not really what I was after, in the way of cheering up.
Oh well, I have been balancing up this lack of the new and exciting, weather-wise, by continuing my programme of Inaugural Experiences. Yes, here at Purple Towers, I have been throwing myself at New Things with what might be termed gay abandon. Undeterred by my giant Fail at the step class (my bum still hurts if I sit for too long on it, or on too hard a surface, which is, in itself, a good reason for moving around more, rather than slumping in front of the telly), I have tried not one but TWO new exercise things recently.
First up: boxing. Cheerful James decided that I needed to do something different, and in his great wisdom produced a pair of electric blue boxing gloves, and velcro-ed me in. I had visions of myself as Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. Minus the horrifying chewing-your-own-tongue-off-to-kill-yourself denouement, obviously. Nipping about, punching things in a way that suggested I was really good at exercise. After all these months in the gym, I thought I could probably manage that. How hard can it be, it's just hitting stuff. I mean, I hit the printer in the office at least once a day. Let's get started! Turns out, I was more Hillary Clinton than Hilary Swank. Trying to co-ordinate hitting something with moving my feet simply wasn't going to happen. Trying to hit a pad at the right angle and the right speed is way trickier than it looks. After about a minute, my inner pacifist became my outer wimp and I wanted never to hit anything ever again. After twenty minutes of valiant flailing around, I complained that my wrists were hurting (they really were; anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that my wrists look like they were hastily assembled from pipe cleaners. It's a wonder they hold up my hands at all, frankly). I waved them at Cheerful James, wheedling, 'Look at my wrists! They're not built for this!' and he took pity on me, telling me he'd 'strap me up' next time. Crikey, there's an offer. No wonder I'm paying him by the hour.
Having been quite enthusiastic about the idea of boxing making me a bionically buff Hilary Swankenstein, I'm now hoping that it goes the way of kettlebells, which I've tried twice. The first time I just about got the technique (it's to do with your legs and hips - not your arms, which would seem more logical) and the second time I failed miserably. Haven't been near 'em since. So, we shall see about boxing; maybe a few goes and I'll get the hang of it and be punching my way round Edinburgh, running up and down Arthur's Seat like Rocky.
Second new exercisey thing: kayaking. Whooh, outdoors exercise! Revolutionary. Having dreaded a Zambesi-style white water rafting expedition, I was assured that a/ a child would be doing it with us, so it was going to be pretty tame and b/ I could be in a double one, so a large man could do most of the work instead of me. This turned out not to be the case, as chaps were in short supply (and most of them were married, so palled up with their partners), so I palled up with a very nice girl who looked like a sporty, efficient type. We somehow ended up at the front of the queue for kayaks - in for a penny, I thought, as I merrily suggested that we set off and show everyone how it was done. We'd had a five minute demo from a man with a paddle, so I reckoned we should just get on with it. As is usual in any situation where there are more than two people involved and there is something to prove, I then got insanely competitive and pretty much insisted on being at the front of the pack at all times and took some actual pride in getting all co-ordinated with my paddling partner (I was in the back seat, as it were). Despite this, it was proper fun (we saw cormorants, herons and shipwrecks, it being Cornwall and us being up muddy creeks); we got quite wet, but it was sunny and we ended up at a pub. With a large pack of men dressed up for a stag do to look at. Not sure I'd rush to do it again, but it's a nice way of traversing a river, and certainly less hard on the shoulders and the stress level than trying to steer a barge.
Now, the third thing is a proper turn up for the books. I have been shopping for a bikini. Not only have I been shopping for one, but I tried some on. And then bought the cheapest one I could find, as I will never wear it. Bikinis are for supermodels and mental people. Supermodels must of course show off as much flesh as possible on holiday - they're pretty much getting paid by the yard, given how tall everyone insists they have to be, so you might as well get your money's worth. But for everyone else, it's wearing your bra and pants in front of everyone. Why do people want to do this? If you said to your average woman, 'Here, wear a bra and pants - in lycra, but still, it's a bra and pants - down the high street', they'd all say no. Stick a pool or a beach in front of them, however and, brilliant! Here I am in my bra and pants! What could be more natural? Then you can have three months' worth of articles, from about May onwards, in women's magazines exhorting you to acquire a 'beach body' and giving you punitive diet and exercise regimes in order to achieve this nebulous goal. (Over the last five years or so, they have added an extra three pages per issue telling you how to do a flawless fake tan).
I, of course, have always merrily skipped past these articles, believing firmly in the Nigella-style 'burkhini' approach to summer holidays: take one swimming costume, layer it with an ankle-length sarong, top off with a shirt (possibly) and a very large hat. Then place yourself under an enormous umbrella. Read book until friends have tired of frying themselves in the sun in their ill-advised bikinis. Repeat for a week to ten days.
But now I am going to Ibiza (another first) and I have apparently got a new, bikini-worthy body (ha ha), I feel obliged to join in. We are going to have a private pool, after all. My friend has told me I have to have a bikini. I battled my way into the offending item in a strip-lit changing room and surveyed myself. This was weird. Why would I want anyone to see me in this little clothing? It's a nightmare. Everything looks pallid and wobbly. There is too much exposed. I'm not going to be sunbathing: I fry like a vampire at the mere sight of sunlight and am violently opposed to both ageing prematurely and skin cancer. Ergo, what's the point of this? You can't swim in it, the whole thing would fall off in seconds. I'm not confident enough to parade around, inwardly thinking, 'Look at my GREAT FIGURE!' I'm just a slightly smaller version of the rubbish-at-summer person I've always been. What I should really have been buying was a sarong, but I couldn't find one of those for love nor money. So, a bikini it is. I now have four days of manically reading articles on lunges and broccoli and trying to be a woman who 'does' holidays instead of merely tolerating them.
Wish me luck. But don't ask to see the photos - there won't be any. Have I ever shown you a photo of me in my bra and pants? Exactly.
Oh well, I have been balancing up this lack of the new and exciting, weather-wise, by continuing my programme of Inaugural Experiences. Yes, here at Purple Towers, I have been throwing myself at New Things with what might be termed gay abandon. Undeterred by my giant Fail at the step class (my bum still hurts if I sit for too long on it, or on too hard a surface, which is, in itself, a good reason for moving around more, rather than slumping in front of the telly), I have tried not one but TWO new exercise things recently.
First up: boxing. Cheerful James decided that I needed to do something different, and in his great wisdom produced a pair of electric blue boxing gloves, and velcro-ed me in. I had visions of myself as Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. Minus the horrifying chewing-your-own-tongue-off-to-kill-yourself denouement, obviously. Nipping about, punching things in a way that suggested I was really good at exercise. After all these months in the gym, I thought I could probably manage that. How hard can it be, it's just hitting stuff. I mean, I hit the printer in the office at least once a day. Let's get started! Turns out, I was more Hillary Clinton than Hilary Swank. Trying to co-ordinate hitting something with moving my feet simply wasn't going to happen. Trying to hit a pad at the right angle and the right speed is way trickier than it looks. After about a minute, my inner pacifist became my outer wimp and I wanted never to hit anything ever again. After twenty minutes of valiant flailing around, I complained that my wrists were hurting (they really were; anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that my wrists look like they were hastily assembled from pipe cleaners. It's a wonder they hold up my hands at all, frankly). I waved them at Cheerful James, wheedling, 'Look at my wrists! They're not built for this!' and he took pity on me, telling me he'd 'strap me up' next time. Crikey, there's an offer. No wonder I'm paying him by the hour.
Having been quite enthusiastic about the idea of boxing making me a bionically buff Hilary Swankenstein, I'm now hoping that it goes the way of kettlebells, which I've tried twice. The first time I just about got the technique (it's to do with your legs and hips - not your arms, which would seem more logical) and the second time I failed miserably. Haven't been near 'em since. So, we shall see about boxing; maybe a few goes and I'll get the hang of it and be punching my way round Edinburgh, running up and down Arthur's Seat like Rocky.
Second new exercisey thing: kayaking. Whooh, outdoors exercise! Revolutionary. Having dreaded a Zambesi-style white water rafting expedition, I was assured that a/ a child would be doing it with us, so it was going to be pretty tame and b/ I could be in a double one, so a large man could do most of the work instead of me. This turned out not to be the case, as chaps were in short supply (and most of them were married, so palled up with their partners), so I palled up with a very nice girl who looked like a sporty, efficient type. We somehow ended up at the front of the queue for kayaks - in for a penny, I thought, as I merrily suggested that we set off and show everyone how it was done. We'd had a five minute demo from a man with a paddle, so I reckoned we should just get on with it. As is usual in any situation where there are more than two people involved and there is something to prove, I then got insanely competitive and pretty much insisted on being at the front of the pack at all times and took some actual pride in getting all co-ordinated with my paddling partner (I was in the back seat, as it were). Despite this, it was proper fun (we saw cormorants, herons and shipwrecks, it being Cornwall and us being up muddy creeks); we got quite wet, but it was sunny and we ended up at a pub. With a large pack of men dressed up for a stag do to look at. Not sure I'd rush to do it again, but it's a nice way of traversing a river, and certainly less hard on the shoulders and the stress level than trying to steer a barge.
Now, the third thing is a proper turn up for the books. I have been shopping for a bikini. Not only have I been shopping for one, but I tried some on. And then bought the cheapest one I could find, as I will never wear it. Bikinis are for supermodels and mental people. Supermodels must of course show off as much flesh as possible on holiday - they're pretty much getting paid by the yard, given how tall everyone insists they have to be, so you might as well get your money's worth. But for everyone else, it's wearing your bra and pants in front of everyone. Why do people want to do this? If you said to your average woman, 'Here, wear a bra and pants - in lycra, but still, it's a bra and pants - down the high street', they'd all say no. Stick a pool or a beach in front of them, however and, brilliant! Here I am in my bra and pants! What could be more natural? Then you can have three months' worth of articles, from about May onwards, in women's magazines exhorting you to acquire a 'beach body' and giving you punitive diet and exercise regimes in order to achieve this nebulous goal. (Over the last five years or so, they have added an extra three pages per issue telling you how to do a flawless fake tan).
I, of course, have always merrily skipped past these articles, believing firmly in the Nigella-style 'burkhini' approach to summer holidays: take one swimming costume, layer it with an ankle-length sarong, top off with a shirt (possibly) and a very large hat. Then place yourself under an enormous umbrella. Read book until friends have tired of frying themselves in the sun in their ill-advised bikinis. Repeat for a week to ten days.
But now I am going to Ibiza (another first) and I have apparently got a new, bikini-worthy body (ha ha), I feel obliged to join in. We are going to have a private pool, after all. My friend has told me I have to have a bikini. I battled my way into the offending item in a strip-lit changing room and surveyed myself. This was weird. Why would I want anyone to see me in this little clothing? It's a nightmare. Everything looks pallid and wobbly. There is too much exposed. I'm not going to be sunbathing: I fry like a vampire at the mere sight of sunlight and am violently opposed to both ageing prematurely and skin cancer. Ergo, what's the point of this? You can't swim in it, the whole thing would fall off in seconds. I'm not confident enough to parade around, inwardly thinking, 'Look at my GREAT FIGURE!' I'm just a slightly smaller version of the rubbish-at-summer person I've always been. What I should really have been buying was a sarong, but I couldn't find one of those for love nor money. So, a bikini it is. I now have four days of manically reading articles on lunges and broccoli and trying to be a woman who 'does' holidays instead of merely tolerating them.
Wish me luck. But don't ask to see the photos - there won't be any. Have I ever shown you a photo of me in my bra and pants? Exactly.
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