My Edinburgh Diary - Day 1

Edinburgh diary.

Warning: this is a very thorough diary. Some might say too thorough.

Monday afternoon - left work. Half day. Bought myself a cracking sammich on the way home. Threw some pants, socks, t-shirts and a pair of jeans into mah bag, along with the usuals:- shampoo, deodorant, toothbrush/paste, latest issue of PCZONE, towel. A froods' got to know where his towel is. Got picked up by yorkshiremike, the generous mug who agreed to drive all the way there. Almost from the off, I was a little bit worried about how pleasant/relaxed the journey would be after he'd shouted at the 3rd driver in as many minutes - but i think he noticed me wincing or caught himself doing it, and without me saying word one he assured me he wouldn't be doing that the whole way. I smiled and relaxed a bit. Thankfully, he stayed (fairly) true to his word, and the shoutyness pretty much ended there. We pulled over at the garage for petrol and journey essentials (water, haribo tangfastics and choklit), then headed for the M23.

I forget what we talked about on the way up, but it wasn't much. I'm pretty shit at inducing conversation these days. A fair bit of the journey we just listened to music. (Side note 1 - turns out that that David Bowie fella's got a few decent tracks out. I'd never heard a song of his I particularly liked before, but "god knows i'm good" is a great track, that appeals to my sense of christian guilt, and his translation of "In The Port of Amsterdam" starts a bit boringly, but turns into a truly visceral poetic... uh... "expose(?)" of portside life in ye olden days)

A couple of hours in, and we stopped in London to pick up YM's old housemate, an unassuming chap called Laurie, who instantly endeared himself to me by pulling out another packet of Haribo.

We set off again, t'wards the M1. The conversation turned pretty quickly to soccer, and stayed that way for about an hour. That was fine: I have bugger all to say on the subject (though apparently David Seaman isn't the UK goalie anymore. Fancy.) and it gave me opportunity to stare out of windows and giggle at roadsigns that look a little bit like rude words, but not very much. After the third time YM asked what I was giggling at (I think at a sign that looked a little bit like it said "cat sled", but not very much) I assured him my giggling really isn't worth asking about; if I thought of anything objectively funny or at least coherent I'd let everyone know. We did see a logo on a van for a company called T.T. Pumps, which I hilariously said out loud as 'Titty pumps', but that was about the highlight of my brain's output for the journey.

We pulled into Newcastle at about half seven; YM had organised a half-way-house at a flat belonging to an ex-cuffer ycleped adam, who kindly loaned us his living room for the evening, and him & his gf cooked up a mean carbonara. We smoked, we drank, we discussed what show's they'd seen and what we should see, then the conversation turned to football again. For two hours. This time I minded a bit, 'cos there was nothing to look and giggle at, except a god-awful piece of modern art that looked like a cross between a cityscape, a stained-glass window, and a transparent christmas tree. I stared at it for most of the evening, trying to see something in it, but in the end just concluded it was a bit shit. The artist should've called it 'utterly fruitless search for meaning'.

After the conversation had turned to good topics for a bit and a nice chat about curtains, biscuit-hoarding and extrinsicalism, the 3 of us eventually unpacked our sleeping gear, and set up in the living room for the night. I was a bit nervous about sleeping with company, tbh. I can snore really fracking loudly, and lately I've been waking myself up more and more often by shouting stuff out loud from my dreams. I didn't want to embarrass myself or worry anyone by shouting "fucking die!" in snoozing company (my dreemz can be violent, sry) But fortunately my yap stayed shut. Or it didn't, and whatever I shouted was so embarrassing no-one's said anything.


Anyway - next morning, we showered, shatted and tea-d up, and drove the remaining 3 hrs to Edinburgh . And the drive was a lovely one; the scenery in Scotland really is worth writing home about, assuming like me your home is the internet. We pulled in at a roadside van-cafe for a very reasonably priced 'flat sausage inna bun' and tea. it was so cheap, I smiled and did the Asda 'patting my pocket' action to show what good value it was. I even bought Laurie a cuppa, just to demonstrate that the gift of unprovoked haribo will not go unrewarded.

We got into Edinburgh, and my god - it is probably THE most beautiful city I've ever been to. I seriously considered moving there, and if it wasn't for the srsly shit weather 11 months of the year I'd be even more tempted. The houses are huge, the streets are quiet and quaint, there's a lovely big park, with countryside and sea nearby, and all the amenities you'd expect of a city. But while it was a hot, sunny day, it still managed to rain twice. And I've been assured that's about as good as it gets - October to June is totally freezing and wet. That put me off. But still. Hmm.

On the walk to the hostel, I witnessed something that makes me seem a bit racist but had genuinely never occurred to me before - a black chick with a Scottish accent. That made me happy: this whole "integration" lark's coming along quite well.

With every step, from where we parked the car throughout the 20min walk into town, the plastic strap-ends on my bag squeaked annoyingly all the way. I've had that bag for over 15 years now. It's bright green and looks crap and touristy - so at least it's easy to spot on airport baggage carousels, but the bastard's not torn or broked or frayed or nuffin, so I continue to use it every twatty-looking holiday I go on. This paragraph was boring, sorry.

YM, bless his little mixed-fibre socks, had done a damn good job of finding accommodation: The hostel was in a GREAT location - right near the center of town and round the corner from "Tempting Tatties", the UK's oldest baked potato shop, which will mean something to certain people ;)

We dropped off our bags at the hostel, and wandered into town. I have never seen so many street performers & costumed promoters in one place, nor been handed so many leaflets before in my life. There is so, SO much on - about 3000 shows in 4 weeks - that you could probably fill St Paul's with all the flyers they print up. (Side note 2: Every flyer you get handed has a bit of paper stapled to it with reviews of the show, which gets updated as reviews come out. Unfortunately there are so many organisations, magazines and newspapers reviewing shows, that EVERY show gets at least 4 stars SOMEWHERE. Consequently it's damn hard to know what's going to be good, not least because one mans poetic interpretative dance is another mans load of boring bollocks. You tend to learn what to avoid by word o' mouth though. Newcomers; remember - it's called the 'fringe festival' for a reason, which is a byphrase for "not commercially viable x", where x can stand for "yet", "but it's good/ok", "'cos it won't appeal to a mass-market demographic" or "and nor will it ever be because it's amateurish badly-executed tosh".)

It was an odd little microcosm up there... walking through town with YM ( a 6 year veteran of the festival who thankfully knew the way to almost everything) it seemed like we bumped into someone he knew every 200 yards. At least. It's like the genuine 'general public' are a bit of a minority - it appears that everyone there is either in a show, involved with a show in some capacity, or has a partner/relative in a show. It's like a self-supporting festival, as if Glastonbury was made up entirely of bands all coming to see each other play, with their girlfriends & managers making up the numbers.

This is turning out to be quite a long post, so i think I'll review the actual shows in a separate one, and just waffle about everything else here.

Hmm... So - first thing me and YM do is get some lunch at the City Cafe, an almost 'american diner' style bar, that hands-down serves the tastiest, smokiest bbq sauce I've ever smeared onto my tongue. The fried platter was... well - tasty - nothing amazing, but fried platters have to try pretty hard to be bad. And they got a pool table too!

After 2 pints of diet cola, I was running low on funds, so nipped over the road to a cashpoint - where it spat my card out and said it had been deactivated. Fucking fucksocks. A couple weeks ago, I'd ordered a new card 'coz mine was ftl and I totally confirmed with them that my current card would stay active UNTIL I picked up my new one. Did it fuck. Not a total loss, but damn annoying.

Luckily, the ever-generous YM spared me a bit of cash, but first thing the following morning I went into the branch and withdrew a big wodge of moneh, which it turned out really wasn't nearly enough to pay him back AND enjoy the rest of the festival. Most venues are charging upwards of 3.70 a pint everywhere, the cunts.

Anyway - for the first show, we went to the Underbelly to see a youthful sketch troupe, and Andy Hamilton was in the audience! I do like that chap, and considered asking for an autograph, but I a) didn't have a pen, and b) felt like such a radio4nerd for even knowing who he was that I decided against it. Still though! Celebrities! Eeh!

2nd show we went to see was 'The Lamplighters Lament', at an old converted church???. Then we went to the Pleasance courtyard for a quick pint, and luckily we managed to nab a table with an umbrella, as it started raining the moment we arrive there. Laurie and his sister rejoined us and we discussed the sketch show (which she'd directed) - it had been good, so being complimentary wasn't hard. Always a bonus when you don't have to lie.

At the behest of my friend Laura, and 'cos I'd seen him a couple of times before and he's good, I wandered off on my tod to see Carey Marx at the Stand 2. Thanks to google maps being a bit shit... No - i take that back - thanks to me having a fundamentally different take on which way north was, I wandered about 10 mins out of my way, then realised my mistake, sped up my walking, and got there with just enough time to buy a ticket and a brew. Phew!

After the show, I wandered back towards town and went to Tempting Tatties. And I shit you not - it was absolutely delicious. 2 baked potatoes, orange cheese, tuna salad, butter and pepper - LOADS of food crammed to bursting in a polystyrene tub. And only £3.60 for more than you can finish. T'was a bargain.

I sauntered towards the Underbelly, stuffing spoonfuls of fishy cheesy potato into my mouth all the way, looking incredibly uncouth. I got lost again, and kept going to ask for directions but I must've passed 18 people before I bumped into someone British, let alone Scottish.

Got there with 10mins to spare though so decided to roll a crafty fag. Waiting at the entrance, I saw Wil Hodgson walk in with his gf. 2 D-list celebrities in one day! Also his lady-partner looked exactly like what I expected.

The next show involved 4 Australian chicks. It should've been 5, but one of them is in quarantine with a lung infection, the silly bitch. Those women and their spontaneous lung infections, eh? There was tits and faj in the show so it was ok.

It was past 11, and me, YM, Laurie and his sis wandered along to a bar called The Treehouse, which is kinda trendy 'cos it's pretty low key and there's stuff on ALL DAY. And by stuff, I mean things you would under no circumstances pay to see, but if you're tired and not quite ready for bed but the conversations' lulled and fuck it, it's free and on, then you might as well watch it. We didn't. We ordered drinks and narrowly avoided a reading of a Russian story about a witch that apparently was rich with metaphor, and went upstairs. It looked in every way like your local town hall had just finished a party there. An empty stage strewn with instrument cases and knee-level microphones, the occasional balloon looking unloved and unplayed-with on the floor, and cheap moulded plastic chairs everywhere. Fucking cheap molded plastic chairs. If there's ONE thing I could change about the festival, them'd be it.

It was getting on for 1am, so we decided to see "whatever the fuck was on", which turned out a be a totally nude reinterpretation of the Adam and Eve story, and the bird was one HELL of a hottie. (Un)fortunately, she started off naked, so it didn't really build up to anything, no 'crabbing' or 'splayedy-legged toying with her fagoo', just relentless dialogue and standing with her legs recalcitrantly together. Humph. Btw the dude was naked too, but I barely even noticed that, obviously. Though he had quite a sweaty arse, cos he sat down on one of the painted black blocks on stage, and when he stood up there was a big patch of sweat on the block, and a black imprint of the corner of a square imprinted on right butt cheek for the rest of the show. And then SHE had to sit down in his bum-sweat, with her bare fajoo all on it! Eeewww!

With the hour approaching 2am, we decided to head hostelwards. We rolled a d00b13, passed around outside, and Mike said he fancied at least one more drink somewhere, so him and I left Laurie and went back to the city cafe. I ordered a single-malt, which in retrospect and with foresight I should never (have) order(ed). They're gone in like 5 sips. Lovely stuff, but it really should cost double and come in 100ml measures.

We sat on one of the tables outside so we could smoak, and a couple ladies sat down at the other end; a scot and an english. YM chatted them up with a "what have you been to see" type question, and the only thing they really recommended was The Dirty Brothers, which I made a mental note to see the next day. Turned out the Scot worked in Edinburgh and, as far as i could ascertain, bought things for people, and then - in a cunning twist - sold things for people. I didn't realize life could be so conceptually simple, but there we go.

On the wall next to us was an absolutely mahoosive poster that we collectively spent about 10 minutes analyzing and making up alternative life history's for the protagonist. I think we eventually settled for a Californian Trustafarian with no real talent who could support his world travel, eyebrow plucking, and festival-show-putting-on with his parents money while shagging vapid teenagers and feeling shallow about his whole life, but it went through a few permutations, espeshully once we saw he name.

Eventually the girls left, the frigid lesbians, and we wandered back the quarter-mile to our room. And in the bunk-bed nearest the door, what should there be but 2 nightie-clad 16 year old girls, that I did my very best not to perv over and I walked past and climbed straight into bed. (Side note 3 - I'd earlier predicted they'd be female going solely by the style of their baggage. Yes! Call me Sherlock.)

Euhm, that's it for now. Comin soon! Days 2 and 3! And reviews of the shows I actually saw!