What a bizarre night Wednesday night was…

At around 7pm, I went to catch a bus to get me to the AECC for 8pm, only to find out that the next bus wasn’t due for another forty minutes, so I phoned the father and he ended up taking me there. On the way to the bus stop I saw lights in the sky and chuckled at the thought of them being there for Eddie Izzard.
By the time I got to the AECC, it turned out they were. Oh baby, you so decadent.

I found my seat (nine rows back, sa-weet!) quite quickly and immediately whipped out my phone as I do when I’m alone at gigs, so I can at least pretend to look like I have friends. There were two big screens at the side of the stage, both of which were showing various members of the audience, mainly looking flushed, but one guy started stripping much to the embarrassment of the lady next to him. Several women hid behind handbags, one man did an evil stare. Izzard’s twitter feed was also shown on both of the screens. As I watched messages flood in, I saw one that I’d sent whilst on the way to the gig about the lights posted. This, along with the need to keep my head down and stare at my phone, prompted me to post several more things. It was very strange. At one point, there were only about two other people in my row of seats, so I posted “There’s hardly anybody in my row. Why do you hate me, people of Aberdeen? I’m one of you. One. Of. You.”
By the time this was eventually screened, I had two guys next to me. One of whom read out my message and chortled. I was proud. They did this with another of mine later. There were, and it pains me to admit this, twelve that appeared in total. This would never have happened if I was with people! Well… it would have, but they would have maybe been entertaining… ANYWAY! That’s not the point. For now, I’ll let you know that one of these messages said simply, “STEPHEN!” (and to my delight, some boys a few rows behind me laughed to themselves and said “Just coming!” but in their partner voices.)

Soon the lights went down and there was a trailer for THE EDDIE IZZARD STORY!!! or whatever it is really called, then he came out and I got too excited and just sort of grinned at nobody whilst clapping.
I do not remember how old I was when my sister bought her first Eddie Izzard video, but it was a good good day. He became a massive part of my childhood and love of comedy in ways that I never would have imagined.
Most of the time, this was an excellent thing. I memorised everything he siad and did and when I was possibly about eight or nine years old, I recall acting out his Evil Giraffe (despite not knowing what a herbivore was… I can only imagine we’d not covered that by primary five…) in the playground at school much to the bemused faces of my friends who, again, did not know what the hell I was talking about…

Some other times, however, his teachings which I had taken for absolute truth, would leave me looking like a tit.

In first year, our year head, Mr Gibson (woop!) was taking our Social Ed class for some reason. I assume he was trying to get us motivated and to share things about ourselves with one another as he asked if anybody knew anything about Achilles. I, confident I knew all about this guy from the Izzard, raised my hand and said, “All of his important things were in his heel:  his brain, his liver, his lungs, his spleen…”
Gibson looked confused and said, “…No, uh… not quite… anybody else?”
Curse you, Izzard! But I still loved him. Forever and ever amen. Now back to November 2009, Kirsten. Oh, okay.

So… yeah. He came onstage. I was in awe and wasn’t really concentrating on what he was saying to start with, but caught up eventually. He was looking great. In boy-mode, but with a fantastic jacket on.
I don’t want to give too much away in case anybody reading this is due to see this tour/buy the dvd soon. Except I think there’s only one possibility that that might happen, if my dear sister decides to read this and she is off to see him in Glasgow in a few days time.

Some things I like though…
-Around three minutes into the show, came the first round of applause, but it wasn’t for Eddie. He mentioned something about the moon and how soon there’ll be comedy gigs on the moon. A guy shouted out, “Aye, but there’d be no atmosphere!” and everybody laughed. Everyone loves a well thought-out science related gag. Apparently Izzard didn’t hear it.
-He said “So…yeah”, “action transvestite” and “I’ve said this before, but who goes on holiday in pyjamas?”, all of which made me happy. He even managed to crowbar in a quiet, “Covered in bees.” And nobody whooped at the reference and acted more excited than they were, which I was expecting and not looking forward to. Well done, Aberdeen.
-Mentions of place names in Scotland. Including asking if we get sick of English people coming up and saying ‘Aberdeen’. “You should just make it four ‘e’s in a row, it wouldn’t make a difference.” He pronounced Kirkcaldy correctly (incidentally, “Kirkcaldy correctly” is a fun little phrase to say).
-Very very funny animal mimes and dinosaur impressions. Hooray!
-He mentioned Valkyrie and how he really enjoyed the end product because it was a film that English kids and German kids could both watch together and see both of their sides try and fight the nazis. A woman shouted “Stop plugging!” He didn’t hear her, then figured out what she said and said, “I’m not plugging! I’m just saying that it’s a good film ‘cos it shows that there were Germans trying to stop the nazis too! …So fuck off!”
Everyone applauded again and a man at the back went, “Waaaaaaaarrrrrggh!” or something similar. Eddie looked bemused. Just before the interval, he said, “Go get a drink, go to the toilet, maybe knife a few people…” pointing in the direction of the rubbish hecklers.

After the show, I checked my phone and had a text from Paul which said “JUST COMING!”. I hadn’t realised he was at the gig so texted him to find out where he was, bought some things, went to the bathroom and then left. I took a photo of one of the massive, excessive Eddie Izzard: Stripped trucks and slowly walked to the barriers where several people were waiting to meet the man himself. I wanted to stay behind and wait, but again, was weirdly self-conscience about being by myself. I heard a guy next to me talk to one of the security women about how he was studying journalism. He was very charming. A few people left and the makeshift queue moved down a bit. It was here that I heard, “Kirsten!” and saw Paul with two of his friends. Huzzah! Someone to stand with! I knew I woulda hated myself forever if I’d left then found out that Paul had met the guy. At around 11.30pm, three security guys came out. One, being followed by the other two, said “If you’d just like to come with me…” and everyone walked after them. I presumed he was talking to us and not just the guys he was with. What a faux-pas that would have been! They led everyone inside, which was strange, and for the second time in a week, I hoped I wasn’t going to be kidnapped. There were about twenty of us by this time and we walked into a side door of the AECC to a corridor that I recognised from my brief stint as part of the waiting staff there. The door directly in front of us as we walked in led to the arena and there was another to the left which led backstage.  People began queueing again and we stood by the backstage door where we believed to be the end of the queue as we figured if he was going to do a similar thing to the queen, he’d go down the line and spend most time with the people at the end. Clever, eh? Just as we were plotting this, Izzard came out of the door right next to us and we were the only ones to notice him at first in his little anorak (first StewLee in one, now Eduardo) so let out a little “Heyyy!”. Then everybody else caught on and came over cheering.
He said that he was very tired and if it was okay by us, he’d do a little Q&A for us. Wow! He said to take photos and videos and whatever we liked, so I did, just to prove how close we were to him, if anything…

I also took a video of him talking briefly about transvestism and doing films, but it was on my phone and the memory started to go because my phone is terrible, so it only lasts around 2minutes 30seconds and the woman in front of me’s head kept getting in the way, but I’ll try upload it someday.
There was a guy recording the whole thing, but it was also on his phone, so if it does end up on youtube, the quality might be a bit rubbish.
He spoke about bits of the show that change every night, how one of the ideas he kept returning to that night had spawned from being onstage two nights before and how he likes to talk to hecklers, but it really slows the show down if responds to people who just make noises and he can’t hear. He also mentioned that he’d seen at the interval on Twitter what the “no atmosphere” guy had said (I think I may have been this Twitter-nerd, Twerd?), apparently he’d only heard the word “atmosphere” and thought the guy having a dig at that show despite it only being a few minutes in… until everyone laughed and applauded. He mentioned the woman who said “Stop plugging!” and asked if it annoyed people when he spoke about Valkyrie, which I thought was very sweet, but nobody got to answer because a guy at the back shouted, “She’s here!” and the woman who had shouted it looked embarrassed, apologised and said she she was only joking… and it was her birthday!
He finished off after about half an hour, which I think was just lovely of him and people started clambering over to shake his hand. I ended up doing that thing that I always seem to do whenever I meet someone I adore but don’t want to interrupt anybody else and was hovering by his right elbow. A girl had a massive poster of Steve McQueen for him to sign which he seemed bemused by. As she looked for a pen, I politely (I must stress that I’m always very polite. Always. All the time. You prick.)  stepped in and asked for a quick photo in a very apologetic manner. He obliged and we both stared at my phone at the end of my outstretched arm… it didn’t flash, so I checked the screen, “Camera in use by another application”. I let out far too loud a “What?! No it’s not! What does that mean?” Eddie looked frightened. Whilst I tried to sort it out, several others came and spoke to him, hugged him and shook his hand. Again, even more politely and apologetically, I said “Sorry Eddie, I’ve got it working, can we try again?”
He said yes again and I expected him to look irritated in the photo which did take this time, but no!
The Twat In The Hat could not hide her delight at standing next to her hero.

What a diamond. I don’t even mind that I look hilarious.
That’s one more off the list. Would have quite liked to tell him about the Achilles thing but alas, he had to head to Cardiff and I didn’t want other people to not have a chance to speak to him, so  said, “Come back soon, Eddie!” and left as he said, “Okay, I’ll try.”

I walked home. I was a bit too excited, so didn’t know what music to listen to or care, but put shuffle on. LCD Soundsystem. So I stuck with them. I ended up walking home in thirty minutes when it usually takes around an hour. Excitement! Adrenaline! Izzard! I planned on watching lots of his dvds when eventually arriving home, but instead I ended up speaking to dad into the wee small hours and just went to bed.

I am still very excited.

On Thursday, I wandered around town, ended up being passive-aggresive via text and then meeting Baz to continue my wanderings but with company. We met up again later, bought some gin and sauntered to Rory’s house, where, again he had bought fireworks. We feared for our lives, but only ended up with a near death experience, once! Hurrah! One of the fireworks was supposed to explode in the sky, but was stuck too deeply into the ground and so exploded in the garden. Terrifying, but if it didn’t happen, we’d worry…
Bazzles, Amber, John and myself  left quite early. John was very drunk. I’m glad he never actually attempted to light a cigarette off of a firework and instead stuck to doing it from a sparkler.

The last line in my dream before I was awoken at 7.40am was “I broke a mirror. Let the bad luck start now…” It was appropriate. Unlucky to be up at such a miserable hour. But it was for a good cause! We set off to the train station to catch ours to Edinburgh. It turned into a bus…
The journey was alright though. I don’t mind buses. As you may know, I only hate them if they last more than twelve hours and claim to be “MEGA!!!”
We met up with my dear sister and then Clara and quickly had some food before heading off to Caroline Castigliano to try on wedding dresses. Immediately, I noticed Chaka Khan’s ‘I’m Every Woman’ (not to be confused with Barack Obama’s version) was being played. “How appropriate! I bet they have some kind of YOU GO GIRL!!! playlist.” How wrong I was. It was just that one song. On repeat. For the whole time we were there.
Other than that, though, it was funtimes. Morven tried on quite a few dresses and looked looovely in every single one, but was torn between one that was quite floaty and another that was very vintage-looking and lacy. The delightful laydeez who worked their wrote up the details of the lacy one for her and sent us on our way. Then we saw the price of it and deflated a bit. Yikes. It wasn’t that nice anyway… [insert fist bite here]
We went for cake at Kilimanjaro again. Yes, actual Kilimanjaro, not just a coffee shop called Kilimanjaro. Then we went back to the dress shop we’d gone to a few months ago for another appointment.
The sister tried on a few more dresses, including a huuuge one that we all were in awe of, but it wasn’t right. Then she tried on the one she really loved last time and we had a winner. Floaty AND lacy! She looked wonderful too. But veil? No veil? Who knows!
The deposit for it was made and we left with high spirits and went to find father for some food.

A successful day! Hooray! And it wasn’t stressful at all.
Again, it felt like we’d barely arrived before we had to leave, but we got to the station and got on an actual train! To Dundee… but a train nonetheless! Fortunately, there was another to Aberdeen at Dundee, so we didn’t have to catch another bus.

This has been long and far-too-detailed and probably full of typos, but I cannot be bothered to back and check at the moment. For now, I’ll leave you with something spectacular I first saw last night. Not strictly ethical, but a must-see. I found myself pretty emotionally-attached to the goat by the end…
Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, I give to you, A Monkey Riding A Goat On A Tightrope. Watch right to the end…
G’night!

COMMENCE BORING, FAR-TOO-DETAILED SUMMARY OF THE WEEK!!!

Picking up where we left off, Question Time was hilarious. But that was SO two weeks ago, so eff that ess, girlfriend. I don’t remember what I did the day after. It was a Friday. I’m going to guess I planned my day around Peep Show (which wouldn’t be hard to do as it wasn’t on until 10pm).

Saturday saw the return of the closest tv show to perfection of recent year (okay, it shares that title with Peep Show. Peep Show. Peep Show… PS: Peep Show) – The Thick Of It. And it was on BBC2! GASP! It was, as predicted, very very very very good. I love Peter Capaldi hard. There is much much more to him than being the king of creative-swearing, but have Tucker’s Law anyway as it beautiful… (But don’t play it, if you are offended by the use of various f and c-bombs.)

If someone would like to embroider that onto a tea towel for me, that’d probably be the greatest christmas present I have ever and will ever receive. Jus’ sayin’…

Two days later, I was coerced into seeing Michael McIntyre at the AECC. I’ve always had a confused view on this man. My first encounter of him was (I think) when he was on Mock the Week or something. He seemed very stupid and sometimes stupidity offends me, but usually only if it comes from posh men who think they’re funny. For some reason, though, I nearly ended up seeing him in Edinburgh last year. I suppose I must have deemed him ‘passable’ by this point. My mother received his dvd as a christmas present last year and after I’d watched everything I owned and had become increasingly bored, I ended up watching it. At the time, I was ashamed to say I laughed. Lots. It was hard not to, he’s like a drunk child. By this point, I had decided that he was ‘okay’. This was the most I was willing to admit to to anybody who wasn’t a close friend or a family member.
Anyway, the gig on Monday was peculiar. The only comedy I believe I’ve ever seen at the AECC was the Mighty Boosh, so I didn’t really know what to expect. We had good seats though and there was a massive screen behind him for those who didn’t have such a good view. He was very funny and exceedingly amiable. It’s just nice to see a stand-up enjoying themself so much onstage. But I imagine anyone would if they were raking in the cash-dollars as much as he must be.

An exciting week for cinema-ing too. On Wednesday, Bazzles, Biggle, Amb…les and myself inexplicably decided to go see Michael Jackson’s This Is It, which I keep calling Is This It by mistake. It was two freaking hours long… but nice to have a sing-song in the dark, I guess. Never been much of a fan, but the show looked like it was going to be extravagant theatrical piece of genius, so it’s quite irritating that he died. Bah!
We also went to see Fantastic Mr Fox. I had no intention of going to see this as it just seemed all weird to me. Wes Anderson? Foxy not being an English dandy? Wrong, wrong, wrong. But I went along anyway and found myself enjoying it. GASP #2! And I’d forgotten Jarvis was in it, so that was good. Nice soundtrack and by the end, even Clooney/Mr Fox’s annoying little whistle and click wasn’t making me angry. I left feeling… positive. What’s wrong with me?

On Thursday, I ended up working Janet’s shift as she’d covered for me on Monday. I decided that before going in at 5, I’d quickly check out the new shopping centre that had just opened, Union Square. Holy eff. It was huge. I was not expecting that. I didn’t go into any of the shops as it was packed, but I had a wander round for about 10 minutes, got bored and headed to work early. I struggled to get a bus afterwards. I hate First Bus. Forever and ever with all my heart.

Friday was the most Halloween-y I’ve ever been. I’ve hated this fake-holiday since I was little. I was a Scrooge-child. I would go out, but I’d never enjoy it. The strangers round here didn’t ever have good sweets. And they did genuinely want to give me sweets as opposed to wanting to kidnap me. Poor show. Last year, things started to look up. In fact, on this very blog, I wrote “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m opposed to this day as much as any sane person, but being allowed to legally drink has brightened it up a bit.”
I think this also comes from a fondness of zombie-films and classic horrors. New horror films seem to be mainly psychological balls. Give me a zombie or a werewolf anyday.
Anyhoo, yes. I’d noticed that An American Werewolf In London was showing at the new Cineworld at Union Square at 11.20pm, so decided to buy tickets. I went to get them quite early in case they sold out (this turned out to be pointless as it was terrible weather, so hardly anybody turned up). I was waiting for a bus from 4.20 until around 4.50 and when I eventually got onto one, I just read a book. I didn’t realise that soon I was the only person left on the bus, until the driver asked where it was I was going. “Uhh… Bridge Street?” I replied. He said, “Oh, good, I can take a shortcut.” I feared for my life.
In the end, he didn’t take any shortcuts, but instead turned on the ‘Sorry, Not In Service’ sign. It was quite exciting. I got into town at 5.20 and had bought our tickets by 5.30, then got on a bus home at 5.40. Amazing. Twenty minutes in town.

Baz came round to mine for a chinese and we watched the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre which always seems much funnier when you watch it with someone else. I also realised that Eddie Argos looks like a much skinnier, not-at-all annoying version of Franklin…

We also watched Shaun of the Dead and then Supernanny (terrifying) while we waited to hear from Amber to see if she was planning on accompanying us to the cinema. We hadn’t heard from her by around 10.30, so presumed she wasn’t coming and caught a bus in the pishing rain. The centre was pretty deserted, but I guess that’s to be expected at 11pm.
The trailers started and while it attempted to play the new one for Wolfman, the screen froze and the sound jumped which made for funny stills. As this was happening, I was convinced that the people in the projection room were being mauled by zombies and that there was some sort of apocalypse happening outside.
Some staff came in and apologised and said they were going to reset. We saw the trailers again, then the Wolfman one came on and got further than it had the first time, then froze again.

More staff came in, said that it was clearly just that one trailer that was messing up, so were just going to play the film. I’d forgotten how excellent An American Werewolf In London is and it’s even better on a big screen. It went without a hitch… until the very last scene when the sound went completely, but the film kept playing. Everyone was giggling in a very British “Hooray for things going wrong!” way and the guys behind us provided their own voiceovers which consisted mainly of…
“David… is… is that you?”
“Raaaaaawr! Yes! I’m a werewolf!”
Very funny. Most definitely one of the strangest cinematic experiences I’ve ever had. We ended up getting free tickets to any other film. I plan on taking my mother out to see something soon.
We caught a taxi and got home at around 2.30am. An enjoyable eve.
Incidentally, I did eventually get to see the trailer that kept effing up. Here you go…

Did that crash your computer? DID IT?! (It didn’t crash mine. Sad times, I thought it might genuinely be cursed.)

Saturday was dull. I spent most of it tired and ill. I didn’t go out, my phone broke and we had no tiny children at our door demanding sweets. I’m pretty sure we haven’t had for the past three years or so. Time to give up the dream of being a child-catcher and become a writer instead. Although this blog has been so poorly written that perhaps I should give up that dream too.

Yesterday was Sunday. I woke up feeling like death, but went to work like a good’un. It dragged due to feeling fluey. I’ve had a few times over the past few weeks where I’ve felt like you do when you’ve got flu starting without it actually developing into anything. Infuriating. I got home, went to bed in the hope that I could go out if I felt better, but ended up still feeling shit so stayed home. I ended up being sick at around 10.30 and definitely thinking I had Swine Flu. Woke up today and felt much the same, but took some Benilyn and watched four episodes of Adam and Joe Go Tokyo in bed and am now feeling a little better. Again, I’m going to go to work. I am such an effing trooper, buy me things.

Another thing you should definitely do is check out a new comic called The Abortion by my lovely lovely friend Jamie (or Jamie Jamie: the artist formerly known as Big Jamie on this here blog).

Seriously, check out the blog and order yourself a copy. But remember, it’s FOR ADULTS ONLY! No, Little Timmy, no! Oh, go on then, you scamp, you need to learn about walking abortions sometime…

Until next time: take care and watch out for zombies.

What better way to celebrate tomorrow’s pointless holiday than with a Halloween Spotify playlist?
I wanted to make one that did not include ‘Thriller’ or ‘The Monster Mash’. As good as they are, they seem to appear on every Halloween mix ever made… ever.
I started off looking for songs that genuinely make me shudder, but could only come up with ‘Little Susie’ which has freaked me out since I was a child and ‘What’s He Building In There?’ which needs no explanation, so I decided to open it up a bit and include some Scooby Doo-esque spookiness.
I hope you enjoy it… and my purposefully crap-looking (yeah, it’s on purpose… ahem… Well, what can you do with MS Paint?) album cover…

1. Henry Hall – Hush, Hush, Hush (Here Comes The Boogie Man)
2. Michael Jackson – Little Susie/Pie Jesu
3. Thomas Truax – In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)
4. The Cramps – Save It
5. Gary Numan – RIP (Gary Mix)
6. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand
7. Marilyn Manson – This Is Halloween
8. The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster – Drunk On The Blood
9. The Cure – Subway Song
10. Franz Ferdinand – Jeremy Fraser
11. Elvis Costello – I Want You
12. The Horrors – Excellent Choice
13. Blur – Far Out
14. Screaming Lord Sutch – Jack The Ripper
15. Tom Waits – What’s He Building In There?

To listen, click ANYWHERE on this line. Really. Anywhere. And go on then, anywhere on this next line too. See? Amazing!

Take it, switch off the lights and have a listen. Then let me know what you think.

Thank you to my sister and my father for suggestions. My father will never read this. I really wanted to put on more Nick Cave as he is Master Of The Fright, but there were too many songs.

That fake-book post seems to have brought in an overwhelming number of views. I may now have to, not unlike the BBC, censor my content or the record number of hits could become a record number of complaints.

I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

I was out of action at the start of the week with throat-death but still soldiered on to work. What a trooper! Sunday was enjoyable. And I managed to shock Lee, or Captain Filth. This was before we opened at 10.30am too, so I felt after that, I deserved to take the rest of the day off. I didn’t though… because of the whole being-a-trooper thing I mentioned earlier. Then on Tuesday night, he turned up and I managed to freak him out again. I am apparently the only person who has ever done this. I am quite proud.

I had a productive day on Tuesday (ie: I was up before 9am). I met up with Amber at 10.30ish and we caught a bus into town, took lots of photos and went in search of good comics. At 1pm, we went to Slains and sat with lemonade and resisted ordering food until Garry and chums arrived. Amber was worried about meeting him as I’d shown her some of his artwork on his blog, which is amazing (You heard me, Milne: AMAZING.) and she was threatened. I think this made him blush. It was sweet.
We ate some lunch and I led the way to Retrospect, which is a shop I often forget about despite it being ace. There’s always at least one garish top, but I will still always want to buy it. This week’s one was a bright orange and black one that looked a bit like the top half of a wetsuit. Garry and I mused over what the bottom half would be like. Yikes.
All too soon, I had to make my way to work, so I bid the lovely boy a good day and head to work, but not before promising again to get down to Dundee to visit him soon. I am rubbish, so haven’t been down and I’ve been saying it for nearly a year now. Therefore, this December I will definitely go down and if I don’t, he has the right to do a complicated boogie along my spine (is it obvious I’m listening to Jarvis’ ‘Further Complications’ right now?) .

This week in the cinema, I have seen Couples Retreat and Zombieland. The former I mainly went to see due to Serafinowicz being in it, who was brilliant. Zombieland was also far too good. I forgot how much I love Woody Harrelson, that crazy vegan! Also, as I had been led to believe beforehand, the cameo in it is spectacular. I’m shocked that I managed to avoid finding out who it was before seeing it.
It was Laura and I who went to Zombieland and we got to experience one of our five-a-day adrenaline rushes: social awkwardness. As per usual, other people were sitting in our seats when we arrived at the screen. Easy enough procedure, I’m usually more than happy to ask the people to move, but this time I was very tired and saw they were being occupied by loud, smelly rugby boys. I didn’t feel up to confronting them, so we sat in the seats directly behind them, in the knowledge that if we were sitting in someone else’s seats, we’d either a) say, “Oh, I’m sorry!” and move further down the row or b) do some fake acting and exclaim, “Oh, are we? I’m sure we’re… oh, no wait, we’re D10 and 11! D! Sorry about that!”
The trailers were due to start at 9.10pm, so when that time came, the screen was still pretty empty, so we reasoned we might not have been sat in anyone else’s seats. As soon as we voiced this to each other, the screen started to fill up. Every time someone walked up the steps, we’d start nervously laughing. It was tense. We were pathetic. People kept continuing up the stairs and we’d breathe a sigh of relief until more people came in. Baz was killing herself laughing silently at how rubbish we are. I told her that extreme sports can eff off, social awkwardness is more exhilarating. We really are goons.
Today I was back at das Kino with Keri. It seemed all that was on was Love Happens, which looks so so boring and unoriginal and… Jennifer Aniston-y that I’d rather splash acid onto my face, and the Invention of Lying, which I’d seen already. Fortunately, Keri hadn’t, so we got to avoid Love Happens. Hurrah!
I’ve still not seen UP and I really want to. Not in 3D though, I don’t want to have to pay to see it. Imagine!

A thing I learned this week is that there is actually an English word for schadenfreude. It is ‘epicaricacy’. This is exciting if you’re a nerd like me. But you probably already knew it.

What else did I want to ramble about?
…OH! Again, at work this week, Scott began to compile a list of books about time travel. I recommended Stevie Fry’s ‘Making History‘ and in return, he showed me one he’d found on his Wikipedia list of Time Travel novels, ‘Time After Time‘ purely because it’s about Jack the Ripper… who gets hold of a time machine and goes to San Francisco in 1979. Amazing!

It dawned on him that he’d actually seen the film of this. I told Kerry about it last night and we’ve concluded we need to get a copy of it. It could be the new Deidre Hall Story for Speccy Nerdy Fucknuts Film Club.
Apparently the sequel to Time After Time is released next year and is called ’Jaclyn the Ripper’. The premise: “H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper through time again—only Jack has transmogrified into a beautiful woman.” Wow. I have ordered the first book off Amazon. It’s going to be terrible, I can’t wait.
Find out more about Karl Alexander here and the books the Library Journal praised as “Quite readable.” WOW! 

In other news, I’m sad that I’m not at Karaoke Circus tonight. Especially as this time last year, I was in old London town and it’d be good to be there in October again. But on the plus side, it means I get to watch Nick Griffin on Question Time. Someone on the Aberdeen Music site had pasted the email he sent to his idiots onto the site, but was keen to point out that, as a very very anti-BNP man, the email was not sent to him:

“Fellow British Patriot

Question Time is scheduled for 10.35pm tomorrow evening (Thursday) and will be a milestone in the indomitable march of the British National Party towards saving our country.
Our violent opponents on the far Left have promised to lay siege and barricade the studio venue, because they know only too well that this could be THE key moment that propels the BNP into the big time.
Never before have we had the chance to present our patriotic, common sense solutions to Britain’s nightmare situation to the public at large in such a prominent fashion.
However, members and supporters must be aware that this show will be a stage-managed farce organised in a specific way to leave several impressions:
The audience will be hand-picked and overtly hostile – thus giving the impression that the British people at large must be hostile to BNP views.
The panellists will be overtly hostile, even the non-political guests will be hostile. Everyone will be hostile – this will leave the impression to non-informed viewers that BNP views have minority status.
I will, no doubt, be interrupted, shouted down, slandered, put on the spot, and subject to a scrutiny that would be a thousand times more intense than anything directed at other panellists.
It will, in other words, be political blood sport.
But I am relishing this opportunity, and I know that, despite the stage-managed hostile audience and panellists, YOU, the ordinary members, supporters and voters of the BNP, will be in the studio with me as I take on the corrupt, treacherous swine destroying our beautiful island nation.

Yours sincerely for Britannia

Nick Griffin MEP

Chairman, BNP”

Riiiight… Of course, anyone who opposes him on tv is doing so purely to “sex up” the show, aren’t they? Those sexy filthy-lefty slags! It couldn’t possibly be because they disagree with him and everything he stands for- don’t be ridiculous!
I sort of feel sorry for him a bit if he really thinks this is going to be “THE key moment that propels the BNP into the big time“
Poor, deluded little Fat Hitler.
My favourite part is probably, “our patriotic, common sense solutions to Britain’s nightmare situation“. Common sense. Forgive me, readers, but: LOL. When did he turn into the Pub Landlord?
And when did he think it was acceptable to interrupt two guys just hanging out and having coffee..?

What a dick.

Recently, we’ve been noticing strange things afoot in the shop. For a number of weeks now, we have been discovering library books that have found themselves on our shelves with fake covers on them which in no way relate to what’s inside. Some of them are brilliant.

I apologise for the picture quality, I took these in a rush at work yesterday…

Rolf Harris Explains The Uncanny Valley.

12 Good Reasons For Giving Up Hope.
The cover of this is just black. Inside, the actual book is an old edition of Darwin’s Origin of the Species.

Harrison Ford’s Guide To Loneliness.

And my personal favourite…

The Wrong Towel Can Kill.

As far as I’m aware, they’re not doing us any harm. The original books that are inside aren’t from our shop, so nobody’s messing with stock. These things cropping up just brighten the days!
If I caught anyone doing it, I’d be tempted to turn the other way and let them get on with it.
Whoever you are, I salute you.

It has been a slow week.
It has been a slow couple of weeks. Repetition does that to you. (Repetition does that t–ah, what’s the point?)

As they’ve all been pretty similar, there’s no real reason to say anything about them… also the fact that I cannot remember much has something to do with it. All I know is that I’ve been working and I have appear to have acquired numerous blisters. Why do shoes always hate me? It’s never a case of breaking in your shoes to allow them to become more comfortable, it always ends up that you have to break in your own feet.
This is a good argument for having the earth made entirely out of bouncy castle material… inflated, obviously.  

I had a job interview today. I was very early so walked around for a bit. Then it started to rain so I took shelter as I had no umbrella. I was not nervous in the slightest. My interview was at 10am so I turned up ten minutes before to find that the manager was running late. “At least I’m indoors…” I thought. Then I felt a bit like a tramp. There were three women who worked there and they were all talking about nights out and Halloween and previous Halloween outfits. I felt very out of place. 
The manager turned up at 10.10 and we spoke for roughly half an hour. She was very friendly and lovely and I stumbled on a couple of questions, but it was mainly okay. I didn’t realise there’d be a maths quiz, but I rolled with it and guesstimated my ass off. She revealed that there had been over 100 applicants for the position. It was here that I really figured I’d no hope in hell of actually getting the job, but I’m feeling okay about it. Only moderately trapped. I’ve been feeling so good these past few months, but recently, I’ve started to realise how fucked I could be unless I get another job or just something to occupy my time. It’s just me being dramatic and I’ll be okay in a few days. I just knew that weird, uncharacteristic positivity couldn’t last. At the same time, I know this ridiculous even-more-pessimistic-than-normal thing must surely wear off soon.

I went round to Baz’s tonight and we had a chinese (I went for something different from normal, it was disappointing. If you have a traditional order, stick with it) and watched some dvds and tv. Tonight (without Trevor McDonald) was all about people winning the lottery, it judged the deserving and the not-so. People were talking about winning ten million pounds. That would be good, but I just cannot begin to comprehend how anybody could have that much money. When it reaches a certain point, it may as well be infinite. It’d be nice, but I’d go insane. Not spending-wise, just by trying to figure out how to do so.

I’d be happy with a mere five grand though. If anyone wants to donate, send a cheque along with a stamp addressed envelope and I’ll mail you something pretty in return as a thank you.

I nearly got hit by a car tonight.

It is as dramatic as I’d like to make out but also entirely my fault. This is in no way a plea for sympathy, I’m just writing it down so that I remember. I panicked upon seeing my bus coming and ran out in front of it. All of a sudden it was right by my side, in fact I felt it as the driver did an emergency stop, everything went slow, I said “SHIT!” and then made the decision to stop looking at it and continue running across the road, all the while shouting, “That was not clever. That was not a good idea.”
Like I say, entirely my own fault. I felt very very guilty for the driver. I know the feeling of being in a car when someone’s had to break suddenly for some prick who has run out in front of them. I did not like the idea of inevitably being the subject of the driver’s rage that evening.

It turned out it wasn’t even my bus that had arrived. I was strangely calm and felt it was just the adrenaline shot I needed. I knew that later on, I’d freak out.
I went to the Globe where my dad’s band were playing.
My sister arrived and I told her and it hit me, so had a tiny freak-out while Paul sang ‘Losing My Religion’. I didn’t actually get hit but there is no god.

I’m good now though. The past few weeks have been a blur of podcasts and work. Podcasts I enjoy that you may also like include Robin Ince’s Show and Tell/Utter Shambles, Collings and Herrin, Paul Foot and Adam and Joe.
Many lovely people on Twitter have been suggesting more for me to listen to. Garry has recommended ‘Little Atoms‘. I’m excited to get listening as it seems right up my metaphorical alley.
I would like to learn more about science. Everytime I listen to lots of what Robin Ince says I get inspired to do so. I’m going to buy some Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman books and get properly educated. I am starting here due to Ince’s science talks in Edinburgh being called ‘Carl Sagan Is My God, Oh And Richard Feynman Too’. I am simplistic, but eager for knowledge.
There is only so much I can learn from Histor and Pliny…

Tuesday nights are strange. I work at this time and I’ve grown used to the fact that it, during the last hour, gets eerily quiet (which I do quite enjoy). I’m only in for three hours on a Tuesday, 5pm until we close at 8pm. (Incidentally, not many people realise we’re open until 8pm four nights a week. Presumably this is because we’re more of a walk away from our bredrin in the shopping centre down the road who close at 6pm… layabouts!)  Typically, nights pass with nothing out of the ordinary happening. It’s often so quiet that we easily finish what we need to do and can keep each other amused by telling stories.
Last night, for each hour I worked, I encountered one eccentric customer, like a retail version of A Christmas Carol. I am using the term ‘eccentric’ lightly as I can’t think of a better word. I wouldn’t like to say ‘peculiar’ because the last one especially was just a normal person, but just whose honesty I don’t encounter often. I also wouldn’t like to say ‘mental’ as I don’t believe this phrase is socially acceptable and anyway, that only applies to the first one… ‘Memorable’ is probably best.
I should just get on with explaining and then you can see why I’m struggling to describe them adequately, whilst at the same time remaining polite.

At around 5.30pm, there wasn’t much to do. I stood behind the till with Joss waiting for a man hovering by our humour section to come and let us scan his books (not a euphemism). A woman in a brown suede jacket walked by and glared briefly at Joss. We looked at each other with furrowed brows of bemusement as she continued walking. Later, she returned to the till and asked me where she’d find travel books. She had a thick eastern european accent and one very sharp front tooth. I took her up to the travel section (not a euphemism), then she asked me where our religious books were kept so I took her there too.
“Where are the bibles?” she questioned.
“Just this bottom shelf here…” I answered.
It was then that she spotted the Art of Happiness which looks like this…

She began to laugh hysterically. I hovered awkwardly as I do around seven times a day at the bookshop, not too sure if I should leave or not. She turned to me, pointed at the Dalai Lama’s face and said, “His face… it looks like a bible, don’t you think?”
“Uh… okay…” I replied.
Then she finished up with the very profound and not at all ill-informed exclamation, “They’re so clever, those Indian people…”
I just stared at her bewildered as she looked at the bibles. I then walked away.

The second person came in whilst Janet and I were at the till. A woman with straggly hair and glasses asked us if there was a science talk happening. I told her she was probably after the other shop as they deal with all these types of events, we’re the squares who don’t put on anything interesting like that. Janet had gone off to track down Lee to see if he had any more information by this point, but the woman had pulled out a brochure from her bag (not a euphemism) and found the talk she was after listed. Here she noticed that it was in fact happening the next day and kept banging on about how stupid she was. Eventually she went to leave, shaking her head and said “I’m so thick! …I’m dyslexic.”
Neither Janet or myself knew if she was joking or not but both made the split-second decision that it was probably best to take her seriously and we both sort of smiled and nodded. Janet even said “That’s okay!” as she had been during the woman’s claims of stupidity. As she walked away, she turned and said “I’m not dyslexic.” and left. Perplexing.

The third memorable customer of the night again approached the till. Oddly enough, he too was after the talk at the shop down the road. We explained to him that he was a day early and that it was at the other store. He laughed this off and told us how he’d run past that shop believing it to be the wrong one. He was a very sweet guy and asked how it all worked. Lee, who has joined us from down there, filled him in on how the night typically goes. The man asked what sort of age range of the people who went were and if it was a good place to meet new people.
It was here that he said heartbreaking, “I just want to get out of the house and meet new people because I split up with my wife recently and to be honest with you, I’m not taking it very well and have been feeling incredibly lonely…” My first reaction was to nervously laugh due to not being used to strangers being this open with me, but I fought it and again, smiled encouragingly and nodded. He left, hopefully, feeling positive due to Lee explaining that it’s a nice night out.

Now, I never would have thought that working in a bookshop would draw up such intriguing characters who can make you scratch your head, grin like a buffoon or feel inordinately sad at the drop of a hat. With the highs come the lows, I guess.
My worst ever experience was when a very timid woman came up and quietly said, “Excuse me, I was just wondering if you had any books on how to cope with losing a baby…” I immediately wanted to burst into tears. I felt numb for the rest of the day just thinking about how terrible the whole thing was and that this woman had to turn to a book to help her get through a horrendous time. I realised this might not have been the case. She may have had people around her who were looking after her and helping her and perhaps a book was just that extra bit of security she needed. It’s hard not to jump to conclusions in certain cases, but also very hard to remain detached from certain things.
Who knows, though? Perhaps the lonely man and the not-really-dyslexic woman will get together. That would be nice.

I like to write these encounters down in case I forget…

Again I’m getting blog-guilt for neglecting this page, but I’ve genuinely not done anything interesting or uninteresting enough that I can put a exaggerated negative spin on for your perusal.

I turned nineteen last Tuesday. As I do with every birthday, I immediately felt glad to be shot of that wanker, Eighteen. Even though it was a very good year and I was glad to finally be able to sit reading in pubs hassle-free, I feel this age may be better because now when people ask how old I am, they won’t have the thought of “Oh, you’re a new adult now!”, they’ll have to think, “Oh, you’ve been an adult for over a year now!”
I can guarantee that on my 20th birthday, I’ll make some “Oh thank god I’m not a teenager anymore, this last year has been unbearable!”

Last week, or birthday week, was relatively quiet. I did, however, manage to eat out every day. On Sunday, I felt a bit blue and so Pete made it his task to keep me entertained. I said that it was maybe due to the fact that my birthday was coming up. He seemed impressed that I was getting so old so early on in my life. The fact that this cheered him up only depressed me more. Mommy, am I normal?
I also worked the whole day on Monday and 5-8pm on my actual birthday. I’d not been sleeping much for a few days and I thought that after nineteen years on the planet I’d be granted a lie-in, but no. I woke up at 7.30am and didn’t go back to sleep. The father helped me tune my new tv and I listened to Terry Wogan’s breakfast show for the first time in ages. He announced he was quitting the day before though. Wogan, not my dad.
At around 11, me and mother went to the cinema. I’d gone with John, Amber, Laura and Mark to see 500 Days Of Summer the night before, but it was the only thing showing at 11.30 on a Tuesday morning, so we saw it again. It is a sweet little film, though, so I didn’t mind. The soundtrack is very familiar too. I think it all already lives in my iPod… We went for lunch afterwards and it was very relaxed and lovely. I do really like it when I can go out with my mother for the day. I felt a bit bad that I was working in the evening though, and so, couldn’t have a meal with dad there too, but we said we’d do something on Wednesday night instead, so that was fine. I needed to go back to the bookshop and pick up something I had set aside for my sister and send her it along with other things as a late birthday present. I went in and everyone wished me a happy birthday and Dawn gave me a little bag with dinosaurs on it and chocolates in which I thought was especially lovely. It was apparently because she felt bad that I had to work on my birthday and also because she’d kept me late a few times when she had to lock up. I told her not to be silly, but graciously accepted anyway. We made our way up to the post office, I posted Morven’s things and then wondered what to do for an hour before work. My mother went home and I decided I’d just go into work an hour early. There was a nice atmosphere though and Julie had bought me a Dip-Dab (pronounced Dib-Dab by everyone, though). I sat with Jenny for a bit and people kept coming down to grab things but I distracted them. Apologies, The Man. Soon everyone but Dawn and Janet left and we worked, or tried to, but it was Irritating Customer Hour apparently and we were kept on our toes.
We finished at 8 and were out by 8.15pm which was quite an achievement. I’d had a call from Rory to say that John’s gig was sold out. I’ve now realised I’ve not actually mentioned that, but John was going in for Scottish Comedian of the Year at Snafu and as it started at 8, they didn’t get in. I met Rory, Stuart and Jamie at Triple Kirks instead where we were photographed by a man from the Evening Express. I wanted to shout “Can’t you people leave me alone?!” but didn’t have the balls. Baz picked us up after about 20 minutes and we went to Tesco for supplies then back to her’s. I felt bad for hardly seeing my dad all day so went home for half an hour and opened the cards that had arrived that morning. Then it was back to Casa BazBaz. The evening passed quickly and it was most enjoyable, but I was very tired and didn’t fancy getting stupidly birthday-drunk, so went home sober and listening to podcasts. (Theme of the past month: Podcasts. I’ve been listening to old ones more than I have music, which led me to realise that I’m struggling to feel anything for new music these days… but that’s for another time…)

It was nice to wake up with a clear head as per every other post-birthday day. Come to think of it, I’ve never actually been birthday-drunk. I want this to stay. I lounged around most of the day, felt a bit depressed and then got over myself and went to the coffee shop with Laura. She told me tales of a certain someone’s slight breakdown at her house after I’d left the night before. All I could do was shake my head and say, “What an asshole…”
I stand by that, until there are changes!
I ordered what I thought was a regular cream soda, but turned out to be “Cream Soda with a twist of raspberry”. Before drinking it, I announced that it would either be repulsive or would become my favourite drink ever. I drank it and formed no opinion on it whatsoever. We parted ways again and I returned home to a message from Jill asking if she could nip in past. She did so and presented me with gifts, then had to shoot off as the food I’d ordered for myself and the parents arrived.
Again, a pretty event-free evening. I told Baz to come round for cake and made her watch Back to the Future as, alarmingly, she’d never seen it before. Oh, actually, we watched Derren Brown predict the lottery too, so that was technically an event.

Since then, I’ve just been catching up with people, going to the cinema and eating food. We had a gas-leak on Saturday that was quickly dealt with, so that was exciting. My Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle dvd turned up and I watched the first two episodes. I also went to see my Granny out in Dufftown. I did a tiny bit of writing out in the garden with the mountain-view. I felt a bit like an ageing rockstar who has to get away from the city in order to attempt to work on another album. But with less talent. It was blisteringly hot, which was surprising, but pleasant. A pleasant surprise, some might say… Yesterday, Sunday, I worked again. Today, I’ve done a grand total of sod-all. I’ve now finished watching StewLee’s latest dvd, all the extras and listened to the commentaries. Worth the money. I am currently waiting for Jill. There must be something about Mondays that means she will suggest meeting up, then not turn up. This happened two weeks ago and I’ve had no reply from her today… Worrying. I’m going to start keeping a record of this for the good of our health.

Work this evening, I hope I don’t die of boredom. Supposed to be going out for drinks afterwards, but I plan on getting the last bus home. A pub-evening followed by a bus and more podcasts. Perfect. Why am I an old person inside? In the words of Kate Jackson, “Nineteen, you’re only nineteen for god’s sake…”

FringeBlog #2! GO!
(Predictions: Slow start, gradual promising pick-up, inevitable sharp decline.)

I woke up rather early indeed last Tuesday morning. My father had offered me a lift into town the night before, so we left at around 8am. I awoke for the sixth morning in a row with a hideous headache causing me to feel sick, so took some drugs and hoped it’d go away. After being dropped off, I did the only logical thing someone who is an hour early for their bus does and planned an elongated route to the bus station which would involve going through all numbers of deserted areas in case I needed to throw up. Hooray! This didn’t happen in the end, but I did have a rather nice walk around places I’ve not been for a while as I listened to Adam and Joe’s final Song Wars Podcasts. The fresh air seemed to have done me good and I felt fine. This is vital information for a blog. Just as staying silent and waving at a microphone is great for radio.

The bus journey got off to a good start. As I had been there ridiculously early, I was one of the first people to climb aboard (it was not a ship) and grabbed the lovely leg-room seat. An old woman talking to herself made her way to the back pondering why there was not as much leg-room as there used to be. Me, being a gent (but female equivalent… a lady, I believe) offered her my lovely leg-room seat. She said that it was very kind of me and I moved. Karma-points! I was excited by what I could spend them on when I arrived in Edinburgh.
We reached our destination and I realised I didn’t have change to use the lavatory at the station, so I did the thing any sane person would and snuck into Burger King to use their bathroom. Only, as I dried my hands, I noticed a sign that said “It’s wrong to sneak in here to use the loo…” 
I think this was minus-Karma-points. Ah, easy come, easy go!

I met up with my glorious sister and heard all about her (birth)day so far. We walked to the Fruitmarket where I showed her the cake I’d made her, then we went for a walk to Falko, the Konditormeister, which is a fun word to say. I’ve known this since the days of studying German at die Schule. As soon as we approached the building, Morven remembered that it wasn’t actually open on Tuesdays. Still, the walk was nice! We compensated by going to another cafe, but it was apparently an anti-climax. Before we knew it, it was around 3.30pm so we rushed to catch a bus to the Stand to see Simon Munnery’s AGM ‘09. We sat on the top deck (it was not a ship) of the bus and were chatting away casually, as is our right, until we heard a woman downstairs shouting “Satan! Blood! Satan! Fuck god!”
Conversation ceased as we grinned at each other and stayed silent. It seemed to be whenever the bus slowed down, coming up to a bus stop that she’d shout incoherently to herself, but soon it ended and we figured she must have alighted. Disappointing as we never got to see her face. I imagine she would have been a larger lady, wearing purple robes with straggly red hair…

Soon we got to the Stand and found a few free seats at the front of the stage. A man came onstage and sat behind the drums. This man was Mac. Then Mr Munnery came on and the Annual General Meeting of 2009 commenced.

This is where my non-existent reviewing skillz begin to show as it’s only been just over a week and I can’t remember much of this. I do recall mentions of the Archers, children, spoons and a Supermarket Opera. It is very clear to see Munnery’s loyalties lie with Sainsbury’s as he used the sword of Bargains to try and slay his rival Tesco. Nobody counted on Asda turning up though! Bastards!
At the short interval, he instructed everyone to put motions into his bucket. I didn’t know what to write so ended up going for what I knew, “A woman on our bus on the way here shouted ‘SATAN! BLOOD! SATAN!’. I think she was right.”
He only got about two motions read out, but we followed him to Lord Bodos, the pub across the road, after the gig to continue the meeting. On the way there a man asked me if he’d met me at a poetry night. I told him probably not and he continued to walk to the pub. Here, we all picked motions from the bucket and read them out. The two I’d to read were “Trains should be free, but you should have to pay to get off. Discuss.” and “If artichokes have hearts, can they feel love? Is it wrong to love an artichoke?”
My dear sister read, “Peanut butter” and “Simon Munnery: True or false?”
Much discussion was had and a lorra lorra laughs. Sir Munnery sang a song about supermarkets (“Insane insane insainsburys… Oh no, Tesco!… Go to Lidl for a piddle…”) and did impressions of Bruce Springsteen. He didn’t think much of him at Glastonbury despite enjoying his music before. During this time, Matthew turned up to collect Morven to take her out for a meal. He waited patiently.
Eventually, a guy in a Virgilio Anderson tshirt read out my motion. Munnery took it from him, read it over and we discussed the Satan-lady. I told him it was all true and he seemed amused. He also laughed at “I think she was right.” This made me proud as it was originally going to say “I had to agree with her…” which may not have been as funny. Morven stood and Munnery asked if she was leaving. She told him that Matthew was taking her out for birthday tea and this prompted the ringmaster to lead us in a rendition of Happy Birthday. It was very sweet. They left, I stayed and heard about Mac pissing himself. He’d left by this point, so the story was allowed to be told. Once all the motions were read out, everyone began to leave. I stuck around to tell the Munnery that I’d enjoyed the gig a lot. He gave me one of his few handwritten flyers for a week of free gigs he was putting on at Fingers Piano Bar, I told him I’d try put in an appearance on Thursday and he shook my hand.

By this point, it was around 7pm and I decided to walk to one of the Underbellys (underbellies?) and see Paul Foot. I bought a ticket and sat in the bar reading about Parmenides of Elea in my bumper book of philosophy phun, waiting for the five minute call. That came and I made my way into the room the gig was in.

For the second time in a day, I was in the front row. We weren’t waiting long and Mr Foot came on, acknowledged a stool that was on the stage (the kind you sit on, you ghastly beasts) and continued to tell us about four main subjects including loneliness and dollies in Bed and Breakfasts. He was really rather lively and energetic and spoke to various audience members. I think he frightened some, but it was very amusing for the rest of us. After the show, I returned my glass to the bar, used the bathroom and then made my way out of the venue. On the way out, I saw the wonderful Mr Foot standing outside the room he’d just performed in. I managed to grab him before he left, told him I’d enjoyed the show and his fantastic shoes. Paul Foot has tiny ladies feet, apparently. Size 6 I believe.  He asked if I’d ever seen him live before and I said that I hadn’t, but I’d been  looking out for him since that ‘FAQ U’ show was on Channel4 a few years back. Apparently he’s played in Aberdeen since then, at the Blue Lamp. This confused me. They usually just have on jazz bands. I have since investigated. What in Jeeves’ name was I doing last August on that day? Perhaps this blog will tell me… (Just checked. I’m like some sort of futuristic blog-detective. Apparently, the day before the gig I watched the Happy Days where the Fonz jumps the shark and the day after the gig I was at work and enjoyed it ‘cos “it felt like a pub” - WHIT?!)
Anyway, I believe he should return and we should sit and drink gin. He should also probably bring Trevor Lock with him.

I left and walked in the direction of the Royal Mile. I met up with Morven and Matthew and we walked to the Pleasance Courtyard where we sat with Steve and Clara. A man who worked for the Pleasance came up to our table and offered us free tickets for Brendan Burns. I was due to go see the DO’D that night and am really not a fan of Burns anyway, so politely declined, but the rest of the happy gang accepted as it was free. Apparently he’d sold out the weekend that had just passed, but tickets for that night’s show hadn’t sold very well. At around 10.10pm I made my way to the venue Over The Road for Mr David O’Doherty. I stood alone in the queue and shivered as it began to rain lightly. Luckily, we weren’t kept waiting long and we entered the venue which happened to be a church… with a bar in it… The set-up of the seating was strange. There were three rows of stools (the kind you sit on, you ghastly beasts) and behind them, a wide space and some tiered seating. Nobody seemed to be sitting on the stools and by this point, I didn’t mind sitting in the front row as I knew the DO’D didn’t tend to pick on people and also I’d had a few drinks, therefore was more confident… but not confident enough to be the only person to sit on a stool, so I sat on the front row of the tiered seats. As the place and spaces to my left filled, the one seat right next to me remained free. A guy with glasses came over and asked if he could sit there. I said “Of course!” and he proceeded to say he’d not seen any reviews of the O’D so didn’t know what to expect. I told him I’d seen him live twice before and he was one of the best I’d witnessed, so he seemed excited. We watched as some people finally sat on the stools, but on the third row of them (which I’d count as the second row as the actual front row acted as a continuation of the stage. Too close to the stage to sit on, no leg room, you know…) We both agreed to join them on that row. From there, we giggled and jumped to the second row (the first row, though, I guess) as by this point, we’d acquired a new member of our exclusive comedy club. I’d gone alone and ended up sitting in between two lovely boys who spoke about comedy and the good things they’d seen with enthusiasm. This is what it’s all about! Strangers! Stranger Danger? No! Stranger Hurray…nger!
This is all very well and good, but what was the time?
It was David O’Doherty time.

I don’t know anyone who could possibly dislike this man. I remember when I met him last year he was unbelievably friendly and chatty and lovely. He even accepted half a block of tablet from a stranger and looked delighted about it. I think the man onstage is the man offstage and it’s not often you can say that these days. I have no idea what I could possibly say in this little bit of internet that could do him any justice, but I was grinning like a twat all the way through and I could feel that the two guys next to me had fallen in love with him by the end… I couldn’t physically feel it, by the way. I don’t think that sort of behaviour is socially acceptable.
He didn’t do as many songs as usual, but the stories made up for this… and the fact that he flashed his chest to spite the one woman who had her view blocked by a pillar, which made me laugh a great deal.
All in all: Ace. Would recommend to a friend. Have been recommending to friends for nearly two years now. Is anyone listening?

I sauntered back to the Courtyard where I found Morven, Matthew, Clara and Steve and also a poster advertising one We Are Klang show that was occurin’ the next day. I immediately sent Steve a message to see if the rumours were true and we contentedly got in a taxi back to Leith (of Sunshine On…) where we all went to bed.

I awoke to some peculiar text messages and watched a bit of tv with the sister before heading off into town. We were gonna go to Falko (Konditormeister) again and hopefully be lucky enough for it to be open this time. But first, we went to see our friend Charlie’s improv group, Blind Mirth, at the Voodoo Rooms. They were really very good, despite the fact that their numbers have apparently dropped in the last few weeks.
I feel they will all do very well. Footlights? Pfft! It’s all about the ‘Mirth!

We went to the Doric for some food then made our way to Falko whilst hysterically discussing Histor and Pliny. It was open! I went up to order Morven a ginger beer and me some cake. There was no ginger beer. This led to much confusion and amusement. When asked if that was all, the guy at the counter looked puzzled as to why there were two of us but only one cake and one drink. I said I couldn’t afford a drink. When our order arrived at the table, there was an extra cup of coffee and it turned out the guy had given me it for free, which was very sweet. Although I’d not had any caffeine for days, it’d be rude to turn it down so I drank it and told myself the caffeine-diet would resume the next day. Morven had promised that this would be the greatest cake I’d ever taste and she wasn’t too far off… Enough was enough and she ordered one too. We decided to walk a bit afterwards to work off the massive Kuchen we’d just consumed. Day-um it was good. We returned triumphant to the flat and sat around watching crap tv for a while. Before I knew it, it was time for me to head out and see Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler. I paid £14 for a ticket and knew I’d be seeing them the next day for free. Doh… But still, I was looking forward to it.

I escaped the evil seagulls of Leith and hopped on a bus and made a very important phonecall* (*may not be true). I got off the bus and tried to figure out which would be the best way to the Mound whilst still on the phone. I walked up to some steps and spotted none other than Trevor Lock, who I’d already met twice on my last jaunt to this city. I said a quick, “I’ll call you back…” down the phone and made my way towards ol’ Trev only so I could say the following phrase, “Trevor Lock, could you please stop stalking me?” I did and was met with “Hey, it’s you!” I was probably keeping him from doing something important, but started a conversation anyway which was mundane on my part. Sorry, Trev!
“It’s Kirsten, right? Have you met Alfie?” He asked, introducing me to the man he was with. This man turned out to be Alfie Brown, a comedian Trev told me to go and see. I found out he was playing at the Tron and, if you’ll have read the previous blog this will make more sense, asked if he knew of a guy also at the Tron who did a poem called ‘Synonym’. Joe Lycett apparently. So that was exciting. I decided it was probably best to let them get on with what they were doing, wished Trev well with the rest of the Fringe and continued on my way to see Kristen and Kurt.

I saw a queue outside the Assembly and joined it. Error number one. I was in my happy little world with my headphones in when at 9.50pm the queue started moving and our tickets were looked at. I was informed that I was in the wrong queue and should go up some stairs to Rainy Hall. When I got there I was told I’d need to join a queue outside. When I said I had already done that, someone else came and solved confusion by telling my to join the queue outside and across the street. That was strange. The queue I ended up in was at the other side of the road from the venue against some railings and nothing else. Odd system. I was fine though, not pissed off like you’d expect to feel. I was loving the world, but was oddly depressed at the same time. Strange, it was.
Soon our queue began to move and we were led back into the courtyard where I’d just come from and up the stairs to Rainy Hall again. Doh. I chose a seat a few rows back and awaited the magic…

They came out to tremendous applause and I immediately wanted to hug Kristen hard. The whole atmosphere was strange and it was like being at a party where a brother and sister who are slightly uncomfortably close and are slowly getting more and more drunk so you don’t know what’s going to happen. They pitched tv ideas and handed out giant party poppers to three audience members who were supposed to let them off when they enjoyed a joke. At one point there was a noise from outside, probably to do with the Tattoo and the pair hid behind the curtains and said “Get ready to start rationing!” then one of the poppers was popped. They enjoyed it, it was a beautiful moment. That guy had good timing and was praised for it.
Everyone left the room bemused, but giggling and when I got outside I wandered around for a bit in the vain hope that I might run into Ryan or someone I knew. It wasn’t so, so I went to catch a bus. I paid £1.20 for said bus to terminate round the corner from where I’d got on. I sighed, walked back the way I came and got a taxi instead. There’s a credit crunch on, y’know!
I made it back to the flat and went to bed.

I woke up at about 7am and was feeling inexplicably sad. That was until my dear sister gave me an early birthday present in the form of these beauties!

Yep, y’heard… Jemaine and Bret hairclips. I’m excited to wear them on a right royal night out. But I’ll be careful with ‘em!

Schwest left for work and Matthew listened to his 80s playlist on Spotify. It was gold (Gold! Always believe in your soul…), he then left for work and I bid on a Lee and Herring video on ebay. I tracked down lovely Joe Lycett on Twitter and told him I’d come along to his gig that day. It started at 12.30, so I decided I’d go to it rather than Robin Ince’s science readings and then Book Club like I’d planned. I’d still go to the latter though. By the time I got into town and had a wander, I got to the Tron at 12.15, bought a ticket for the Lunchtime Club and some Pimm’s. I spilt my drink before I’d taken a sip and presumed it was a sign not to be drinking so early on in the day. Damn you, Jesus!
I managed to look busy and mop up the table in a subtle manner until it was time to head into the room where the gig was.

The gig was kicked off by David Morgan (filling in for Ally Sheedy in the picture with the glasses) who was full of energy and generally lovely. He was the compere extraordinaire (so it says on the flyer) and so took it upon himself to make friends with the audience. I think he claimed he had about three favourite women that day. Fickle, eh? Also, one of the guys from 4 Poofs And A Piano was in. So that was nice. Anyway, yes, he was very lovely and excited and built up a good atmosphere for Benjamin Partridge (Emilio Estevez – middle, right) who was apparently hungover. He told us the wonders of Greggs, however made the common error of presuming it had started up here in Scotchland when my pedantry forces me to point out it was first opened in Newcastle. Take that, Partridge! Only joking, he was very funny and spoke of holding his breath whilst going through tunnels during his childhood along with a mime of doing this.
Next up was the young man I’d met the night before with Trev, Alfie Brown (Judd Nelson). Firstly, the shallow part of me would like to admit that I enjoyed Alfie’s attire a lot and secondly, he was very good, well done, etc etc. I especially enjoyed the first part of his set where he came onstage clutching a book apparently about how to do stand-up and read from it self-referentially. It was original, I enjoyed it. The rest of the crowd seemed bemused after a while, but this was also mentioned in this part of the set.
Then came Joe Lycett (Molly Ringwald) who immediately pointed out how he doesn’t like the above picture as he looks like a giant baby who has just been dropped into a perfectly nice photograph. I laughed. It was good to see a full set from him after his very brief appearance at Bannermans two weeks before. I believe this guy may be one to watch out for, he’s ever-so charming. Also, apparently two nights previous he’d won the Chortle Student Comedian of the Year competition. Well deserved, ra ra ra.
The final comeejin to take to the stage was young Ivo Graham (I say young, but he’s the same age as me… ) who was very good indeed. He had a sweet, quite shy delivery, but told amusing anecdotes as you would hope. He went on to win So You Think You’re Funny that night and again, I’d say it was well deserved. Overall, good wee show. Well worth that fiver. Jump onboard the Five Pound Fringe and Free Fringe, there are some goo-ood people taking part in it all. Hopefully that’ll continue next year.

By the time the show ended it was 2pm, so I met up with Matthew as he was leaving work and handed him back his keys. I then went to grab some food and decided I would do so at an Eerie Pub as I’m collecting them. Slains is our local, I’ve enjoyed the London Stone a couple of times and now it was Jekyll and Hyde’s turn. Overall, disappointing, sadly. Felt a bit ill afterwards, but read more about philosophers then walked around a bit to make myself feel better. At 3.30pm I ended up back at Bannermans, very early for Robin Ince’s book club. I got me a drink and continued reading about philosophers while I sat on a barrel. As it neared 4.15, I wandered through to where the club was going to take place and found a seat.

Martin White, Robin’s accordionist fantastisch, took to the stage.
[Incidentally, I know two accordion-related jokes. Neither echo my feelings of accordionists, but I appreciate the comedy anyway.
Accordion joke #1...
Q: What is the definition of a gentleman?
A: A man who knows how to play the accordion but never does.
Accordion joke #2...
Q: What's the difference between an accordion and some onions?
A: Nobody cries when you chop up an accordion.
Ahthankyou.]
Martin announced that Robin was running late, so he’d pretend to be him by wearing a cardigan and reading from books sarcastically. He borrowed a man in the second row’s cardigan and did just that. He then introduced the first act, who I believe was called Martin Crozier (please correct me if I’m wrong, I am an imbecile…) who read from an old book of baby names. He was really excellent.
Martin stood up again and continued impressions of Robin, then a voice came from the back of the room and Mr Ince moved towards the stage, “Martin, are you pretending to be me again? I made you, Martin, I made you! And I would never wear a cardigan with a hood, I’m much too old for that!” He apologised for being late and said he was due to do EIGHT shows that day. Nutter. He quickly skimmed through some amusing old books he picked up and introduced the next person to the stage.
This is going to be a terrible recollection of events (it already was, yes, I know…) as I can’t remember anybody’s name… Helen Arney was very sweet and Joe Lycett turned up too. Twice in one day!
The gig ended with Robin reading from one of many Giant Crabs Attacking The Welsh Coast books with full musical accompaniment. Harrowing. But ultimately hilarious. I finished my drink and went to leave but saw Robin at the door talking to someone. I loitered a bit and grabbed him quickly before he went to gather up all of his stuff from the stage. I told him I’d been bothering him on Twitter the previous week wanting to know details of all his shows, he apologised for late replies but said to continue pestering. He’s going to regret that. I asked if he was really doing eight shows that day and he told me that he was and on his way to Bannermans was worried that he might die… and be found with a bag full of books about giant crabs taking over the Welsh coast, I told him to stop working so hard. Then he looked pleasantly surprised when I gave him a few quid donation (god, yeah, I’m like Jesus…) and I told him to return to Aberdeen. I’m confident that he might and I never usually believe people when they say they’ll be back. Good old Robin. I got the impression that he would have liked to have stayed and chatted much more, but was in a rush. He seems genuinely interested in speaking to people. On his dvd, for instance, there’s an interview and it is said several times, ”We’ll wrap it up there then…” but he keeps talking and they keep recording. Aww… Go see this man live! Go to the Book Club! Go see him verbally fondle science on a stage! He’s brilliant.

I left the pub and meandered (no, I didn’t walk, I meandered) on. I think this sums up my life. I constantly meander… I apologise to you all for doing so. Ended up at the Gilded Balloon and decided I’d go see Bridget Christie. I bought a ticket but was an hour early so headed to the Library Bar where the gas on their soft drink tap wasn’t working. I had a glass of water, looked as though I was reading about philosophers and eavesdropped on a painfully middle-class group of friends’ conversation. With ten minutes before the gig was due to start I went down to the waiting room/holding pen/scum emporium where I grabbed the closest free seat. An eccentric man started talking to me. I think he may have been there because he was a Daily Mail reader and the title of the show is My Daily Mail Hell, but that’s not an accusation I want to throw around, so I’ll just stick with ‘eccentric’. One of the Gilded Balloon staff came out of the doors leading to the stage on my left and told us to form a queue. Despite not being there early, I’d ended up at the front. We were then told that Bridget likes the front row to be filled and if you were at the start of the queue, you would definitely be in that row. At this point, one of the two people in front of me exclaimed “Oh, god no!” and moved to the back. I glanced over to my right, the direction she had just shot off towards. My attention was caught by a figure two metres away in a rain-jacket who had his head down, looking at his phone but was also listening to the woman next to him. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew who this was. I froze completely. He looked up, spoke to the woman, she said goodbye to him and joined the end of the queue and he put his phone away, stood for a second looking blankly like he’d forgotten where he was and then moved towards the door. As he hovered in the doorway with his back to me in his little Berghaus anorak, I shook myself out of my stunned state and knew I had to walk over and shake this man’s hand or I’d regret it for a long time. My knees moved but my feet didn’t. He’d already started to walk away and within seconds he was gone. I did not say hello to Stewart Lee.
I didn’t have much time to kick myself repeatedly for not confronting him and being a sycophant as we were ushered into the room and the show began immediately, but it was the perfect distraction.

So, yes, the show started as soon as everyone sat down. I was in the front row as I’d been told I would which meant I got a good view of the props. A desk, a chair, a mug, a notebook, a Jack Vettriano painting. Bridget came out in a bowler hat and a tail-coat and wowed us with our movements. She started off by telling us that she used to work for the Daily Mail doing their admin and making tea for racists. She acted out how she used to get through doors with racist tea, which looked very difficult. Kudos, Christie! Then she continued to tell us stories of interviews she’d done with celebrities. The eccentric man who’d previously been in the holding pen with me was in the front row too and acted in a peculiar fashion. I’m not sure if he’d ever been to a comedy show before as he treated it a bit like a conversation. But by jove, he knew about Anthony Andrews! (I’ve just realised that I’m doing myself no favours here by mentioning Anthony Andrews as I wrote a blog about Brideshead Revisited over a year ago and to this day the majority of people who are led here, and inevitably become disappointed, do so due to searching for either ‘Anthony Andrews’ or ‘Jeremy Irons’ on Google.)
The show passed far too quickly for my liking, as have all my other Fringe Highlights and it was coming to an end. It had been a strange but excellent one. The crowd were very outspoken, but not in a heckly way, they were just opinionated on the people Bridget had interviewed (mainly John Cleese and Jack Vettriano; two people who one woman had shouted “KNOB!” about). Another man had been at the book signing that Ms Christie had been at where she was strangled by Gene Wilder. This proved to be very funny, especially as while they were getting quite into talking to each other, she, forgetting she was telling us all a story asked him “So what happened?” and he replied, “Well… I’ll let you tell…” Made me laugh anyway.
She is really bloody lovely and hilarious. I now don’t know who I’m more jealous of, her or StewLee.

I had over an hour to kill after the gig so again ambled around and decided to go to Fingers Piano Bar for Simon Munnery’s Free Funnery early. It was already pretty busy even though it wasn’t due to start for an hour. I assumed that everyone was there for the man who was currently onstage reading from his book. About fishermen. He swore a lot. I was confused. It turned out the majority of people were there early for the same reason I was as nobody left when the fisherman did. Morven turned up and introduced me to her friend. Moments later Clara appeared, followed by Charlie and later Matthew and his mother. Charlie made a faux-pas to a comedian as she walked past them apparently.
We were sat right by the door, so saw Munnery turn up moments before 9pm. Also, Kristen and Kurt snuck in and I got a bit excited, but knew they’d probably have to do their set and then leave to get to their gig at the Assembly.

The first thing Munnery spoke about when he got onto the stage, again was supermarkets. He made up another song about his love of Sainsburys and everyone loved him. Truly a hero. He introduced Kristen and Kurt who, again, were very funny and sweet and surprisingly, did no material from their actual show. They acted out a scene as Pocahontas and John Smith which was filthy but hilarious. I think they can get away with saying things that they did because they’re so darned cute. After they finished up, they walked past us again smiling. I resisted doing a hug attack upon ‘em.
Next up was Hannah Gadsby who was the comedian Charlie had run into earlier. Apparently she said to her, “OH! I know you! You’re a comedian! …I can’t remember your name though…” or something along those lines and Hannah didn’t look impressed. Although why would she? It wasn’t particularly impressive. Anyway, she was very dry. I was going to say “and very funny” but I’ve said that far too many times over the last 5658 words. Maybe I should just list all the people who were there, all of whom I found enjoyable and were good at their jobs: Jeff Kreisler, Chloe Philip and Phil Kay.
It was good to see Phil live again. He was just as energetic and… I’m not sure how else to describe him, as ever. He started to destroy the stage a bit, to the enjoyment of everyone in the room, including the bar staff who originally looked concerned. Munnery closed the show and said there’d be a bucket for donations at the end. Phil Kay took it upon himself to go around with it and force people to put some money in. He was actually very sweet. I was expecting a more mentally-ill version of Bob Geldof, but he looked chuffed whenever anyone put any money in. Bless ‘im.

We all went outside into the harsh, cold night and Clara kindly offered me a place to stay round her’s. I said goodbye to Morven, Matthew and Sally and Steve took us back to Clara and Charlie’s. They took very good care of me, lovely people and I set up camp in their music/Beatles memorabilia preservation room. I was alone with my thoughts and started to feel a bit sad that the fringe was drawing to a close. I also took this time to be pissed off with myself for not speaking to StewLee. I’m still slightly annoyed, but not so much. I may have to force Pete to wait behind with me after his glorious return to Aberdeen in November, a gig I cannot wait for. I fell asleep in a bad mood and woke up melancholy one. I didn’t want to wake up Charlie but also needed to get into town, so I left a note and exited their beautiful house. I was impressed at my ability to find my way to a bus stop and get to the Royal Mile. By this point it was around 10.30am and the city centre was eerily quiet and depressing. A sure sign that the fringe was almost over. I bought Keri a birthday present and sadly did one final amble around the hotspots in search of something to do. I found nothing and headed to the bus station, telling myself to write something for next year. It would be nice, but I am so very uninspired.

This has been a dreadful blog and I, once more, salute you if you made it through the whole thing. I blame the poor writing of this particular entry on the fact that I couldn’t start it when I got home as I wanted to see Keri on her birthday and did so, then on the Saturday I felt all gloomy and de-motivated. By the time I did feel in the mood to write, it was Sunday morning and I had to head to work. Basically, I’ve been writing it during varying levels of motivation and that inconsistency comes across. I’m sorry, I still love you, I’m very tired, the next one will be better.