Monday, August 3, 2009

Edinburgh Day 1

This blog is coming to you via the free wi-fi on the train to Edinburgh. 'A train? With wi-fi?' I hear you cry. Why yes. It does in fact appear that now, ladies and gentlemen, we are in the future. I remember the days when trains were all run by the Fat Controller, and all had twee names and colours like Gordon and Thomas. There's none of that now of course. Gone is the personal touch. Gone is Ringo Starr voicing all the narration. Now its purely controlled by robots. Probably. I like the train to Edinburgh. Once you get past Newcastle if you are sitting on the right side of the train (the left side) then you get some truly lovely scenery of the Scottish coast. I unfortunately am not sitting on the correct side and so have brought my laptop to play on Twitter with for several hours before getting travel sick. Thems the rules.


Can't really believe its this time of the year again. While it seems ages ago since last year's fringe efforts, it seems crazy that a whole year has gone by since I was last traveling Northwards on the A-Train to indulge in a month of rain, working my arse off and successfully pickling my liver. Since that time the whole rest of 2008 was spent asking people how their festival shows went. There was about a two week break over Christmas after which the point of conversation was solely about whether or not you were going to this year's festival, followed by a few months of 'how's your show coming along?' Its that important in the psyche of the comedian. Either that or we really have very little imagination when it comes to conversation topics. I think I'm finaly ready for the Fringe this year. I've been preparing my show now since the end of January and I feel that its finally there. Couple of words here and there need be tweaked like a nipple made of comedy material but other than that, I'm feeing pretty pleased with it. Last night's last preview with Tom Craine was really useful just to cement the show into my brain. I hadn't thought about it while being in Spain or spent much time looking at notes yesterday, so it was great to know I could still do the whole thing sans notes. Our delightful crowd of 8 people seemed to enjoy it and yet again I met another lovely Twitterer Jonathan (@mandoran). My brother also managed to come and see the show and actually liked it. Praise from a sibling is more highly regarded than that of a punter as there is no need for him to lie. Both my brother and I are nothing less than brutally honest to each other which often then creates tension and a few weeks of not talking to each other. Luckily as we've got older we have risen above throwing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle van at each others heads or kneeing each other in the stomach and are now at the level where we actually like what each other does. Well most of the time.


So have the show ready I think. As for weather, I've packed my rain jacket and I'm prepared for the onslaught of torrential weather as always, although I'm slightly worried my new trainers will get ruined because I am that shallow. The only other thing now is liver, which I am telling myself I will be strong about and not booze as much as I did last year. I have my own show to worry about and far more importantly I'm stupidly broke. Drinking could ruin my Edinburgh performances and mean that I have no money to spend on food. Still I suppose I could lose weight and be so drunk I don't notice bad reviews.


All I have to do today is get to Edinburgh and already this is proving easy. Last year the train journey took over five hours due to delays and seat crew ups and I had to sit on my suitcase for the duration of travel. Lets hope that today's working train is a sign for the month.

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