Saturday 5th of August, 2000
Unless a mad scientist out there knows better.
I've been in Edinburgh for a week, now, and yes, it does seem like I've always been here.
About ten people in the show, but the front row consisted of four very appreciative canadians, so that was nice. Hopefully they'll tell all their friends. Less nice was the fact that I had a headache all the way through the show - occasionally a wave of pain would distract me from the task in hand and I'd lose my place. Grr. But there are very few bad clams these days (I used to be justifiably in terror of them), usually just lapses in concentration. I particular, I've been lucky with Richenda, the current arrangement of which requires me to noodle over (not too complicated) chords, but I always feel a bit unsure of where I am. I should just ignore the computer and feel the force, of course.
Got to the gym at last - a major achievement. For the record, it's ok, but a bit stuffy. very fine views over the roofs of Waverley Station to Waterloo Place (it's a curious fact that the way this city is constructed, you can go down to floor minus three, and still be high above the rooftops on another side of the building). There's also a swimming pool (I can't remember the last time I went swimming - I think Sid Vicious was still in the Sex Pistols) which I might use. And a Jacuzzi (which seems more like a bubbling hole in the floor). And a sauna I can use if I can be arsed to go along to the next hotel (the Sauna is "being refurbished").
Of course, after the exercise I just flaked out on the sofa. All that exertion is probably to blame for the headache.
Bodies, eh? Can't live with them, can't ... well ... you know. Unless a mad scientist out there knows better.
I'm sorry I can't offer the more traditional Edinburgh lifestyle of Beer, Hangovers and Regrettable Sexual Encounters, but I'm too old - when hedonism becomes a logistical problem, it's time to dedicate your self-abusive impulses to Chocolate Hobnobs and Kingsize Twixes.
Twices?
Sorry, what exactly is the plural of Twix?
The package containing my fliers turned up, after a fashion - I found a card saying that they tried to deliver them this morning. I remember thinking that the trip to the sorting office would be easier with a bike when I went on Tuesday. On Monday, I'll be able to put the proposition to the test.
The festival is hotting up - there were all manner of painted faced loons thrusting fliers into the hands of an unwilling public. And a flamboyant man in a dress running up towards the Pleasance, shouting, presumably, about his show, and wondering why no one was taking any notice.
Edinburgh has to be the only town in the world where the freaks come out on a Saturday afternoon.
As I write it's Saturday night and the streets are full of drunks, shouting. Don't they get bored with shouting? Even drunk people must find shouting pales eventually. When I went up to Alldays to get my painkillers earlier on, there were people attacking traffic cones. What kind of mentality is that, exactly? I must have possessed it once myself (not that I ever attacked a traffic cone, but I have allegedly been young and inebriated at the same time), but now it is as alien as the animosity that cats feel for string.