Last Night

Wow, my updates are becoming tediously regular! Sorry about that people, but when your job's demands barely see you through to lunchtime, blogging becomes an all too necessary afternoon passtime.

Last night I went to see the always affable Adam Hills. Many highlights, a few lowlights (not caused by Adam himself, but by the overweening hubris of one audience member. She was simply hideous, wearing twee pink bootlets and stonewash skinny jeans (she was at least 50 - and a blatant mutton-strumpet). Having not switched off her phone before the show started, she of course got a call, which thankfully she didn't answer. However, she started texting the person, presumably to let them know why she couldn't answer. Anyway, Adam caught a whiff and was understandably put out. He reasoned that grabbing her phone was a justifiable move and offered her a generous choice: He could call this guy (according to awful woman, guy calling really fancied her, but she didn't fancy him - seriously, mutton-woman was delusional and self-aggrandising to the bone), or he could send him a message.

In an unprecedented and cringey moment, mutton then jumped onstage, and staggered her (obviously) drunken arse towards Adam, we thought to maybe start a fight. Honestly, I couldn't look away, but I really really wanted to, because it got so much worse. She started plugging her own fringe show. Some one-night-only (read: mediocre-at-best, and therefore undeserving of more than one night) piece of shit involving, I shudder to imagine - Madonna-esque grannytards and waaaaay to much mutton thigh? It was horrifying, and clearly not a stunt orchestrated by Hills: As he hustled her offstage, eliciting promises to put down the damn phone and stop plugging her shit during his air time. Quite rightly, Hills said in a barely disguised stage whisper, 'no one cares'. She turned around at that point and challenged him to repeat himself, and he swiftly responded 'love your hair'.

The upshot of this car crash-style interlude was that she promptly grabbed her bag and the offending phone and hightailed it out of there. Either humiliated (should've been, but probably didn't have the sense to be), or outraged, no-one knows. We hope she and her hot pink booties weren't waiting in a back alley for Adam after the show.

Moral: Self awareness, be my friend, let me never do anything as horrifying as hijacking a comedy show for no better reason that I like myself waaaaaay too much to realise it's really poor form.

Not funny ha ha, but definitely enlightening. Hills, fortunately brought the ha ha in an otherwise great show.

Book Festival!

A few more things booked for the weekend - tonight:

Xiaolu Guo and Mariana Lewycka (I'll be thinking of you Pipi!) talk about stories they wrote in honour of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - stories based on the concept of freedom. For those not familiar with their published work - try these:

'A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers' (Guo)
'A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian' (Lewycka)

Sunday:

Marg (of course) - maybe won't sleep properly Saturday night. I might want to become a groupie. I might already BE one.

Jo Tatchell and the rise of Abu Dhabi from fishing village to wealthiest city on earth and global impact, etc etc. This one was Stu's choice. We'll see.

ALSO - Jupiter Artland this Sunday (http://www.jupiterartland.org/). Should be amazing, hope to get some awesome photis.

Eeeep, so little time until life settles back into non-Festivaliness. Must make concerted effort to see EVERYTHING!

Love.

Where I'm Goin, What I'm Doin

Tomorrow night - Adam Hills - whoot whoot:

Check out great review at www.metro.co.uk. (Tuesday 25th August).

Ok, it's just a free paper you get on the bus, but it's really the only printed form of media (apart from the Financial Times - don't ask) I still read. Terrible.

Before that I have a Book Festival talk on Human Rights. (Heavy)

Also heading to Michael Clark's new one on Saturday.

Hopefully going to Jupiter Artland before that - great big outdoor art installations set in parks and woodlands just outside the city.

Then two book festival events Sunday (maybe 3?) including Margaret Atwood - hurrah.

So much on, so exciting. My first weekend off in ages, I've been volunteering at the Edinburgh Art Festival, which was fun, but meant 14 straight days of work. So 3 days (yes, bank holiday weekend!) off is a dream.

Will let you know how all events go - there'll be more to list later, thanks to the lovely Michelle and her endless supply of comp Festival tickets. What'll I do without her?

Love to all, love to art, music and life!

It's Never Not Awkward

Oh god,

Just had the mother of all uncomfortable situations at work. One of the Egyptian engineers who's been working in the Edinburgh office all week just really awkawrdly asked me out. Such a train wreck of a situation, that I never know how to get out of both politely and firmly... It's so tricky when they don't actually say, do you want to go out on a date, but instead ask you about your plans for the evening, then for the rest of the weekend, then what's your private email, phone number etc. You know where its' going, but you just don't know how to stop it until it's too late. When English isn't the native language, and wetsren cultural norms don't apply, what then?

What do I say? 'Ummmm, it's difficult ....'. Then I walk away and avoid eye contact for the rest of the day. I don't want to just blurt out 'I have a boyfriend'. That's too presumptuous right? Am I right? Advice please.

If it's any consolation to him, I'm the one who comes out of it more embarrassed.

AWOL

Hi everyone,

I know it's been a long time between blog updates, but that is because my laptop was in surgery fightng for its life against I don't even KNOW how many trojans. I blame the dongle. Too criptic? Look it up. I also blame Stu. Perhaps unfairly, but he did say he was going to get around to downloading some antivirus software and never did. Sigh. So I'm finally back in business and going to make some serious amends by filling you all in on what's been happening in short, sharp macine-gun bursts of information to keep you on your toes. The aptly-named bullet point makes its glorious debut in my blog. Some call it lazy, I call it easy on the eyes.

• Fringe! Festival! Awesomeness! Kezdawg and Julia came up a few weekends ago, and we did the rounds, hanging at the venues, schmoozing with comedians. For those of you not aware, Stephen K Amos: Funny on stage, more handsome in real life and a tad on the smarmy side, in a good way. He kissed my cheek. Twice. I now walk amongst the many.
• Book Festival - I FINALLY tracked down a ticket to hear Margaret Atwood talk about her latest novel - so thrilled, can't wait. Hope it's nothing like The Blind Assassin. That was snoresville. Controversial? I invite comment, but keep it clean kiddies. have been to other events at Book Festival, but as they relate to UN Human Rights accords and the fall of Communism in Europe respectively, I won't go into details for fear of boring you all pantsless.
• Dragged Stu along to the Soweto Gospel Choir a few Fridays ago. He did well not to look too bored or fall asleep during performance. It was all I could do to keep from jumping out of my seat in excitement. The harmonies! Seriously, it was a physical reaction, misty eyed. In a good way. After the show, before meeting Kieran and Julia's train, proceeded to drink waaaaaay too much out of sheer exhilaration. Tequila + intense joy + 2 bottles of wine = perverse joy and Olympic hangover.
• Tonight it's Simon Amstell - Never Mind the Buzzcocks anyone? Should be good - treat for Stu for sitting through choir with me.
• Bought a ridiculously sweet pair of boots last Friday. So rock and roll. They complete me. Am seriously contemplating a leather jacket I saw, because I want to be Ryan Adam's bitch.
• Finally (and I know several of you nerdlinger types will be wondering, as if you don't have better things to think about - like black leather biker boots (but no buckles, cause that's super lame) - oh god they're dreamy, I can't stop thinking about them ... where was I?) my new job. I got it only 4 days after quitting the last, so poverty has once again been dealt a swift blow to the noggin. It's not a great job, not exciting or anything, but what it does have in its favour: It pays more, it's in the centre of Edinburgh, the work is easy, and the people are warm and friendly. It's a 6 month contract, so I keep looking for other stuff, but it's a bit of security for now, which is good. Stu has quit his job and taken some part time sales work in order to really concentrate and devote his time to finding the dream. I'll keep searching for mine too. Working at reception for (gasp) an oil and gas company, is not, surprisingly, IT.

Ok, so I realise that in the end, the bullets were less than useless, as they did nothing to curtail my tendency towards verbose prose. Too bad. Next time I'll try and streamline, promise. Next time I also promise to have images, but as I'm currently skiving at work, it can't be done until later.

Love to all - can't wait to see some of you in September for the big wedding! Whoot whoot!