Camera Obscura

Warming Ups

Apparently I got a mention on Only Connect last night as a possible answer to a one-balled thing.

Good to know that I have finally usurped Hitler as the go-to monoball.

I gave Catie the chance to concentrate on her stand up show and took charge of the kids for a good chunk of the day! And I have to say I am looking forward to my hour of showtime a day to get away from this responsibility.

We trudged up to the castle, with me pointing out the sights from my first Edinburgh in 1987, where we'd slept on the floor of the Masonic Lodge on Johnstone Terrace (it's a venue these days, because of course it is). I haven't felt crushed by memories of the past yet this year and I was able to think about that time with fondness and wonder (that it was 38 years ago, one third of the way into my current existence). The shop next door that we bought pies from is still selling food, but under a new name but I couldn't remember what it used to be called. I'd have plumped for "The Clamshell" but I am pretty sure that was (and maybe still is) the chip shop up the Royal Mile.

We couldn't get into the Castle as it was sold out, so I took them to the Camera Obscura World of Illusions, which it turned out they'd been to before, but I hadn't. It was pricy but lots of fun and I insisted we visit the Camera Obscura, the oldest tourist attraction in the city (possibly) as it's been up and running for something like 170 years. The guy operating it did a good job and had some funny patter, I thought, but I think he was largely playing to an audience for whom English was not a first language and he won't be the last person this Fringe to have his gags go down to no real response. It's pretty excellent tech and his bit where he used a piece of card to apparently pick up a passing tourist and deposit them back on the ground was properly solid and presumably a joke that has been passed down for over one and a half centuries.

We had fun playing on the other contraptions in the attraction and I sent pictures to Catie of our children decapitated.

It was now lunchtime and despite the many wonderful restaurants on offer the kids really wanted to go to Pizza Hut. They had the all you can eat pizza, salad, drink and ice cream option which was cheaper than buying individual pizzas, drinks and puddings and I suppose relies on the fac that Pizza Hut pizzas are basically built on a fatty base reminiscent of a doughnut and so no one can eat that much. The kids had two drinks, very little salad, one ice cream (though Ernie did fill his tiny bowl magnificently full and overflowing before remembering that he doesn't like ice cream). I decided not to have any food here, partly because I believe in making the most of a buffet and would have eaten enough disgusting pizza to kill myself. But I did eat the kids left overs and nicked a piece of pizza for myself, so I win Ian Pizza Hut. Apart from the fact that we paid nearly £40 for 5 bits of pizza, four pieces of cucumber, half a pint of coke and a hit of ice cream. Like I said, I win.

Was it really only 1pm when I got them back to the flat? Shit.

I suggested the cinema, though Ernie who doesn't like cinemas cos of the noise and smell, was very reluctant. I tempted him in with the offer of Macdonalds after and he overcame his fears to watch and enjoy Bad Guys 2, which I thought was pretty good too (despite not having seen Bad Guys 1). The cinema had cool reclining seats and the tickets were only £7.99 each (without having to get them through your bank or phone app). Phoebe got a small popcorn with about 15 M and Ms in it and that cost £9 (though it was big enough to feed all three of us for most of the film). We've reached the point where popcorn is more expensive than the movie. Even though popcorn is very cheap to make and films are really expensive.

Afterwards we had to do a quick bit of shopping and get Ernie his Macdonalds and things were a bit more fractious and all the walking was getting to me. We staggered home and got a Deliveroo for the rest of us.

I was expecting to be exhausted maybe four days into the shows, but not on the minus oneth day.

Who am I kidding? Had the time of my life.

8281/21200

The Fringe hasn't even started and I am already a wreck. I woke up to find my left eye was inexplicably aching. Had a ghost poked me in the eye in my sleep? Or maybe I'd done it to myself. And I was still exhausted from all that walking yesterday.

I did a bit of work for the first show and then went back to bed. This wasn't the energy I needed for day one. As I researched today's guest, Phoebe gave me a fresh nail polish design, making my bitten nails look like pink ladybirds.

My eye calmed down a bit eventually and after lunch I headed to my venue for the first time. We were teching right before the show and it was the first day so predictably everything was a bit chaotic. Bollings is teching the show for me and he and the crew were fighting to get mics set up and connected properly so we could record the show. I was no help here.

They just about got to the point where it looked like everything was working, but we mainly had to cross fingers as the audience had to come in. We'd sold a respectable 43 tickets - not enough to cover today's accommodation, but not bad for a preview.

Kieran Hodgson was the guest and I thought I might be meeting him for the first time, but he revealed on stage that I had met him in 2007 when I did a workshop with the Oxford Revue that he was a part of. He compared his diary entry about the day to my own.

Apparently (I've just discovered) I went to see the show that year (just before a memorable night at Bar Napoli where I paid for my meal with change from my charity bucket - which of course I added to the total and paid to Scope later),. Hopefully Kieran was one of the two performers I picked out as being excellent. To be honest I don't remember even going to that show, or much about the workshop. Thank goodness the blog is here to fill the many gaps in my increasingly useless memory.

The podcast rocked along, though Kieran's mic kept cutting out and eventually died all together so we had to share mine. Technical difficulties are more or less inevitable on day one (I think the whole recording of the first ever Edinburgh Fringe podcast failed) and today's issues led to some funny bits and we coped admirably.

You can judge for yourself (if the recording works) when this goes out on Monday.

We were invited to the List party tonight. Instead we chose to go to bed at about 8.30pm. Even if we hadn't been knackered we couldn't have gone. But I am pleased about that. In most past Edinburgh parties I'd just get freaked out by the number of people, feel self-conscious if I had no one to talk to and too embarrassed to impose myself on people I might know a bit and then either get drunk or bolt for my flat.

Sleeping was better than that.

A very flirtatious RHLSTP with Catie Wilkins now up. Think I might be in there.

Catie's show starts on Thursday. Tickets here. Don't listen to all the stuff she says about me. She's a liar.

And come and see RHLSTP too. Tickets available for all shows except August 8th. Zainab Johnson on Thursday!