Tales of the punexpected

Tim Vine stopped his puns briefly, taking a moment under the warm stage lights, to mop his brow with a handkerchief and looked down at the slightly crumpled note of paper he pulled from the left pocket of his suit jacket.

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we’re very lucky to have him here. Would you join me in welcoming this man to the stage. He’s a Graphic designer and he is Mr Michael Reid!”
The surrounding audience in the darkness cheered and clapped as a few of them looked round for the next named guest. The comedian had already invited two random members of the audience up on to the small stage individually in the Pleasance Cabaret bar. He’d interviewed them, questioned them and joked with them and now it was my turn.
Upon entering the Cabaret bar and taking our seats in the audience before the show we had all found strips of paper, forms to fill out, lying on our seats and stools, waiting for us. Ka and myself took our seats in the third row, not wanting to venture too close to the stage as you risked getting picked out for interrogation that way.
The forms asked simply for your name, your occupation and a situation you’d been in recently or not so recently that could be deemed to have been ridiculous. I filled out my form, as did others, not thinking much of it but struggling at first to think of any slightly ridiculous situations until the more recent misadventure in the supermarket popped into my head. The recent supermarket misadventure in particular being the one where I couldn’t find my wife anywhere and ended up having to get her name announced over the tannoy. Shrugging, I handed my form up to the compere as he dived around the audience collecting other shruggingly filled out forms before he disappeared backstage, through the slim doors at the side of the stage on which two stools stood, with two microphones perched on each, alongside a table of props.
After around five minutes Tim Vine, the English comedian famous for his daft jokes, fast one-liners and non stop puns, eventually emerged from between the curtains at the back of the stage, greeted with applause by the gathered Fringe crowd and immediately launched into his usual barrage of jokes. It was only the second day of the Edinburgh Fringe so this would have most probably been a mere warm up act for him since he is performing his chat show act for the entirety of August.
As everyone cheered me up on to the stage the comedian greeted me with a big shake of the hand and invited me to sit on the second stool, where the previous two guests had sat. The first had been a red faced, mumbling mechanic whose story had centred around him giving someone a new wheel on their car and neglecting to tighten the wheel nuts, thus causing some embarrassment to his garage and getting himself a written warning when the wheel spun off a some point in the unfortunate customer’s journey home. Thankfully no one died, so it was okay to make light of it. Until the customer had been revealed to be a woman, of course, as this caused some upset from the audience much to Tim Vine’s surprise and wasted no time in accusing the audience of being sexist.
The second guest had been a wee lady, an accountant, from the best hotel in Edinburgh, apparently. Her Dad was polish and after some discussion, a discussion which seemed to inadvertently confuse the lady, it was revealed to her that this in fact made her half polish. This lady’s story involved a milk run in her local town when she was younger and a truck hitting and dragging the finishing line rope along with it bringing the flag pole down on to her head. Tim Vine shrugged views this as definite proof, if any were needed, as to her being polish.
During the accountant lady’s tale a young girl got up and left her seat, presumably to either visit the bar, the loo or just to escape. Tim Vine gave her a little mention as she escaped insisting that if you don’t like the stories you can always just sit through them, the show didn’t last too long.
There was no escape for me though as Tim Vine called me up on stage.
At first it felt fine, sitting up there. You can’t really see the audience as the only light in the room comes from the strong, warm, bright stage lights hanging overhead casting the rest of the room in darkness making you barely able to see beyond the first two rows of the audience. Beyond those first smiling rows there was only darkness, so my safe seat on the third row together with Ka, who had let out a fairly audible groan as I was called up, were shrouded in shadow before me.
Tim Vine introduced me to the audience once more and raised an eyebrow, or two, when I gave the audience a ‘hello, how are you doing?’.
Tim then asked about my job and upon mention of the words graphic designer a man in the second row on the right of the audience got up and left his seat, making his way to the doors. Tim Vine immediately caught on to this and mused over whether the man had something against graphic designers.
Tim wondered whether he’d said to his wife; “This is fine. I’ll come and see this show. But if someone even mentions the words graphic design I’m outta here. I’m drawing the line at that!”. Tim (notice how we’re on first name terms now!), then asked about the job, what it entails and where it was based, making sure is wasn’t in ‘Ayrshire’ to which I said I was pretty (sure) to which he replied “is it?”. I nodded, defending Glasgow even though I was sitting in a crowd, which was most probably made up of a good percentage of Edinburgh folk.
Tim then got me to go through the whole supermarket tannoy story (seen here) and noticed, as some do, that I sometimes, when a little nervous or excited, or on stage with a famous comedian, tend to repeat myself or get a little too enthusiastic about certain points in a story.
“So, I searched the length and breadth of the supermarket, twice, three, four times…”
Tim asked if I done most things three or four times.
Even as I told my story I realised it wasn’t very funny or interesting at all, not the way I was telling it anyway, and I was probably making a very boring chat show. I finished my story with the tannoy announcement and the rather shocked and embarrassed Ka making her way to the checkouts to meet her husband. Tim seemed to quite enjoy the tale launching off into a few of his supermarket puns, obviously ready and in mind as soon as he’d seen my note come through the backstage door and then, after a few more questions, asked for Ka to come to the stage. There was no movement in the darkness where the third row should have been. I looked into the shadows behind the first two rows looking for Ka to make and move but she didn’t. She had disowned me with embarrassment.
Apparently at some point in the next few moments Ka did put her hand up, but I never seen it, although Tim Vine definitely knew she was sitting there, in the third row, as he was willing her on to the stage with his eyes.
Just when I thought all hope was lost, and Ka had finally died of mortification, someone did jump up on to the stage. It was the girl who’d went to the loo during the earlier story.
“I’m Kelly-Ann!” she told us. “My name’s Kelly-Ann!”. Tim and I looked round at one another with surprise and then back at her.
“Well, this wasn’t planned at all”, Tim stated, wide eyed. “Was it 2 for the price of 1 that day?”
Tim Vine welcomed two others up on to the stage after me, a nurse, who kept claiming that not killing people was a good thing, and a teacher. As much as I thought my story was hardly exciting and pretty boring, as I recited it on stage, I am now quite happy and content with the fact that the two following guests’ stories were worse. The nurse’s story involved her losing a hat to the ocean whilst on a ferry and the teacher’s involved him dressing up as a turtle for one of his kids’ school plays. At least losing your wife in a supermarket and then getting her name called over the tannoy is vaguely humorous and a suitably daft for a Tim Vine show.
After the show finished Tim disappeared, back behind the curtains, at the rear of the stage, to the applause and cheers from the audience. As the lights came back up, everyone started making their way out the Pleasance cabaret bar, following the exit signs (they’re on the way out aren’t they?) through the double doors through which we had previously entered. After a few moments a familiar voice echoed out through the stage speakers.
“Would the wife of the Graphic Designer please make herself known to the stage”.
The shambling crowd all laughed as they made their way, looking round at Ka and myself as we followed among the crowd, but unfortunately Ka was too embarrassed or affronted to hang around any longer and we headed for the Pleasance courtyard.
It hadn’t occurred to me until afterwards that maybe, just maybe, Tim Vine had been wanting us to go to the stage to collect a best story or show contribution award?!
Or maybe not.

Performers, pamphlets, pasta and pains

“What’s this all about?”, I wondered to myself after ten minutes of standing watching a flame haired guy shout at the gathered audience around him. The flame haired man had dragged a young child out into his people framed circle in the middle of the Royal Mile. The street entertainer was now spending a hell of a long time shouting at the gathered audience standing before him, whilst the audience standing behind him, which involved Ka, Mum, Dad, Lynsey Ann and myself, struggled to hear, his voice a distorted echo which bounced off the old, stone walls and buildings around us. He took a few more minutes to dress the wee guy up in a long coat, red wig and hat, cracking jokes the whole time, which only half of the audience actually heard, the rest of us, standing to the rear, having to make do with vague echoes and attempts at guessing the joke. He then started blowing up long balloons with some sort of small air pistol and as he cracked another joke my patience finally broke and I turned to Ka and my Mum and huffed loudly. Ka and Mum agreed with a nod and a shake of the head and we started moving off. We started to move reluctantly at first, moving away from the busy, crudely formed circle of tourists and Fringe goers as we suspected that as soon as we took our eyes away from the red bearded street entertainer he may actually start entertaining.
That’s always the problem with the Edinburgh Fringe, I thought as we walked, there are a hell of a lot of shows, plays, music and exhibitions on in the capital at this time of year but only some of it will actually be worth watching.
Dad had driven us all through to Edinburgh for the afternoon for a walk around the Fringe tainted streets of the capital in order to take in some of the colour, acting, music and activities.
Ka and myself usually go and see at least two or three comedians of varying standards when it comes to the Fringe time of year. This year, however, Ka and myself are running a little short of fun and laughs and we were quite happy to relax and simply stroll around with Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann, taking in the fringe atmosphere, looking out for anything interesting that may be going on in the streets whilst we looked around for a spot of lunch on the sunny Sunday afternoon.
The crowds were pretty massive, as is usual for the Edinburgh streets at the height of Fringe activity.
People danced around you as you walked. Pirates handed out pamphlets as we passed. Classical music rang out from small, secluded corners in the various squares that lead off from the Mile. Pipers played the bagpipes in animal skins and long kilts, balancing on stilts disguised as goat legs, precariously tottering around the pave stones on hooves. Small groups of artists huddled under brolleys, hunched over easels painting or sketching paying models, advertising themselves with impressive drawings of movie stars set on boards facing out into the street. Some even sat pencilling mildly insulting caricatures of paying visitors to their pavement spot, apparently oblivious to the fact they could be in for a punch on the jaw. Big, fat, burly blokes blew up stretchy, coloured balloons. TV crews ran about with big, complicated looking cameras. All the cities buskers were out in force, wearing the more colourful ties and hats from their wardrobe collection. There were more street statues than normal too. Standing still. Doing nothing. Wanting paid for the mere effort of painting themselves silver.
People stood on the street’s rails and stone pillars in deep conversation with squirrels which they had their hands and forearms hidden up inside the animals’ anal cavity. People pedalled around on unicycles, uncomfortably perched on their small saddles, making you wince, as you felt their pain, watching them travel over the cobbles underfoot. Others walked around holding picture frames around their heads and shoulders creating the illusion of being a walking, talking portraits.
There was no sign of Trevor and Simon though. Dad reminded me of a past Edinburgh moment when the family had been walking down the Royal Mile, at some point in the late eighties, and Kenny and myself spotted the Going Live comedic legends of ‘Swing Your Pants’ fame, striding up the street towards us. Unfortunately they must have been on their holidays as they were not swinging their pants at the time so, being the shy, polite person that I am, I neglected to ask for an autograph.
The celebrity average on Sunday was pretty low. We only managed to spot Four Poofs and a Piano, of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross fame, who performed a short routine in the middle of the street with a keyboard perched on the pianist’s kilted knees.
After an hour or so walking around the city streets we headed back towards the Grassmarket in search of some Sunday lunch.
The five of us ended up sitting in the middle of the old market square outside a small café bar named Made in Italy, the Castle towering above us from behind the various bars which line the northern side of the street. We enjoyed some sufficiently sized pasta dishes with some wine, and, whilst a man cracked a whip in the open space behind us, enjoyed the atmosphere and the varying degrees of sunshine, which shone down through the moving clouds overhead.
In all we had a nice, pleasant, relaxing Sunday to take us into the stressful week that was to come when my Dad woke up on Monday morning with a pain in his chest.

Kafka, Regan and Edinburgh for a change

Why is it, whenever you find yourself requiring the speedy use of a public toilet it is always in the places you end up having to rush about looking for change?
Ka and myself were on our way to Edinburgh on Saturday to have a Fringe day, on a mission to see a couple of shows and take in some of that overcrowded Edinburgh Fringe like atmosphere.
We arrived at Buchanan Bus Station around mid morning to find enormous queues circling the station, originating from, you guessed it, the Edinburgh Bus stance. Thankfully, presumably because of the fringe, there seemed to be more buses laid on and the the many Festival goers did not have much of a wait. With a heavy shrug we joined the back of the ticket queue before realising we were both in need of a toilet. As I bought the bus tickets Ka went off to the toilets and discovered the additional need of a 20p and joined the back of the bus queue as I bought the tickets. On reaching the back of the queue I delivered a 20p to Ka, after having to buy a Daily Record, and watched her disappear back into the bus station. After Ka's return I then sped off, begrudgingly paying my 20p to the steel box before banging my thighs off the, rather hesitant to rotate, entry bars.
Our loo visits over we were soon on the coach and on our way along the M8 to the capital for some Fringe action.
Edinburgh's High Street was it's usual chaotic self during Fringe time. Crowds everywhere, tourists everywhere, actors, dancers, singers, balloon salesmen, students, musicians and leaflet distributors everywhere. Ka and myself followed the crowds towards the Fringe Box Office and booked a ticket to a dramatic production we had been sold by one of the leaflet distributors on the street.
'Kafka and Son' is a production centering around the author, Franz Kafka, and the writing of a letter intended for his father but never sent. The letter details the relationship between the father and son, the constant struggles, the fears, the frustrations and the feuds. Very deep, surreal, odd and dark, the production was lifted with a fantastic performance by the one actor on stage. Alon Nashman, helped illustrate Kafka's mentally trapped, frustrated self very well.
Ka and myself left the Bedlam Theatre feeling the need for comedy and headed up towards the large purple cow shaped tent of the Underbelly where we were stopped by a tall irishman in a red checkered, lumberjack like shirt who invited us to a show. After a few more minutes of talking, he revealed it to be a personal invitation and admitted that it was in fact his own show. Jarlath Regan, his name was. Upon meeting him in the street I vaguely recognised him from a Mock the Week or two, and since he'd asked us so nicely we decided to go along. A good move, it turned out, as he managed to cheer us up after the Kafka episode. His material included a number of funny, descriptive stories with some obvious fare too which he improved upon with his own original attitudes and perspectives. Some of the more tried and tested stuff came from marital centered situations but because it all strikes a cord with more or less everyone, nobody left the room feeling cheated out of their time.
Once again, on the way home, Ka and myself found ourselves needing the loo. The rain was pouring down as we got to St. Andrews Bus Station and we ran for the public toilets only to be stopped by some familiar looking rotational barriers. There barriers were worse though. They were Capital barriers. They wanted 30p!
We delved into our pockets once again and breathed a collective sigh of relief as we pulled out the required coinage. Ka disappeared off to her loo and I stepped up to mine, sliding three ten pences down the coin slot and walked into the barrier. Bang. My thighs slammed into the unmoving steel pole. I tried again as two other blokes walked up behind me. Bang. It wasn't moving. A primitive, digital font blinked up from a small, green screen on the steel box before me. 20p paid.
"I put 30p into that b*star* thing!" my voice echoed around the tiled walls as I backed out of the entry.
"Just jump it, mn!" the second bloke in the short queue behind me, a fellow Glaswegian, shrugged, backed up and jumped the barrier box. "Just jump it" he shrugged again as he straightened himself up on the other side.
"If you've put your money in..." the first, older guy, another Glaswegian, shrugged from under his cap behind me.
Just as I limbered and readied myself up to climb over the barrier, a small toilet attendant in a luminous yellow coat, shouted a warning from behind, rushing out from a door somewhere.
"Hold on a minute!" he shouted, plugging a key into the barrier's control box as the first bloke disappeared into the toilet.
"I put my 30p in!" I pointed out as he looked up at me sternly through thick framed glasses.
"You're on camera!"
"I put my money in!" I protested, as the toilet attendant allowed the bar to rotate as I moved through.
"You're on camera!" the attendant sighed with a shrug.
As I huffily stepped up to a urinal inside, the jumping Glaswegian turned from his urinal further round the wall.
"What's it like eh?" he laughed. "Just as well he missed me, I didnae huv any change!"

Rivers in the Underbelly

After a generally lazy day yesterday, we went into Edinburgh last night for a few drinks and to see the crazy American lady that is Joan Rivers. After a few drinks in the grassmarket, including a visit to The Last Drop, we headed to the Underbelly under George IV bridge and the Central Library. The venue itself is a collection of dark, stone walled vaults conencted by spiral stairs and small, poster covered rooms leading into warm, dank, dungeon like rooms ending in a stage which serve as the main arenas. On the way up to the White Belly (the room where Rivers was appearing) I passed Glen Wool and Jimmy Carr on the spiral stairs. Wool we'd seen on his 10 minutes Comedy Gala stint on the Monday night. Rivers arrived from the back of the room, once we were all seated, her craggy, raspy voice immediately echoing throughout the vault as she handed out fans to people and got up on stage only to find her microphone stand fixed at the wrong height. Of course she immediately started complaining as she tried to loosen up the mike to bring it up a little higher and when she found she wasn't strong enough to unscrew it she then looked up at the audience gathered before her and asked for some help in the form of a big, strong...lesbian. From what I could see there were a few definite contenders in the audience but a big, burly man from Bognor Regis eventually got up to help her. She was a complete hoot for the whole hour. The time flew by. She was at her funniest when talking about her supposed life experiences including her recent walk on the Great Wall of Chine for Cancer Research, her dating disasters and her cynical approach to life in general. Really funny and great comedy entertainment from the supposed 75 year old. You can barely tell what age she is now! After another wee drink afterwards we headed out into the streets again to make our way back to the car (which seems to have recovered from its swimming lessons the other night). We walked through E4's Udderbelly and generally took in some of the great Fringe atmosphere which makes Edinburgh such a great, fun place to be at this time of year.

Comedy Gala and rivers

Having a great week this week as I'm not in work! Woohoo! No work, nilch, nada. Wake up, when I wake up, get up, when I get up, do whatever, when I decide what whatever happens to be at the time.
Yesterday included going out for brunch at the local and then heading into the country's capital to check out some of the Fringe and head for the Comedy Gala 2008 in aid of Waverly Care. This was a night in the city's Festival Theatre on Edinburgh's South Bridge Street. A great night of at least twenty comedians getting up on stage and giving either a taste of their own fringe show or just a general outburst of their usual stand up banter for approximately ten minutes each. Each with their own styles, outlooks and moralistic approaches to life the variety of talent made it top class entertainment from the likes of Michael McIntyre, Mark Watson, Jim Jeffries and so many others. McIntyre was the host for the first half of the night and possibly, for me, one of the most entertaining comedians of the lot. Sean Grant and Stephen K Amos were also a great hoot. Definately worth looking out for in the future if not tomorrow when we head back in to Edinburgh for more Fringe fun including an appointment with Joan Rivers at quarter to midnight. hey, the woman might be seventy odd but is still hilairious, or f***ing hilairious as I'm sure she'd put it (followed by a walking stick pulling her off the set of 'Loose Women' by the neck). Looking to head in around five for something else to take us up to the 'witching' hour though and hopefully it will not be p*ssing down with rain tomorrow.
Just before settling down to watch the stupid and fun Kung Fu Panda there we fought our way back to East Kilbride through torrential rain on roads that could be easily mistaken for rivers - and Ka was driving?! Sure, she's a skilled driver now (thanks largely to my Master like teaching) but I do not think she'd expected to be driving a glorified river rapid vehicle before she passed her test. The wee clio seemed to transform into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the back roads from Hamilton, swimming through the roads rather than driving. Unfortunately my hands were too busy gripping the side dash to be waving cheerily as any passers by. Unsurprisingly there were few passers by except in other struggling vehicles. The expressway was jam packed, probably due to flooding, so I instructed Ka to take the back road route from Hamilton over the small stoney bridge round the back of St Leonards. Unfortunately this is where the trouble began as each of the roads up to the bridge was a flow of gushing, swirling, flooding water as if ever river and stream surrounding EK had simultaneously burst its banks like some bad Pierce Brosnan disaster movie. However, just like some bad Pierce Brosnan disaster movie, we pressed on against all odds and survived finding the deepest water of all more or less on our doorstep, outside our street on Maxwellton Road. So deep infact the Clio managed to gain another wheel from somewhere as a wheel trim managed to get lodged in our underside. This created a worrying, grating noise, the origins of which of course, we did not know about at the time and made me wonder whether the Clios exhaust had left us and spun off down the Maxwellton river. When we finally came to a stop, with smoke drifting up from under the Clio's bonnet, I did manage to free the newly acquired wheel trim as water dribbled down onto me from the pipes and, (thankfully still attached) exhaust. A journey we hope not to repeat in any way going to and from Edinburgh after going to see a woman called Rivers!

It's a cracker

Went in to work to the expected questions about the car this morning. Mary and Margaret having another heckle from their box. I explained that it'll be fine. No great emergency. They looked a bit disappointed. Finally returned Lost Ian's DVDs this morning. He gave me the whole series of 'Cracker' to watch around two months ago and I managed to finally finish it at the weekend. What a great series that was. Definately Coltrane's finest hour - why aren't they still making it?! Brilliant telly with so much depth put into the characters through the brilliant storytelling of Jimmy McGovern. Great. By the way, the reason he's called 'Lost' Ian is because that's the name he's given in the flat. Ka has never met him so he goes by the name of Lost Ian as, like us, he is a big Lost fan and records it for us every week as we no longer have Sky (after Sky decided they would no longer sell their channel to Virgin Cable back in '07). The same goes for Creamy Chicken John. John gave me a brilliant Aussie recipe for pasta last year, involving herbs, cream cheese etc which Ka has used on more than one occasion and as a result he is now called Creamy Chicken John. There are other names which I'm sure I'll write later but just can't think of at the moment or which I daren't mention!
Came home after work to find Claire (Montgomery) and Jane in with Ellie relaxing after a plate of Ka's meatballs and spaghetti. Nice. Fortunately there was some left, which I'll keep for myself till a later date. Had a bit of Ka's gorgeous lasagne in work for dinner, straight from the microwave. Have never been sure of microwaves. Work is the only place I use them, except from the occasional hot chocolate. Sometimes it's like Radioactive city in that work kitchen with all the microwaves droaning away at the same time probably damaging our brain cells with their cooking power.
Also watched the excellent 'The Matador' starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear at the weekend. Very enjoyable movie again with great characters. Brosnan played a blinder. A hired aging hitman stressed out with age, anxiety and maybe even guilt alongside Kinnear's straight guy salesman. I wasn't solely just sitting watching tv all weekend by the way. It just sounds like it... but the fact I have to drive whilst holding the door at my right shut is a definate hindrance.
I was hoping to get out on to the Scottish hills this weekend but it looks like work is going to get in the way of that now! It may have to wait till next week. Harry said he's going to pick an easy hill for us to climb. 'Easy'? Why easy? Does he think I'm not up to it? It must be about three years since my last Munro walk mind you... Ben Vorlich. 3232 ft high. That was a great day but tiring. Towards the end of the walk I think I was actually tumbling down the hill rather than walking.
Off work for a week next week though so hope to see some of the fringe in Edinburgh. There'll be plenty of walking then.
Claire's just left with a piece of lasagne for Martin. Hope you enjoy it mate, that was my dinner for tomorrow!