Edinburgh Day 2 (Thu 6th)

Travel

Started out badly, we arranged to leave at 3pm but didn’t ’till 4, due to a number of reasons (all of them James’ !). We had 2 hours to get into Edinburgh, which is do-able, however there was a breakdown on the M8. We have come to the conclussion that there must be a breakdown or accident between the Erskine Bridge & the city centre every day. I told James about how I’d watched a documentry once about how traffic jams can be caused be someone breaking a little too hard & it causes a big chain reaction that results in an hour long queue! I don’t think he really appreciated it, he suffers quite badly from an inability to keep calm while driving. I wouldn’t say it was road rage but when a man gets to the stage of spitting on the inside of his on windscreen to release the stress you have to worry. When I say worry I do, of course, mean laugh in his face & tell him he should just relax. I think I just made him go more purple.

Mike Wozniak: Clown Shoes – Pleasance Below – 6pm

I bought tickets for this on a whim, it was just one of those “ach might as well give it a try” kind of things. I still have absolutley no idea what he’s like as that traffic we got caught up in kept us out of Edinburgh. We actually made good time after Glasgow but then hit the Edinburgh tram works at rush hour, nae chance! We didn’t get to he venue ’till 6:25, we’d have been tooo embarrased to walk in 25 minutes late so we just hung about. I dunno if you can get refunds on shows you didn’t see? We decided tomorrow we might try going via Stirling rather than Glasgow … and leaving with plenty of time to spare!

Jack Whitehall: Nearly Rebellious – Pleasance Upstairs – 7:15

Seats: Row 3 (i.e. the back!) James knew: Success!!

This show was another punt (one we actually made though) I’d seen a bit of him on TV and thought it was worth a bash. He comes across a lot more posh & campy in person (not that that’s a particularly bad thing) & it really wasn’t was I was expecting, it was a pleasant surprise. A nice wee show about trying to rebel but being a bit pathetic at it. Definatley worth your time!

Jon Richardson: This Guy At Night – Pleasance Upstairs – 8:30

Seats: Row 3 (again-not our choice, the front of the queue were put up the back!) James knew: 2 in a row!!

This is the 3rd time we’ve seen Jon Richardson (Edinburgh ’08 & Glasgow ’09) & has quickly become a favourite of both of ours. His BBC6 podcast (of Sunday morning radio show) is a must have on my iPod to make the journey to work a bit more bareable. I doubt very much that there are any other shows at the festival that start of by appologising for the heat (if you haven’t been, every single venue is unbearably hot & you leave each show soggy) & saying that if you need to go outside to get some air then you shouldn’t be embarrased to do so, what a guy! Jon’s show is basically a good moan at the world, some of it is very minor but all of it I wholeheartedly agree with! The whole audience is taken through all the misery & woes in his life & comes across as very honest & open about himself, which is either very brave or a really good stage persona, I’m never quite sure! Anyway, obviously you should go see this if you can, I won’t hear a bad word said against him!

Barry & Stuart: Powered By Demons – Underbelly, Belly Button – 10:15

Seats: Row 2 (theres no way I was sitting at the front), James knew: Waiting in the queue, a staff member shouted it out

Peterheed’s finest comic-magicians! This was the premier night of their new show and started in a quite unexpected way (which I obviously won’t spoil) Barry & Stuart mix magic & humour in a very dry way, I think that’s why I love them so much, the drier the better I say. The show is, as usual, very dark & similar to the stuff they’ve done on TV (see youtube!) all of the tricks are very impressive, being the first night there were one or two small glitches, you probably wouldn’t even have noticed from a few rows further back. It didn’t ruin any of it though, more made you appreciate how hard they actually work to pull a lot of the stuff off. I know a lot of magic shows will use stooges placed in the crowd & at last years show I did wonder if that was the case, that was until they hauled James up on stage (& considering he didn’t know we were going until 5 minutes before it started, if he was placed in the crowd, that really is magic) I don’t want to spoil any of the show but I find it hard to express what actually happened without … James collapsed, he didn’t just fall, his eyes flickered 3 or 4 times rolled up into the back of his head & he completley crumbled, it was quite shocking (probably only for me) then he couldn’t leave the stage because his feet were too heavy. I obviously questioned him the whole way home, he said he kind of remembered it but it seemed like it didn’t really happen or he’d watched happening to someone else. Mental, absolutley mental.

Edinburgh Day 1 (Wed 5th)

Edinburgh Festival Day1, the start of a diary of sorts telling the great tale of me and my best friend James’ adventures at the Edinburgh Festival. You’ll laugh. you’ll cry, you probably wont actually.

Bit of background, James & I have been best friends since 4 years old … a shared love of Jimbo & The Jetset & Thundercats cemented our friendship! We have the same very dry sense of humour. The deal is, I pick the shows & get the tickets, James drives, I navigate. The planning is always meticulous but goes wrong very quickly! This is our second year cramming in as many shows as possible into a few days, see previous post for details of what we saw last year & our plans for next. There are twos side quest, we have to sit in the front-est seats available, front row if we can & James does not know what we are going to see each day, only the times & I have to try get him in without knowing what it is which sounds easier than it is, there are a lot of “is this the queue for …” “can everyone have their tickets ready for….” and the like)

let the adventure begin…

Travels

It actually works out a lot cheaper to drive from Loch Lomond to Edinburgh & back everyday than stay in a hotel (the hotel prices are absolutely ridiculous!). The plan was for James to pick me up from work at 4pm & go straight to Edinburgh, in the morning I made sure I had everything, change of shirt, trousers, shoes, money, tickets … everything was sorted. It wasn’t ’till I got to work I noticed that I couldn’t see 3 feet in front of my face … for some reason I’d left my glasses at home. I have been wearing glasses every day for over 18 months now, how I managed to get from my house to the train station without noticing I don’t know. So straight away the plans were messed up, I had to take a half day from work to go home and get my glasses (cheers boss!) we left from home at about 4:20ish, this put us 20 minutes behind technically but the first show didn’t start for 3 hours so we had plenty of time. It’s a pretty straight-forward journey, over the Erskine Bridge, past Glasgow Airport, through the city, along the M9 into the North end of Edinburgh, negotiate the tram diversions & into one of two car-parks depending on what venues we’re going to. Except a combination of hitting Glasgow just as everyone was russian (lolz) home to see/listen to the Celtic game, passing Ibrox just as thousands of people were heading to see Rangers v Man City & an accident up ahead (apparently) meant we got stuck in a crazily long traffic jam before even getting to Glasgow. We finally got out of it with about 55 minutes to go, we were pretty much resigned to the fact we were missing the first show. We got into our favourite wee NCP just off the Pleasance with 2 minutes ’till the start of the show, we made pretty good time through the detours considering we hadn’t been there for a year. We ran up the hill to the pleasance, straight in to the Pleasance One, I remembered that it was straight in the left & up the stairs from last year, we ran right up and almost collapsed into the arms of the event staff at the door, “sorry mate, you’ll have to go outside and queue up, 4 Poofs & A Piano is over-running by about 20 minutes”. I’m not sure if the guy was ready for the sweaty, exhausted hug he got but it was pure emotion, we’d made it! We we’re, of course, the last people in the queue which was by now round the entire perimeter of the Pleasance Courtyard.

Pappy’s Fun Club’s World Record Attempt - Pleasance One – 7:20

Seats: Row 2, James knew: In the queue “the doors to Pappy’s Fun Club are now open” cheers!

We had seen Pappy’s at the Glasgow Comedy Festival earlier in the year so i knew it would be a good bet for first show. This time they are attempt 200 sketches in one hour! The show probably isn’t for everyone, it’s all a bit silly, the Fun Club go out of their way to throw in ad-libs & put each other off, some of the sketches work, some don’t but the ones that don’t pretty much get bigger laughs, they’re quite happy to point out as we’d only paid a preview price we couldn’t complain. The more ridiculous, outlandinsh & forced the sketch the better! Do they make their world record? You’ll have to go check it out for yourself, of course. I enjoyed it, James absolutley loved it, it was definatly an improvement on the last show we’d seen them do. Well worth checking out if you are looking for a show in early afternoon!

Rhod Gilbert & The Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst - Pleasance One – 10:30

Seats: Row1! James knew: Pappy’s Fun Club mentioned what the next show was

After some high profile TV appearances &, of course, the Wales Tourism Board ad this show has already completley sold out. It was just as well this was in the same room as we’d have missed it otherwise! I had heard a lot of good things about his 2008 show “…and the award winning Mince Pie” and this years show follows on from where that left off. An hour of rants at a world where everyone is going mad, kitchen appliances take most of the brunt of his rage, he has a good point, they do conspire against you! Everyone isgoing mental! A thourougly enjoyable show, especially if you already hate everyone & everything already.

A quick jaunt a few blocks to what I can only assume is a Uni campus of some sort (as is the Pleasance Courtyard) a wee square that holds the Teviot, The Udderbelly & The Pleasance Dome. This is the first time we’ve been to the Dome, it seems like quite a nice place, a wee relaxed atmosphere & a newsagents that’s open till one!

Barbershopera II – Queen Dome – 22:45

Seats – Row 2, James knew – Success! He didn’t

I had booked the tickets for this quite late on (only a hour before leaving actually) I had heard a bit of them on Jon Richardson’s BBC6 show a few months ago. James & I love a bit of barbershop so I knew it would go down well, especially with managing to get him into the room with absolutley no idea what he was about to go see. We weren’t disappointed, a show about a matador who inherits his dead fathers Norfolk barbers. It was funny, had a decent story line & the singing is impressive, I would go as far as to say you MUST see this show, there will be a lot of people throwing flyers in your face proclaiming “five star review” for, let’s be honest, sometimes average shows. This show really does deserve the attention though. Quite embarrisingly we both admitted to finding it hard to stop focusing on the female of the group, mostley because she’s really, really, ridiculously good looking. I realise this makes us come across as a couple of perverts but …. well …. we’re not. Just go see this!!!

Travelling Home

Stopped off on the way back to the car to get a crepe, I only include this because I got one with toffee sauce & I can realisticly see myself getting one every day because I’m greedy & fat & love toffee sauce. ‘mon the diabeties! We wandered through the streets of Edinburgh back to the car park, £6 for 5 hours parking, very reasonable! got in the car drove to the exit “ehhh, this is a 24 hour car-prak yeah” asked James, the shutter was down on the exit! “ayeeee, look there’s no lock on the shutter, it must raise up when you put the ticket in” it didn’t. All of a sudden my mind was cast back to being 17 years old, missing the last tain home & having to spend a cold November night in George Square in Glasgow after a gig. We sat looking at each other for a bit & decided to phone the number on the ticket, we were told someone would be along in 5 minutes to let us out. We sat for a bit coming up with a plan to how we were going to explain to an angry on-call security guard. Turns out it actually is a 24 hour carpark, there are a few of them round the city &, for extra security, a guy has to come to open the shutters to let you out after a certain time. The journey home was extended further by us having to double back as the Erskine Bridge was closed, I can only assume there had been an accident as it was a lovely clear night. Got home at 2:30am, after a trip to asda as james “needed” cheere & biscuits … at 2:30am … cheese & biscuits … and just 12 hours ’till we have to leave to go back! Bring it!

Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival time has come around already! Will swine flu replace te credit crunch as this years staple joke … probably, aye. So what will be excruciatingly painful to you but quite interesting to me, here is how last years shedule comares to this year.

2008

Fri 1st: Tim Vine, Jon Richardson, Elizabeth & Raleigh

Sun 3rd: Matt Forde, Laurence Clark, Danny Robbins, Pete Firman, Dan Antopolski, Barry & Stuart

Mon 4th: Roy Walker, Richard Herring, Josie Long

Fri 8th: Phil Kay, Nina Conti, Phil Kay

Thu 14th: Jeff Kriesler, Stewart Lee, Mark Olver

Tue 19th: Jimeon, Michael McIntyre*

Fri 22nd: Nick Doody, Russell  Howard*

*these two shows, while being amazing, have meant that Mock the Week has become unwatchable

2009

Wed 5th: Pappys Fun Club, Rhod Gilbert, Barbershopera

Thu 6th: Mike Wozniak, Jack Whitehall, Jon Richardson, Barry & Stuart

Fri 7th: Mark Thomas, Stewart Lee, Dan Antopolski, David O’Doherty

Sun 9th: Pete Firman, Richard Herring, Matt Kirshen, Matt Forde

Mon 10th: Bec Hill, Des Clarke, Miles Jupp, Tim Key

Wed 12th: Phil Kay, Marcus Brigstock, Rhys Darby, Phil Kay

 

Smashin’! No Josie long show this year, which is a shame cause I’m pretty sure I’d have proposed. No Tim Vine either (if you ever get the chance to see him, take it, it’s amazing!)

Anyway, recomend me some shows or berate what I’ve picked cheers!

Do you have a number for Amanda Hugenkiss?

I, like most, read this story from bbc.co.uk today with interest.

A company is starting a new mobile phone directory service, you can phone up for £1  ask a persons name & town, they will tell you if you appear on their database. If they do, for a further £1 fee, you will be connected to them (but not actually given the number).

The BBC go into detail, as do a number of media outlets, on how to send a text to the company or go on their website to remove yourself from the database. It struck me there may be a problem with this option. The company claim to have sourced 15million UK mobile numbers while there are thought to be at least 120million mobile phones still registered. The company have a relatively small percentage of numbers the company have got them by buying up numbers who didn’t “tick the little box” on competitions & surveys.

It seems to me that the type of person who will text or e-mail in to get their number removed are exactley the type of people who would take care to cross those little boxes because they are protective of their details! Surely a better solution is to call ”118 800″ youself & ask them for your own number, chances are they don’t have it, it’s cost you a pound but your number is still private.

Sure the ex-directory flag your number in their database but who knows who will then access that (maybe even buy it from them?) if you’re still worried about cold calls have a look at the Telephone Preference Service & remember, if you do get a cold call in the vast, vast number of cases the person at the other end of the phone is a young, underpaid, over-worked person sitting in borderline inhumane conditions with a tightly controlled script to read, they risk their job if they stay from it to far & their employer has most probably given them next to no training on how to deal with people, if your nice to them they will usually be very helpful getting your details removed & giving you a complaints address because they hate the company a lot more than you do.

Retro Is Catching Up

For as long as I can remember retro has been fashionable, as time goes on the retro “time-frame” shifts with it. It’s never been something I’ve particularly taken much interest in but I’d always noticed growing up that there seemed to be a 20 year cycle, when I was a child in the late 80′s I can just about remember there being a lot of 60′s themed parties & records & the like, in the mid to late 90′s everyone suddenly went crazy for the 70′s glam rock & abba were back with a bang. I know what you’re thinking, “this guy might have a point, the 80′s are really ‘in’ just now”, NO, they’re not though are they!?

It seems to me that the 80′s were so bad that there’s been a jump to the 90′s but everyone just forgot to say so it’s still being referred to as 80′s retro. I mean, all that day glo, colour change, plastic, synthy mash, it’s pure 90′s nostalgia!

So is retro catching up with us? What happens when it does, will we all be wearing ruffs & pantaloons in 10 years time … I bloody hope not, I don’t have the neck for it.

Sainsburys “why not go to Tescos?”

Advertising, brilliant isn’t it!? I love looking at what advertising companies think will really convince us to buy into their “brand identity” in ever strange ways.

The latest Sainsbury’s advert, appearing in a national paper near you, is amazing, whoever commissioned it needs to receive a large bonus, probably paid by Tescos.

Spot The Difference

That image is maybe a bit to small to see the detail but basically it compares 8 products on sale at both Sainsbury’s & Tesco. Now, Tesco have a reputaion for being cheaper that other supermarkets & are doing quite well during the recession, Sainsbury’s, looking to win over some of their customers, have spent thousands upon thousands of pounds pointing out to us all that out of their whole range of products they have some that are the same price as Tesco (presumably because there are none cheaper?) so you might as well keep shopping at Tesco, right?

The Weather .. really!?

Yuup, the first post proper on Unthusiasm & I’ve resorted to weather, brilliant.

That’s what I wanted to achieve, a blog where I complained about the weather, how quaint.

Let me be clear, I dislike the heat, really, seriously, HATE it. Why people like to go sit in a park and lie about doing nothing but “soaking up the rays” is beyond me. I like it to be warm, preferably, with a nice breeze, dry if possible but don’t mind a bit of rain if it’s still mostly warm but the heat the extreme heat, I can’t believe people save up all year & pay to go INTO this heat, mental, absolutely mental.

I work in a secret underground bunker in the centre of Glasgow, there are no windows, it is not particularly laborious work but the air conditioning unit is broken, has been for over a year now, the coolest the office has been in that time is 27 degrees, 27 degrees of dead, sweaty, underground air. I then go home and can’t open the windows in my house because the neighbours have bats & the babies (there must be an actual name for baby bats!) get confused and decide to pop in the windows. I like having bats in my street, it is amazing to watch them up close but if they could just go away for one day, please! I have an industrial fan on blowing warm air into my face now, it’s completely unrefreshing.

Bring on the summer rain!

Unthusiasm 101

Welcome to the Unthusiasm Blog! The number *mumble* stop to hear the ramblings of a self-inflicting Scottish buffon whose biggest life skill is knowing not really enough about a large range of things, for example, polar bears are left handed, why, dunno, how did we find that out, dunno, is that at all usefull, might be.

So what can you expect to be posted on here? Most likley to be trivial things that generally annoy me, I am particularly riled by bad journalism & intentionally misleading headlines, bad adverts & stupidity (not my own strangely) I like reviewing new confectionary & disliking almost all popular music, TV & films. My friend pretty much refuses to go to the cinema with me now because of it.

Have a browse, leave a comment pointing out where I’ve failed, enjoy.