25/02/2007 Haircut 100 (well, almost)

So well done Walter Smith and Rangers...a great European performance...
I always felt that Walter would turn things around at Ibrox!

I was walking up Dalry Road today and was intrigued to discover that Dalry Road has now become something of an International centre of Hairdressers.
In a 100 yard stretch at the bottom of Dalry Road I counted 6 separate Hairdresser establishments.
People must travel from all over the world to get their hair cut in Dalry.
I assume this is the case, as surely there are a little too many hairdressers needed purely to satisy the local clientele.
It's very odd...
What were the people who opened the 6th premises thinking?
"You know, I was thinking...there are only 5 hairdressers in this 100 yard stretch of Dalry Road...! What this area is crying out for is another Hairdresser."
Maybe they all opened at the same time, and the owners were shocked to discover that 5 other people had a "Dalry Hairdressing dream" which they had simultaneously realised.
Could some of them be bogus businesses being used for money laundering purposes?
Maybe they are staffed by CIA operatives for Intelligence surveillance?
Perhaps they could get together and use the proximity of their businesses to their advantage?
You could do a "Barber Crawl" along that stretch of Dalry Road and get a slightly different haircut at each shop. (I presume you'd be offered a discount)

I played poker last night and made a bit of an arse of things.
I was the biggest loser of the night...
I don't mind losing (sound of nose growing longer), but in the course of the games I made a few idiotic mistakes, eg folding when I could have checked, which caused me great irritation.
I also got grumpy at the Dance Bros habit of informing me it was my shot every time...even though I already obviuosly knew it was my shot and was pondering my action...
Little things can become very annoying when you are on a losing streak....

The filmed night at The Stand in Glasgow went pretty well I thought.
I assume they'll give us a shout when the clips are uploaded onto the web.

It was a little unfortunate that the evening coincided with Celtic's Champions League match with Milan being live on telly.
Consequently, The Stand was quieter than usual, although it was still a reasonable turnout.
The audience were 90% female.
It was slightly disconcerting in that when they laughed, it sounded like the Munchkins laughing along with Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz.
Not that there's anything wrong with that....

A Little Bit Disappointed

Like Walter Smith, I was "a little bit disappointed yesterday".
He felt like this because he made another tactical arse of things in a European tie ; losing to the "crack" Israeli outfit, Hapoel Tel Aviv.
His record outwith the domestic league is historically, and remains, awful...
And don't say, "well, he beat France when he was manager of Scotland" ...because yes, he did, but you get the odd unexpected result in football...
Bertie Vogts beat Holland at Hampden in the Euro 2004 play-off, but that result is viewed as a freak, and no-one is beating a path to Bertie's door to offer him another top job, are they?
I was also a "little bit disappointed" because I bought a CD of "Cult Film and TV Themes" yesterday.
Little did I realise that the tracks were not the original versions and instead, what I got was a great big steaming bag of shite.
The arrangements were terrible, and they were played by what sounded like a school orchestra.
I was just giving blood when I took a funny turn...
That's never happened to me before...
I just got all light-headed and nauseous all of a sudden.
Do you remember that old tv ad with Noel Edmonds trying to get you to give a pint of the the red stuff?
(of course you do you old fuckers)
Anyway, at one point he jocularly said, "No sensation of me draining away..."
Well, I did have a sensation of "me draining away..." (I hope this doesn't put anyone off...)
I always remember some smug chap standing in the background while Noel was being drained, who was act what he thought of being a blood donor.
"It's what your left arm's for!" he said, and we all laughed heartily.
Apparently next Tuesday night at The Stand is being filmed for some comedy web site.
I'll maybe post the link if the show goes well...!
Although, it's almost guaranteed to go badly, as the last 2 gigs have been great, and 3 in a row doesn't tend to happen...
It is written....!

14/02/2007 And now.....

I suppose I should plug the next "Electric Mouse Comedy Club" at The Holyrood Tavern in Edinburgh taking place on Wed 28th February at 8.15pm.

Featuring Neil McFarlane, Dee Custance, Jim Park, Graeme Harkins and a special Mystery Guest Headliner....and all this for 4 pounds...
crikey!

11/02/2007 Walking of the Hill Variety

This is what the view is supposed to be.






I have not been able to dine again at "Ponchorello's" esteemed eaterie as I have been banned for being cheeky to the staff.
This is a terrible injustice as I was only having a laugh...

Anyway, I've always felt slightly guilty that in my entire time at Stirling University, I never ventured to the top of the hill called Dumat which overlooks the campus and the Forth valley.
Well, I put matters right this weekend as I climbed to the top (without ropes) and finally stood on the summit.
Unfortunately, the cloud level was very low and the visibility was down to 50 yards.
So, there you have it....
I'll have to do it another time...

I had a top gig last night at The Stand.
To "storm" a gig is an overused expression in the comedy world.
I'm always very hesitant to use it to describe a gig...
The thing is that I've heard comedians talk about "storming" a gig when I've been in attendance, and to be realistic it was sometimes more of a "steady drizzle" than a "storm".
But I reckon it was the best reaction I've ever had at a spot at The Stand.
It reminded me of my first ever gig there...
I've often wondered what was the factor in that first gig that got such a big reaction.
Well,it was good to rediscover that intensity again...
I really enjoyed it, but there's no cigars...it was just a 5 minute slot.
I'd like more opportunities at longer slots...
You just feel you're warming up and then it's over...!
But it's still a fantastic feeling to have a gig like that...
Get in...!!!!!!

08/02/2007 Where are all the boyos?

I had a great lunch today at "Ponchorello's"...!
I had some tasty croissants to begin with...then some more tasty croissants...then a tasty croissant for dessert...it was all very tasty!
Usually at this time of year Edinburgh is teeming with Welsh people...
I get the impression that there's not as many up this time for the biennial piss-up extraordinaire...
In the heyday of this fixture in the 70s and 80s, you would struggle to get a room anywhere in Edinburgh over the weekend...
In fact thousands of supporters would begin appearing in Edinburgh on the Monday before the match...
The real tell-tale signs of diluting of the pigrimage were the "Vacancies" notices in all the little hotels in my street...
Where did it all go wrong?
I get the impression that there is a higher proportion of older generation supporters up than in years gone by...
Maybe the kids just don't dig doing that Edinburgh thing and are more concerned with downloading Arctic Monkeys records from thw World Wide Net and experimenting with recreational drugs.
Personally, I blame Charlotte Church...
That sort of nonsense wouldn't have gone on when Barry John and JPR Williams ruled the world...
The Sauna at Murrayfield seems to be doing a roaring trade...
(I was just walking past it on the way to the off-license, ok?)
I just hope the 25 pints hasn't derailed the dragon's roar with regard to this activity...
I suspect that there's a lot of drawing veils over reality and stuff when the visits are discussed afterwards in the hostelry.
I like them...they are a convivial bunch and are generally a good laugh, and up for some banter...
However, my grandpa hated all things Welsh, for reasons we never fully understood.
The most popular theory was that it stemmed from some wartime event involving Welsh soldiers...
He denied this prejudice...but if you'd seen his face whenever a Welsh Male Voice Choir appeared on the telly...the evidence was unassailable...



I got a promo flier from the Queen's Hall for an upcoming show by Fairport Convention.
The photo looks like a publicity shot for the "Still Game" sitcom...

Some people from work are coming to see me at The Stand on Sunday...
Hopefully they'll enjoy it...however, the lessons of history are foreboding...

The whole department at work came to see me in the Fringe show "Park's Circus".
They picked a really good night...the venue was packed..we all felt the show did well...
The next day at work no-one in the office said anything about the show...
This went on for 2 months...until the end of my contract...
Not a dickbird...
I assumed the silence implied they hated it...I'll never really know...

Mind you, ten years ago on a different contract, I was volunteered to organise a department night out to a Fringe show...
I chose "Bernard Chumley's Grand Tour" starring Matt Lucas and David Walliams.
Myself and one other girl from the office found it hilarious...
The other 20 sat stony faced, and I never heard the bleedin' end of their moaning about my "awful" show selection...
I wonder how they're getting on these days...
I thought they had potential...but hey, what do i know...?

31/01/2006 The Mouse That Roared!

I was a considerable distance above the moon with the first night of my "Electric Mouse" comedy club venture.
There was standing room only at the Holyrood tavern...!
Everyone got a good response and the evening was delightfully MC'd by the effortlessly hilarious Susan Calman.

And as well as that she stopped me taking a cigarette from funnyman Paul Pirie before the show by referring to my extensively documented efforts on this here Blog concerning my epic and continuing war against nicotine addiction.

It was a worrying incident though, and I will have to be careful...

It's not that I was really badly stressed out.

It's just one of these occasions where the nicotine urge persuades you that it'll be alright to have just one, in the circumstances.
I was surprised how well my set went down as to be honest the performance aspect was very, very creaky. I forgot large chunks of what I was going to do, tripped over a few lines and my timing was all over the place...
But hey, the customer is always right..so I'll take the laughs thank you very much...
I was like a football team winning a match, whilst not playing particularly well...and then Chick Young would say "that's the trademark of a great team", and I'd say to him "can you not talk in cliches for one minute in your life you twat", and so on.
My excuse was that it's the first gig for a few weeks, and I've been working like a dog the past few days, and had to spend all my free time setting things up for the gig... with little time to left to prepare for actually doing the joke stuff.
With the room being so full, it was stiflingly hot in the room.
We will have to try to remedy that for the next time...
It's generally been a good comedy venue for me...in fact, it's where I had my best ever gig...

The headliner Paul Sinha had a damned fine set as well...

I had a few pints of Stella in the full knowledge that it would give me a shocker of a hangover...and it duly did...who would have thought that?

Idiot....