Little Ern & Eric
So STV are joining the new millenium and are putting together a topical sketch based program online with the idea that the strongest characters will be developed for a TV series. First things first though – they are going to put all the material online for the world to see. So if you sit slumped in the couch with a wry grin on your face watching Mitchell & Webb, Shooting Stars, The IT Crowd or Morcambe & Wise – yeh come on that was genius – this could be your big break. Have a beak at this link http://bit.ly/bTIDa and off you go.
Oh and if you get the job, I’m your Agent 20% of everything.
Ready, steady, thespian!
Are your loins girded? It’s about to kick off again. Edinburgh at this time of year is a joy a palpable melting pot of mental. Victorian costumes, daft acrobats bursting off your local lampost, strange chanting into wooden pan pipes, thesps abound on every street, aye aye it’s August. Nearly there.
The dogs making a run for it.
If you’re a young cultured type of person firstly what are you doing reading this horseshit? Don’t go - just joking – hopefully the answer will put a smile on your face. If you are in your 20′s and 30′s The Edinburgh International Festival – the one that attracts your cultural type vultures has got together with The Skinny and for £20 is giving you the opportunity to get up close and personal with the Festival. Attend rehersals, previews, meet performers, VIP tickets to parties, get your hands on cheap and in some cases free tickets. It’s a great deal have a look at www.eif.co.uk/insider and if it doesn’t appeal to you then it will be someone you know. It really is a cracking plan.
I, on the other hand, the low brow one, will be propping up bars watching tourists and comedians at the Fringe. Often the inebriated tourist is more amusing thanthe budding professional but there is nothing love better than settling down with a pint, my pal Dynamite and hunting the dodgy bars and clubs to find the elusive new comedian to bump my gums about. So do leave your tips as to who not to waste your hard earned cash on and who not miss right here on this page and I will happily spread the word.
Oh and rememebr Twitter – if you click on to follow alisonsdiary I will follow you too and we can keep each othe right up to date with what to see, what not to see and most crucially of all where to get a free pint!
This maybe why people suffer claustrophobia - it's quite small.
Having decided we are not to go away anywhere hot and lovely this year I spent last night in deep conversation with my pal Fiona about where we could go. Last minute. From Scotland to ? Well anywhere really.
By 7am this morning I was online to Easyjet – I like them, they are allowed to fly to Geneva and the Swiss are so pernickety about their flying regulations that they don’t let any old cheap carrier fly in there you know. Although they did allow Globespan and I had a couple of knicker wetters with them.
Knickerwetter one was getting on the plane which looked like a flying toilet. There were actually bits of it hanging off at floor level in the interior. The overhead lights had so much fluff in them it looked like a fire hazard and my personal highlight going to the loo and finding all instructions (not that I needed any to go to the loo but still ) were in Russian or some other language where the letters aren’t even A B C. Comforting that. Anyway when we got home after kissing the ground for an hour and a half and telling God I believed in him after all, I wrote a long letter to the company, about 6 weeks later I got a stock reply that addressed none of the issues I had talked about. Safety is our priorty yada yada yada.
Second knicker wetter was similar story, loos swiming in what clearly wasn’t water, non English speaking crew and the general feeling that it was an elastic band, a wing (or 2) and a prayer that kept us up there. Wrote another letter of complaint and didn’t even get a reply. Phoned them and told them and then 6 weeks later exactly the same letter I had received last time arrived. Pathetic.
When they did go out of business my eyebrow didn’t even leave it’s anchoring. It was only a matter of time.
This jocular activity doesn't help the likes of me frankly
So Ryanair fly about 500 destinations from Edinburgh. They’re good, they’re cheap but they go too fast. They do! There are two tapes they play when they land. One starts with a trumpet voluntary and a hysterically happy Irish voice saying ‘ congratulations you are one of X million people who have arrived on time with Ryanair this year’ and the other one which puts the fear of God into me ‘Congratulations you are one of X m illion people who have arrived early on Ryanair’.
So what is the pilot thinking in his cockpit? If I get this little beauty down in 3 minutes instead of 5 I will get the ‘early’ tape played so put the foot down, let’s go for it. No no no. The old adage ‘it’s better to arrive late in this world than early in the next ‘ is one I follow especailly when flying through the air in a flammable cigar shaped incendiary device.
Oh dear I’ve just talked myself out of it again.
Damn. I’m off to google trains.
