Saturday the 4th of August:
Woke up at the delightfully unpalatable hour of 5am to catch the train to Edinburgh for the Edinburgh festival. My friend: Mr Shabadu was travelling up too, we had gone to the festival last year as well so were continuing the tradition. We met at Brighton station, grunted grouchily at each other and began our journey. I remember wanting to sleep, but couldn't as the olympic games were on in London that week the train became steadily more packed. Early morning at Victoria station was busy enough to seem like it was rush hour. Once we got to the underground barrier I discovered to my annoyance and utter despair that my ticket to Edinburgh was not on me! The next 20 minutes were spent retracing my steps to find it; searching; asking the guard at the ticket barriers if it had been handed in; looking around some more. To no avail. I eventually realised the only option was to see if someone at the ticket desk could reprint my pre-booked tickets, or just buy another one. We were rapidly running out of time to catch our train. The woman at the ticket office advised me to just get on the train, and there is a chance the staff will understand, take pity on a moron - and issue me a replacement. However when we got back to the underground station I find the train ticket on the floor, in the exact same spot where I first realised it was missing (The one place I didn't think to check - but should have). So the next 20 minutes were spent running down escalators, tube platforms and the seemingly endless tunnel that connects kings cross rail and tube stations to try and get there on time. We were literally 2 seconds late. The open button on the train doors failed to respond to our urgent pressing and the train eventually chugged ponderously out of our grasp. We shrugged, regained our breath and agreed that I was an oaf, and that there was definitely no way that it was our fault because we were there on time. Even though we really weren't. We could think of excuses though, right?
After a lengthy but uneventful journey on the next train we arrived at Edinburgh Waverly station. It was around 1 in the afternoon so despite the unnecessary stress in London we had made good time. As we walked up the ramp to exit the station I could not help but feel like it had not been a year since we were last there. Mr Shabadu agreed when I mentioned this. He said that although it had been a year, it felt more like 11 months.
First order of business was to get to the hostel. They were far better digs than the ones we had last year, mostly because it didn't resemble a hovel in the third world, and our room didn't back on to a busy late night music venue. However finding our room in the maze-like warren of corridors was a challenge that had us looking like cretins to some of the staff as we aimlessly roamed about the place. During check-in we learned that a nearby hostel had suddenly closed without bothering to notify any guests, So droves of visitors were turning up in the city to discover they had no accommodation in the middle of the festival. One such unlucky man was at the reception of our hostel (which was fully booked). The guy spoke very little English and a girl at the desk was trying to offer some nearby alternatives for him and his family to try; although in reality next to nowhere would have vacancies, and so I felt sorry for him.
Once we had settled in we struck out into town to find some lunch, and consider what to do. We sat in a café and pored over some guide booklets we had managed to scrounge. We decided to meet a couple who we knew and were in Edinburgh, then go and see a show containing another Brightonion friend. His show was called 'Aaaand Now For Something Completely Improvised'. It was very entertaining and the place was packed out. During the show I was prompted for a location for some scenes to take place in, and gave giza in Cairo as a suggestion. I later learned this location was given so much for the show that they were thinking about banning it! So my ability to be spontaneous is evidently terrible. Following this we made our way to the pleasance courtyard where Tom Stade would be on. We saw him last year so knew it would be good. We picked up (apparently) the last two tickets available from the ticket office, grabbed a couple of beers and soaked up some of the atmosphere. The show was great, and afterwards as Tom left the venue we saw him and we got him to write on a piece of paper.Following this we decided to revisit another thing we enjoyed from last year called "As narrated by" which consists of a late night screening of a bad film with a narrator taking the piss out of it (a-la MST3K), whilst periodically feeding the audience shots. It was around 9pm, though, and that show started at 12 so we decided to take a chance on whatever thing happened to be on in the same venue at the time. Whilst standing outside a guy said I should see his show. So we did. it was called "Jack Heal's murderthon" and was possibly the best free show I saw this year. It was interesting, had tasteful dramatic elements and was pretty funny too.
Eventually midnight came, so we saw out the rest of the night laughing at the film Commando and guzzling free shots of Jager.
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