I am disappointed with you, readers and surprised how many of you want some cracker toys. I have been inundated with answers to yesterday's ghost question, all so exactly the same in wording and phrasing that I can only presume you all googled it and found it on the interweb. You cheats. At least a fair few of you admitted this. But it's hardly in the spirit (spirit) of things.
So I have decided to split the prize between my favourite alternate answers. The first comes from Daniel Brownsill who admits also used the internet to come up with
"A ghost can appear at any time of day or night. They often show up during a time that was significant to them in life. For instance, if they always arrived home from work at 2 p.m., they may materialize near the entrance of their former home at 2 p.m.
Spirits are also frequently seen during holidays and anniversaries and other emotional occasions.
Though a ghost can appear anywhere, witnesses most often report seeing them in the following places: Peering from windows, on the stairs, in hallways, sitting on a chair or bed, and in mirrors!"
The second is from Graeme MacLennan who came up with his own joke:
"Woooh (Two) o'clock on Woooh-sday (Tuesday) Woooh (2) Feb-woooh-ary (February)." Because they're ghosts, see. And ghosts say "woooh" a lot. Ha ha, I am funny."
I will split the prizes as I see fit. Please email me your addresses. You will both get a show programme, which I saw for the first time today and looks OK, but there are a couple of annoying errors. I had to write the programme very rapidly this year and I didn't have time to proof read which is a shame and I talk about the year that "Stewart Lee through a glass of beer on me". This error leapt out at me as I read and I was convinced that it must have been the fault of the designer as I would never make such an elementary error, but when I checked my files I saw that the fault was all mine. How irritating.
I also left Sarah-Jane Potts name off the list of actors in "You Can Choose Your Friends" which was stupid of me. Sorry SJ. Hope you enjoy your free programmes. You get one if you come to the show and I will be sending out the limited edition copies just as soon as I have time to put them together. Don't hold your breath.
Tonight I walked up to the Pleasance Dome to do a 20 minute spot at the BBC show. It was my first gig of the Fringe as my own show doesn't start til Thursday - will be adlibbing a lot and it's bound to be a unique performance, so buy your ticket NOW! It's coming together slowly, but will be endearingly shaky until the weekend at least!
As I looked round this old town (still at the point where I am walking everywhere to keep fit - see how long that lasts) I started feeling old. Not in too bad or depressing a way. Just in the way that I have been in this town for 16 summers of the last 21 and have seen and done lots and was noticing the changes. I wondered to myself whether maybe it was time to leave the Fringe behind -again it wasn't in a depressive way - I just thought maybe I have outgrown it or it has outgrown me or that it's time to move on. It feels like a young person's town at Fringe time and maybe by coming back here I was trying to recapture something that was lost, or prove something to someone who didn't actually exist. These were mainly idle thoughts. I love appearing at the Fringe, but it is hard work and wearing and just for those moments I thought maybe not coming back would be a positive step. Not because I am not looking forward to this year, because I am, but maybe twenty years of anything is enough. And possibly it is time for me to grow up a little and Edinburgh is an excuse to regress and pretend I am 21 still. You know, I'd been thinking about this kind of shit all day, because of the show. But it all made me feel quite good to question myself.
Then I did the BBC gig, where everyone else went down brilliantly and where I headlined to a slightly lacklustre and underwhelmed response. The audience were young and seemingly shocked and appalled by my rudeness and lechery. It wasn't a disaster, but wasn't very satisfying and may have stemmed from my initial observation that many of them had not been born when I first appeared at the Fringe. I got through it, but it wasn't the start to the Festival that I had hoped, though my head had been a bit all over the place all night and I think it was mainly my own fault.
So I walked home feeling a little unsatisfied and now slightly depressed about things. Which even for me is a pretty impressive feat. To have my first slightly sad walk home before my Fringe has really even begun.
Comedy seemed even more like a young man's game and as I am wont to occasionally do I wondered if I should have done something else with my life, or if I should do something different now. It's not a serious inclination, just something that descends upon me every now and again, usually during Edinburgh.
So as I felt very mildly blue and sorry for myself, and laughed at my own folly and predictability (even at the time I knew I was being daft) I heard a shout of "Richard!". Behind me at some distance was a shadowy, bearded figure in a cagoule. For a second I wondered if it was some random nutter, but it turned out to be a very special nutter, Daniel Kitson. He was so pleased to see me and cheery and funny that I immediately brightened up. Just as
last time when I had started to have doubts about my profession the comedy gods sent me a comedy angel to give me hope. I told Daniel that I had been thinking that maybe 20 years was enough. "Yeah," he blustered, "But 30 would be better!"
"When you put it like that...." I replied.
I asked him when and where he was on and he told me he was on at the Stand at 11.30pm, "But not on Fridays and Saturdays!" he added.
"You maverick," I said, "Those are the busiest days. How terribly contrary!"
He agreed and parodied himself by arguing that playing on weekends would be crowd-pleasing akin to appearing at Jongleurs and I told him that if he really wanted to buck the system he should play the Edinburgh Fringe in September, when everyone else has gone home. That would be keeping it real, playing to two people in a venue with no lights or chairs. Only that would be true comedy.
We laughed and I felt better and banished my stupid doubts (maybe they're not stupid and I should have done a different job, but it's too late now. I've made my bed).
But like Billy Connolly, Kitson (who I think is on a par as a comedian) reminded me of how great comedy can be and also how helpful it is to laugh at yourself when you're taking yourself too seriously.
So roll on the festival. Let's pretend it will be my last, but I think you all know I will be back here like a bad smell in a GNER train carriage all to soon.
