There was a slight sense of anticlimax as we drove into Edinburgh this lunchtime. I had expected to feel a surge of adrenaline or excitement, but my body didn't play ball. But it wasn't long before we saw our first posters (Puppetry of the Penis and Daniel Sloss seemed to be the most eye-catching or prevalent ones) and then we were passing the Pleasance and it started to feel a bit more real.
I can't believe I have been in this situation nineteen times before, nor indeed that it is 24 years since I first did it. Luckily having been drunk throughout most of them, it only feels like I have been up here about three times and started in 2007. But I am an old, wrinkly veteran and I've spent nearly half my summers in this wonderful city at this ridiculous festival.
I have already decided to crown myself King of the Edinburgh Fringe and make my own Spirit of the Fringe award which I will be presenting to myself on day one. Cos no one else is going to do it. Last year I kept myself to myself and didn't drink and concentrated on the show, but this year I am going to be more sociable and swan around demanding deference from all but the most wizened of performers. Except that with two shows a day to do and a radio show still unwritten I might just have to stay in my flat sleeping. And writing whilst I am sleeping.
Today though was all about getting settled in, though that was a bit trickier than it might have been as the flat we'd been booked into turned out not to have broadband. With my podcast show to upload on a daily basis this was a massive problem and I had checked in advance that broadband was available and had been told it was. But on arrival I discovered that all that was on offer was a Vodaphone mobile dongle. I suspected that this would not be up to the job (and if nothing else it meant that only one person could use the internet in the flat at any one time), and indeed once I got it set up, I tried to load up the front page of Chortle and after 15 minutes only the banner at the top had downloaded. That would probably not suffice. Given how much I am being charged for a monthly rent - have a guess how much you think it would be... no, you're wrong, it's way more than that - this was somewhat disappointing. And without even a phone line in the flat as it turned out it seemed it was going to be quite difficult to set anything up any time soon. This wasn't the start I needed.
But for once in my life I was going to fall on my feet, because as I had stipulated that broadband was essential, this meant that we got moved to another, somewhat nicer flat instead. And I was even allowed to keep my parking space at the original flat, which had been its main selling point. Everything's coming up Millhouse.
So slightly annoying to have to repack and get all our stuff into a cab (I wouldn't be able to park my car anywhere to unload), but ultimately we've ended up in a flat that makes me feel even more like the king of Edinburgh than I am. They even have an espresso machine here. 2011 is the year of the Herring. I am hoping if I just say this kind of stuff enough that people will start to accept it. I think this is what other more successful people do. It certainly worked when I said that I was fat and ugly in the 1990s (even though I wasn't) - everyone accepted that as true. So let's see if it works in the positive as well as the negative. I am the king of Edinburgh and both my shows are five star triumphs..... waits for suggestible journalists to copy that out into their papers.
I never get this lucky usually, so this is either a great omen, or the producers of the Truman Show style programme that I am unwittingly participating in setting me up for the most enormous fall.
But they are cleverly biding their time as the rest of the day was pretty cool too. We went for dinner at our favourite Edinburgh restaurant (after the Tempting Tattie)
The Ruan Siam on Howe St - some of the tastiest Thai food I have ever eaten, then made the mistake of going to the supermarket after drinking two Singha beers each and had to lug way too much stuff up the hill.
It seemed for a second that the producer of the Herring show had pulled the rug from under our feet straight away - there is a gate and a front door to the property which both have quite tricky locks, which we managed to get through, turning handles in the opposite direction to what you'd expect, but at the door to the flat we became stuck. We couldn't get the top lock undone at all. Surely we weren't that drunk? Our kindly next door neighbour came out to help, but he too was flummoxed. It seemed the lock was broken and that we were now locked out of the new flat and would have to sleep on the floor of the corridor with our shopping around us and my Soleros defrosting. We both really needed the loo as well, so we would presumably be sleeping in our own effluent. My hubris perfectly punished.
After ten minutes and a lot of sweat in the humid Edinburgh evening I managed to jiggle the door and lock in exactly the right way to gain entry. Phew.
We then went out to meet my leafletters, none of whom was alive when I first came to the fringe. I envied them their youth, though not their job, which is a tough and largely thankless one. But they are all very good looking so I imagine they will all get up to all kinds of shenanigans in their flat - the young bastards. They probably won't do, but I am imagining it anyway. It's all that is left to me.
Then I went for a drink with Michael Legge and Rich Fulcher and a few others. If their shows are half as funny as they are standing in the garden by the Spiegeltent then they are well worth seeing. Michael Legge is my first guest on Richard Herring's Edinburgh Fringe Podcast on Wednesday -
Buy tickets here or download for free from iTunes or
The British Comedy Guide. Hopefully he will seem as funny when I haven't drunk four beers. Though he probably won't.
And thanks to Andrew Goodwin who sent me this link to
a Daily Mail story about a couple who have lived in a Travelodge for 22 years.
