This year's Edinburgh Fringe Podcast might be cursed. Today we checked the desk for buzz and for stereo and for Dalek voice synthesisers and all was OK. But the recording got disrupted by workmen cutting through cables in the road outside. I would have been super dumb not to have had a back up, and luckily that worked, but to begin with the Tascam wouldn't sync with my computers. I mean have upset God or something? Is this what happens when you dare to question Stewart Lee? If I end up falling off a bridge this year in Edinburgh it was not suicide. Repeat it was NOT suicide.
I was glad to get an observation into the podcast that had struck me as I walked down there. Every day I pass the little statue to Greyfriars Bobby outside the Greyfriars Bobby pub, near the Greyfriars Bobby tourist shops. Tourist crowd round taking photos of the statue, which is dedicated to a tiny terrier who supposedly
sat on his master's grave for 14 years in the 19th Century (though there is a suggestion it was a story made up by local businessmen to increase tourist trade- if so it has worked). A hundred and forty years on the dog and the statue are still venerated. And today I thought however good a Fringe any comedian has, however many five star awards or prizes they win, in 140 years time no one will remember them, but they will still remember this tiny dog who probably didn't even exist. However big you think you are you are not as important as a long dead non-existent dog who didn't even actually do anything except sit on a grave. It puts it into some kind of perspective.
Maybe one day there will be a statue to Andy Murray in the city and a story about him sitting on the grave of his master will be invented to bring in the tourists. I watched him winning Olympic Gold as I cycled on an exercise bike at the gym. He was impressive, but not as impressive as me - I was on that bloody thing for over 36 minutes. I should look into whether there is an Olympic event for the person who can cycle on an exercise bike for the longest without stopping, cos I think I am in with a shot of that one. Do you want another gold or not Team GB? Well get on the bloody phone. I have some kind of static cycling stamina. I don't think anyone in the world can beat me. Plus I don't take drugs - except some magic mushrooms in Glastonbury once, but we don't need to tell anyone about that.
The Talking Cock show crowd was predictably small, as it usually is on the first Sunday (as cheaper ticket deals are in operation on most of the days around it), but the people who came were lovely and I had my favourite show yet. Also there weren't loads of people singing and shouting outside. It was raining and the 100 metre final wasn't until later. But I was quite disappointed to discover that the bar at the Udderbelly actually has TV screens showing the Olympics right outside the venue. Maybe Stewart Lee isn't the idiot that I am jealously trying to portray him as. It's one thing having a meeting area bang outside my inflatable venue - I can cope with the buzz of talking and occasional shouting coming through the thin walls - but to encourage people to watch sport there seems counter-productive in many ways. It's disruptive to the shows, but also gives punters an option of something else to do other than see a show. Who knows, maybe some people were thinking of coming to Talking Cock and then saw the TV was on and decided to watch the Olympics? This did seem to be a way to attempt to cash in on the Olympics, by selling drinks to punters rather than encouraging them to buy tickets. And to do this right outside a venue so one of the shows is continually interrupted is pretty cynical and unprofessional.
The venue itself is fun to play whether full or a quarter full like it was tonight, but it's more fun when there's no external noise. And it does seem to be a shame if a venue is more concerned with selling drinks than selling tickets. Maybe next year we can do away with the inconvenient performance aspect of the Fringe and turn it into the celebration of drinking and sport that we all know everyone really wants it to be. I can play snooker against myself in Bristo Square all day, only stopping to amaze people with feats of endurance on the exercise bike.
