The Fringe Files Part II: Here comes the band

When last I left you it was Sunday night at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the beau and I were enjoying a last hours of privacy before four days of frenzied music making began.

Such gaiety we had, tiny darlings, exploring the sights like a normal couple instead of two people who practice wrestling finishing moves on each other and sometimes forget how to kiss.

But as the weekend drew to a close, a faint rumbling could be heard across the fair city. Crows cried from the rooftops, dogs howled, mandolins began to play by themselves.

The band was coming…

Edinburgh: The Fringe Files Part I

This month marked my first trip to the famous, frantic, fevered Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And my renewed love affair with alliteration, apparently.

The Fringe has been on my 'must do' list for many years, along with the West Country and various cast members of the film 300. But every August, fate has conspired against me and I've never been able to make the trip. Until this year, when I was presented with a tantalising opportunity...

No, I wasn't acting in anything. Nor was I singing, dancing, miming or semaphoring. I was, instead, given the chance to travel up with my beau’s folk band as they played various gigs across the fair city. Basically, I'd be a groupie*.

Ten Things Not To Do....In A Job Interview

So I recently got a new job. This means that I did not monumentally screw up the interview, and that my various witty remarks were not quite as insane as they sounded in my head.

Perhaps I have finally learned how to be cool in such situations, after so many years of sitting in interview rooms muttering "I'm a people person" while sweating profusely from my ears.

In celebration of my success, I thought I would share with you my top tips on how to avoid disaster in a job interview. I think you'll find them thorough, and applicable to all situations.  

1. When the interviewer asks how you are, don’t bang the table with your fist and scream “I’ll ask the questions, dammit!”
2. When they ask your name, never pretend to be Wagner. 
3. Don’t bring pretty pictures you’ve drawn in crayon to the meeting. Unless you’re an artist. If you’re an artist, that’s probably a good idea. 
4. Don’t, when asked about your personal interests, state ‘Jesus’ or ‘your mum’.
5. If you start crying, don’t say it’s because you have faulty eyes from when a Romanian drug dealer tampered with them on the same night you were called up by the US army to build a bomb to destroy Commi-Nazis trying to sell your only mother into the used car trade. 
6. When asked how you deal with difficult situations, don’t make the international hand gesture for sexual intercourse, and say quietly “I always find a way”.
7. Don’t start sentences when you have no idea how to finish them. E.g. “Outside of work, I am an amateur dramatic…ist.” (This actually happened).
8. Don’t walk in wearing a wedding dress, and say "if I get this job, I'm sure he'll come back".
9. Don't walk smugly around your interviewer's desk before coming very close to their face and saying: "I'm going to enjoy working in THIS office." 
10. Then, when the interviewer points out that you are actually both sitting in a local café, don't deal with the situation by trying to hide in your own shirt.