Frolics in the Forest - The Fringe Files Part III

The final installment of my Edinburgh tales, and I have saved the best to last. Well I think it’s the best. If you don’t think so, screw you, it’s my blog and I don’t need you please please please don’t leave me.

When last we spoke, Green Diesel were still dashing across the city for early afternoon and late night gigs, and I was trying to fit in as many shows as possible while also fulfilling my duties as a band-aid. As my tales draw to a close, I bring some more Fringe highlights for you, stories from the band and a particular venue that needs to be written about.

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.

Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium

“It’s not cat porn.”

No, tiny darlings, this wasn't my response when the beau's grandmother asked what I did for a living. These words came from the founder of the dementedly delightful Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium, London's first ever cat café.

A place I visited twice. With a camera.

What happens when you direct a play (for the first time)

This post was written on the opening night of my directorial debut with The Canterbury Players in June 2014.

A while ago, I wrote about hay fever. But now I am going to write about Hay Fever. No, not the ailment that's killing me slowly via the nose. I mean the thing that's probably going to kill me by way of a bunch of people kicking me to death while shouting "is it stage left or right, you silly bint?!!"

Yes, tiny darlings. I am directing a play. Namely, Hay Fever by the one and only Noel Coward, and it starts tonight (Thurs 26th June) at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury.

Excuse me a moment while I vomit profusely from gut wrenching nerves.

The Demon Gin Goes to Junipalooza

It's happened. It's finally happened. Those maniacs...

I've been to tasting events for nearly every liquor under the sun, including some that weren't strictly alcohol....one was a type of comb cleaner, I think....but what has been missing from my life - from the The Demon Gin herself - was a gin tasting.  

If only there was some sort of massive gin tasting extravaganza, I mused, that I could lend my blogging skills to. Ha, wouldn't it be grand to have some sort of event in a warehouse where various distillers hand out tasters of juniper goodness? Oh wouldn’t it be spiffing to wile away the hours, discussing the finer points of all manner okay you can see where I’m going with this.

And lo, God created Junipalooza. 

Babies + Offices = Kirsty

I sit in my office. I hear a strange sound in the distance, like a murder of crows crossed with stampeding elephants. I look up from my desk. 

A woman I barely know is standing there, disheveled but looking oddly pleased about it. I’m not sure if she works here…maybe she's from legal or….Oh Christ. 

In her hand, I see it. A baby carrier. And it’s full.