DAILY DIARY

Sunday 5th August

I think the festival started properly last night. I know this because I was
drunk. Not just drunk from going to a pub in the normal way and having a
couple of pints whilst discussing the nature of devolution, but from playing a betting game with Dave Gorman (a familiar Festival face), where I lost a pint if anyone actually knew who I was.

The idea sprang from the fact that we hadn't seen each other in ages - since when I'd grown my hair and he'd chopped his sideburns. He did it to avoid being recognised in the street, then realised that no one was recognising him at all - and at one of the biggest trade fairs in the world that's a bit of a problem.

He cheated of course (anyone who thinks he is a comedian should realise that he is in fact a demon mime artist) and all sorts of bizarre people claimed they went to school with me. This was quite fun until I bumped into someone who should've known who I was but who chose to call me Sally. Funnily enough this Sally is becoming the bane of my life as I was recognised on the Royal Mile (hurrah!) - for being her(boo!).

I got quite excited thinking perhaps that finally I had made my mark but no. Apparently she did a “terrific” show last year about mice and juggling.
I try to capitalise on this and say I'm doing a great one this year (about
prostitution and angels), but somehow not being Sally doesn't impress the punters and they move on to find the real one.

My leafleting technique really has to improve.

The Gilded Balloon Press Launch (our venue).

We dressed up. Nothing fancy - after all the Gilded Balloon main stage (one of the many theatres there) is a sweaty bear pit of a place where anyone leaping on stage has either downed several pints and no longer cares or has lost their sanity, probably both.

This evening's competition involved seeing if you could actually get someone to look at you while having a conversation. Not at your hair, tits, or over your shoulder, but actually at your face! (you know - like with normal conversations).

We did rather well, considering : we crowbarred in two conversations, and someone did in fact look at us for half a minute but alas! they ruined it with a blink. Five minutes later though, we had settled down nicely chatting to a lovely man in charge of press who wanted to drink our Justified Sinners Cocktail and spread the Halyon gospel when suddenly he blinked… As did we all. A vision in black sequins and not much else appeared at his side. She rammed a bare shoulder between us and the lovely press man and with a toss of her blonde locks said to him:

"Can I flirt with you now? You can get me to the List party can't you?"

(A moment's explanation is required here. The List party is a big event set in a local gym miles from anywhere where exactly the same people gather later that night to not look at each other).

I wracked my brains to work out where I'd seen her before. Ahh, it was That Poster.

It was the sharp blonde bob I recognised, actually. Well, the poster only
shows the back of her head. The front of her head is working on another man, trying, I presume, to get to another party.

In fact, there seems to be a plethora of blow job posters this year - even
Arthur Smith and Keith Allen are at it. You have to turn yourself upside down to work out if it really is Keith Allen - and it’s really not worth the
effort. I think some enterprising Edinburgh student should do a thesis on the sociological impact of nude vs rude advertising.

I still think our Madonna-like wings and breast combo beats theirs hands down (fnarr fnarr). Still, onward and upward, eh?