TOMORROW, my whole family decamps to Edinburgh. Auld Reekie will be swamped with posters, nervous under-rehearsed performers and faulty ticket systems. Yes, it's Edinburgh Fringe time again.
"How many tickets have you sold" is the opening line of every comedian's conversation.
They need to know if you have sold more than them. Have you got a better venue? Did you get more press than them?
The answer is – I simply have no idea. The
central Fringe Box Office system has been working on an "I might work, then again I might not" basis since it was launched back in June. (The individual venues' online box offices have no problems.)
Most performers are up in arms over the situation. I, on the other hand, sit back patiently, because fighting with a computer system has never been an option for me.
The internal workings of anything electronic completely frighten me and the people who are running the programme at the box office sound terribly tired. I don't think they have slept since June and may start to bite people who complain to them.
I also know nothing about the press or the venue. My brain is addled. I have to make sure my daughter Ashley hasn't forgotten her favourite handbag and remember my medication and husband's TV digi-box. If all three things are missing, then back to Glasgow we go and the Fringe can go take a flying fox to itself.
Just arriving in Edinburgh on that first day is always the best bit for me. Slowly unpacking all my clothes, finding out what cupboards to put my gear in is a lovely ritual. Feeling the bed, making sure the shower works. Just walking about the rented flat and getting a feel for it is quite soothing but, at £3,000 for four weeks, you feel cheated if the place is manky.
Husband, meanwhile, checks the kitchen and he can tell you in 30 seconds what's missing: "We need a can opener, a plug for the sink and a fish flap!" he shouts through to me. He always brings these items in the luggage as, believe it or not, they are the things that people never seem to have in their rented-out flats.
Husband being slightly Aspergic knows this in advance.
"If only he programmed the Fringe Box Office ticketing system…" I whisper to no-one.
My nightly show at the Pleasance Dome is all I can think about. As I have said before, I don't write a show in advance, I leave it to the night in question and decide what to do when I pick up the microphone.
Forward planning doesn't always work: if you don't believe me, just ask the Fringe Box Office system.
Unsettling childhood memories I HAVEN'T been back to my home town of Shettleston as much as I would like in the past few years. The by-election changed all that. Three times I was there last week with either a photographer or a camera crew.
I told Five News: "I think the people of Glasgow East will jump on the SNP bandwagon just to irritate the Labour Party. That's what we do – irritate people" – and I was right. But being back at the close entry of my mammy's old flat did make me feel rather unsettled.
My memory was jolted and I could almost hear my mum running out of the building shouting at me: "Janey, go ask Jenny McGeehan for a spare fag for me!" The curtains on our old window look cleaner and the windows have been replaced. I wondered who lived there now and did they know the horrifying memories that house contained for me?
Shattered nerves induced by slippery sorts electioneering I MET up with my old pal Patsy Paton last Wednesday, the day before the by-election. She lives in Easterhouse. She told me the whole scheme had been awash with political candidates and camera crews. "The entire area is terrified," she blurted.
"For weeks now, slippy characters in shiny suits have been banging on our doors at all hours. We can't tell the difference between canvassers and debt men. My neighbours are all on Valium. Our nerves are shattered."
She then added: "Auntie Katie's dog, Big Tizer, bit two guys last week and might need to be put down. Those door-chappers frightened it. We hate elections".
www.janeygodley.co.uk/fringe2008The full article contains 748 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
