Edinburgh Festival. Part Two. Gigs 101-118

“Trauma”. Lets look up the definition:

‘A deeply distressing or disturbing experience’

Mmm. Thats not quite enough. Lets look up “psychological trauma”:

‘Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event’

Mmm, thats better but still not there. A little closer, but not quite. How about “Agony”:

‘Extreme physical or mental suffering.’

Ah, thats better! Much more like it. Lets look up another one:

‘Intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain’

Yes!!

'The agony of doubt'

YES!!

'The torments of the damned'

YES!!! YES!!! YES!!

PERFECT!!! Extreme mental suffering. Agony. Anguish. The AGONY of doubt. THE TORMENTS OF THE DAMNED. That’s exactly it. That’s precisely how I would describe what it’s like doing Edinburgh.

Sat Aug 9th

No.101 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

No.102 Dada Comedy Ettrick Hogg + Woodward 6.15pm

No.103 Kelly Wenham gig George Next Door 10.10pm

No.104 Matt T Woodward Midnight Comedy, Espionage - The Kasbar Room


Edinburgh, the capital city of Scottishland, city of literature and volcanos and the Firth of Forth, the city of phlegm. Home to the greatest Festival in the world, cradle of the arts, ground zero for broken dreams. The streets awash with the tears of failed comedians. The ghosts of those that came and flopped before, wailing in the darkest corners of those cobbled streets. Wailing: ‘GO! GO BACK!! GO BACK HOME AND LIVE YOUR LIVES!! DO NOT TRY TO CONQUER EDINBURGH!! FOR EDINBURGH SHALL CONQUER YOOOOOOOU!!!’ Many a man/woman/hermaphrodite has heard those cries, and failed to heed them.

THE TORMENTS OF THE DAMNED

(Hermaphrodite ghosts, theres a new one)

After arriving on day one, I dropped off my suitcase/haemorrhoid camera off at my B+B, freshened up a bit, and set back into Edinburgh city centre. Royal Mile. The epicentre of the Festival. It’s a bright sunny day, and there are tourists and performers everywhere. The place is alive and abundant with the spirit of Festival summer. But I don’t notice that. The first thing I see? The posters. Big massive fuck off posters. Of comedians. Everywhere. People I know. On big fuck off life sized shiny posters. Acts I knew and have gigged with had huge professional shiny posters on walls, windows and billboards. Billboards! Acts I’d gigged with in tiny grimy little clubs and cat litter bins back in the early days, were here, now, on massive billboards. And here I was, a Festival virgin, the life suddenly drained out of me like a used tea bag.

Oh, fuck. I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.

I do not respond well to the success of others.

‘GO! GO BACK!! GO BACK HOME AND LIVE YOUR LIVES!! DO NOT TRY TO CONQUER EDINBURGH!! FOR EDINBURGH SHALL CONQUER YOOOOOOOU!!!’

Sun Aug 10th

No.105 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

No.106 Dada Comedy Ettrick Hogg + Woodward 6.15pm

No.107 Laughter on the Outskirts, Wee Pub, Woodward Ettrick Hogg 7.30pm

No.108 Ms Ettrick Hogg + Matt T Woodward Midnight Comedy, Espionage - The Kasbar Room


Mon Aug 11th

No.109 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

No.110 Joe Grant’s Shit Show


Tue Aug 12th

No.111 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

No.112 Alexis Weironiey How Not To Be An Adult, Ibis Hotel 5pm

No. 113 Dada Comedy Ettrick Hogg + Woodward 6.15pm


This is not good. I’m being bombarded with evidence, actual empirical real world evidence of my own relative failure, my own utter pathetic lack of career progress. These fucks are on billboards! Massive posters!! The only poster I’ve been on was for a college theatre piece about AIDs. Nearly 20 years ago. And that was just a photocopied A3 size of a drawing. Someone's SHITTY little drawing. That was when I peaked. I peaked early in community college agit prop AIDs theatre. I was just 18. That's an incredible achievement. Mark Zuckerburg started Facebook at 21. I beat that fuck by three years.

Wait a minute. Wait. It’s only day one. Day fucking one!! I have three weeks of this shit. I have a B+B booked, a venue booked, flyers printed and paid for, people to I’m responsible to. Stop walking back to the train station. Turn around. You must not let a few posters defeat you. Especially not those containing other comedians. Or, pertinently, people who are doing a fuck sight better than you. Let it go. Success is all relative. Half these fucks will probably have terrible Edinburghs. Hopefully.

Forget about them. Don’t worry about it. Go and check out your venue. Baby steps lad. Baby steps. I get my map out and begin the search for my venue. I try to block out the overwhelming knowledge of peer success. Which is nigh on impossible because people keep offering me their fucking flyers.

Wed Aug 13th

No.114 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

No.115 Laughter on the Outskirts, Wee Pub, Woodward Ettrick Hogg 7.30pm


Thur Aug 14th

Day off!

Fri Aug 15th

No.116 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

No.117 Adam Money WhyNot night club 18:45

No.118 Ms Ettrick Hogg + Matt T Woodward Midnight Comedy, Espionage - The Kasbar


You’ve probably noticed something. Its the end of part two of my Edinburgh blog, and I still haven’t got past day one. There's a reason for that. I’m procrastinating. I don’t want to dredge up the pain and memories of those three weeks. I’m not ready. It was like failure rehab. Being forced daily to confront who you are: A fuck up. But part three is next. I will have to deal with it. Next time, I’ll try my best to show you what happened. Just don’t be surprised if it comes in the form of incoherent screaming. So. Part three. Lets press ahead Joe. You have nothing to fear. Nothing to fear. Nothing to fear. Except maybe permanent psychological oblivion. And hermaphrodite ghosts.

Edinburgh Festival. Part One. Gigs 80-100

This is it. The big one. MY FIRST EDINBURGH FESTIVAL.

Goal: Do 100 gigs

Secondary goal: Become a world famous comic behemoth

Goal three: Try not to become an inmate somewhere

I failed all of them. Fucking miserably.

Lets start with the journey up. How do I get up there? I thought long and hard about this. I thought so long and hard about it, I didn’t book anything til the day before and started running about all panicky poos trying to sort my travel. (It’s the way I live. Louche and laid back for months, not a care in the world, then one day of psychotic, frenzied panic) But which mode of transport shall I choose? Scotland is a long way, it’s at least 12 miles. (I dunno know how far it is, I’m not fucking Columbo. Columbo? Columbus? Did Columbo discover America? That would explain things. He was quite astute. Pretend to be a lowly apologetic one eyed hick. Lure people into a false sense of security. Discover America.) Again, I’ve left things to the last minute. It’s not going to be cheap. Train will be too expensive. So, I have to make a cheaper decision. Quick. How do I get up there? Rematerialization teleportation device? Einstein-Rosen Bridge wormhole? Or Megabus?

Friday Aug 1st
Gig No. 80 Joe Bains, Licence to Laugh 11pm


No. 81 Matt T Woodward + Jo Ettrick Hogg Midnight Comedy, Espionage - The Kasbar Room


I’m not using the teleportation device. Last time I turned into a fucking fly. That’s staying in the box. And the wormhole? Nah. There’s no point travelling all over the very edges of existence, through the totality of everything that exists, has existed, and ever will exist, just to get to go a few miles past Hadrians wall. Slight overkill there. (And there'd be a good chance you get back when they were fucking building it.) The third option - no. Just, no. 10 hours on a Megabus. No. 10 long interminable hours on a bus, stewing in other people’s farts. No. No. Fucking. Way. A 12 ton rancid shit box carrying a herd of penny pinching scum. Human bacteria, smothering up the environment with their stinking pathogens. All wearing sports casual. Smoking electronic vapour fags and picking scabs off their knees. (I love stereotyping the working class) If I could, anyone who smokes electronic cigarettes, I’d chuck em in when they were in the fucking bath. Fart bubbles aplenty.

A lot of people drink on the Megabus. Why wouldn’t you? It’s like a sensory deprivation tank. They might as well dress us all in orange, chain us to the seats and blind us with pink padded sleep masks. Actually no, thats a contradiction. They’re not like sensory deprivation tanks. It’s the opposite.They’re like sensory saturation tanks. They lock you in there and torture you for 10 hours by bombarding you with all manner of disgusting smells.You walk in as human beings, and walk out like a bag of stewed onions. Your sense of smell dying a slow pitiless death. Fuck that. I’ll get a train.

Sat Aug 2nd
Gig No. 82 Cracker Jokes Pilgrim Bar, Venue 100 4.15pm (Everyday)

No. 83 Dr Electric Hoggs Dada Garden of Dark Delights, Maggie’s Chamber, The Free Sisters

No. 84 Singles Night, George Next Door, Miranda Kane

No. 85 Ms Ettrick Hogg + Matt T Woodward Midnight Comedy, Espionage - The Kasbar Room

Sun Aug 3rd
No.86 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm
(Will post one photo in final part of Edinburgh blogs. Stupid uploading a new photo for every single show)
No. 87 Glang Show, Sean Morley 6.45pm

No. 88 Barely Regal, Beat Nightclub, Stephen Palacito 7.45pm

No. 89 Capital Comedy Club, Moriartys, Davy Mitchell 8.50pm

No. 90 Singles Night, George Next Door, Miranda Kane 10.20pm


Friday morning.

My train is at 10am. Lovely. A nice lie in. I get there at 10.01am. Why the fuck do I fall for the same lie every time? I should know by now: ‘Lie in’ = Being late.

“Never mind,” I thought. “This ticket is valid all day. I’ll get a nice breakfast snack then saunter onto the 11am train like Jamiroquai. Perfect”

Perfect? Was it fuck. This wasn’t my train, I hadn’t been allocated any seat. All the seats are gone. People are packed in like slaughterhouse pigs. Standing in the hallway bits, shifting, squatting, squirming in people’s moobs, sitting on the floor and/or very old men. (Old men make for good seating as it goes. Great for your back. When you position them correctly, they’re almost like orthopedic seats.) The only seat I’d been ‘allocated’ here was on my own fucking suitcase. Four hours I spent on that suitcase. Four miserable hours with my own suitcase handle probing my anus like a fibreoptic haemmorhoid camera.

Monday Aug 4th
No.91 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

Tue Aug 5th
No.92 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

No.93 Singles Night, George Next Door, Miranda Kane 10.20pm

No.94 Ms Ettrick Hogg + Matt T Woodward Midnight Comedy, Espionage - The Kasbar Room


I sat in front of the suitcase shelving unit next to the toilet. Yes, the toilet. Why? My only other option was to be one of the carriage hallway slaughter pigs. And least sitting on my own suitcase, I didn’t have to smell someones armpit. Being next to the toilet though, I had to smell people’s faeces. One thing I learned on that trip: Humans are shitting machines. If you think about it, thats all we are. Our bodies, all they do is produce voluminous amounts of shit. That’s it. No wonder the ozone layer is fucked. The train was packed. I had to stand up and down every few seconds for 4 hours. Up, down, up, down, up down. I developed quads like a Slovakian Hammer champ. I stood up and down more times than Kerry Katona in one of her workout videos. So, coupled with the 4 hour workout session, the smell of the toilet etc. by the time I got off the train I had big beefy legs, a deviated septum and an advertising contract with Iceland. Just like Kerry Katona.

Wed Aug 6th
No.95 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

No.96 Gary Shaw - Now That's What I Call Stand-Up#1, Blind Poet, 5.15pm


Thur Aug 7th
No.96 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm
Really nice audience of 4 people!


Edinburgh. Train station exit. I did not know the fuck where I was, or where my B+B was. My first job was to get my bearings, buy a map and see where I was in relation to the B+B and Royal Mile, the apparent epicentre of all things Festivial. (I’m not sure if that’s a word. If it isn’t, then I’ve invented it. Ah’m loike fackin’ Shakespeare. Also, like Shakespeare, ‘I’m’ not really writing this. I am actually a well mounted Gentleman of the Court, and I wouldn’t be seen dead publishing second rate comedy blogs. I’ve made a secret pact with the young peasant Joe Hunter, who shall claim the credit for my works.)

Friday Aug 8th
No.97 Cracker Jokes 4.15pm

No.98 Dada Ettrick Hogg + Woodward 6.15pm

No.99 Cheaper Than Therapy, George Quinn, 11pm

No.100 Ms Ettrick Hogg + Matt T Woodward Midnight Comedy, Espionage - The Kasbar Room


The quads came in handy. The first thing I had to do was walk up some really steep stairs from the station up to Royal Mile. A long fuck off steep set of stairs. It was like an upright wall. I needed mountaineering gear not quads. Ranulph Fiennes himself would have looked at it and said 'Piss off! Piss off mate, yer 'avin a larf ain'tcha?? Fack all that mate ah'm off!' Gone back to base camp and ate one of his egg sandwiches in his toilet tent. I did not have that luxury. I had forge ahead. Carrying my suitcase. (Which, actually, made a pleasant change from having it lodged up my arsehole.) So. Ahead. I have arrived. The Festival is just beyond the top of those stairs...

Part Two coming to a cinema near you.