Janey's Blogs - August 2007
Thursday the
2nd of August 2007
12:34:48 PM
It's all systems GO
Well, we moved into
the flat in Edinburgh for my three week run at the Fringe Festival.
The flat is awesome, so big and light and I love it. The good news is,
it is just out of the city centre so the noise levels are fabulous.
No screaming in the street outside like the flat last year!
My daughter Ashley and her mate Bobbi (cutest wee girl flyerer in Edinburgh)
are in one room. Their wee faces last night after the first day of work
was funny, both of them sitting up in bed taking make up off and watching The Gilmore Girls on DVD (An Edinburgh tradition).
I did my first show
last night at the Pleasance. It went great; I had an almost full house
for the first night and one wee boy aged 11 years old. I didn’t
panic about such a young kid being there but I did ask his mother if
she was sure she wanted him to hear me swear a bit.
She said it was OK, so I went ahead with the show. I had a great time.
There were reviewers in – I am not sure what they thought, but
everyone there laughed loudly throughout.
My chat show at
the Green Room opens today and my daughter is a guest! We also have
the amazing Reginald D Hunter and Doktor CocaColaMcDonalds. So it should
be fun.
I did a big painting for Arthur Smith’s art collection and delivered
it to his massive Georgian town house Museum in Queen Street, where
he is showing the Art.
Today, I am going to busy but I will try to make sure I keep this blog
updated at all times. Wish me luck.
Sunday the 5th of
August 2007
12:25:26 PM
Here is the News
from Edinburgh…
Well we are all
manic. Ashley’s play has started down at the Ego venue and my two
shows are going great guns. The ticket system is a pain in the arse.
Firstly, the Fringe Box Office and the Pleasance can’t decide how
to work out and sell the tickets and then they give varying accounts
of how many have been sold. It’s so annoying.
My chat show at the Green Room has been such good fun, the venue is
still a bit up in the air and they have yet to get proper signs to let
people know where the place is and that’s making me insane.
My comedy show ‘Tell It Like It Is’ up at Pleasance Dome is
selling well and we have had reviewers in from day one so I am eagerly
anticipating them.
I did a video promo with Paul Provenza for my show, I stand there and
chat to camera and Paul sexually assaults me basically. Well, I say
assault, he gropes me and I ignore it and keep chatting to camera as
if nothing is happening. It’s funny, but odd.
Then Paul does his promo and I come on camera, bend in front of his
flies, unzip them and pull out a banana then start eating it at his
crotch. It looks mental.
Then I almost killed someone by accident. A young guy at the Green Room
hurt his back and I gave him Co-codamol painkillers, then I went into
my show and when I came out people were running about trying to find
me as he had taken a reaction to the painkillers that I had gave him.
All is well and all is mad, but I am getting there.
Tuesday the 7th
of August 2007
04:10:14 AM
The Reviews are in
Well after letting
in the press on the first days on my shows I have so far got a 5 star
review in the Glasgow Herald and a 4 star review in the Three Weeks
Magazine!
I am well pleased
like you cannot imagine.
Ashley is having all sorts of artistic differences going on at her play,
nothing to do with her, but she is suffering the fall-out of others
being difficult. I empathise with her. I cannot seem to help her as
I am so busy, though I wish I could.
The private bars here in Edinburgh are so packed, they all give you
a wrist band and the fucking things take forever to rip off. I feel
TAGGED like a prisoner. I am so annoyed at them but the private performers
bars insist you have them on.
Life at the flat is mad, having that many people stay with me is making
me nuts and I keep tidying others people’s possessions and they
can never find them. But they should keep their stuff tidy or I will
stuff it under a table. Ashley’s room is a complete swamp.
I am sure there
are five Romanian orphans, two broken bikes, seven smelly hippies and
two racoons camped in the corner. I even think I saw a Buffalo run past
her en suite toilet yesterday. What the fuck is she doing in there?
How can she live in that mess?
It is starting to resemble Hiroshima, post atom bomb.
My room is tidy and organised and all my clothes are on hangers; Ashley’s
clothes look torn, raped and abused. How they look OK on her is an amazing
feat of magic.
Meanwhile, husband is cooking more food than an old Irish housewife
and keeps making me sit down to dinner. Has the man no idea how life
at a festival works?
“Eat your roast
beef and have some cabbage!” he shouts. Cabbage and stage time
do not work together; it's like mixing heroin and brain surgeons - bad
things will happen - I am farting like a sailor.
He may as well give me a whoopee cushion and a megaphone and let me
loose on the crowds.
My manager John spends most days surrounded by computers and printers;
he looks like the head of Jodrell Bank Space Mission, what the fuck
is he doing?
Working on the next
flight to the moon? Printing out the transcripts of the Oliver North
Trial? Contacting the entire national staff of the NHS to inform them
I got a five star review?
I have threatened
to wrap him in crepe paper, hang him from the light fitting and invite
angry Scottish children to use him as a piñata and let them loose
with sharp sticks.
Meanwhile husband thinks that, despite working like a fucking coal miner
down a smelly dark pit for hours a day, I am up for gymnastic type sex!…At
night, my calves are so sore from walking up and down cobblestones I
feel like one of those Egyptian slaves who carried slabs on their back
up a pyramid and then died on the way back down the hill.
I need SLEEP…
not sex… or cabbage… or… tidying up... I
need sleep.
Talk soon.
Sunday the 12th
of August 2007
08:43:33 PM
JOHN SMEATON IS MY GUEST AT THE CHAT SHOW
The amazing John
Smeaton is the man who kicked into the terrorists who tried to explode
Glasgow airport back in June. He is my exclusive guest on my chat show
on August 23rd at the Green Room venue.
I spoke to him today
and he is a lovely big guy and mine is the only show he is appearing
in at the Edinburgh Fringe, so tickets are selling like hotcakes today.
I am so loving my time at the Fringe this year, the reviews have been
great and the venues are wonderful - aside from the ticket problems
we have been having at the Pleasance. It seems some people cannot get
a ticket as the show is showing up as sold out when in fact there are
some tickets left.
The rain in Edinburgh is making everyone mental but we did have some
sunshine last week.
Everyone in our
flat is going mad, doors slam loudly due to some technical design, there
are mousetraps but no mice as yet, the boiler makes a humming sound
all night and the seagulls caw loudly at 5am...nice.
Talk soon…
Friday the 17th
of August 2007
01:16:53 PM
Is this the end
of me?
Dear all my Blogging
mates, I am so very sorry I haven’t blogged in a week, this is
the longest period of abstinence since I started blogging in 2004.
The Edinburgh Fringe
has me in its cast iron grip and I haven’t had complete access
to the internet and what with working lots….well…I am tired.
So it’s not
the end of me because I am here aren’t I?
The Edinburgh Fringe
is great so far, selling out at the Pleasance every night has been a
joy to behold and so far I have got two five star reviews (one for the
chat show and one for the stand up) and a clutch of four stars for both.
As you may well
all be aware, the Scottish airport hero John Smeaton is coming on the
chat show, he is the bloke that helped the police when the terrorist
tried to explode their car at our wee airport back in June.
The weather has
been shitty and cold in Edinburgh this year but I am having fun. Husband
has been strangely helpful and Ashley my daughter is just a wee worker
bee for me, as is her mate Bobi, both of them pulling together to get
the flyers out.
The Green Room where
my chat show is on is almost finished being built now that the Fringe
is almost over! We had problems with the radio microphones but have
had on some amazing guests. I am loving the Green Room despite the hitches.
Last night at my
comedy show up at the Pleasance Dome, a wee woman shouted out when I
had finished, “Excuse me we have two minutes left, please talk
more!” which can only be a good thing right?
So I did.
I am also getting
the comedy show and the chat show filmed and it will be up on the website
as soon as humanly possible.
Thanks for sticking by me…talk soon
Sunday the 26th
of August 2007
08:10:19 PM
Festival Round up
I am sorry I was
late so here is a run down of my Fringe 2007. The chat show was an awesome
experience and some of the guests were a delight: Edwina Currie, Julian
Clary, Ray Wyre, John Smeaton (the airport hero who fought off the terrorists
in Glasgow), Brendon Burns, Tom Robinson, Paul Provenza, Mick Miller,
Jim Bowen and many more all made me intensely happy.
The chat show got
a great five star review and I was over the moon with the format, the
people were great who came along and asked interesting questions and
my daughter Ashley stood in for a few late comers and made the show
even funnier as she impersonated their persona!
Ashley’s best mate Bobi came and stayed with us and it was her
first Fringe ever; she flyered and did some PR and stage management.
My baby niece Abi
came along and flyered as well and she is only four; she actually did
a mic check as well and did a singalong at the Stand Comedy club!
We are a family of entertainers, Abi’s mum Ann Margaret was amazed
to see so many people who knew Abi from my videos on MySpace and YouTube…Abi
is famous!
The comedy show
was the best I ever did, it got rave reviews and the run sold out, the
first time I ever had a full sold out run at Edinburgh, it was wonderful.
I had a great team
and love everyone who helped me this year. Ashley really pulled out
her finger and made the biggest effort to make sure things went smoothly,
she is my absolute pride and joy.
Writing for the
newspaper The Scotsman has been a bit trying for me during the Fringe
and it took some stress to get through it all.
OK enough of the
nice stuff, I was a grumpy cow at times and drove everyone mental.
The flat we stayed in had a washing machine that broke down and the
estate agent took my clothes to wash and ended up screaming down the
phone to me “I cant touch the bras!” - he is the GAYEST man
in the world, he actually screamed and stuffed them into a bag with
salad tongs rather than touch them…he is THAT GAY!
So that was funny.
The John Smeaton special was a great day. John is the accidental hero
who tackled the terrorist when Glasgow Airport was attacked in June
and that day sold out, Bobi was great at herding the audience and press
into the room and arranging the photo call and she had never done that
before. John was an awesome guest and such a wonderful guy to chat to,
I loved him. I took John all around the Fringe after the chat show and
he was greeted like a hero by all the comics that met him on the night.
I slept like a baby this year as our flat was outside the main busy
part of the city but the fucking seagulls followed me and screeched
into my window every morning at 5am coz they are bastards of hell.
Life is good today I am stress free and happy, I met some amazing people
who came to the show and it lifts my spirits every time they hug me
as they come out and shared a smile with me, it makes me feel awesome
that they enjoyed the show.
My big talking window went into the Pleasance Dome main window site;
it is the very first of its kind. It
was basically a huge screen that has a projected film and promo of me
and the window ‘talks’ and as people went by they were amazed
at this new technology and stopped and watched me then went off and
bought tickets! Motomedia were the people who installed this window
and they are an awesome company and helped me out great. Go check the
out their website www.motomedia-uk.com and see the product in action.
I am onto my last few days here in Edinburgh.
I will talk soon.
Tuesday the 28th
of August 2007
08:34:21 PM
I am back to normality
Having spent weeks
in Edinburgh at the Fringe I am slightly disorientated back in Glasgow.
I am home, unpacked and have my daughter Ashley back with me.
She was off to Amsterdam
halfway though the Fringe as she went on holiday with her mates. It’s
the first time she has missed a Festival in ten years. I was bereft
without her as she is a great support to me.
I woke up today and couldn’t quite work out where I was- it was
scary.
The more successful
I become the more I seem to leave home and the more I leave home the
more I live out of a suitcase and I get freaked out waking up places
I am not sure where I am!
I saw my daddy today and it was fabulous to be with him and talk about
regular stuff and not how many stars did my show get and how many tickets
we sold today. Though my daddy was pleased to hear the show was a sell
out and hugged me in congratulations and then asked me to pick a shower
from a magazine he had with him as he is getting a new shower fitted
for me in my en suite bathroom…well he is my daddy!
Husband slept all day and is coming down with the cold, being on the
streets of Edinburgh flyering for the show will probably have given
him a virus and eventually will kill him. It will be my fault of course,
but flyerer’s are easy to come by.
I miss Edinburgh already; it was amazing for me this year.
I must tell you about the great guest I had on my chat show, it was
Kate Adie the world famous war reporter. She was awesome and so funny.
To hear of her tales of being bombed in Beirut whilst buying shoes to
sitting on the deck of a war ship and watching missiles being launched
as she ran for cover… was amazing and she is an inspiration to
everyone who meets her.
I want to be Kate Adie, but will never live up to the reality of the
situation.
So here I am at home on the sofa writing stuff, I am currently working
on a TV idea which will probably not come to fruition as that is the
way of the world, but I am living and hoping it will.
I feel very old today, my legs hurt from walking up and down the cobbled
ancient streets and I have eaten that much shit that I have spots. But
I am happy and home and that’s all I can say today.
Thursday the 30th
of August 2007
07:28:48 PM
Thoughts of Me…
I have realised
that after 27 years of marriage I may have brainwashed my husband or
at the very least wiped out his past memories. He told me that the inner
voice that everyone has - you know, the voice that reminds you to shut
the door or zip up your fly - has been replaced from his voice to MINE!
I now occupy a space inside his head that tells him to ‘Go pee’,
‘Go make tea’ and ‘Don’t talk, she is busy’.
That’s a result
as far as I am concerned.
How exciting. I
hope I don’t tell him to strangle me in my sleep.
Ashley is back to normal and her room looks like Hiroshima post bomb
and I believe my entire coffee mug set lives in there with various states
of penicillin-type fungus growing slowly.
I don’t actually want to think about it but I know I must go on
a cup hunt and rescue them before they manage to develop a cure for
some unknown strain of Asian flu or Foot and Mouth disease. I opened
her door yesterday and I am sure I saw a clumpy sad Buffalo stomp around
the knickers and bras that are strewn all over the floor; it must be
eating the left over pizza that is dehydrating on the window ledge beside
her DVD collection.
I have no idea what goes on in that room. It’s like Narnia in there.
“Don’t go in there,” my husband warned me.
“Was that my voice in your head that told you to tell me that?”
I asked him.
“Shut up, Janey. Stop being horrible,” he snapped at me. “She
is entitled to her privacy,” he added.
“Yes she is,” I agreed. “But she is not allowed to start
a bio-dome project or city zoo in my flat”
“There are no animals or bio hazards in there; you are being over
imaginative,” he explained as he led me away from her Door of Doom.
“When she gets a boyfriend she will clean it up,” husband
said.
“She doesn’t want a boyfriend and never has had a boyfriend
and if she did have one he would get lost in there; do you think she
hates men?” I spoke quietly.
“I can hear both of you!” Ashley screamed. “I will never
get a boyfriend because of you mum. You scare men away and when they
see you do comedy they think I am psycho because of the things you say
about me on stage. Now go away or I swear to God I will adopt a clutch
of scabby, disease-ridden cats and give you all fleas.”
I may to have to rethink my mothering skills; I hope I haven’t
stopped her from getting a boyfriend; I was married at her age.
She is a beautiful,
talented young woman and is fed up with people assuming she is a lesbian
because she hasn’t dated yet.
She did tell me she saw the most gorgeous man in the world in Amsterdam,
she watched him walk away and now every man she ever meets will have
to be up the mysterious man in Amsterdam’s standard. How hard will
that be?
There is nothing
worse than having fallen for a man who has never actually spoken to
you. Is he gay? Is he a misogynist? Is he married?
She has so much to learn and I think the last person she needs to learn from is me!