The long drives north are always made somewhat less irksome by the scenery. If you can ignore that fact you're in a car on a vast concrete swath cut through the land, then it feels like a return to the wilderness and it tugs at something primeval within you.
But you also get to stop at service stations, which is better than primeval times, when they didn't have pick n mix and overpriced (or even competitively priced) coffee.
Halfway on my journey from Cumbria to Edinburgh I stopped at a Scottish service station and was amused to see ducks waddling around in the car park, seemingly oblivious to the danger they were in, but co-existing peacefully unlike those fighting pheasants I saw a few weeks ago.
I knew I was in Scotland because as soon as I was through the door of the services I saw a massive display of Jimmy Hats outside the newsagents. I had hoped that the power of Richard Herring's Objective would have caused the Scotch to rise up and destroy these racist items, but alas it seems Radio 4 is not the revolutionary broadcasting system that I had believed it to be and the Jimmy Hat has successfully outlived the radio show. There is no justice in this world. It made me laugh to see it though.
I was in Edinburgh by 2.30 and it amazes me how little I know about the geography of this city, given I have lived in it for practically two years of my life. Every time I drive in I can never work out which side of town I am on or what direction I am coming in from. You might think I usually enter from the south and that might well be true, but as I don't know which end of Edinburgh is the north that doesn't help me. Even when I could see the castle I wasn't entirely sure where I was and I had practically hit Princes Street before I got my bearings and even then some unexpected roadworks caused me to get lost. I suppose I have spent those two Edinburgh years walking around a very small part of this city and I've usually been drunk, but evenso, it's strange that the place is so unfamiliar (though a lot of bits of it look like each other so maybe it's not that ridiculous).
Finally I found the Stand and got the keys to the excellent flat that they put comics up in here. There's a guest book in the hallway filled with effusive praise from some of your favourite comics, showing once again that treating acts with a modicum of respect brings love and gratitude in return. The Stand once again effortlessly triumphs over nearly every other venue in the world. Phill Jupitus was apparently staying here last night. I had come so close to finally sleeping with him - he lay beside me just divided by 24 hours - the tantalisingly gossamer but unbreakable barrier of time.
I had a bath and cooked myself some food and forgot that I was on tour.
Lovely to be performing at the Stand and I thought as I mentioned Keith Allen in the show that I have probably never said his name so much in one place than on this tiny stage (thanks to the Edinburgh Fringe podcasts - which will be back this year). Also great to see some familiar faces and to get a warm welcome from the staff. I had a couple of drinks after the show but was in no danger of getting lost on the way back to my digs.
I had overbought food at M&S this afternoon and had some spare Thai fishcakes in the fridge. I wasn't really hungry, but I didn't want the next comedian in here to get the benefit of them for free (they cost me £3) so I cooked them up and ate them, only realising as I did so that it was approaching 1am. I'd thought it was still about 11 o clock and had been looking forward to an early night. Where did the night go?
Still if you're staying here tomorrow just think of those fishcakes you've missed out on, simply because of your tragic inability to push through the invisible condom of time. And of what you could have been getting up to with me in bed. Damn time's constancy. Though I think some of the smells I made overnight might have the ability to travel through the tiny holes in time's prophylactic and you might mysteriously and magically be able to smell them.
