2005-08-30 - 2:47 p.m.

Back from Edinboroughughoughugh, and feel bad now about complaining about the piddling amounts of rain given that everyone in New Orleans is having to invest in an aqualung just to get the shopping in�to all the NOLA people, I send love and directions to high ground. I hope everyone is safe as can be, and that your houses survived the watery onslaught.

It was such a week in Scotchland that it�s hard to encapsulate in my feebly words, but special mentions must go to DiscoDave for our annual good times in pub, and to Heeland Lass and her merry hubby Bandito, without whom it would not have been possible to push myself to the hedonistic limits which I had hitherto resigned to my better looking, more energetic younger self. You�ve restored the faith of a tired old ligger, and for that at the very least I am thankful.

It wasn�t all techno, ill-advised tequila shots and walking home at 6am, though. Oh no. There was a busty bevy of cultural beauties to be eyed up, among them the comedic stylings of Daniel Kitson, Simon Munnery, Henning Wehn, and an entire menu of other assorted stand-ups that populated the various late night laugh emporiums that we stumbled into.

There was theatre, too, and not all of it was amateurish drivel with too much shouting and strobe lights instead of plot. We pigged out on Mamet, seeing four productions ranging from a so-so �Sexual Perversity in Chicago� to a buttock-firmingly good �Boston Marriage�. If there�s anything better than three treacle-sweet Oxbridge nymphs acting their socks off in a shockingly witty play about lesbianism, then whip out a syringe and suck me up a dose and a half.
It ran a close second to my fest highlight, sitting with the oddly great and greatly odd Simon Munnery (sample quotes: �Suppose conventional wisdom to be a forest. I am a chainsaw. You are squirrels.� �A million monkeys were given a million typewriters. It�s called the internet.�) in a pub that he invited the audience to after his gig. During his show we had to submit motions which we would agree or disagree on. My motion was: �I move that beggars be given a little bit of choice, just to see how they get on with it.� And he said it was a funny joke, and I was a proud little fanboy. I don�t expect you to care. I�m just sayin�.
Can�t talk now. Must arrange Florida.