From Edinburgh

Home again after a mixed week in Edinburgh. Most of the trip went well - travel, entertainment, food, company, Joe's show, etc - but it was let down in one major regard: accommodation. To cut a long story short, they had no record of our booking (thank goodness for printed emails), and we ended up having to move rooms just about every day, spending four of the six nights on the top two floors. That wouldn't be a problem except I kept having to lug down our large suitcase up and down the stairs most days, and we had to be out by 10am each time, not checking back in until 1pm at the earliest. Suffice to say we won't be staying there again! But we hope to return to Edinburgh itself one day - I never did get to see the Forth Railway Bridge that my great great grandfather helped to build.

We managed to cram in eight shows in all - Frankie Boyle was superb, although a lot of his material came from Mock the Week. Comedy musical trio Tripod were also excellent, although Toni was less impressed than Joe and I were. We also listened to David Ferrard - an acoustic folk singer - with Toni's friend Anna and her partner Thomas. He was so good I bought his CD - his voice reminds me of John Denver (not helped by his tuning of the guitar between songs - the bottom E string must be the first note of Rocky Mountain High). Visit his web site here and judge for yourself.

Norman Lovett's slideshow was also great entertainment, while we also enjoyed two excellent plays: The Collector, and The Father. I'd recommend both to anyone looking for theatre at this year's Fringe.

I can't finish without mentioning Joe's show, Is Your Mobile On, which is playing at the Roman Eagle Lodge (venue 21) near the castle (see here). I saw four of the first five performances, and he's definitely getting better with each showing. The first preview was a challenge - his laptop was playing up, and he was forced to use the back-up laptop, which had an older, less polished version of the show on it. He's had a few technical problems, but handled each with aplomb. As for the show, I'm probably too close to it, but I find it an enjoyable and informative experience - although I'm unhappy with my Henry VIII performance (my best take occurred when the mic was switched off, sadly!) as one of the video inserts.

So it's home to the cats and a sunnier outlook on work, as I've had two offers while away, the latter of which is for a new magazine. More on that in due course...