Going home

There's more to come about Fringe stuff but I'm too tired & grumpy to write it at the moment. We had a quite pleasant trip back to Sheffield, most of the way. It was a glorious day, bright and sunny with just a hint of autumnal chill in the brisk breeze. Through the train windows the whole of the farming community was out harvesting the golden fields of wheat. What happens to all those combine harvesters for the rest of the year? Two to three weeks of flat out work a year and the rest in store? 


It was an idyllic view, if crowded on the train. It was a four coach train, Glasgow to Plymouth. There were people standing from Edinburgh and people sitting on bags but there was still room to turn round. At least one of the toilets was out of operation. The guard kept telling us we could get off our train and get on the Reading train behind if we wanted a seat. And then Leeds. There was a festival in Leeds. There always seems to be a festival there at August bank holiday. It's not really a surprise. At least this year the poor crushed together cattle were not slathered with mud. And the fact that the toilet was broken meant that some people could stand in there as well (you wouldn't want to sit on that slightly awash floor). We managed to get off at Sheffield by starting quarter of an our early so that we could squeeze past all the standees and completely demolish then rebuild the luggage storage because, of course, our bag was buried. Never mind. We, Sally and I, were home. Jack should be getting into Oxford any time now, having waited for a cheap train.


So my question is, on the day most people travel home from Edinburgh and the festival in Leeds breaks up would it not be possible to find an extra couple of carriages and make sure all the toilets work?

First day of the Fringe (with kids)

We travelled up to Motherwell on Thursday evening. Sally and I met Jack at Sheffield station (he having travelled up from Oxford) and took the train up. Callum, my sister's son,  joined us at Leeds and we settled in for a fairly dull trip, sat at a table for four. I got out the jacket I am knitting and sewed up the raglan sleeve seams then picked up the stitches around the neck to knit the collar. All was relatively quiet until Darlington when the boys got on and sat at the table across the aisle from us. The problem with knitting on a train, apart from making me look like a granny according to Ian, is that people talk to you. What are you knitting? How long have you been making that? And so on. The boys were three men, Gaz, Gary and Dave, going up to Edinburgh for a weekend of male bonding. Apparently they've been doing this in various cities since they were 30ish. They started with a trip to Blackpool. After that the only way was up. They're in their forties now and still doing this once a year. This year they were going to join the rest of their party of eight in Edinburgh. 
It's amazingly expensive for an apartment in Edinburgh, they complained. 
That'll be because of the Fringe. 
The what? 
You don't know about the Fringe?
No.
So the fact that huge numbers of performers, students and audiences pack into Edinburgh for the month of August had passed them by. As Jack commented, in a couple of weeks they could probably have got the same apartment for half the cost. Never mind. They were halfway through a hefty number of cans of lager and they didn't care. They'd each got £200 for the weekend, they said, £20 for food and the rest for booze. Each of them teased and was teased about their wives and kids and each, sooner or later, wandered off to tell their wife they loved her and to say 'night night' to their kids. They entertained us all the way up to Haymarket where we kicked them off the train. Their bags were much lighter and they left a stack of empty cans, despite a regular search for a bin to put their rubbish in.


So, on Friday, an early lunch at Equi's then Ian drove us over to Edinburgh. I'd booked an additional show, Out of the Blue, on Alex's recommendation so we had four shows. The first thing we did was book another show for Saturday (an Oompah band at the GRV) then we parked up and made our way through a lovely little public garden to the C Plaza where we had a coffee and waited for our show.


I love a cappella music. Much as I like other types of music, the human voice, particularly in harmony, is what moves me. Alex is always recommending a cappella shows, and flamenco and generally culture sort of stuff, but Ian cleaves to comedy passionately, stubbornly. Never mind, I'd got him a ticket and he was prepared to give it a go. The show was put on by Oxford undergraduates, all male and with lovely voices. The choreography was amusing and energetic although, to be honest, they could have stood perfectly still for me and allowed me to concentrate on the music. They started with 'Don't You Want Me Baby' and bounced through a familiar songbook to finish with an encore of Pokerface. Callum identified it. Good job we had someone along who has some idea of the Zeitgeist. Ian had had to leave to save the car from predatory traffic wardens or I'm sure he'd have known Pokerface too. 


My favourite arrangement was Billy Joel's Lullaby. They didn't allow themselves to be distracted by the traditional mobile phone ring in the quietest section. They're good! Later we wondered how you fall into this sort of thing. We guess they were all choir boys in a previous life. That would explain the sometimes over pure tones and unconvincing sensuality in the dances to the 'raunchy' songs. On the way out I bought a CD. It's lovely but a cappella loses something in electronic format. They're just songs; the wonder of the performance is lost.


We dashed from there to Rainer Hersch being Victor Borge. I very much like Rainer and I have fond memories of Victor Borge. The story of his life was interesting and engaging and I think that these snippets of classical music are ideal for me. I love them when surrounded by anecdotes but I don't generally have the concentration or appreciation for an entire piece. 


After Rainer we split up. Callum wanted to see Rhod Gilbert but Ian, Sally and I had seen his show, 'The Cat that Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst', at Nottingham Playhouse relatively recently so we sent him and Jack to see Rhod and we headed over to the Underbelly to see Susan Calman.  (The picture at the top of this piece is Sally, already exhausted by the culture, waiting in the Underbelly bar for the show.) We first saw Susan a couple of years ago when she seemed promising. Since then she has appeared on the News Quiz and was sufficiently amusing that we thought we'd have another look. She's much improved, even in the dank warmth of the Underbelly.  Sally loved the show, laughing all the way through. I like Scottish women comedians, especially those from Glasgow. Susan used to be a lawyer but gave up the glamour and money for a dank cavern in the Underbelly and a life of semi-poverty. Good! I'm glad she's turned from the dark side. 


In the same way, Mickey Flanagan has recently come to our attention through Radio 4. Having moved up from the East End of London through a social science degree into teaching he has also turned away from a career of horror into comedy. Susan is very short and Glaswegian, Mickey is tall and cockney. It seems like a theme. The stories were very funny. I loved his definition of doing fuck all and his assertion that the 'Chicken Children' of today have completely lost the art. They may be wasting time but they have lost the ability for complete indolence. This was a show very much based in his own life and experience, a man who has made the transition from working class to rather smart middle class, marrying a long suffering multitasking woman who perfectly complements his persona of idleness. This was a splendid finish to the day. Ian complained that he'd heard most of the material on the radio show. Luckily I'd been too lazy to iPlayer it so it was suitably fresh and funny for me.   

Last day of the fringe...

So, yes. I'm back in chilly Scotland with the kids and still haven't finished the last lot of reviews. Sigh. I blame work. So, just for completeness...


Ian and Julian had a cunning plan. I had been supposed to go to the flamenco show on Saturday with Alex but he hadn't got round to buying the tickets so J&I decided it would be better for me to see the show about Ian Dury, 'Hit Me!' They were right. Whilst Ian waved Julian off at Edinburgh Waverley I climbed the long twisty stairs to the top of the Teviot to wait for the show, being given a £10 of Waitrose voucher which has already paid for the show.


Hit Me! was fab. What can I say? It was a two man show based on Dury and his friend/helper, a big man with a criminal record and a strong sense of right and wrong who seems to have kept Dury from being a bigger dick than necessary. Dury's somewhat self-destructive life, his huge ego and his similarly huge talent were powerfully portrayed. The songs were, as always, wonderful. The staging consisted simply of a pivoting unit; one side a scummy bedsit, the other a more upscale living room which appeared as the show progressed and Dury moved up in the world. Obviously, the size of the unit and the feel of the action remained cramped apart from when Dury escaped out of it to stand, singing like a man possessed, in front of projected Blockhead images. I'm not sure the final scene worked for me. Recently dead, Dury, in white top hat and tails, dances onto stage with graceful ease for a final song. I guess the religious would  see this as a happy release from a damaged body and a redemption of sorts. To me it was an upbeat ending that was unnecessary. Dury's flawed life and towering achievements are sufficient. 


Ian met me out of the show and confirmed that he'd put poor broken Julian on the train home and we would get updates as the journey progressed. I was sad to see Julian go. He's the easiest companion imaginable, mainly by, as he claims, just not caring. He goes along with just about anything as long as he is allowed an occasional visit to a bookshop and he amuses us very much. From now on we will just have to make do without him until Novacon.


We went to our final restaurant, the Nile Valley on Chapel Street, a Sudanese cafe which, as always, provided us with delicious food very quickly which let us make it to the next venue early enough to catch the act before the one we were aiming for. Fine. This was our foray into the FreeFringe and was well worth the visit.


We managed to squeeze, last comers, into the tiny hot room at the Counting House. Lewis Schaffer, a New York jewish comedian living in London, is 'Free Until Famous'. I enjoyed this show very much, especially as I was sitting next to the fan. Lewis spent the hour commenting on how rubbish we in the UK are which strangely endeared him to us. Ian commented he reminded him of Greg Proops. I liked him more than that.


We adjourned to the bar whist the next act set up and tuned her guitar then trooped back in for another miserably hot hour with Lara A King. She had been recommended by Fascinating Aida on Friday night. She'd been their warm up act for their last tour and they spoke well of her. It was a strange hour; a combination of stand-up and serious songs. Most of the comedy left me cold; as someone who only turns the TV on for Doctor Who and the new Sherlock Holmes, comments about daytime TV and current advertising campaigns, no matter how apposite, meant nothing to me. The songs, on the other hand, were worth going for on their own. I'd have liked back to back songs really. Never mind. I took one of the free-but-a-donation-would-be-appreciated CDs when we left but it doesn't have her last song. She finished with Summer with Monica, one of my favourite Roger McGough poems set to music. As a sing along. I'd turn up for that anytime. If she put the whole book to music I'd be even happier. Many years ago at Freshers week at Sheffield Poly, Roger McGough read from Summer with Monica at the Psalter Lane campus, the one SHU have just demolished. I'm feeling old as they remake Sheffield around me but Summer with Monica is still lovely.

Reporting the environment

Ian recently sent me a link to an article on The Register. He often sends me links just to annoy me. I usually read them, feel a bit grumpy, then forget them. This one, though, just about hit my tolerance limit. It's a fabulous example of bad reporting, drawing conclusions that are unwarranted from the information.


The piece is titled, 'People have NO BLOODY IDEA about saving energy' and subtitled, 'Those keenest to be green are most ignorant - survey.' I guess they provide fair warning in their titling that this is not an objective report. It is, however, based on a fairly interesting piece of scientific research and the Register were good enough to provide  a link to the original paper. 


Having read both the Register's article and the original paper, 'Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings', I can agree what the Register reported was not incorrect but the spin they had imparted to a sober little paper was so strenuous it is probably still reeling. 


What the original article says is that people are not fully aware of the energy used by their various activities, appliances or embodied in the products they use. From the information presented this is true. 


I will even admit, sheepishly, that the contrasting embodied energy costs for glass and aluminium surprised me. I hadn't really thought about it but it seems fairly obvious that this would be the case once I had given it some thought. The melting point of aluminium is around 660C, for glass it is at least 1400C, depending on constituents. From this the Register concludes that 'as a true eco-person, you shouldn't be recycling glass, you ought not to be using it at all.' Well, yes. And no. Unfortunately, at present I am unable to find the sort of wine I want to drink in aluminium cans. Given that I am unlikely to stop drinking wine in the immediate future it is still better for me to send my glass bottles for recycling than not*. 


The article continues, 'Again, when asked what the single most effective thing they could do to save energy, the most popular response in the survey was to turn off lights. In fact lighting accounts for a relatively small proportion of the average person's energy use and almost all of us could save far more juice (and carbon) in other ways - for instance by turning the heating down as little as a single degree, something which many extremely keen lightswitch nazis** refuse to do.'


I have an issue with this paragraph. I am not disputing that turning the heating down will save more energy than turning off lights, but there is also no reason not to turn lights off in a room not being used. The Register seems very keen on either/or choices. It might surprise them but it is quite possible to turn the heating down by one degree and turn lights off in unused rooms. 


They go on to quote the original paper that states 'participants estimated that line drying saves more energy than changing the washer's settings (the reverse is true)'. My concern with this statement is twofold. One is that I always wonder when I hear such loose phrasing. 'Changing the washer's settings' could mean anything from reducing the temperature by 10 degrees to reducing it from 90C to 30C or more. Looking at the paper's Figure 1 it is quite possible that, depending on what that phrase means, line drying may be a better saver. Difficult to tell; the graph is small with a logarithmic scale. My other concern again is, what does it matter? Both of these are potentially high energy saving. Change the washer settings and line dry. 


Never mind though, the Register goes on from this paragraph to state, 'Perhaps the killer revelation from the survey is that it is, in fact, the very people who are keenest and most active about reducing their energy consumption who are the most ignorant.' Despite the exaggeration and emotive language this is, in fact, the conclusion of the paper. People are optimistic that what they are doing is having a positive effect. Their perceptions are not as accurate as they could be. This is a problem if for example, you comfort yourself that the impact of your flight to Australia will be offset by turning the lights out and recycling your wine bottles. It may also be a problem if, as a Register reader, you can only take one action at a time so rather than turn your thermostat down, line dry your clothes, boil only as much water as you need and cycle to work you unplug your phone charger. 


The lesson the Register takes from the information contained within the paper is, 'In other words, ignore that earnest friend of yours who recycles religiously, turns off the lights all the time, and unplugs the telly every night... They quite literally have no idea what they are talking about.' Well no, that's not what the paper said. The original paper suggested that better and more accurate information would help to reduce emissions and public information campaigns should focus on behaviours that could have a greater effect - forget the phone chargers and turn down the heating.  They conclude, 'It is therefore vital that public communications about climate change also address misconceptions about energy consumption and savings, so that people can make better decisions for their pocketbooks and the planet.'  The Register, on the other hand, concludes that we should 'ignore the many worth organisations - for instance the Energy Saving Trust here in the UK, which you pay for through your taxes - which have made us all so ignorant.' I took a quick look at the EST website. The top ten tips did indeed include the admonition, 'Don't leave appliances on stand-by and remember not to leave laptops and mobile phones on charge unnecessarily'. It also, however, suggested sorting out dripping hot water taps, fully loading our washing machines, boiling only as much water as needed, changing to low energy bulbs, turning lights off, closing curtains at dusk and draught proofing, turning your water thermostat down (also reduces the risk of scalding small children) and turning your central heating thermostat down. The information on the site would be improved if each tactic was rated on energy saving effectiveness but the tips given were all generally good and do not seem to me to be making us ignorant. The worst that could be said is that it is not as informative as it could be.


I wonder what the Register gains by subverting a worthy piece of research. It makes no sense to me. Unless the author of the piece is still living with his parents who keep turning the lights out on him.




*Ideally glass bottles should be reused. My milkman very kindly takes my glass milk bottles back for reuse. It doesn't need vastly more energy to take them back because he was coming to my house to deliver anyway. 


**As a rule of thumb, use of the word nazi in an article not talking about the german fascist movement of the mid 20th century is an indicator of a lack of objectivity.   

The penultimate Fringy day.

It's over a week ago and I didn't take notes so this will be a little sketchy. 
We only had two shows on Friday but they were once I was very much looking forward to. The first was Fascinating Aida at the Assembly Rooms.  If I could only go to one show this would probably be it. The girls are Adele Anderson, Liza Pulman and the truly fabulous Dillie Keane. They were only appearing for a week or I'd take the kids on the last weekend as well. The big room did not appear to be sold out although fairly packed and we sat near the back. Juilan, Ian and I were joined by June Strachan, my oldest fannish friend, and her boyfriend Nick Mills. 
We were told that Fascinating Aida had been asked by the Assembly to help celebrate its 25 years as a fringe venue. They were asked to provide a best of show, from their more than 25 year old back catalogue. I would imagine that this can be a little difficult for comedy songs. As the context disappears so, often, does the humour. I think the decision to concentrate on more recent songs was a good one, especially as their latest album is my favourite. Their shows are always good. Their voices are lovely, the 'dances' are amusing with Liza drawing the eye particularly, Dillie plays a spirited set on the grand piano and, of course. the songs are very funny. These are generally co-written by Dillie and Adele. Ian thinks Dillie is a comedy god and, for once, I completely agree with his pronouncement. In the hour they played three of my favourite recent songs; Lerwick Town, The Markets and Dogging. If you haven't come across Fascinating Aida before you should acquaint yourself with them immediately. Buy the CDs, DVDs, see the show. Don't let them retire again!


After queuing for ten minutes to escape the venue we made our way to Cantina Mexicana on Rose Street. This was excellent, freshly cooked yummy food and jolly nice cocktails. We, of course, ate far too much. Julian & I hung around after we finished while Ian took June and Nick on to their next show then we retired to the Dome to digest quietly whilst we waited for our 23.30 show. What were we thinking? I wanted to go to sleep. It was alright though. We finally trekked into the Purple Cow to see John Cooper Clarke. He's painfully thin and, like all of us, looking older but he was well worth staying up for. Julian was almost bouncing with enthusiasm. Well, for Julian. 
Ian has just looked up the jokes of JCC, most of which we heard on Friday. It was last updated 1998. It's good to hear familiar friends again. We particularly liked JCC's haiku. 
To convey one's mood
in seventeen syllables
Is very diffic


We put Julian into the car, happy but broken and ready to go home.


(As I was (slowly) writing this Ian has been reading out the jokes. He tells me that the site he is reading is advertising an upcoming gig in Nottingham, November 2005.) 

Another fab link

Courtesy of Ian, this is a BBC website (beta at present) showing the comparative size of things centred over whatever postcode you enter. I particularly like the environmental disaster section. Wow! The Gulf oil spill, the toxic cloud from Bhopal, the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl and, very worryingly, the Eastern Pacific garbage patch. Go have a look!

A jolly fine link!

But really only for the fans - Fuck me, Ray Bradbury. Funny on SO many levels!
Too tired to continue the Fringe write up - a day in Melton Mowbray introducing environmental awareness to 11 lovely builders in a room that would comfortably seat 8. My feet are hurting and the 4.30 start (& 1/3 bottle shiraz) leaves me strangely lacking motivation.