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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2010 Blog - 13The Arrival – Tuesday 3 August 2010“So where are you staying?” asked the cabbie as I climbed into his cab at Edinburgh Waverley station. Actually it sounded like he said, “Sah wirr ye steine?” At first I thought he was having a stroke, but then I realised (with more surprise than is reasonable - I had been on a train bound for Edinburgh for over 5 hours after all) that I was in Scotland. “Marchmont Road,” I replied. “Argh, thas eh neiss pliisss”. “About five hours,” I replied. “Noh. Ei sed thaas eh neiisss pleessss”. “Oh sorry! I think Monday isn’t it?” This went on for a little while. Eventually, I realised he was stating his opinion that Marchmont Road is a nice pace to stay. “I hope so,” I replied. “I stayed in horrible digs when I visited two years ago”. “Wer yeh stee?” “Fet Lor youth centre.” “Goodness me!” Actually, he didn’t say that. In reality he said something far more colourful and unprintable, but that is the PG version of it. My point is, he knew of it and considered it to be a dump. “Nah, yeel bee elreiiit deees teim.” I hoped so. It didn’t look promising at first. A blue door with paint peeling off it. I paused for a moment. Behind that door was a room that would be my home for the next 31 days. Please let it be nice, I prayed. All I wanted really was a nice, comfy, clean room in which I could chill without having to beat off armies of ants, or try not to breathe through my nose because of a burst drain pipe under the floorboards. I entered the door. A dark, dank staircase that brought to mind a scene from a movie that might star Matt Damon doing a lot of karate chopping. Hmm. Second floor. Another blue door. Inside was... a seemingly rather nice flat. I breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed to be fine. “If you think this is good, wait till you see your room,” said one of my new housemates. Could it be? Could my room really be that nice? It is. Short of having a massive wall-mounted plasma screen TV, it’s perfect. For a start, it’s huge. It’s bigger than my London flat (which isn’t saying much admittedly, but still). How can I describe its size? If it was a garage, I could comfortably fit two Volkswagen Polos in there. Possibly even three. And there would probably still be room for a motorbike or two. You must understand that this is rather an unusual size for a digs room. On my last trip to Edinburgh, I met up with a friend who was also performing at the festival and who had a room in a basement flat somewhere near George Square. One day I went to visit him. His room was tiny. But it was comfortable, cosy and perfectly adequate for his needs. We sat on his bed chatting for a while. Suddenly, a door which I had taken to be a wardrobe, opened and a guy in his boxer shorts walked out. “Hey dude,” he said before walking out into the kitchen. “Hey Matt,” my friend said. “I thought that was a wardrobe!” I told my friend. “It is,” he replied. He was right. On further inspection, it turned out to be a small walk-in wardrobe. Except that instead of being full of clothes, it had a bed which took up every inch of available space. There was a tiny electric lamp gaffer taped to the wall with the wire sneaking out into my friend’s room. No window, no floor space, nothing. “What is this?” I asked. “Matt’s room,” came the reply as if that was the most normal thing in the world. Let me make this clear. The guy, Matt, was living - actually living - in a wardrobe. With the door closed, his only access to fresh air (or any air for that matter) was a slatted wooden door that led to my friend’s room. Mexican drug mules being smuggled over the US border have more personal space than that! But that’s the sort of digs one can end up with in Edinburgh. So you’ll forgive me when I say that as soon as I was left alone in my room, I started jumping up and down in joy and running around in circles like Julie Andrews frolicking about in the Austrian meadows at the start of The Sound of Music. I only stopped after a mis-judged leap at the bed ended with me knocking over a small table. Maybe pretending to be a frolicking nun wasn’t such a good idea after all. Shouldn’t get into the habit. I’m sorry, that’s a terrible way to end a blog entry. Please come back for more. It’ll get better. Well, I can’t promise that, but it certainly can’t get any worse! |
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