Zoolander

Yesterday was my day off, exactly half way through the festival, which inevitably provided time for reflection and thought about my Edinburgh so far. How am I coping? Am I enjoying it? What am I getting from it? Short answers...Fine I think, Yes very much and, who knows? There isn't time to dwell on these thoughts for too long and that feels like a good thing.

I got up with the baby at 6.30 whilst Helen had a well deserved lie in, we read stories and played with cars and set off to the zoo about nine, having been up so long it already felt like lunchtime. The entrance to the zoo is shared with The Holiday Inn, they also share a car park, for which you have to pay extra when visiting the zoo, so I felt ever so slightly robbed before we even entered.

Obviously it's mid-August, so it was cacking down with rain and most of the animals had taken to their beds in a mass display of Seasonal Affective Disorder. We gazed at the Sumatran Tiger, desperately sheltering from the incessant downpour under a hollowed out log, who stared back at us in total disbelief that his 'holiday' could be going quite so badly, had he been sat next to a Barbeque that was fizzling out in the drizzle, it would have been perfect.

The penguins however, were in fine form, at 2PM they performed a 'parade' whereby they came out of their enclosure and walked around the grounds, rather like mental patients accompanied by doctors, whilst we all took photographs. The taking of photographs was actively encouraged, this doesn't tend to be the case at most mental institutions.

Talking of which, I haven't felt anything like as likely to be committed to one in Edinburgh, as I may have been in previous festivals. I'm sure this is entirely due to having the family here. For me the hardest thing about a festival is doing roughly the same show, in the same room, every day, for a month, whilst being alone with your own thoughts for the remainder of the time. It's a fundamentally unhealthy way for a human being to exist. Three weeks newspaper really should be called 'four weeks' or 'a month', it is, however you look at it, a very long festival. When and how did it get so long?

Perhaps it was the need to escape from the mindset of shows and reviews and 'what's it all about?' soul searching, that I found myself taking Helen to see a 'Rom-Com' at the flicks last night. I know Helen likes these films for their sense of escapism and knowing exactly what's going to happen and of course, I wrapped my film choice in a mailstrom of bullshit that 'I thought she'd really enjoy it' and 'that it would give me so much pleasure to see her watch it', in actual fact I pretty much dragged Helen there.

   And fu@&*%g hell, I enjoyed it, I needed it, I loved it! I would therefore like to award 'The Ugly Truth' five stars, for it's classic Guy likes girl, but girl doesn't like guy, but then gets to like guy, but buy then guy is feeling hurt...erm...you know the score. Anyway I would like to offer the following straplines.

"A tour de force"
"Had the audience eating popcorn out of each others hands"
"A big laugh every five minutes or so, with an hilarious scene of a woman accidentally climaxing in a restaurant, what more could you want?"

I have no idea whether or not 'The Ugly Truth' could or should be reviewed as such, that's not my job, but it certanily was one of the contributing factors of a very important day that has hopefully prevented me from disappearing up my own self-important/self-loathing bumhole. And for that and to Helen, Lenny and Ronnie the dog, I am eternally grateful.