Nepal Everest Trip

My time in Glasgow is coming to an end. It's time to move on. But before I go on to bigger and better things (here's me hoping), I'll go to Nepal first.
If everything works out I'll be texting updates to twitter (tomretwit). Hopefully I'll make it to the Everest Base Camp.

Obama To Hold Performance Review With All American Workers

This is what I'm writing my dissertation about. Process Improvement and all the rubbish Guru talk that goes with it.

The end of the Fringe, the end of Edinburgh

The Fringe is over. It has been over for a while now.
The last show I saw was aluminium:

A great visual and musical experience, which reminded me a bit of the Blue Man Group show. The Aluminium crew did some impressive dancing and were very inventive with the material they used. The techno/industrial music was a great fit and audience participation was also allowed.

A thousand years of German humour and an hour of Irish madness

Sunday I tried to reconnect with my "teutonic" roots. Unfortunately I chose stand-up comedy as the connecting device. Strangely enough there was a response but leaving the show called "a thousand years of german humour" I wondered whether my (and everyone else's) laughter was saying less about German stand-up comedy but more about British politeness. It wasn't actually funny, witty or skillfull but kind of blunt and alienating. The Scottish are good at joking and laughing about themselves but like so often, people who are open and willing to criticise themselves, will soon find that other groups pick up on their jokes and use them against them.
Yes Germans are still a great target for cheap jokes in the UK, but often there is a twist that makes the British look foolish for their old beliefs.
Here is Dylan Moran, an Irish Comedian and star of the TV Series, Black Books, on Germany.


He is said to be hanging around Edinburgh quite a bit too. Probably drunk.
Another maniac Irish man (there seem to be so many) is Jason Byrnes. I went to see his stand-up straight after the German one.
His topics were quite generic (men, women, sex, children), but the material was mad as Cats Under Mats Having Chats With Bats (like when he started talking about how he tried to convince his son of the tooth fairy by putting tiny footprints all over his face, while he was asleep).
The audience interaction was quite harsh at times but he brought it all to a great end by performing an Irish Dance with the people he had been mocking at the end.
Here he is in 2007:




Next up is concert by the frightened rabbits and the twilight sad.

Michael McIntyre versus ME!

It just goes on and on! Last week I went to see Michael McIntyre at the Pleasance. The review in the Scotsman was quite fair and basically said that he was hillarious (he was), even though his material was weak (it was).
Here is one of his performances (though it wasn't part of his show) :



I also went to the GRV pub where I took part in the Joke-e-okee competition. It's like karaoke except that people don't sing on stage but read out jokes which appear on a teleprompter.
Depending on the audience reaction to your joke reading skills, you are allowed to get to the next round. And here's the best bit: I won the competition! Woop me! Here's an example.. I'll try and get my own performance of Rachel who was filming it.

In the middle of the Fringe

The Edinburgh Fringe 2008. Amazing!
I'm truly impressed. The fringe has just started and already I'm swept away by the amount of talent and non-talent on display.
My brother was visiting me and out of pure chance we ended up going to see Tim Minchin at the Pleasance with "Ready for this".

I can only recommend his show, as its the funniest combination between music and dark humour imaginable. Indeed it was so funny that I recommended it to Neil Patrick Harris when I met him outside the underbelly. Unfortunately I was quite intoxicated and made a bit of fool of myself, by talking about his iPhone.

Curious as to what this hollywood star was doing in Edinburgh (apart from enjoying the great shows) I did a short search. It turns out that he is directing a show featuring Guy Hollingworth a great storyteller and magician. I went to see the show with a friend and sure enough NPH was there too. The show was refreshingly charming, with subtle humour and a finely tuned atmosphere that Guy would manipulate depending on the part of the story he was telling. The magic tricks helped lighten up the dark story and create suspense when needed.

(http://www.guy-hollingworth.com/)
Storytelling is something of a dying art and it is good to see it being employed so well in combination with card tricks.
I also went to the Gaghole, a venue above the Counting House, where I saw a comedy stand up as part of the free fringe. While the first comedians were mediocre, the last one, a black guy called White was really funny (which is a lame way to describe a comedian). His God is Big Brother impression was hillarious.

I'm looking forward to seeing some more shows, and should I meet Neil Patrick Harris again, I'll ask for a picture with him.

What happened after that

I've finished my dissertation, handed it in, got the result, waited a month, got my bachelor with honours certificate, went to the graduation ceremony and graduation ball.
So the Stirling chapter is closed. I have got lots of fond memories, others which still pain me and others which seem like from a strange dream.
I hope that I have touched and connected with some people there and that this connection was strong enough for them to stay in touch with me.