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FRIDAY, 25 AUGUST, 2000, EDINBURGH |
 “Taking the air” from the castle. Perhaps you are beginning to see why I am keen to move here. It’s Festival in Edinburgh which means tons of little shows n’ stuff are occurring all about. Last night I gadded off with friends of Mademoiselle Badjuju to see a Flea Circus … which I always thought was a euphemism for something, I dunno what … didn’t know they actually had actual circuses starring actual fleas in that wacky, plague-ridden Victorian era. Anyway, it was fargin’ hilarious. Strongman fleas picking up cotton balls. Sword-fighting fleas. Racing fleas. Tightrope walking fleas. High-dive-into-tiny-pool-of-water fleas. Kinda has to be seen to be believed. Spent post-flea night gabbing away over RFG (Real Fuckin’ Guinness) in a lovely pub until they closed. Weird closing custom — the blaring house lights go up. Now if that doesn’t kill off any alluring mystery about the person you’ve spent the last four hours courting then I don’t know what would. It seemed a genuine one-night-stand-killer. Not that I was a-courting of course. I am a Marquis after all — it is for me to be courted, you see. …though that wasn’t happening all that much either. Why will no one buy my cakes and pies? 
Oh look. Another stupid picture.So, yah, okay, I’m like seriously considering moving here. For years now I’ve entertained the thought of moving back to England, but pretty much because I knew London and liked it tremendously. Had not traveled north before, and I’m finding Edinburgh to have many of the qualities of London that I like, but fewer crowds, less bloody expensive, and not as … how-do-you-say, uptight? Okay, that’s not the word, but the English are so stodgy — I’m talking about just walking along the street and how people are so closed and guarded. Not that I’m looking to strike up heart-to-hearts with plebes on the street — I don’t much fancy that in the slightest, but, say, like, in a shop. You work in a fuckin’ shop fer chrissakes. “You just work in a shop you know. You can drop the attitude.” — Jennifer Saunders, “AbFab” Though The Joojster says shoppies here are uptight as well, I’m not finding that. And while it’s not the height of my aspirations to strike up meaningful relationships with pedestrians, shopkeeps, and other characters one meets along one’s daily little path, these things do make a difference. Children. Perhaps I should touch on the subject. If that’s legal. Hate ‘em. Needy, clingy, awful, loud, smelly. A baby or small child crying is enough to send me into a … well, enough to send me away anyway. But I have seen three random children in the last couple of weeks that have amused me, so that’s rare. First, the little girl on the plane who so politely asked the stewardess for ”another Coke please when you have a minute, thank you so much.” Then there was a little four year old boy on a bus the other day sitting in front of his slightly older, and very annoying sister who was making a big loud stink over some little childhood trauma of some sort — who can tell? Anyway, the little pudgy-faced boy (who had erstwhile been sitting quietly in his seat reading a newspaper!) turned around to face his sister and with a precociously fed-up face sneered in his lovely little crisp Brit voice, “No one wants to hear a little girl crying on the bus,” (“for god’s sake,” implied). Brilliant. Shut ‘er up, too. Then yesterday, while Joojmeister and I were touring the Children’s Museum (not contradictory — I like creepy dolls is all), a little English girl, maybe five years old, waltzed into the creepy doll room and opined in a very refined, posh little voice, “Ahh, now this is whot I like. I ab-solutely ah-dohhh doals.” Yah, so precociousness is cute. I guess because it fortells when they might become human beings and shed off that bloody awful childhood mantle. Sorry, Lovers-of-Children and Lovers-of-Dogs, but you will find no solace nor sympathy for your depraved fetishes in these pages. 
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