On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

The pub is called the ‘Kilderkin’. I don’t know what that means in German; I hope it doesn’t mean ‘I murdered my family’. As soon as we step inside my headache feels better, thanks to the air conditioning and dark wood panelling everywhere. It smells of chips and hot dogs, and there’s some sort of rock music playing at a discreet volume. I like this place.

The ‘cabaret room’ is separated from the main bar by a curtain. Fax and Joanne disappear behind it excitedly while I go to the bar. I really need to start pacing myself, so I just order a beer. Fax wants a mineral water, and Joanne wants a pint of Stella, which isn’t like her.

My phone vibrates in my bag. Just as I’m wondering what to tell head office if Saif really has managed to burn the Co-op down, I remember Lee said he’d text me. I was hoping he’d have a change of heart. I was hoping he’d remember some urgent mending he had to do, or that he’d suddenly become gay.

On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

It’s just gone 9 when I get back to the flat, feeling more like a squeezed-out dishcloth with every minute that passes. Joanne and Fax are in the kitchen eating muesli. This is one of the most normal things I’ve ever walked in on them doing – normally they’re naked or trying to summon Mesopotamian gods. Maybe eating muesli is just part of the ritual. I’m onto them.

Fax jumps up to greet me, which takes me by surprise. ‘Oh Melissa, we are glad you’re OK!’

‘OK’ is an optimistic term, but I’m alive if that’s what he means. I just nod, then immediately regret nodding, because nodding makes my headache a hundred times worse. I need some solpadeine.

‘And where did you get to last night, madam?’ snorts Joanne. She’s incredibly relaxed for someone who thought I was dead an hour ago. I ignore her as I root around in the cupboard for painkillers and a gun to shoot myself with.

On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

My bastard head. Please kill me now. Please God, stop hitting my skull with a pan and just put me out of my misery.

God/my brain tells me ‘you need water’. I do. I also really need a piss. I roll over and collide with…

Oh my fucking Christ no. Please let it be a dead rat instead.

I collide with the body of Andrew Scunthorpe, who I apparently spent the night with. He looks a lot less like Andrew Lincoln this morning. A quick check confirms that at least I’m wearing some sort of t-shirt. The pillow smells of cough medicine.

I roll back over and close my eyes. My phone buzzes. After what feels like a month, I look at it. Even if my phone is filled with Joanne and Fax’s bullshit, at least they can come and get me in the meat van.

Three missed calls. One text from Joanne, two texts from Saif.

For fuck’s sake. Right, I need a big piss before I can deal with any of this stuff.

On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

I wander around for a bit until I come across a man doing the most amazing balancing stuff. Seriously, he’s balancing on a pole by one strand of his hair. I instinctively look for the strings that must be attached to him, but that’s stupid because they’d have to be attached to the sky. I think he’s just really clever.

For the first time this week, I clap because he’s good, instead of because Joanne is elbowing me and ordering me to clap. My clapping is a bit too enthusiastic, because I end up slapping the hand of the guy next to me. I shuffle away a bit. Shit, he must have thought I was trying to get his attention, because he turns to me.

‘This guy’s amazing isn’t he?’

‘Oh, erm, yeah. Sorry didn’t mean to hit you with my hand.’

‘That’s OK. Oh my god look at him now!’ He points and I look back at the balancing man, who I swear is now balancing on one finger. How he doesn’t work for MI5 or whoever magic people work for is beyond me. I’m definitely going to stick a fiver in his bucket.

When he’s finished (and fuck knows how he still has a penis after that finale) I hunt around in my purse for a fiver.

On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

Joanne and Fax have gone to watch – and I quote – ‘A man in a gorilla suit laughing at various fruit put in front of him’. This is somehow a thing. This means I’m on my own, relatively sober, belly full of food, rest of the night to fill. It’s only half 7, and I’m on my own with, well, oh Jesus, let’s see how much money I’ve got left.

I fight my way to a cashpoint. Why does everything this week involve fighting your way to something? Must be a Scottish thing.

Right, it’s fine, it’s not that bad. Forgot I earn a bit more now. Bills are covered. Money’s fine, as long as I don’t do anything stupid, like give a hundred quid to a busker.

On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

We get to a place called George something, which Joanne suggested because apparently they do ‘vegan chilli and some lovely hummus’. As soon as we get within sight of it, my stomach is battered by the smell of food. I am fucking starving. All around us are vans chucking out meat, and crepes, and chips. I might get all three, and put them in my mouth all at once.

One problem – between me and every item of food stand two dozen people in a queue. They’re only doing this to piss me off, they don’t really need food. Case in point – the two girls in front of me in the first queue I join, which promises to lead me to a van called ‘Burger City’. I challenge you to think of a place you’d want to live more than ‘Burger City’. I mean, if it was an actual city, not just a creaky van. I’ve spent long enough in a fucking burger van.

On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

We make our way through the park. I’m still muttering ‘80 quid’ to myself over and over again, so I don’t notice the park has become a market until Joanne and Fax start going ‘Oh look, Himalayan salt lamps!’ I look up from my self-inflicted misery to see stalls selling ‘hand woven dream bags’ (whatever the fuck they are), ‘goat soap’, and crystals. It’s always fucking crystals. I guess we’re not having dinner for a bit then.

They’ve stopped at a stall called ‘The Psychic Hedgerow’. ‘Ooh, tourmaline!’ says Fax. ‘Would that help with potential stage fright?’

Joanne gets a tiny book called Crystal Prescriptions out of her bag, and they pore over the best remedy for stage fright that involves holding a rock.

While Joanne and Fax shit themselves over ‘septarian flame’ and ‘rough agate’, I browse the other stalls. There’s really annoying clicking noise following me wherever I go. With any luck it’ll be my bones giving up, and then I can just lie here in a heap and die quietly. 80 fucking quid. At this point it might have just been easier and cheaper to hand myself over to the Andi Peters QVC Police.

I try to distract myself by looking at dragon statues and handmade cards with pictures of fairies on them. I recognise the fairies as part of the ‘Dawn Bibby Fairy Enchantment Collection’, which they sell late at night on Create & Craft. I told you, I have a problem.

On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

After half an hour navigating through cagoules and avoiding other people promising ‘free five-star comedy’, I manage to duck into an alleyway. Fuck knows where I am now. But the alleyway leads to some sort of… place. Let’s have a look.

Ooh, a gin bar! This is a nice surprise; I’d been bracing myself for anything up to and including more Polish nudists. I’m still a bit on guard though, so I scan the area. Grass, some pub tables, a rickety temporary bar. No one trying to give me ‘free five-star comedy’. So far so good.

‘Artisan gins’, the sign says. Lovely. To be fair, I’d have stayed if the sign had said ‘artisan paint strippers’. I peer behind the bar, but I can’t make out many of the labels. Fucking hell, I hope I’m not going blind on top of everything else.

On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

I know I sort of agreed to do ‘leafleting’ for Fax last night, but I was a bit pissed when they asked me. Also, I didn’t have all the facts at my disposal, namely:

· I would regret agreeing to do leafleting in the morning
· There would be people milling around so close to me they were actually trying to wear my clothes
· It would be fucking raining again
. I don’t fucking want to

‘Free five-star comedy’ I mumble half-heartedly to no one in particular. I am ignored. Good. Hopefully they just think I’m a crackhead talking to myself.

I’m so hungover even my eyeballs are dehydrated, which is a shame because I could really do with crying right now. My right knee really fucking hurts because I’ve been stood on a slope for three bastard hours. Occasionally a passing tourist will try to murder me by stabbing me with an umbrella spoke. I’m not doing anything to stop this happening. I would have escaped hours ago, but I’m surrounded by wet tourists. Every time I breathe in it smells of soggy wax jacket. If I get past those, I’m met with a battalion of screeching drama students peddling their own shit.

To count my one blessing, at least I’m not next to Joanne and Fax. Thank fuck, those two are 20 feet away, but I know they’re trying to keep an eye on me, otherwise I’d have just chucked the leaflets at a passing drama student. Occasionally I hear snatches of Fax’s terrible acoustic guitar:

‘Meat is defeat, the goddess says…’

‘Come to my awakening, you liver clad folk…’

On the run from Andi Peters following a misunderstanding about cruises, Melissa begrudgingly agrees to follow her friend Joanne (and Joanne’s 17th century throwback ‘life partner’ Fax) to the Edinburgh Fringe. While leafleting for Fax’s dreadful stand up show about faith healing and vegans, Melissa endures the highs and lows of pretentious student plays, ‘street typing’, and the knowledge that her shop has been left in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand tills…

Crap Comedy is the follow up to the 2018 novel Crap Holiday. Read it here.

We’re staying in tonight. This has come as a relief to me; I’m tired and fat and I only came to Edinburgh to get away from the QVC police. I have no interest in going to watch a half-arsed comedian demanding we put five-pound notes in his bucket. Most of the time that wouldn’t even work out at a fiver a laugh.

I reckon they’re onto something though. I wonder if I could get away with standing in a pub yelling words at people, then demanding money off them.

Yesterday I saw a poster for a show called Come and Look at the Baby. Further inspection revealed that this woman was sitting in a community centre showing off her baby to people. No word on if prices go up when the baby does something interesting, like shitting itself or biting its mother. I imagine the mother could make quite a bit of money if the baby had a specific talent, like juggling or making its head spin all the way round. Or if the baby was still up the woman’s fanny.

I could get in on this racket, if that’s what passes for an Edinburgh show. I could call my show Come Look at The Depressed Woman in Her 30s Drinking Neat Vodka and Looking at Pictures of Andrew Lincoln. With any luck they’ll think I’m like Tracy Emin. Didn’t she make a load of money off having a disgusting bed full of cans and tampons? Big deal – try having a carpet with a stain on it. Oh that’s the one – Come Look at the Depressed Woman in Her 30s Yelling at a Stain on the Carpet.