Mess Around Edinburgh – August 7 “Pubic Image Ltd”

Hi there

And welcome to another showblog from my Edinburgh 2010 season.

I began tonight’s show by explaining to the audience that I had chosen a smaller venue than usual so that I could test a theory that the members of the audience are interesting and worth chatting to. A guy in the front row turned to his mate and said “I’m not” so I set out to prove him wrong.

A quick series of questions found that his name was Ross, he came from the south side of Glasgow, he worked as a project manager for a defense company, and he was sucking in his stomach. Turns out there were about a dozen people from the same workplace, all of whom knew Ross, none of whom had slept with him, and one of whom accused him of having lego hair.

After fifteen minutes of chat with Ross and his workmates, I decided that he was indeed interesting. However, in order to measure how interesting I decided to compare him with a random audience member who turned out to be called John.

John was from Livingstone and worked in food distribution. Clearly at this point Ross was winning the interestingness competition. I asked John’s mates what was interesting about him and they said he had highlights in his hair. Ross was still in front.

I brought John to the stage and found out he was forty five. Still Ross. I then asked John if he had any grey pubes yet, so he offered to show me.

That’s right, he turned his back to the crowd, lowered his jeans and showed me his pubic hair.

I didn’t notice any greys, but I did notice something unusual. His whole pubic region seemed to have been recently shaved. John confirmed that it had been shaved as recently as a week and a half ago. I asked why. Someone shouted “It makes it look bigger.” John said he shaves it every month for hygiene purposes. Then added “The wife was sick of pulling them out of her teeth”.

Brilliant.

John won.

Oh, and I took a photo of his pubes, just so you would know I wasn’t lying:

I also took a photo of John and Ross, and was gonna ask you who you thought the pubes belonged to, but midway through the photo Ross began to point at him:

It was a strange way to conduct a show but it did prove my point – that the audience is very interesting.

I then jumped back into my mission for this season – which is to use this stuffed toy called Honker that was made for my baby by an audience member:

to raise money for The Royal Hospital For Sick Children.

I asked a woman in the front row called Laura to take a photo of Honker on her phone, then go home and create a facebook page for him, as per a suggestion from Polli after last night’s show. Laura promised to do so, and said she would post a link to the page after this blog.

I reiterated to the crowd that I want to get Irn Bru*(see footnote 1) on board to help us with sponsorship, and someone suggested they should make an ad featuring Honker. Another woman called Anne-Marie told me she worked for the NHS in Lothian, and that they have both a newsletter and a facebook page that could promote Honker and his cause.

Then after the show I received a note backstage from an audience member with the phone number of a man that works for the advertising agency that promotes Irn Bru. I will follow that up first thing Monday morning.

To top it all off, I just received a comment on last nights blog from a man called Tom Curry that said:

“Adam,

I’ve set up a page on the site “Just Giving”. It allows people to give directly to the Sick Kids Friends Foundation. I’ve uploaded the photo from your blog of Honkers and one of yourself. I’ve started the ball rolling with £25 of my own money.

The link is http://www.justgiving.com/AdamHillsHonkerSickKids

Show was brilliant tonight. Hope Barrs (Irn Bru) can help.

Cheers, Tom”

So there you have it people – there is now a Just Giving page to keep track of the money donated by the general public. As soon as I finish this post I will click on and donate 100 pounds myself. There is no target as yet, and The Royal Hospital for Sick Children know nothing about it, nor do the people at Irn Bru. But as Paul Kelly said – “From little things big things grow” *(see footnote 2)

Please feel free to donate, or become facebook friends with Honker once the page is up, or just keep reading the blogs. Whatever happens, it will be interesting.

Adam

* Footnote 1: For those non-Scots, Irn Bru is an orange-coloured soft drink made from girders that seems to be a mixture of Creaming Soda, Orange Cough Syrup and a bolt of lightning up the arse. It’s tops. In fact Scotland is one of the few conutries in the world where Coca Cola isn;t the nimber one beverage. Irn Bru is.

*Footnote 2: For non-Aussies, Paul Kelly is quite simply Australia’s best singer-songwriter ever. Recommended songs – From Little Things Big Things Grow, Darlin’ It Hurts, To Her Door…ah bugger it, buy a Best Of.