It’s probably because of the photo-shoot (annoyingly none of the actual shots are quite as good as the polaroids, but think we’ve chosen a good one for the poster – will put it up in the downloads section in the next few days), but the Edinburgh anxiety has begun. In the last two nights I’ve had basically the same dream four times. Essentially the Edinburgh run is about to begin and yet I have done no more work on the show. Every time I have the dream I think to myself , “But I had four months to get it done and yet still I didn’t do any work! What is my problem?” In one of the dreams I had been joined by a man and woman I have never met before who were going to perform sketches with me. I became cross with them and myself because this was supposed to be a solo stand-up show. The expense of putting them up in Edinburgh was my main concern. Plus the woman one wanted to be paid fifty pounds a day. Oh dear, I hope I don’t have four months of this to contend with. I kept waking up in a cold sweat, but each time I went back to sleep I would have the same dream again and still not catch on that this wasn’t really happening. What makes it really frightening is that it probably isn’t going to be too far away from reality.
Especially as I seemed to piss most of today away playing computer games and watching telly. Nothing changes. I was so desperate for prevarication I even watched the poor afternoon soap opera “Doctors”, which I usually take as a signal to go back to work. On the rare occasions I’ve seen it before it’s been quite a gentle half hour about life in a medical practise, but they must be trying to boost their ratings because it appears that the medical centre has been blown up and Diane Keen is in prison suspected of setting it all up for the insurance money. But it transpired that in fact the bitter ex-wife of one of the doctors had done it, because she’d seen him snogging someone else or something. She revealed this to him, but as he was about to ring the police pushed him down the stairs and knocked him out. In the mean time she took an overdose and killed herself. The doctor’s lover found him and roused him, but then discovered the wife’s body, which meant the woozy doctor didn’t have time to tell her what he’d learned. When the ambulance and police had come and gone (and inexplicably not taken the head injured doctor with them), suddenly he realised he should tell his lover what he’d learned, but just as he was starting to say, “About my ex-wife, it was her…..” suddenly he realised that he was about to die, and used his last gasp to say, “I love you” to his lover. Then he died, the secret he knew going with him to his grave and Diane Keen still in prison.
I thought that was a bit selfish of him. Although it must be tempting to tell someone that you love that you love them when you know your number is up, if you also know the true perpetrator of a crime that someone else is suspected of, surely you are duty bound to blurt that out first. And only then if there is time should you express your own selfish emotions. If he’d been a bit quicker he could have said, “Diane Keen is innocent and also I love you.” But no, he had to think about himself.
ItÂ’s especially selfish as he did have all the time that he was waiting for the ambulance and the police to tell his lover about this quite important fact. I think they were trying to make out that he may have temporarily forgotten because of the bump to his head. But thatÂ’s just stupid obviously.
I bring this up in case any of you are ever in the situation where you have 2 seconds to live and have to chose between declaring your love or absolving an innocent person of a crime. Make sure you do the absolving first and then, only if there is time remaining, do the “I love you” bit. Like getting a wish, it is important to work these things out in advance so you do the right thing in the heat of the moment.
I do however hope that Diane Keen stays in prison forever. I suspect that she will eventually be proven innocent, but it would be much better if she isnÂ’t. I donÂ’t think I will be bothering to watch to find out though. I need to write more material for Edinburgh so that my own horrific dreams do not come true.
