I trudged through the pretty incessant rain yesterday to register for the gym but their computer was down so I went away again and had a nap.

But then I went back later and registered. Take that, expectations.

The Pleasance gym is, it turns out, pretty nice. On the youthspeak spectrum that runs from “gay” to “sick”, it is definitely sick. Which means good. While gay, entirely erroneously and with more than a whiff of homophobia, means bad. I don’t make the rulez.

A gym man took me on a tour. He showed to the CV area (where I would late resume my exercise – geddit?) and then led me to a room full of giant barbells and giant men.

“I don’t know if you’re interested in these sorts of weights…?”

“Yeah, well, er, y’know… No, no. Just the little ones.”

I did 3.5 miles on the treadmill, accompanied by one of the special running playlists I’ve set up on my iPod. Nerdcore hip hop for the win.

Dashed off to see a show, had a big dinner (the gym had left me on negative calories for the day – I’m counting) and then came back to my room to do some writing.

I’d been pondering a stand-up idea that, if I could pull it off, would be the most awesome piece of stand-up comedy ever written. I may be underselling it. I imagined it would take at least the rest of my time up here, absorb my every waking thought and slowly drive me insane. I pictured Mozart at the end of Amadeus, frantically scribbling to complete my magnum opus, Salieri looking on jealously, wishing he was as funny, but he isn’t because he’s a composer so he should stick to what he knows and butt out.

Finished the first draft in a couple of hours. I should’ve been pleased but I was slightly disappointed. It was too easy to be awesome. It wasn’t even that funny, although that can be an overrated way of measuring comedy. It was just some words, albeit in a spreadsheet. You know you’ve written a complicated script when you had to do it in Excel.

Still, it did mean that I’d got that displacement activity out of the way (hello, blog) and I could get back to the writing I’m supposed to be doing up here.

So I popped out for a drink at midnight and got to bed at 4. Welcome to Edinburgh.

What I learnt today: The most important item I packed was my umbrella. Ella. Ella. Eh. Eh. Eh.

Recommended show: Dan Antopolski, Tom Craine & Nat Luurtsema: Jigsaw

Obligatory plug: I’m in Three Man Roast, 2.35pm weekdays and Saturday 20th at Finnegan’s Wake on Victoria Street – free entry. Also at the Amused Moose Comedy Awards Showcase at the Pleasance Dome, 4pm on August 17th (book online).

I really am going to register for the gym today. But first, a blog post.

For our second show, we definitely wanted people to come and watch. (For future reference, this applies to all of our shows. Please come.) One of the traditional, desperate ways to entice people to your show is by handing our flyers.

As a bubbly extrovert who loves meeting new people, chatting to strangers and generally interacting with humanity at large, I love flyering.*

I bagsied the Royal Mile while the other two-thirds of my show, Dan and Alex, covered the environs of our venue and the Grassmarket respectively. I figured the Royal Mile would be an easier place to give out flyers as people there expect it, what with it being always jam-packed with flyererers (and incessant street performance) throughout August.

This turned out to be the flaw in my plan because the sheer number of other people promoting their shows (or working for promoters promoting other people’s shows) made it more difficult to target genuine potential audience – who themselves were mixed in at lunchtime with the unfortunate locals fighting their way briskly through the crowds, making their way back to the drudgery of their desks from the drudgery of Greggs. (I worked in Edinburgh for two years. I have the utmost sympathy for anyone based in the city centre during the Festival.)

Of course, some of the other flyererererers are potential audience members so I did a bit of flyer swapping here and there.

It was during one such exchange that I encountered the Rotter. She was walking up the Mile in a small group of young women.

“Free comedy?” I asked meekly, proffering a flyer for our show.

“I’ll swap,” said the Rotter, holding out her flyer.

“Cool,” I said, taking it and holding my own.

“Nah, don’t want it now,” she said and hurried off, giggling with her friends like this was the cleverest stunt ever pulled. Percy Blakeney must have been in awe.

What a rotter. I could have felt angry. I could have felt cheated. I could have felt embarrassed to have been made to look a fool right at the heart of the Edinburgh Fringe. But then no-one else had noticed and all I could think was what a rubbish thing to do that was.

Not because it was mean. It was, and thoroughly against the imagined spirit of the blah blah blah, but it just rather missed the point of flyering.

We hand out flyers because we want people to come to our shows. (Please come.) Why would I go to her play now? I was standing there, looking at her flyer thinking “Yep, of all the shows currently on, this is the one I’m definitely not going to.” So she’s a flyer down – a flyer her theatre group will have paid for specifically to get people through the door – and I’ve lost nothing. What’s more I have, let’s face it, some social media skillz. I could have been on twitter in seconds, hashtagging my tweet to buggery, declaring her play “One star. An appalling mess. To be avoided.” Or worse: two stars. Not even bad enough to be noteworthy. That would have been most unethical having not actually seen the show but I’ll admit I was tempted.

I shan’t name her play here – I’m just too nice and frankly she doesn’t deserve the exposure.

And anyway, our show an hour later was packed so I think I got the last laugh there.

*In case you don’t know me: this is the opposite of true.

What I learnt today: I’m a nicer person than I thought I was.

Recommended show: Andrew Bird’s Village Fete

Obligatory plug: I’m in Three Man Roast, 2.35pm weekdays and Saturday 20th at Finnegan’s Wake on Victoria Street – free entry. Also at the Amused Moose Comedy Awards Showcase at the Pleasance Dome, 4pm on August 17th (book online).

Day 2 was Day 1 for our show.

The paid shows tend to spend a couple of days doing cheaper previews while the performers settle into their venue, sort out their teching, etc. Free shows are warming up in the same way but because we’re already free, we can’t, except in a pedantic mathematical way, be half price.

Our plan, though, was to treat the first show as a bit of a run-through. We wouldn’t go flyering and while it would be nice to have an audience (no peering over a gift horse’s equine mandible here), we didn’t expect one. It would be a bit rough around the edges.

Turns out we were half-full and had a reviewer in. Pretty sure there’s a moral there.

Our venue is surprisingly nice. When we were bidding for a room, I was just hoping for somewhere that didn’t look like a body would be found walled up there in Jonathan Creek. We’re at the back of a pub and I was anticipating a heavy curtain separating us from the bar. In fact we’ve got a proper room with a stage and spotlights and doors and that. The pub itself is recently refurbished and the bar staff have all been really helpful.

The first show was a bit rusty then but there were plenty of laughs and I think this whole thing may actually work.

What I learnt today: Always be prepared. Dib dib dib.

Recommended shows: John-Luke Roberts and Nadia Kamil: The Behemoth and Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!

Obligatory plug: I’m in Three Man Roast, 2.35pm weekdays and Saturday 20th at Finnegan’s Wake on Victoria Street – free entry. Also at the Amused Moose Comedy Awards Showcase at the Pleasance Dome, 4pm on August 17th (book online).

So bad am I at self-promotion that not only have I not mentioned on this dusty old blog that I’m performing at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, I don’t think I’ve even mentioned that I’ve been doing stand-up comedy. But I am, so that’s cleared that up.

I’m not planning to do a day-by-day reportage of my showbiz Embra lifestyle (last night I was out until half 11 and knocking back diet coke like there was no tomorrow, and there was a tomorrow and I know because that’s where I am now) but that’s how it will begin because it’s all new and shiny and I have tiny anecdotes to share.

I travelled up on Wednesday – that’s the eponymous Day 1. Using my special geek powers, I procured for myself an advanced purchase first class ticket at a very reasonable price and sat back on the train while the nice people from National Express East Coast poured free food down my gullet at regular intervals. I must’ve had 25% of the ticket cost back in complimentary meals. I didn’t even need dinner later on.

My best laid plans to use those four-and-a-bit hours of the journey to do something productive – read a book, revise my set, listen to podcasts, write material – failed completely. I flicked through a free copy of The Independent, completed 65% of the crossword, listened to my iPod on shuffle and sat back waiting for the next delivery of gratuitous grub.

Within two hours of arriving in Edinburgh, I’d seen five people I knew, including meeting a friend who lives in Edinburgh in the queue for the very first show I’d booked. That says less about my dubious connectedness and more about the nature of the Edinburgh ecosystem.

I have rather overdone going to see shows the first few days here but they’re in preview and therefore much cheaper. Using my awesome spreadsheet skills (all right, so I can’t do pivot tables), I optimised savings and did a bit of critical path analysis to allocate shows to the optimum days for the most efficient use of time. In doing so, I saved £45 off the full price tickets, although this was slightly undermined by putting one of the carefully planned shows in my calendar for the wrong day and missing it. C’est la vie.

What I learnt today: Central Edinburgh is loud. Where I’m staying is loud. Sleeping is hard.

Recommended show: Colin Hoult’s Inferno

Obligatory plug: I’m in Three Man Roast, 2.35pm weekdays and Saturday 20th at Finnegan’s Wake on Victoria Street – free entry. Also at the Amused Moose Comedy Awards Showcase at the Pleasance Dome, 4pm on August 17th (book online).