A week in the south of England, taking care of my niece and nephew while my sister in law is away and my brother is at work.  A chance to see the kids, but also to work on building stronger relationships with my brother.  As the youngest of six boys,  I spent most of my childhood scrambling after bigger siblings; my bike was always that little too small to keep up.

Some of my fondest memories of childhood are those moments when I was allowed to tag along; where my brothers chucked me in the back of their cars, slapped a motorcycle helmet onto my tousled head to whizz me off across the country roads, or passed me a loaded rifle, steadying the heavy barrel for me while I squinted, closing one eye with puppy-fat cheeks, down the sights at a row of tin cans.

I’ve spent a lot of this week working with NephewO’s increasing verbal dexterity, taking my lead from my brother, we’ve been teaching him to handle the increasingly persistent interruptions from his little sister by telling her, calmly, how he feels;  as opposed to his previous modus operandi of exploding into fits of howling tears.  Being a big brother, perpetually shadowed by a smaller, louder and interfering version of yourself must be a true pain in the arse.  Especially when grown-ups are more likely to take their side - “She’s only little, you have to teach her, show her how to do it.”

The flipside of that parental closeness that the baby of the family gets is the ‘only child’ syndrome that hits when everyone else gets bigger.

 My brothers grew up, got shoulders and height and girlfriends and wedding rings and offspring and houses.

And I stayed home with our parents.

Throughout my adolescence, I was convinced that my five big brothers had this intense, tightly knit relationship.  Cabalistic yet supportive, I would be welcomed into their sect when I left home, grew up, became a man.

So here I am.

A man.

And it’s been with a catastrophically disheartening jolt that I’ve realised that such a group doesn’t exist.  Spread up and down the country as we are, the spaces between our seeing each other stretch to months and years.  Conversations are awkward and stilted, we all struggle to fill in the gaps between our last meetings.  My brothers are as disparate from each other as I am from them.

So when these requests from Jon to come south and care for the kids crop up, I grab them with both hands.  Having the kids as a mutual task makes our conversations easier and with the lubrication of the occasional cold beer, the discussion starts truly flowing.  We talk about our family, our jobs and developments.  I get to sound him out about my worries and anxieties, mining the ten years between us for his experience and insights.  Both working in health and social care, we compare and contrast our working environments, limits, opportunities and practices.  By the end of the week, we were shaking our heads at each other and saying, in unison.

“Pffft….fuck that, I wouldn’t do your job for any money.”

Then each morning, he’d head off to work and I’d be left with two active, chatty little kids to entertain.  We go to the park, the supermarket, we hared around the garden and played endless games where we masqueraded as various alien beings from a bewildering array of Cartoon Network franchises.    This year has been a little easier than last, since the kids are a bit older and more mobile and a tad more self-sufficient.  They also have, infuriatingly, a better social life than me. 

One of the biggest lessons I ever learned while nannying was the magic of “Having someone round to play.”  My initial reactions to this were of abject horror - ‘Are you fucking kidding me?  Why in the name of all that is decent and holy would I want to INCREASE the number of children I’m watching?”

It was only once I gave it a chance, all those years ago, that I realised that having kids round to play with your kids can (when it works properly) release you from endless games of Cartoon Network aliens, relegating you instead to purveyor of peanut butter sandwiches and occasionally acting as the UN of “I had Lightning McQueen first…”

I cackled and rubbed my hands with glee - “Hey NephewO?  NieceN?  Shall we ask FriendE and FriendL over to play?”

Their reaction was resoundingly positive.

It was only when I phoned the Friends’ mother that I ran into problems. 

“Hello?”

“Shirley?”

“Yes?”

“Hi, it’s Kal, Jon’s brother?”

“Oh, hi Kal…is everything ok?”

She clearly had images in her head of me phoning her in extremis: “Shirley, help me, the kids are being eaten by wolverines.”  “There’s a dirigible stuck in the sink and the toilet’s backing up.” “The children are staking me to the turf and coaxing ants into the garden.”

“I was just wondering if E and L wanted to come over and play?  These two would love to see them.”

“Oh…well, ok.  Would you want me to stay?”

“Sorry?”

“Well, do you mean for me to leave them with you, or stay while they all play together?”

I was bemused.

“Ummm, no, I’m perfectly happy to take the four of them for the morning.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“Absolutely?”

“Yep.”

“Was that your original intention?  I don’t want to burden you.”

“Really, it’s fine.”

“You’re absolutely positive?”

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Yes,  absolutely sure.  I swear…here, I’ll tell you what, I swear on my mother’s life (sorry, Mum) that that was what I expected.”

“Well……ok.”

So she brought her two round, and I added them to my charges and sat back.

It was awesome.  The big ones played with each other, the wee ones played with each other.  At one point I had to intervene when the biggest wee one terrorised the wee-est wee one with a roaring dinosaur, but it was otherwise just fine.

That evening I was laughing to Jon about Shirley’s responses.

“They clearly just think I’m some kid.”

“Well, to be fair…”

“Fuck you!” I retaliated, grinning. 

“It’s true, though.  They’re what?  At least fifteen years older than you, they’re not family, they don’t know about your childcare background, they possibly don’t know about your current work.  Surely you can see why they might be a bit hesitant?”

And it got me thinking.  It’s fair enough, these people hardly know me.  They’ve met me occasionally at the school gate, or at the park with the kids.  They don’t know that I’m perfectly happy handling that number of children, or that I’d be quite capable dealing with any nastiness that occured.  In fact, it was a pretty big leap of faith on their part to leave their offspring with me. 

And suddenly, that ten year gap between myself and my brother and his circle of friends is right back and just as cavernous as it ever was.

When I first came to Edinburgh,I worked at the Edinburgh Dungeon.  A horror-themed tourist attraction  based around (with the most spurious of historically authentic footholds) the old and grotesque tales of Scotland.  Live actors populated half a dozen comic shows; audience interaction was high on the agenda, the scripts were hokey, the jokes as visible as mushroom clouds on the horizon.  Camp and over the top, it was like Rocky Horror, performed in The Crystal Maze with endless thinly veiled knob jokes.  The costumes were cheap, as were the gags…and the wages.

 But aside from all of this ran an undercurrent of improvised grinning anarchy.  There were competitions within the cast to say or do ever more outrageous things in one’s show without attracting the attention of management (and, by association, developing a terminal relationship with human resources).

Things mostly got out of hand when one was designated “queue line” or “promo”.  The former involving standing at the front door enticing new customers in, or entertaining the line as it shuffled forwards;  the latter being an hour or two leafleting on the Royal Mile, striding about in tattered vintage clothing with gallons of fake blood dripping from one’s face.

Without the temporal restrictions of working on a show, pushing the punters through the door of your performance space every eight minutes or the creative limits of sticking (somewhat) to a script, we would run riot.  One of my favourite wheezes was to take my colleague Lauren, dressed as a cannibal, out for a walk with a heavy chain around her neck.  I’d dispatch her to gnaw on or dry hump the legs of passing tourists and, when I caught up with her and extricated them from each other, would shove leaflets and vouchers into their hands.  It never failed.

We did ridiculous things, grabbing phones and cameras out of peoples hands,taking pictures of ourselves, hijacking their conversations.  We’d tuck flyers into the brims of hats,or the waistbands of low cut jeans; steal food from al-fresco diners.

Nobody ever complained or expressed anything more sinister than confused amusement.

On one occasion we had a colleague get out of makeup and dress as a tourist. We organised a rendezvous in 20 minutes at the Tron kirk and myself and Graeme leapt into the Dungeon van, a huge statue of the Grim Reaper protruding from the roof.  At our agreed place and time, Graeme and I emerged from the vehicle in full costume and makeup, barking at each other in Burke and Hares’ Irish brogue.  Sneaking up on our civvy-clad colleague,we then proceeded (with the liberal application of stage combat) to beat the shit out of her on the pavement, battering her into ‘unconsciousness’.  This was no panto brawl, Graeme and I were going for it, holwing curses and threats at the prone lassie who screamed for Scotland, drawing the attention of the surrounding crowds.

Panting and sweaty, we stood over the broken woman and grabbed two limbs each.

She was heavy.

Far heavier than we’d anticipated.  There was no way the two of us were lifting her flaccid body into the van.

We neededhelp, so I enlisted a passer by.

“Hey! You! Help my put this fat bitch into the car.”

He didn’t even blink, just grabbed his shake of my colleague and helped us shove her through the back doors.

To recap:  Two strangers beat a young woman senseless in front of him, then press gang his collaboration in abducting her, which he did without questions.

Because we were in costume.

Our odd appearance instantly placed us in his eyes, defined us as “not public” and bestowed the type of authority that leads people to go a bit Milgram.

My recent shifts riding a bike on the tourist-swollen streets of Edinburgh have brought this phenomenon back to my notice.  Surrounded by holiday-makers, I’ve bene involved in, absorbed by and occasionally butted straight into countless conversations.  People approached me with questions, requests for diections and often just to chat.  I struck up discussions with total strangers,my uniform giving them the security then needed.  I’m an ambulance man, a true-blue Ninth of November rescue hero. 

 I can’t be a psychopath, I’ve got a reflective vest.

I’m no longer working on the bike, I have a week’s leave taking me to the end of August, after which the crowds will disperse.  I’ve left my holiday crowds and festival atmosphere behind, but the feeling of carte-blanche to talk to random strangers is clinging to my shoulders like dry ice in a cheap karaoke bar.  I’m still nattering away to them apropos of nothing, their responses are mostly friendly, or at least sociable. 

Heading down south to visit my brother, I landed at Bristol airport on Monday and, while waiting to disembark, the plane started making funny noises , like the sound of the flaps moving up and down, but steady and rhythmic.

Vvf-vvf-vvf-vvf-vvf.  A clear metal-on-metal counterpoint, not normally an indicator of A-1 engineering health.

As the great British public, nobody said anything. 

 Well, nobody except me. 

I turned to the man across the aisle from me and asked him:

“D’you think we should be worried that they seem to be hacksawing the doors open?”

He stared balefully at me for a second, then returned to jigging his sagging turkey neck against the brash deckchair stripes of his Sta-Prest collar.

The world is frigid enough without people being scared of each other, but at the very least he could have acknowledged my existence.

I saw him later, in the Gents; rather than risk anything nasty getting onto his precious, brand new but faux-battered briefcase, he’d balanced it over two sinks, relying on our British phobia of ‘causing a scene’ to keep it there.

Well, fuck you, pal.  I’m not yet rehabilitated.  I left all the taps on both sinks open full blast, relishing the sight of my watery money-shot spattering onto his luggage.

Take that, you arrogant cunt. 

Learn to smile.

Ya know, I can see how it might be galling.

Every couple of days, you say?

He stands there, amongst the plushy sofas and perfectly chosen music.

Photography and Fine Art.

Every couple of days.

Looking at nudie pictures.

He doesn’t even buy the books.

Just flicks through pictures of ladies in their all-together.

One hand in his pocket.

Jiggling away.

You’re a family establishment.

Can’t be having it.

Not appropriate.

But I wonder…had you considered asking him to stop?

Barring him from the premises?

Calling the police?

Did any of those thoughts run through your head?

Or did you just snap and arrive at your conclusion?

Hmmm.

Turns out, if you sneak up behind someone and smash them over the head with a great big coffee mug, their head bleeds.

Also turns out, if you assault the sort of person who covertly masturbates in bookshops, they might not be too hung up about retaliating, violently.  Perhaps in a way that far surpasses your original attack.

In addition to this, you seem to have learned that standing at the head of a flight of stairs is not the wisest foot-hold from which to launch an attack.

No neck pain?

Jolly good.

Just that cut on your head;  it sort of matches his, doesn’t it?

Your boss shakes his head as the two of you, head wounds freshly glued by my colleague, are loaded into seperate police vans.

P45’s in the mail, one thinks.

Got an email highlighting the “Click to give” site (also has links for hunger, child health, literacy, rainforest and animal rescue) this morning.

I could forward it to a dozen of you.

Or I could stick it up here and ask thousands of you to take two minutes of your day to help out some charities.

Go click the button, it’ll do someone some good.

I get a phone call.

“Kal, can you respond to Business-You’ve-Never-Fucking-Heard-Of on the High St, please? We have a Nan-Down.”

“Ummm. Where’s B-Y-N-F-H-O?  I’m on a mountain bike.  It don’t got no GPS.”

“We don’t know…it’s not coming up on our system.”

“Can you give me a street number.”

“No..sorry.”

“So…”

“Could you, like, have a look?”

Well, yeah, I could.  But the High Street’s a big place.

I cycle a little forlornly up the cobbles, through the crowds, around the stilt walkers.  I don’t even know if I’m going the right way.

But these people will.

The cops have an information point/museum RIGHT on the High Street, it’s full of dummies dressed in vintage uniforms (and mannequins in the exhibits, hardy har har).  THEY’LL know where it is, they must know all the businesses in this patch.

“”B-Y-N-F-H-O?” Sorry, nope, never heard of it…but hang on.”

He taps something into a keyboard behind the desk, I’m thrilled to be exploiting Lothian and Borders Police’s intranet, with all its high-tech gubbinery.

I peer over the desk.

He’s Googling the locus.

It’s basic.

But it works.

If:  You get a call in the middle of your sandwich.

Don’t: Try and finish it while putting your helmet on.

Cos: It won’t work.

If: You rest it on the bike’s saddle while you zip up your vest.

Don’t: Be surprised when it spooges coleslaw all over the seat.

Cos: Sandwiches are dicks.

If: You don’t want to sit in coleslaw.

Don’t: Try and wipe it off the saddle with your gloved hand.

Cos: It’ll get all in the fleecey bits of your glove.

If: You wipe it off anyway.

Don’t: Have your feet immediately under the bike.

Cos: The wayward coleslaw will spatter, spew-like, onto your toes.

If:You end up with coleslaw on your toes.

Don’t: Try and flick it off with a wave of your ankle.

Cos: You may end up spraying the legs of the nice couple standing next to you.

If: This happens.

Don’t: Hang around.

Cos: There’s an emergency, don’t you know?   Apologise fast and ride off faster.

Last January I went to a rehearsed reading of a play by Pamela Carter, I sat grinning in the audience as I heard phrases and concepts I’d explained to Pamela being brought into the storyline of the script.  I also grinned enormously to see myself listed in the acknowledgements as “Kal the Trauma Queen”.

In the bar afterwards I met the lovely Louise who works at the Traverse Theatre and, through our conversation, found myself signing up for a place on a “Writing for the stage” course,  run by a writer called Zinnie.

The course was fantastic, though short-lived for me as I had to leave for my Para course halfway through.

A few weeks ago I bumped into Zinnie again, we had a chat and it turned out we’d both been struggling to get in touch with one another - I to talk to her about some scripts I’m working on and she to ask me if I’d be interested in presenting some of her work at the theatre.

As such, I’m just back from reading from one of her more recent scripts to a small crowd of people who’d turned out to ‘meet the author’ and ask Zinnie questions about her work.   Everything seems to have gone well, I met some lovely people and I’m thoroughly looking forward to working with them more in the future.

Innit funny where blogs will take you?

So I’m standing in a forest.

There are multi-coloured floodlights illuminating the ancient Scots pines that surround the crowd.

Behind me stands a log cabin, peat smoke twisting from its chimney;  party goers lurch in and out of its warm yellow haze, supping Belgian hot chocolate and munching on freshly cooked doughnuts.

In the distance I can hear a solid thumping bass line, another guest DJ just stepped up to his decks, cranking the volume a little further.

A dog shuffles past the back of my legs, slavering over the slab of freshly barbecued venison some friendly drunk has thrown him;  he scuttles back to lie beside one of many small bonfires that are lit around the place.

I’m at the sixtieth birthday party of one of Edinburgh’s most famous event organisers.

A last minute invite from a friend, it’s as amazing a gig as one would expect from a man who can organise entire cities into parties.

I’ve made my way to one of the many free bars that have been established, a young woman in a black apron pours me a half pint of Smirnoff and cranberry.  Her chest carries the same logo as the discreet security and management staff that float about like ear-piece murmuring spectres in the trees.

Sidling up to my elbow is a kid.  Tall and thin and as nervous as the collie with the Bambi steak.  He shuffles his wellies.

“Could you, ummm, pour me a vodka and coke, please?”

I look at him, confused.

The barmaid interjects.

“I’m not pouring you a drink.  How old are you?”

He ignores her, persisting at me.

“Would you pour me a vodka and coke, please?”

She speaks directly to me.

“Don’t give him any alcohol, please.  He’s too young.”

I sigh inwardly.  Scabbing alcohol off people who aren’t your parents is half the fun of being a teenager at an adult party.  Maybe I’ll set him up with a bottle of Sol and send him on his way.

But let’s check first.

I turn to him.

“How old are you?”

“Me? Umm…I’m….ummmm.  Fifteen.”

“Nup.  No dice, mate.  Too slow.  Sorry.”

“Awww, c’mon.  Puh-leeeeze.”

The barmaid has arched eyebrows at me…I compromise.

“Ok, look.  If you tell me how old you are, I’ll pour you a drink.  But be honest, don’t piss me about.”

His toes become fascinating.

“I’m…..I’m twelve….”

I nearly spit cranberry all over him, before he finishes.

“…in a month.”

The barmaid nearly screams.

“You’re ELEVEN?!”

I have nothing else to do but clap him on the shoulder.

“Sorry mate.  Good try….”

I return to the dark of the party, part horrified at society’s evils yadda yadda yadda, but a far larger part impressed at his having the steel balls to try it.

Cheers mate.

Enjoy your coke.

Another week, another hat. You guys are making me laugh each time, it’s brilliant.

Special mention this week goes to:

Lorenzo for shameless poetry.

Jamie for her retarded miniature zoo, miniature monkeys, miniature bananas insanity.

Kiri - for suggesting that there are virgins in Leith.

This week’s winner is Tom Dyer, for correctly identifying a bowler hat. Get in touch, Tom, with your postal address and your requirements for lipstick kiss/no lipstick kiss on your signed Chinese Calum photo.

Chinese Calum and I have decided to take a little break on the competition for a few weeks, just to keep you all straining at the leash. He’ll be back with more headwear sooner than you think.

Cycling around the City Centre during the Fringe Festival carries with it the not unpleasant task of being stopped by members of the public and asked about a variety of subjects.  “Where is…”  “How do I get to…” “Is there someplace I can…”

Then we have the various social fringe members, or radges, jakes and bams as we affectionately refer to them.

These guys tend to lean towards feigning agonising chest pain and staggering in front of me in a hilarious comedy stylee, shouting “Paramedic!” as I cycle past (well done, do you shout “Wood!” at carpenter vans as they pass?) or asking me if I’ve got any Vallies going free.

Finally there are the young guys who are suffering from astonishingly minor ailments, yet manage to make them out to be life-threatening, all while suggesting that it falls beyond my clinical ability.

These include:

“My friend nipped me, and now I’ve got a bruise.  Are you medically trained, or just on a bike?”

and

“My knee makes a clicking noise.  I don’t suppose you know what that means, do you?”

Yes.  It means you don’t need an ambulance.  Ta dah!

(BTW?  I’ve been asked “Are you medical, or a paramedic?” a number of times.  Can anyone explain what the hell these people could possibly mean?)