Baitings Reservoir

Chocolate, comedy and a little porn

bruceonthefringe 2023, Comedy, Edinburgh Fringe 2022, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

March is galloping to it’s close, April Fools Day on Saturday. They call it April Fools Day but as pranks should only be played up until noon (here in the UK, anyway) why isn’t it April Fools Morning? Do the younger generations even go in for it all these days? As some foresee the demise of comedy, won’t pranking have similar problems of insensitivity/oversensitivity (depending on your viewpoint of these things)?

Oo, yeah, almost forgot about it, My Dad Wrote A Porno , I finally got round to checking it out this week (it only started nearly eight years ago!). A friend mentioned it when we were drinking in the Jolly Judge, so on their recommendation that it is indeed very very funny, I had a listen and got through four episodes in one go! My Dad Wrote A Porno is a podcast by a chap (along with two friends) who having found out his dad had written some, ahem, adult literature decided to share it with his friends and anyone else who cared to listen.

Millions have since listened to the three’s hilarious commentary to Jamie Morton’s dad’s bad porn. There’s been two sell-out world tours, an HBO comedy special and there’s a book of the original book Belinda Blinked annotated with all the commentary from the podcast and extras. Oh, and his dad’s up to book six now, I think! Comedy is far from going under, I reckon.

Glasgow and Melbourne have been fighting the good cause with their comedy festivals currently ongoing. One of my favourite shows from Edinburgh last year, Grubby Little Mitts are on at Glasgow Comedy Festival on 1st April; and across the world at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival another of my favourites John-Luke Roberts is performing the wonderful A World Just Like Our Own, But… just four shows until 2nd April. Just thought I’d mention it, you know.

And back to Scotland, my favourite artisan chocolates stall CoCo Co. won’t be at Edinburgh Farmers Market this weekend, but they will be at West Linton Market and Portpatrick Market on Saturday and Dumfries Farmers Market on Sunday, with plenty of Easter treats besides their usual range.

They’ll be back in Edinburgh next Saturday, hopefully with a white chocolate and raspberry version of the Nest Egg. I may be at the market somewhat earlier than my usual, next week!

And so to bed, just two last pics for you. Remember that reservoir down in deepest Yorkshireland? It’s finally back up t’ top.

See the bridge at the left? that’s where I took the earlier pics
The dam runneth over

Twas the night before Hogmanay

bruceonthefringe 2022, Christmas, Hogmanay, Uncategorized, Weather, Yorkshire Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

…. And everywhere was sodden. Well, I’m back in Edinburgh and it’s very wet here, as wet as Yorkshireland was for the last week. Remember that reservoir I visited in the summer? In October the water level was barely any higher, then I went again this time, a tad higher, finally….

As I went past on my journey north I noticed that just in five days the level had risen about another couple of metres or so up the dam wall. It barely stopped raining, here in Edinburgh, at all today, luckily for tomorrow night’s revellers it looks like it should be drier for plenty of the evening. I’ll probably be in Whistlebinkies for a good part of the night, well, it is the Moanin Bones playing after the bells, sounds a fine way to start the year to me!

Unfortunately the forecast is for rain on New Year’s Day – not good for heading up Arthur’s Seat. Not just because I hate getting wet, but the ground will be very soggy and within the first hour of people walking up, the slopes will be a quagmire, a mud bath. Slippery ice is one thing, but mud can be worse – the fact that you’ve fallen over will be very visible to all! The way back down could be very precarious.

I’m hoping for a brief window of dry early on, that is, hoping I can be up early after a night at Binkies. Of course, if it were raining hard then the climb would be postponed til the next day. There is the extra remit that I don’t succumb to illness within the next thirty three hours; half the family came down with things over Christmas, I escaped, or did I? Is it just still incubating inside me – my throat has been tad sore today. Where’s the tcp? Time to gargle, then head to bed.

I’ll leave you with a couple more pics from Yorkshireland ….

That’s the reservoir on the left there. Just one little reminder that many years ago this house was a pub – the Blue Ball.

Not the best-looking but by’eck it tasted good!

I’ve been away, did I miss much?

bruceonthefringe 2022, Edinburgh, Live bands in Edinburgh, Music in Edinburgh, Pubs, Uncategorized, Yorkshire Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Hello! I know it’s been a wee while, I’ve been down in the old country doing family things – what a time to be out of Edinburgh, eh! In case you somehow missed it, our queen Queen Elizabeth II died on the 8th September at Balmoral, three days later the Queen’s coffin was brought down to Edinburgh by hearse to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, from where it was taken the following day by procession up the Royal Mile to St Giles Cathedral. Her Majesty’s coffin stayed in St Giles for 24 hours, so that folk could pay their respects, before being flown to London. Many thousands came to Edinburgh to bid farewell to a much respected and admired lady, the queue reached right back to the Meadows apparently.

Queen Elizabeth II will be a tough act for King Charles III to follow, I wish him well in what may well be turbulent times. She was a strong figurehead for the United Kingdom, without her the status quo has been shifted, there may well be a few aftershocks before a new equilibrium settles in. Will some take this opportunity to make the changes that they’ve said would happen after the Queen’s reign came to an end?

So, I was down in Yorkshire for a while, a place name I usually precede with “deepest, dampest”, well it’s not so damp at present and water levels are far from deep, see how low one of the local reservoirs is…..

Yup, seriously low.

When the water level was low was in the mid seventies, the area below the road bridge was littered with looted safes, shot guns and the like! Now if we trot back up to the bridge and look upstream from the dam wall, you can see the much, much older bridge I was standing on to take the above photo.

The old packhorse bridge is usually well under the surface. It’s like a local barometer, can it be seen just under the surface? Oo, the top of the arch is visible; this view of it is extremely rare, possibly the first time there’s only been the smallest of streams trickling below it. It’ll take an awful lot of rain to refill the reservoir, anyone know any good raindances?

I came back up to Edinburgh on Friday after a longer stay than I’d intended, the Scat Rats were playing Stramash so it was definitely time to head north. What a gorgeous day for travelling (unlike the journey down) and at the end of it a lovely pint of Stewart’s and great sounds, yay! As I was leaving Stramash afterwards I asked the lads if they could confirm a date down in the Edinburgh Gig Guide of a midnight set in Whistlebinkies on the 27th – err, not in their diary! Then I mentioned it was the same night that Fur are playing the Mash House, oo, that perked them up, indeed yeah they’ll be playing that night! Goodo.

The Rats were out to play again on Saturday afternoon in Binkies; a new ale for me to try, mmm, so good I treated myself to a pint. And yay, Mr Marah is out again tonight with The Buccaneers, midnight at Stramash; before them it’s Nicole and the Back-up Crew, so thats four sets for some folk tonight. Maybe one time there could be a big mash-up of the two bands right through, I’d love to see that! To take me up to ten o’clock I’m shortly off to see See How They Run at the flicks, the trailer looks wonderful.

Best be off now, toodle pip!