We queue in an amiable manner and I chat to three other performers who are doing theatre and know their way around better than I do. For some reason we start talking about life after death and share a couple of experiences we've had of people communicating after death. In my case this was usually while I was facilitating their funeral which is generally a bit embarrassing for both of us—but that's another story. This conversation probably spooks the rest of the queue but it's nice to have the space.
Inside the building there are about ten queues for different publications. All of them are enormously long. The one for The Scotsman circumnavigates the whole of the city...
My life-after-death companion and I get into the one for The Independent. Was this intuition or simply because it was the one closest to the door? No, it looked like the shortest one but only because we were trying to join it on its first spiral—and are sent firmly to the back (somewhere around Glasgow). The chap sitting at the table at the front, they say, has to go by 3pm. There is no way, even if he takes 30 seconds with each hopeful performer, that he is going to get to us.
And all the other queues are so long that I won't get to the end before I have to leave to perform at Ryrie's, the other side of the city centre.
However ... there is soon to be a BBC queue, starting at 3pm.. As I used to work for the BBC and I've already been contacted by BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme (presented by Edward Stourton) it seems to be the least path of resistance. Once I've made the decision and am only the twelfth person to do so, we get told that it's only for prospective performers at the BBC's Edinburgh Fringe tent. Well that will do...
Get into conversation with the most beautiful man/woman/ladyboy? in front of me with white-blonde hair and melting brown eyes about life, the universe and everything ... and with Mary who's in full costume for her show King David's Wives which I must catch if I can.
And then I notice that the chap who's interviewing us for the BBC is exactly the same guy as was interviewing for The Independent. This is grace. I can get to see both at the same time.
He's very pleasant when I get there, if deeply overtired and overloaded. He had kept looking at me in the queue, probably a bit dumbfounded by the dog collar and when I sit down he wants to know if I am am 'real' priest ... it's a fair question with all the dressed-up nuns and outrageously wonderful costumes everywhere. The an Independent Catholic bit is a brain-byte too far for him I think. But he makes polite notes, asks if I swear during the performance and asks for a contact phone number. He then lights up like a flare when I give him a properly laid-out and concise press release as well as the flyer. I don't think he gets a lot of those.
What's more, someone else has left an unopened bottle of water on his table. He doesn't want it and I am completely parched. Thank you God.
So, it all worked out as well as it could, I think. Which isn't really surprising given that my main affirmations at the moment are 'I let go and let God' and 'I am fully open and receptive to all the good and abundance the Universe has for me now.'
Next is performance no.1...
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