By Steve Roe
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Dr. Music Box's Prevention of the Edinburgh Lurgy

Hello, Dr. Music Box here. At previous Edinburgh festivals I have rapidly fallen victim to Edinburgh lurgy.

Symptoms

Symptoms of Edinburgh lurgy include:

- Sleeping all day for no reason.
- Turning a pale green/grey colour.
- Sheltering under a duvet like an introverted snail and only coming out to perform. If the first words you say each day are actually on stage to an audience, you’re in trouble.
- Shouting to yourself the second you leave the flat “why does it rain only when I’m outside?” and taking the weather really personally.

Causes

Causes of Edinburgh lurgy include:

- Sharing 3 bedrooms with 10 people.
- Putting on shoes in the morning that haven’t dried out from the night before
- Flyering in the constant rain while maintaining a positive attitude,
- Calling 3am an early night.
- Ongoing jealousy of other people’s show (“They’ve got a set?? How come we don’t have a set?” How many people did you get in your audience?” etc)
- Obsessive checking of facebook and twitter for #edfringe news. This includes late at night while surrounded by snoozing members of the cast.
- Surviving on nothing but rain and mist all day and then overloading on beer in plastic cups and late night takeaway vendors in the evening.

Prevention

This year my previous Edinburgh experience has kicked in and yesterday I made various attempts to prevent the Edinburgh lurgy. These included:

- Walking up Arthur’s Seat straight after the show. Wooo, like, we’re totally looking down on Edinburgh man, like, totally getting some perspective.
- Deliberately eating in a chain pizza restaurant away from the Royal Mile surrounded like normal people.
- Dressing like a tourist when I’m not flyering or performing.
- Experiencing sunshine for the first Edinburgh in ages. Yep, this happened yesterday and it was awesome. I actually have a suntan.

In fact everything about yesterday was pepping me up. We had a full audience, which was an amazing experience, and had improvised a really cool show set in a graveyard featuring various ghosts and 1500 year old gravediggers and the song “it looks like a human, smells like a human, but it’s actually a demon”. So we’re now entering the show in high spirits and having fun.

Other Random Edinburgh Observations

Whose poster can you flyer over?

All manner of un-written rules about this. It’s widely agreed that it’s open season on the Royal Mile pillars, and you can poster over stuff, but that’s the only place you can do so. But even then I’ve discovered various sub-clauses when it comes to putting posters up there. These include:

1a.i: Not postering over a friend’s show, obvious really.
1a.ii: Not postering over a show you’ve seen and enjoyed.
1a.iii: Not postering over someone you’ve met in person. This had the weird effect of me meeting someone at a promo show and immediately thinking “dammit, I can’t poster over their show now”.
1b: If someone posters over your poster then all of the above are null and void, and you are allowed to hold a postering grudge for the rest of the festival.
1c: If someone is more organized than you, with multiple posters attached together and a taller ladder, then they are a valid target.

Most Popular Phone Conversation in Edinburgh

“Hello. Where are you?”
“I’m on the Royal Mile.”
“Come over to C Venues.”

Second Most Popular Phone Conversation in Edinburgh

“Hello. Where are you?”
“I’m at C Venues.”
“Come over to the Royal Mile.”

Exciting stuff.

- by Steve Roe

Any opinions expressed above do not represent the view of Whatsonstage.com nor any of its staff or contributors beyond the bylined author.

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Other Posts By Steve Roe
	Bye Bye Edinburgh - 29th Aug 2011 blog
	Why are most comedy groups white, middle class twenty/early thirty-somethings? - 21st Aug 2011 blog
	Edinburgh Advice 308: You will get ill anyway, so you might as well drink - 19th Aug 2011 blog
	Music Box have become superstitious - 13th Aug 2011 blog
	Riots & Reviews - 9th Aug 2011 blog
	The Music Box Sandwich Board, Best Thing I've Ever Done - 8th Aug 2011 blog
	Music Box First Show - 3rd Aug 2011 blog
	Edinburgh To-Do No.456: Be in a good mood. - 1st Aug 2011 blog
	Ahhhhh! Edinburgh! - 29th Jul 2011 blog
	Agent Music Box Reporting For Duty - 27th Jul 2011 blog