Monday 13th July 09

Slept well if not for very long, and had some of the worst muesli for breakfast I've had for quite a while. Next time I visit Ali I'll buy her some cereals!

I did some sorting out of Ali's bokashi bins and wormery whilst she got up and ready to go down to University. I went with her and had lunch (thanks Ali!) and then got the tram to the station and within 20 minutes the Edinburgh train came and I put all my unicycles and bags of circus stuff in the cycle store area, and chatted to a really nice bloke called Paul, who was on his way to Newcastle so he could take the train to the West side of the country and cycle 'Coast to Coast' for charity. He'd just become a grandfather and was raising money for the unit where his tiny baby grandchild had spent it's first few weeks. We had a lovely chat and the journey went quickly.

Back home by 3pm, did the washing up (straight in there!) and took compostables down to one of the bins... then went down to Country Fresh and collected 2 sacks and a box to keep my heaps hot! I emptied the Compostumbler and reloaded it. I picked some loganberries. Gill did pasta for tea. I made a tomato sauce using small tomatoes thrown away by Country Fresh.

Whilst eating tea I received a phone call from a recent client. I've never had a phone call like it. Someone had overheard some of my Fiddlesticks balloon modelling banter and had complained. Now although I'm a children's entertainer, some of my humour is aimed over the heads of the children and is meant for the Mums, Dads, Grandads, Nanas and other adults. Most of this risque or slightly lewd humour is just suggestive, innuendo and has always been greeted with hilarity. I'll give you a couple of examples. If an adult woman asks for a balloon rabbit, I quickly rustle one up and then as I hand it over, I sometimes ask if she'd like extra batteries for it. If I'm making a dog, I occasionally hold the tail in the wrong position for a half second, as the adult watches, and say, 'it's important to get the tail in the right place' before moving it round to sticking out of the rear of the animal rather than pointing forwards between it's legs and under it's tummy. Again, this is for the adults and the child generally doesn't see and of course doesn't understand the chuckles. My handler for the gig was contacting me as the complainant had to be taken seriously and my response also had to be taken into consideration. I talked him through my innuendo-laden jokes (I have four including the two above) and explained how I decided whether these were appropriate in the situation, as well as saying that I was sorry that someone had been upset by my humour. Apparently it wasn't the recipient of the balloon or the comments, but someone who had overheard it. The board of the organisation will be meeting soon, and my handler will get back to me with their response. I offered to do my next gig for them with the suggestive humour removed, if this is what they wanted.

I then spent quite a long time sorting out my computer, deleting emails and replying to some and more e-communication necessity. Lots to do on the computer this evening.