Free My Booky Wook 2 by Russell Brand Page B

Brand
    Pablo Diablo22 August 2000Dear Russell BrandI have been made aware of several incidents involving the children you have working for you. Firstly I must point out that it is against employment law to employ minors in any capacity and that the Gilded Balloon does not allow children to work in any of its venues or areas.There was an incident on Monday when items were taken from the Production office. You were informed of this and those involved have been barred from the administrative areas.I have now had further complaints from Venue Managers of the same children causing a nuisance in and outside of venues. This has involved the throwing of items at people queuing for shows and abuse being given to staff and customers of the Gilded Balloon. This is unacceptable.I must therefore insist that these children are no longer admitted to any Gilded Balloon venues or public areas and that you cease to employ them - illegally - to do flyering for you.I am sorry to have to take this action, but they are causing a great nuisance to staff and customers alike and I would appreciate it if you could advise them to no longer come to the Gilded Balloon.I hope that I do not have to take this matter furtherYours SincerelyMick Bateman
    General Managercc. Karen Koren, Artistic Director

Chapter 6
    No Means NOooo
    There’s nothing more tragic than being in Edinburgh on 1 September, the day after the festival, or indeed in the first few days of August before it starts. Because of my inability to be punctual, my unmanageability and my lack of planning, I’ve experienced both the bookends of the month of August when Edinburgh pulls you into its cultural embrace; a cerebral carnival, not a carnival of just decadence. There is such a strong sense of unity in the city, a common manner of purpose, ad hoc venues hastily formed from dentists’ waiting rooms and people performing on street corners. But “the day after”, like the post-H-bomb TV movie that goes by that name, Edinburgh is bereft and eery or like Emily’s shop when Bagpuss has gone back to sleep – still nice, but where’s the magic? Edinburgh in its post-festival slump probably doesn’t have the agonising pathos that Bagpuss had– nor does it raise so many questions, like: why was a little girl trusted to run a second-hand shop? How come Bagpuss could turn inanimate objects into dancing mice and pompous woodpeckers just by waking up? I don’t want to get all “Joseph Campbell”, but that’s what Jesus did with Lazarus. Where’s Bagpuss’s gospel? Probably never penned because, as Matt once wisely observed, the woodpecker bookend Professor Yaffel is a handicraft doppelgänger of that Godless stick-in-the-mud Richard Dawkins. Whenever Bagpuss was delighting the gallery with some unlikely thesis on a bottle or a ballet shoe, claiming them to be rocket ships or Minotaur mittens, Yaffle would coldly high-jack these flights of fancy – “Rocket ship? Why that’s nothing but an old bottle. A Minotaur’s mitten? It’s a dirty old shoe. Islam? It’s inherently violent.” Why can’t Professors Yaffle and Dawkins just let us all enjoy a nice story? I expect Dawkins would say that it’s because he opposes ignorance, especially where it causes war and bloodshed. Well, I happen to think people cause wars, not ideologies, and were we to be united by one, drab godless dogma we’d be murdering each other over who ate the last croissant within an hour.
    The first time I went up to Edinburgh I arrived two days early, which is embarrassing, like arriving at a party early or misjudging the mood and touching a date’s thigh or calling your teacher “Mummy”. If I call a teacher “Mummy” now, it is a part of a cheeky little sex-game – not a kindergarten blunder – I think sometimes my sexual pursuits are like time travel: I Quantum Leap back into my past to try and unravel some perceived slight or wrong. “Hmm, those teachers didn’t respect me – I’ll drag a few back to