Much as I’m loath
to admit it, the time may have come to retire the envelope I keep my Edinburgh
setlist in.
The problem is
I’m a strange balance between being slightly obsessive-compulsive and gently
superstitious, and once I’ve started doing things a certain way, I hate to
change them. It’s not so bad that I can’t leave the house without flicking my
bedroom lightswitch off and on twenty-seven times while singing Mad Dogs and
Englishman in a Glaswegian accent - I managed to knock that on the head - but altering
things at this stage still makes me a little uneasy.
I didn’t have any problems with last year’s envelope as it was made by Tyvek (which is probably the dullest sentence I’ve ever written on my blog in its four-year history). Tyvek envelopes are far more sturdy than conventional envelopes as they’re technically not made of paper (which is my second dullest sentence); they consist of high-density polythene fibres that have been flash-spun, or at least that’s what Wikipedia tells me. Consequently, last year’s envelope is still fully functioning despite accompanying me to Bath, Brighton, Hitchin, Letchworth, London Edinburgh, Leicester and probably a few other places besides, while this year’s is unlikely to survive tomorrow's five-minute walk from my digs to my venue.
The irony is I actually have a few spare Tyvek envelopes with me, but my wife didn’t pick them up for me until after I’d started previewing this year’s show* and once I’d christened a standard envelope with the title David’s ‘Now Who’s a Comedian?’ 2017 Notes I didn’t feel I could go back; like I already intimated: I’m a weirdo.
Perhaps if I’m careful I can stretch my knackered one to the end of Edinburgh and then give my setlist a new home afterwards. It only needs to make it through another seven days for my anxiety to not hit fever pitch. I wonder where one needs to go to get some of those linen gloves they handle historical artefacts with?
I didn’t have any problems with last year’s envelope as it was made by Tyvek (which is probably the dullest sentence I’ve ever written on my blog in its four-year history). Tyvek envelopes are far more sturdy than conventional envelopes as they’re technically not made of paper (which is my second dullest sentence); they consist of high-density polythene fibres that have been flash-spun, or at least that’s what Wikipedia tells me. Consequently, last year’s envelope is still fully functioning despite accompanying me to Bath, Brighton, Hitchin, Letchworth, London Edinburgh, Leicester and probably a few other places besides, while this year’s is unlikely to survive tomorrow's five-minute walk from my digs to my venue.
The irony is I actually have a few spare Tyvek envelopes with me, but my wife didn’t pick them up for me until after I’d started previewing this year’s show* and once I’d christened a standard envelope with the title David’s ‘Now Who’s a Comedian?’ 2017 Notes I didn’t feel I could go back; like I already intimated: I’m a weirdo.
Perhaps if I’m careful I can stretch my knackered one to the end of Edinburgh and then give my setlist a new home afterwards. It only needs to make it through another seven days for my anxiety to not hit fever pitch. I wonder where one needs to go to get some of those linen gloves they handle historical artefacts with?
*I'm not saying it's her fault.