Festival Update

All well here with the show and the festival. We had another lovely review on a website called The Groggy Squirrel. Please have a read. We sold out last night for the fourth time and the second night in a row.

Surely it's Obvious...

...that forcing kids into religious services is going to turn them in to atheists faster than GCSE science classes ever will! Statistically in the UK kids with two religious parents are 50% atheists, with one religious parent 75% atheists and two atheist parents very nearly 100% atheists. Rationalism will prevail and the religious nutters are helping us more than anybody else. Cheers guys...

Catch me for Free Tomorrow

If you're up in Edinburgh come over to the meadows to the comedy tent where I shall be performing from 12.50pm for ten minutes and then compering from 2pm til 5pm. Thank goodness I have the night off afterwards!

Just a Reminder

Fertility treatment is not something to be undertaken lightly. With all the unwanted kids in the world it strikes me as very wrong that society encourages people to feel that they should risk their health and indeed their lives trying have kids which are genetically "their own".

Poor Old Dears

The government appears to have noticed something that us feminists have been banging on about for years: that very few women retire on a full state pension, compared to men. Well the reason is simple - it's because women often suspend their careers to raise families and therefore wind up not having enough years of N.I. contributions to qualify for full pension. Now it's not so much of a problem when there's an additional widow's pension available and the divorce rate is low. However these days that's no longer the case. The government's response? Tell women to save more! Or in other words make it completely clear to all and sundry that the government does not value home-making and child-raising as real work. My advice to women worried about their futures? Don't have kids, don't waste time and energy caring for elderly and ill relatives and don't even think about voluntary work - that way lies poverty.

Hard work this comedy lark!

Well I've promised for the show to take up any adrenaline challenge presented to me and today I was tested thoroughly on my willingness to go through with it by Stuart Andrews who kindly (?) volunteered to teach me free-running. Yes, that's the jumping from building to building stuff. Fortunately he didn't make me jump from anything higher than about four foot up (that was scary enough though) but I did end up about 20 foot up at some points wondering if this was really a sensible place to be perched. As for the stuff he was showing me - amazing! Clinging to tiny little ledges and climbing stuff with no apparent foot or hand holds whatsoever. And he was jumping over 'phone boxes too! Photos promised to follow! My back is so sore now, and my arms, and legs, neck, stomach, phew!

Show tonight was good, lots of heckling, which I loved. Felt a bit regretful that I had to go back to material afterwards, I would rather have chatted all night really! Perhaps I should plan a chunk of it I can drop if I'm having too much fun with the hecklers...? If you fancy coming for a heckle yourself please do - click here for tickets!

Belated Cru-blog in the Guardian

Only just found this today - the Cru-blog made the guardian a few weeks back! Thing I wrote about homophobic lyrics. Cool!

Smoke Signals

We could see this going on from central Edinburgh yesterday. Actually Mr Cru was walking up Arthur's Seat at the time (sadly without his barbeque set).

Another four-star review

Show opened last night, we were very nearly full, only a handful of empty seats. I was really happy with the show AND we had a reviewer in from National Student magazine who has already sent us her review. Four stars! And here's what they said:

ADRENALINE
Kate Smuthwaite
Charming, witty and with just a hint of a wicked glint in her eye, Kate Smuthwaite’s exuberant and affable personality is a little reminiscent of an excitable, slightly irresponsible head girl luring impressionable fourth formers into some illicit fun. You’d have to be made of granite not to warm to her as she relives first hand experiences of extreme activities undertaken in pursuit of an adrenaline rush, making bungee jumping and sky diving sound positively blasé. The characters she introduces are a little hit and miss and the show would benefit from better visual presentation, but for an evening of thrills and chuckles you’d do worse than seeing Ms Smurthwaite: she’s great company.

I was dead happy with that. Tickets, as usual, available here for the rest of the run.

First show tonight

This is me at the technical run-through. Those lights are going to really hurt my eyes once we get going. Really looking forward to tonight though. It's preview prices (a fiver or four for concessions) so please come iof you can. Tickets from here.

Spotted my posters in the street!

So couldn't resist duplicating the pose!

Nice article about me

There was a piece about publicity stunts on the Edinburgh Fringe website, featuring a piccie of me on the wing of a biplane and talking about the stuff I've been doing for my show.

Arrived in Ed

Got here yesterday and settled into the flat. Very amused to see four huge posters of me about fifty yards from the flat. This could go to my head. Am flat-sharing with Mr Cru as usual and the wildly talented Anna Black. She is a short film maker who has a lovely website www.annablack.com and is also blogging about her festival exeriences here.

Wrecks and the City

I very rarely regret having left this industry...

More Edinburgh Plugging!

That's what the back of my Edinburgh flyers will look like. Cool huh? You can still book tickets by clicking on the website here.

Guess I Found My Brand!

Yes the soft drink for me is Coke Zero. I just adore their advertising campaign that compares their over-priced unhealthy fizz to something beyond our wildest dreams. Thats right folks, apparently Coke Zero is the soft drink equivalent of "a stag night without getting married".

Now since we all know stag nights are for guys (as opposed to hen nights for girls) we would seem to be working on the assumption that men don't want to get married. Well then don't. Save us all please! Statistics suggest women are much happier after a divorce than men so clearly marriage isn't doing very much for women.

Who says romance is dead?

Apparently not Joseph Dobbie as featured in today's Guardian and two thirds of e-mail inboxes around the world. He met a woman at a party and rather than just asking her out for a coffee he decided a firsst contact e-mail was a good point at which to mention that she made "time stand still" for him and that her smile was "the freshest of my special memories". The woman in question returned the favour by forwarding his e-mail to the four corners of the earth.

Well just for a change I was on BBC Leeds talking about it. It's kindof fun because it's all very Shakespearian the idea of someone under false presumptions declaring their undying love and then being made to look like an idiot. It's also a little odd though that someone should be so keen after a first meeting. Especially given he admits he was drunk at the time.

It's also funny how often the subject of "what women want" comes up. As if women are a totally homogenous group. If woman A wants flowers woman B must also want the same thing. And sometimes you even hear it about men too - that they all want the same thing - usually sex, big tits or a blow job, etc. This whole men-from-Mars, women-from-Venus thing is wildly unhealthy. As soon as we make assumptions about people based on gender (aside from "he's probably not pregnant") we're in deep water.

New blog

I have discovered a wonderful new blog by a young (so young she makes me feel old!) British feminist. It's called Diary of Barbie's Worst Enemy and you should go read it now! It rocks...

Wagging the dog?

Zoe Williams really goes to town in the Guardian on media coverage of the so-called WAGs - the world cup footballers wives and girlfriends. And now we're hearing about the G8 WAGs and the Ryder Cup WAGs (who even wear matching outfits like girl guides or drum majorettes) and really the biggest problem I have with the whole thing is that it pre-supposes all the participants in the "main" event will be heterosexual men (it also assumes they're monogamous and in relationships). Well thats not true and not helpful.

Throughout the world cup every match started with some gesture towards the "Lets Kick Racism out of Football" campaign and I think that's great and I hope it works. Next up lets have a campaign to kick sexism out of football. I'd like to see the following measures campaigned for:

1) Equal funding for boys and girls youth development.
2) If women's tournaments do not have equal prize money to mens, then women must be allowed to play in the mens game - globally.
3) Half of all referees and assistant referees to be women, also physios, first aider, commentators, photographers and reporters.
4) Women being encouraged to train for and apply for roles as coaches and managers.
5) Greater media coverage of the women's game.
6) Players who beat their partners or are convicted of sexual assault or rape to be permanently barred from the game (like George Best, Gazza, Lee Sharpe for instance)
7) Stadium bans for fans who shout/sing sexist chants.

Religion and Feminism

Very interesting interview with Fadela Amara over on the Guardian website today. I've made the point before that religious freedom is all well and good but shouldn't be prioritised over human rights. She says "the first victims of fundamentalism are women. I don't care if it's Islamic fundamentalism or American evangelism. A fascist is a fascist". And she has a new book out.