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FIRST&LAST AL KENNEDY The author and comedian talks Catch-22, chestnut soup and funeral conga lines
First film you saw that really moved you Dr Dolittle. Apparently it made me distraught.
Last lie you told I‘ve never told a lie.
First crush Is now one of the many TV celebrities being investigated for offences against children, so I’m not going to say. I was four. We never met. Last great meal you cooked Every evening . . . no, not really. Last month I invented a recipe for chestnut soup that was quite pleasant.
First great piece of advice you were given You can’t hate someone that much and stay well. Last time you made an impulse buy and regretted it Two mangoes for a pound from the shop down the hill – they were rubbish.
First song at your (potential) wedding I’d leave that up to him – he’s good at music. And it’ll never happen. Last song at your funeral Something fun for the conga line, I’d hope. It will be none of my business, I’ll be gone.
Last time you were starstruck Watched a screening of Catch- 22 once and afterwards, to my surprise, there was Alan Arkin. That was a bit wow. First thing you’d do if you ran the country Ensure press freedom and press responsibility, turn the Palace of Westminster into a museum, ensure MPs rely on public services for salary, accommodation, their family’s education and health care, enact Beveridge’s reforms and wind back Beeching’s cuts wherever possible. And then bar myself from running the country.
Last crime you committed Not sure. Arguably, should the police have wanted to, I could have been arrested for some semi-invented reason or other at all kinds of demos in the last few years. Wear tweed – you don’t get lifted, would be my advice.
First thing you think of when you wake up in the morning Someone who knows he’s the first thing I think of in the morning.
Last thing you think of before you go to sleep Ditto. ■ AL Kennedy: On Writing, Mitchell Library, Glasgow, Fri 19 Apr.
NEXT ISSUE WED 15 MAY SUMMER FESTIVALS OK, we’ve been saying it for months, but we really mean it this time: next month, the weather will improve. It has to, because May heralds the arrival of our Summer Festivals issue! We’ll be giving you the latest news on the likes of RockNess, Wickerman, the West End Fest and a certain T-shaped 20th anniversary bonanza on the horizon. And we all know you can’t enjoy a summer festival without some bright, glorious sunshi . . . OK, so it’ll still be chucking it down, but that’s all part of the fun, right?
Misadventures IN WONDERLAND
THE REAL SLING This issue we sent Alice to try aerial yoga, which takes place in hammocks, in a gym near Arthur’s Seat. She reports back with five things she learned from trying the lofty activity:
2. Hammocks are brilliant. We had to get used same face seen in the hairdresser’s when you have
to the material taking our weight before doing to endure that awkward head massage by a 15-
extreme versions of classic yoga positions. Which year-old.
meant getting in the adult-sized purple papoose 3. b) I look really awful trying to get into a
to practise lying down. Practise lying down? I’ve hammock.
been training my whole life. I’m the Rocky of lying 4. Doing yoga is hard, but doing aerial yoga feels
down. As someone who ignores all their mother’s almost dangerous. No one smashed their face into
calls, each time we did a yoga move on the mat I the ground (not that we would have, we were in safe
couldn’t wait to get back into the giant womb. After hands) but when your head is hovering eight inches
childishly working out that I could make it swing from a wooden floor, it did feel like it could happen
wildly and then noticing the supporting beam had at any point. Generally, the only thing we trust fabric
1. It’s not in the cosmopolitan, Manhattan-style loft stripper pole fixtures on it (and realising I know
with is not making us naked in public.
conversion hide-out you’d imagine. I used to date what stripper pole fixtures look like), I started to
5. Considering my trepidations (see 1), I found there
a really pretentious guy who told me about these relax. I cleared my mind of the fact that I haven’t
was something nice about exercising and relaxing
pH-balanced water cafés in LA. That’s the kind of
paid rent and that I might have left on the iron that at the same time even if I still don’t really know
nonsense that comes into my mind when I hear I’ve never used. I was Zen.
of any kind of new fad yoga. (That guy also didn’t know we have avocados in Scotland, so what he
has to say isn’t important.) Anyway, aerial yoga
3. a) You shouldn’t exercise in front of a mirror if you want to cling to the wispy shreds of self-esteem you have left. There’s nothing like staring into your
instead takes place in the Crags Community Sports own cold, dead eyes while your stomach muscles
Centre. try and escape through your pasty skin. It’s the
or care what a ‘core’ is (and I’m not just saying that because I know my spine is listening and I’m
worried if I make it stronger it’ll rise up against me). I’m almost certain it’s something made up, like the
moon landing or the ‘live’ part of yoghurt. ■ For more info go to aerialyogaedinburgh.co.uk.
112 THE LIST 18 Apr–16 May 2013