Mary and Max

I've got to feel sorry for Alison, sometimes.  She gets upstaged most of the time - despite being the person that keeps the momentum going and despite being the person that keeps the classes running smoothly, while I'm posing.  And she's the photographer, so she almost never gets into any of the pictures.

She also gets to hear my most regular jokes.  Which means, she hears the same ones over and over again.  Just before I wheech off the breeks (a good, Scottish turn of phrase) I always make the same gag about it being "cold in here" and I ask the girls to not hold that against me, when they get the big reveal.  It had an additional ring of truth on this occasion though.

Recently, the Edinburgh weather has turned downright chilly.  And today, in The Standard, it was exceptionally cold.  So that gag didn't even have the same comedy value.  It was a good temperature for the girls - and, in fact, for anyone who was fully dressed. But for the naked man, who had been hiding outside between the doors, waiting for a cue to enter the room.  In bare feet on a tiled floor.  This time, there was a genuine worry that there might be a bit of shrinkage going on.  Thankfully, however, I come from Aberdeen.  I'm used to chilly temperatures.

Once the class started and I was in the main room, it got a lot better.  I was able to move around more and warm up easier.  Alison commented that on the previous weekend, she and Qba had been provided with heaters.  And it was only later, when I was packing everything up and getting ready to leave, that I realised that I had been provided with heaters as well.  I had seen them, but hadn't recognised them as such.  I'd thought they were dehumidifiers or something fancy like that.

Incidentally, this group of girls were the same group that Alison and Qba had expected the previous week.  The agency had not warned me that they had changed the date of their booking, so while Kira and I had been doing a job in Glasgow, Qba and Alison had been waiting for them in Edinburgh.

  

Not all of my poses were easy, this week.  The worst was the one that was suggested during the "Model/Co-ordinator" challenge.  That's the one where we pick two volunteers, then get one girl to join me as the other model and the other girl to set us both up in a pose.  This time, the model was asked to bend over a chair, while I was asked to raise my hand like I was spanking her.  That's fine for a laugh, but having to keep that arm in the air for five minutes wasn't easy.

After a few minutes, Alison asked me if I was struggling.  I definitely was.  When I'd started, my arm was above my head, but within a few minutes, it had dipped to just about level with my ear.  I was definitely glad when that pose concluded.

During the "Make A Giant Man" challenge, it's always interesting to see what people come up with.  It's even interesting to see all the different ways they can interpret the rules of that particular challenge, which is one of the reasons I like to keep them fairly vague to start with.  This time, one of the girls drew my penis with a lot of loving care and attention to detail, so it was irresistible - she had to come up and pose with me, while she held it strategically.

The Giant Man was pretty cool, too.  Much more successful than a lot of previous Giant Men, in fact.  And I loved the fact that his head made him look a bit like a character from an animated film I had seen recently.  Max was one of the two central characters in a film called Mary and Max.  I used that as an opportunity to recommend the film to the girls, before the class ended.  I can't remember if I warned them that it would make them cry, though.

Sadly, Alison had to hurry off after the class ended, so no chance of us getting together for a coffee or a drink so we could relax and enjoy the mood that these events usually leave us with.  But we're going to see the new James Bond film in a little while, anyway.  So we can catch up on things at that point.

Monkey man

This class marked a new experiment - and one that I hope to develop in the future.

The Tiki Bar has been getting more popular, lately.  So much so, in fact, that I got a 'phone call from them a couple of weeks before the class, asking me if I could move it to a different time.  An earlier time, when they were less busy and could justify shutting the bar down while I put on the class.  I wasn't able to do that, though, so next time I was in Glasgow I visited the bar and spoke to the managers.

They were really cool about it all and told me that since the booking had been accepted (albeit accidentally - by a trainee barman, I think) then it would be honoured.  But 3PM on a Saturday afternoon was a time when people were starting to use the downstairs bar.  I really like that venue, though, and want to keep using it, so I was starting to think more creatively.  I suggested I set up as normal in the corner of the room and they just put up a couple of signs to warn their patrons of what to anticipate if they enter that bar - and then leave it up to them whether they were prepared to share it with me.

I was really surprised when they went for it.  When Kira and I arrived on Saturday afternoon, there was a sign on the door that mentioned a "Life drawing class".  I pointed out to Kira that it didn't specify that it was going to be a male model, so we wondered if male patrons might turn up, hoping to see a naked woman.  If so, they would be disappointed.

This was Kira's first class, by the way.  I might be using her again in future classes, so remember her name.

At first, we had the bar to ourselves, and it took no time getting everything set up.  And since we had the same barman as last time, he already knew the score and was more than happy to be there.  I suggested we take the warning signs down briefly, just before the girls arrived, then put them up again once everybody was present, and he was cool with that.  There was always the risk that someone might arrive early, or see a different sign in a different part of the bar, but we just had to run with that.  It was a delicate balancing act between warning the public of the nudity and spoiling the surprise for the girls.

I took up the same hiding place as last time at this venue, but hid my clothes in a better location this time.  Last time, they had been discovered by one of the girls - which had almost led to the surprise being sprung prematurely, but I had managed to get away with it.

I had another class in Edinburgh on that day - one scheduled to start at 2PM, so an hour earlier than this one.  I had Qba and Alison ready to cover that class, in The Standard.  Then, at 2:15PM, I got a text from Alison telling me that nobody had turned up for it.  About ten minutes before my own class was due to start, I had a brief 'phone conversation with her, and she said that both she and Qba were happy to stick around until 3:15PM in case the girls had got the time wrong, then do the class.

By then I'd gone through all my notes and clarified the time, date and venue - made sure that all were correct and that I hadn't messed up on anything.  So I told her that I'd leave the decision to her, and if the girls did turn up, then I'd make sure she and Qba got some extra money for the extra effort they'd gone to.  We've had late arrivals in the past - sometimes very late - and that always bewilders me.  The girls pay a lot of money for these classes, so I can't imagine why they'd be late and potentially lose part of the booking.

Anyway, my group arrived on time.  And almost all of the girls already knew what was going on - only the bride had been kept in the dark.  So when Kira introduced me and I stepped out of the cupboard, she was the only one shocked.

My favourite picture of the day was one where my face was very distinctly... monkeyish.  Yeah, that's not a word, but it doesn't matter.  The face really looked a bit like a monkey's.  It even made me think of the old Monkey Magic TV series.  I really wished I could have cued up the theme song when I announced it was the winner.  Either that or Monkey Man, by Toots and the Maytals.  I don't usually have such musical cues going on in my head during a class, so this must have been a special moment.

One girl fell victim to the scoring system almost immediately.  She asked for a rubber and I docked a point for "obvious and predictable innuendo".  She said she didn't mean it, so I docked another point for naiveté.  There were two more protests and two more points docked - so she jumped to minus four points very quickly.

Somehow, in the next couple of poses, she managed to lose three more points and at one point I admitted that I could have docked even more, but I was starting to feel like a bit of a bully by that stage.  I also admitted that this wasn't always enough to deter me.  Then I thought of the average episode of QI and tried to remember the name of the contestant who routinely gave incorrect answers to the questions, but she made the comparison herself, before I could get it - the name was Alan Davies.  I told her that I'd been struggling to remember his name, and she asked if that meant she was going to lose even more points, but instead I wiped out all her minus points and brought her back to zero.

Early on in the class, I set out the prizes.  A selection of three cards made up from pictures that Alison had taken just prior to an earlier class - so greetings cards that feature me sprawled out on some bean bags in The Fiddler's Elbow.  Someone asked if they were of me.  I told them that I'm a massive egotist.  Of course the pictures are of me.  

Ultimately, the bride won the prize.  It was the Monkey picture that clinched it for her.  But she was already entitled to claim one of the cards - just for being the bride.  So Kira and I shamelessly - and openly - tried to fix the competition by coming up with an off-the-cuff extra stage to it.  Actually, Kira came up with it and tried to explain it to me, but I couldn't follow her logic, so I got her to explain it to the girls instead.  I still didn't really follow it... or I did at the time, but can't remember it right now... so I'll just skip to the end and say that it didn't work.  The bride still ended up with the most points.  So we nominated a runner-up to get the second card.

The second winning picture was a penis close-up.  Nominated by Kira and half the class, I believe.  It was definitely a cool picture, but my own favourite was still the Monkey Man one.

Before I left, I spoke to the Manageress of the Tiki Bar and broached the subject of a monthly class held there.  If I can get two such classes on a monthly basis - one in Edinburgh and one in Glasgow - then they might turn out to be fairly popular events.  It works for Doctor Sketchy, after all.

On Monday morning, I called the agency to find out what happened to the other class.  They had changed their booking to the following weekend - the 27th - and I hadn't been given the updated information.  Which means I have another class coming up.  Nice.