Life is a series of engineering problems to me... or at least I'm comfortable when I'm solving a problem with an engineering point of view. I sometimes get distracted down engineering-style routes. So, in this Edinburgh show, I'm (co) performer, writer, musician, director as well as producer and press relations officer. With all of these roles, I'm still capable of finding a wee engineering problem to play with.

Last night, after rehearsals and rewrites were over, I had two missions (before then going on to work on publicising the show). I had to convert the ceiling mounted mirror ball motor into a bar-mounted motor and I had some broken guitar leads to fix. The latter was a case of soldering and wire stripping. It was the former which was more of a challenge.

The mirror ball motor is in a circular housing with three holes round its rim for the purposes of ceiling mounting. I'd also bought a lighting bar clamp with a nice long bolt protruding from its bottom. The mirror ball motor conveniently had a nice hole in its roof's centre, and the roof was detachable. The clamp's bolt was longer than the internal dimensions of the mirror ball motor, though. I had shown a colleague this in the office and we'd come to the conclusion that I'd either have to saw off some of the length of the shaft of the bolt, or somehow unweld it from the clamp and put the head of the bolt inside the motor, connecting to the clamp in the opposite direction. The solution came through lateral thinking - I was driving at the time. If there are two nuts on the shaft of a bolt (as there were, and a washer), you can position the first as a stop and the second, on the other side of that which needs bolting, as a fastener. You tighten the bolts against each other and the item in the middle is clamped solid. The washer in this case made this a very easy task.

So now I have a clamp mounted mirror ball motor and some new guitar leads... and updates to the website... and I'm up to the D's in sending round mail to Amateur Dramatics societies who probably comprise people who would love to see the show... and we have rewrites... and we've recorded one of the songs from the show on the new recorder... and I'm due in Blackpool for the evening, this evening.

If anyone has any advice on how to stay sane through all of this, then please sit on it for a bit - I suspect the answer is to cut down on the diversity of activities. Still, at least I'm pushing myself. You're a long time dead.