Well, surprisingly this last weekend should be nice. Well worth finding out that the hardest part of the festival was the end of the middle week. When you're there, you think it's going to get tougher and tougher until your head explodes. If you've never done an hour show, when you do one remember that it gets easier in the final week. Keep the faith. The nominations came out yesterday, and above all, I'm delighted for Jon. He deserved that. I'm also happy for Pappy. It's the most feel-good funny comedy I've seen all festival.
I've just booked my train ticket home, and I'll be travelling first-class! Not by choice, but bizarrely it was the cheapest available ticket. It'll be a real salve to sit there and be fed caviar and champagne whilst being massaged by nubile beauties. I've never travelled first-class before.
I have worries about doing Leeds festival tomorrow. The train times are hairy (I get in less than an hour before my show begins) and I hate that kind of stress. Still it's out of my hands so fingers crossed.
Not many shows left, and I've found a thought pattern that's helping with the last hump: this is the last time that you'll do these jokes as a show, or at all in Edinburgh. It would be a terrible shame to not do them justice because you're tired. This is work time. It's been a brilliant festival for me so far, so why boff it all away now?
By the way, should you ever bump into Kate Copstick, ask her about the review for Jessica Delfino that the Scotsman wouldn't let her print. Wonderful vitriol.
I'll try to write one more of these before the end, and I'll try my best to get into trouble so there's something interesting to write about too. If you're in a show, give the last weekend all you've got. If you're not in a show, um, well, I hope that you have a nice barbeque over the bank holiday.

God it's wet. I'm trying to kill a few hours before a late show, but everywhere's packed because it's Saturday and it seems to be monsoon season.
Had huge success with the crossword yesterday, having completed all but three clues. After a few drinks I decided that I needed help and this crossword MUST be finished. In my zealous state, I wandered the Library bar asking all and sundry if they could do cryptic crosswords. This included most of the busy staff, strangers, and notably Don Ward. He doesn't, in case you were wondering.
In the end the only solution I could come up with was to lumber up to Late and Live and leave it on the side of the stage so the Rob Deering, crossword hero, could complete it in my absence.
This stage in the festival is kind of weird. The end is in sight, but still a speck in the distance. It's hard to keep up the motivation, especially when the clammy heat can really have a negative effect on your performance as well as the mood of the audience. Everyone wants to have a good time, but when you're dripping from every pore it's hard. You wouldn't play boggle in a sauna, so why can't we have some air conditioning that works?

Chipper this morning, despite the impending arrival of my family. It's hard when you're doing the fringe and family visit. Half of you wants to be civil and spend time with them, and the other half of you screams out 'FUCK OFF!'.
It's a good job that my experience here has been so positive, otherwise I'm convinced I couldn't deal with family nicities.
Spent some small time yesterday morning doing the Guardian Crossword with Rob Deering (weakest link winner and crossword aficionado - oh, and comedian etc etc). We parted with four clues unsolved, vowing to be in contact should either of us solve anything in the meantime.
That afternoon I racked my brains but was unable to break its back. A brief pause for an interview on Fresh Air FM.
During the interview, I read out one of my crossword clues on the radio on a wing and a prayer. Within three minutes, a man had emailed from Austria with the answer!!! The answer, by the way, was 'Burne-Jones'.
One other thing to report, on which I refuse to pass any judgement whatsoever.
A chap approached me to sell his show, as many do. His venue had fallen through before the festival, and so rather than admit defeat, he decided to come up regardless.
What to most of us would seem an insurmountable issue, to him was a technicality.
He is now handing out flyers with his mobile phone number on, offering to push people around Edinburgh in a trolley. It's a multi-media show, so you have to have a laptop in the trolley with you. This is because, in his words, he didn't want to be like 'those wacky guys who dress up in costumes'.
Judge not lest ye be judged.

Halfway through the festival, and all is well. Had the novelty of a meal in and a film with the flatmates yesterday which was an incredibly welcome bit of normal life.
With my day off I ventured up to the Museum of Scotland. I was in there about half an hour before remembering that I am interested in neither Scottish history nor museums.
My audience numbers remain bafflingly strong. I was worried about Monday, so I pledged to my flyerers that should I sell over half of the tickets, I would cart-wheel out of my venue. I've never cart-wheeled before, and the show sold out. I banged my knee on the upper-half of a doorframe. Still, that's a first.
The other night, I played pool. A combination of alcohol and high-spirits brought out my competitive side. I was playing against Adam, the chap who collects outside my show for the AIDs charity, Waverley Care. Our wager was that if he won, I would promote his charity HEAVILY at the end of my show. If I won, he would spend twenty minutes promoting my show instead of saving AIDs patients.
Through chance and aggressive sledging I won, and was then in the difficult moral position of having possibly killed a man by potting a ball. Still, it just goes to show that this life of ours hangs by a thread sometimes. C'est la vie.

I'm back to being balanced again. When you talk to comics doing their shows up here, it's incredible how the language used to describe the experience is EXACTLY the same as that used by alcoholics and recovering junkies.
The festival is a test. It's crucial to get the right equilibrium of enjoying yourself and making sure that the shows don't suffer.
Having made some fairly major tweaks to my show, I'm now really really happy with it (obviously too late for some reviews but fuck it). Now, having had the first proper storming gigs I went out to let off some steam given the accumulated tensions of the first week of the Fringe.
Suffice to say the exact details and locations of the foray are not indelibly etched onto my brain, but it was a wonderful evening of proper Festival fun. Somehow on the way home, we managed to capture a ukelele player and an accordionist, drag them back to the flat and ply them with intoxicants. We all sat up and played and sang sea shanties into the early hours. Just lovely.
I was a panellist on Matt Forde's 'On Heat' the other day, which I recommend heartily. It's a ramshackle bag of stuff and nonsense, but genuinely funny.
In other festival tips, Cafe Rapido on Broughton Street take the crown for least edible pizza in Edinburgh. Unfathomably rubbery.

I write this from behind the veil of a fairly serious hangover. Having had another sell-out show (that's 4 out of 5 full houses!) that went well, I sought fun. This came via beer, wine, beer and wine. Coutyard, Underbelly then the house of the Runaway Lovers. They have a glass panel on which you can stand. That doesn't sound like much fun, but believe me it seemed like nothing else in the world mattered at about 5:30am today.
I saw the sun rise and I now feel terrible. Terrible.
I got home, had some Spanish Sausage Casserole and for the first time in my life, was offered sex from a stranger. I turned down the sex.
Today I should see some shows but that won't happen, I can barely lift my arms. It's all I can do to put food and berocca in me so that tonight's show doesn't suffer too badly.
Tomorrow I've got to do a radio interview at 7:45am. That's ungodly.

Well, what a bind. Having absolutely determined not to read any reviews, to log on to write this I have seen that there's what looks to be an unfavourable review in the waiting. I shan't read it. How frustrating. I presume it's from Friday. Dammit.
On other notes, Old Rope got a bit feisty last night. I touched on some rather contentious subject matter and a lady took exception (fair enough). But then she went down to the level of insult and, well, what could I do but follow her down? She started it, that's all I'll say. A guilty pleasure.
You have to be so careful what you say in Edinburgh; you don't know who's listening. I saw a sketch group being charming to the faces of another sketch group, and as they parted they immediately started banging on about 'that group of massive pricks'.
Apart from that, today is Prize Crossword day. I'm now committed to winning some dictionaries.

I got on the sold-out board! I took a photo so that when people understandably don't believe me, I can behave like a right prick. Only a prick carries evidence of their own smug self-satisfaction.
This success is not down to me, it's down to the flyerers. They really are very good this year, and as much as anything that's a relief. It's a lottery when you have unknown flyerers, you have to have them all in place before the festival starts, and who knows how good/cack they will be?
I've seen some terrible ones in previous years - fat pasty students who are doing it to build their crippled self-confidence. The words they use to try to sell your show are the first words they've literally ever uttered to another human being.
Luckily we've got bouncy, happygolucky types.
I've finally got pants, by the way. Just in time, too.
Today I'm foraging for ingredients for a sausage spiced stew. It's a lovely dish, and satisfying to cook as well.
I saw 'Potted Potter' this morning because I sort of know but don't know one of the performers, and it was fun in a kiddy-friendly way. I enjoyed it despite myself actually. Smelly, though. Imagine Pleasance One filled to the rafters with children of an age where they have absolutely no compunction about being openly and intensely flatulent.
Heady stuff indeed.

As I wrote nothing about my first show, it's probably safe to assume it went well. Good news is no news.
Well for any rubberneckers, my second night was significantly harder. It's an atmosphere thing I suppose. I think I still gave a good account of myself and a decent show, but by fuck they made me work.
Once a room has the feel that proper audible laughs are going to be hard to come by, it's a mammoth task to change that. So I didn't.
I think I was inadvertently rude to one of the Avalon (my) flyerers today. What an idiot I am. PR is hard enough to come by without destroying a relationship with your main source of tickets. I shall buy him something small. No. I shan't. If I'm wrong and he didn't think I was rude, it's going to be a bit weird if I turn up and give him a watch or something. Borderline creepy.
Saw the Amsterdam Comedy Collective. Very good regardless of their being Dutch. Very very good given that they were Dutch (or pretending to be Dutch...)
Tried to buy more pants today (I'm pant-crazy at the moment) but M & S was closed because it looked like it had exploded, and there were police and firemen everywhere. I plodded on and bit into my sandwich.

Everyone seems to be writing about how their first show went. Everyone, that is, who had a good first show. I'm just glad it was long enough. Quantity, not quality.
I've got far more important things to report:
- Game console now hooked up to projector in the house - Show is now irrelevant.
- I nearly hanged Paul Foot this morning. I could have killed him with a single flick of the wrist but I refrained, because I am a benevolent God.
- We live in the gay area of town. The pubs are friendly, but it seems that the Scottish gay community aren't overly keen on cricket. This is a shame for them.
- First PR gaffe (not on my part): next time you're handed an Avalon brochure, check my flyer. The page opposite contains one thing, the word 'DISAPPOINTED?' in large letters. Lovely.
- I've already had a sit down and a bitch. Anyone who says they don't do that is lying. I'm glad I got mine started nice and early so I can get down to the business of being two-faced with a new-found vigour.

Like many of the comics, my first show is today. Yesterday I rather successfully ignored the show and watched Harry Potter (quite pretty to look at but vapid - also 40 minutes of adverts and trailers - a liberty in my opinion).
Today however I'm unable to settle.
I'm reading 'All Quiet on the Western Front' to put the Edinburgh experience in perspective; ie I haven't had my pelvis shattered by shrapnel, so things are actually rather good.
Today's crossword was quite tough. I think that's more to do with my being distracted than any particular skill on the part of the setter (my nemesis for the day, as I see them).
Still no flatmates. They are somewhere in a van. The flat is still empty and feels like the set of a horror film. There are also no windows in the kitchen. That's a terribly oppressive atmosphere to make toast in. It's like breakfast on a submarine. I imagine.
I've spoken to a few other comics today, all of whom sounded nervy and tense. I'm glad about that. It's nice that we can all suffer together. I suppose this part of the festival, where everyone is potentially brilliant but starts on an even playing field is lovely. It's about two weeks in, when it becomes apparent that not everyone's show can be of the same quality, that the real shit starts to fly.
There's a macabre side of me quite looking forward to all that.
Still successfully have not read any reviews. It's easier at the moment because they don't yet exist, but I plan to keep a 'Review Watch' over the course of the festival. If I read anything deliberately, then I must eat a live rat. Accidents are fine. As are friends telling you about things. But should I at any point actively seek out praise, then it's rodents for lunch.
Right. Now I'm off to do what I should be doing now: constructive work on show rather than vague wandering from room to room.