Dear All,

Brilliant - have finally found the password to get into the back end of chortle...I'm so pleased - I'd lost it in the move up to Edinburgh along with various jumpers, shoes and a trumpet mouth piece - so the last blog I'd been able to write on the chortle was saying how sorry I was to cancel the first preview for my Kama Sutra show - which perhaps wasn't the best thing to have done to instill confidence in people to buy tickets ("oh, I read he had to cancel the first show and we haven't heard anything from him since...").

However the Kama Sutra show is up and running - it's become a really exciting hour of stuff - it started again (first - obviously second to everyone else preview) with me and couple of sheets of A4 on stage thinking through some ideas with a slightly worried and baffled audience but now it seems to be making people smile and hopefully achieving its main aim...

I must say Paul Byrne (who's directing it) has been totally vital to this - we've not worked together before (except on Mooners of course and on the innkeepers and hotel concierges to get extra booze during various nights of excess) and going into Edinburgh with only a few ideas - a couple of sheets of paper and a director who you've not worked with before is a bit like taking on the Olympic bobsleigh team with a couple of blokes you met in the pub...however as it turns out PByrne is a very impressive man and has pulled the total disorganization of my hour round into something that is watchable - Paul probably isn't reading this but if you are - thank you x

Flanders and Swann (another show I'm doing in the afternoons at the Pleasance) is selling really well - thank you to all who've come to see it - it's the missing link in comedy history between Noel Coward and Peter Cook - so if you're a fan of the history of comedy or just want to see really great comedy songs do come along.

Mooners is up and running - we've had drunk break dancers who we had to pull out of a restaurant, doberman pinchers dogs, the normal level of total chaos and disorganisation all of which have landed us a couple of five star reviews and an awful lot of laughter and smiles. It's such a great show Mooners (it's more a friendly death cult than a comedy show) and if you've not been down - it would be great to see you. With the Moonerspeople - we've managed to not drink in any of the main festival bars - I'm not sure why we've done this...it's just sort of panned out that way...the other night though we had a great time in a little Jazz Bar that Maxwell found (Jazz is the perfect way to unwind after organizing a mass howling death cult intent on subverting the world) and if you get the chance and any of us can remember where it is - we should all go there again as it's a great club and the jazz is brilliant and raw - it's the punk of jazz...

I've also been doing the witching hour (ghost stories) and the legendary Old Rope with Phil Nichol...which is keeping me out of mischief...they are both great shows in my book too and I'd recommend them...

I was stupidly tired after Mooners last night (I'd done five different shows that day and five the day before) so indulged in my favourite Fringe luxury as I came out of a bar into the pouring rain last night...getting a rickshaw to take me back home to Leith...I know it's probably a bit rough getting a poor rickshaw driver to take me all that way but the drive down the hill is just the best way to end an evening in my book and last night I played his favourite jazz numbers as he was cycling down the hill on the Moonhorn to make him smile...thank you Mr Rickshaw man - you made my night.

I must close now as it's Sunday night and I fancy a pint by the shore...

Thanks for reading this

yours

tim