Firstly I have to apologise as I have been asked to write a blog for trendy local magazines Angel and North, and they are trendy. What this means is that I am not creatively intelligent enough to do two completely different blogs a week and so the first paragraph of this week's blog will be stolen from that one. And don't bother complaining as this is a free blog and to be honest, I don't care. So have that. Although at the same time I do care a bit as I noticed my blog reading hit rate has dropped as of late, and by double blogging I may be merely cutting this figure in half. Or perhaps, doubling it? Only time will tell.

Speaking of time (seamless link into copied bit) how is it November already? It used to take ages to get to this time of year, and now it feels like I’ve sat down for two minutes after the Edinburgh Festival and the year is nearly over. Apparently it’s an age thing. My Nan says that time flies by for her and it just goes quicker the older you get. I find this incredibly unfair. Surely it should fly by for kids when all they’re doing is using play-doh to make incorrectly coloured animals (I don’t care how old a child is, a lion is not purple) and then slow down when you could actually be doing useful things with your time.

I say useful, but the scrabble still reigns in the flat. I did attempt some new gags last night though at the ever lovely Outside the Box in Kingston. What was disturbing was that all the comics there were trying new stuff too. Lloyd Langford did a whole 15 minutes of solid new gags, with some truly top lines in there, and Greg McHugh had some great new stuff too. My attempt was some stuff I'd written on the journey to the gig and hadn't really worked out how to say any of it, resulting in a large amount falling on its face. I did a new gag about the California forest fires though which went down well. Sadly, it wont be topical after a week or two. We can only hope for more US arson based destruction for the sake of my set.

Dara O'Brien was also at the gig last night trying new stuff (along with Omid Dijili, Dave Fulton and Paul Tonkinson. Quite a line-up!) and it was amazing how even though all his stuff was very new, it had a 100% hit rate. Part of me was in awe and part of me hates his guts for being so funny so quickly. It must come with experience I suppose. Maybe time going so quickly isn't that bad.

Long run of gigs ahead for the month of November, no doubt much of these in the next few days will be quiet due to idiots ooohing and aaahing at the same fireworks we see every year. Yawn. I'm not just being a misery guts, but let me know when they can make fireworks that look like the ones Gandalf uses in Lord of the Rings, then I'll put my gloves and hat on, and ooh and aah with a baked tatty like everyone else.

Lastly, I have finally got an adjective before my name in Time Out. Apparently I am cheeky. Is this finally fame?

Fat Tuesday tonight! Adam Bloom, Andrew O Neill, Joe Wilkinson, Luke Roberts and Dylan Bray! Should be a stonker.

Dear blog readers

It has been a whole week since I last wrote and in this time I have had two very nice gigs run by other people, one very nice gig run by me, one nice but very awkward gig because of the rugby, one parking ticket (not tax deductible, sadly) due to rushing to see Dave Chappelle at the Comedy Store (who wasn't great, sadly), several late nights, one pirate film viewing (that's an illegal film, not a film about pirates, sadly), a lot of mashed potato and an ear infection.

I realise that that sounds like my week has been mega cool and I bet all of you are jealous. Not least because of the ear infection. Ok, you may be jealous of that. However you will be jealous of the bravado which surrounded the discovery of the ear infection. During an appointment with my doctor for a regular diabetes check up (during which, unbeknownst to him, I would be testing the doctor's levels of patronising banter and constant leaning towards prescribing me everything he can for NHS bonus dosh) I happened to mention I had a cold and a blocked ear. Merely a cold I stated, and no, it did not hurt. Then he checked my ear and said it was infected. I felt super tough as I had demeaned the infection's status of illness. Point to me.

Most of my time in the last few days has been taken up by or my thought processes at least occupied by the Scrabulous application on Facebook. I have always enjoyed scrabble in a kind of ' wahey, its Christmas, I'm a bit drunk, lets play games that will cause competitiveness and arguments among family/friends', but combined with the addictivity of the Internet social networking site, the classic board game is as moreish as those bags of poppadom crisps from the supermarket (they are very moreish. Trust me. Tiny tiny poppadoms. Just amazing.) Facebook itself has sucked me in, like most people who are Internet capable and have friends or wish to pretend they have. It is the entire definition of doing something whilst actually doing nothing and the main reason I haven't written as much stuff lately as I want to. I wish Facebook would collapse and yet also I'm not sure how I would cope without the ability to carry out such banal activities as 'wall-posting', 'poking', and kicking the shit out of people's zombies.

But all these activities are nothing compared to the addictiveness of writing words with pre-given letters on a digital scrabble board while goading friends on the scrabble chat wall. Until this point I had not realised I enjoyed words quite as much. So far current faves (and high scorers) have been ' rewrought', 'quasi', and 'cordite'. Despite these however I have mainly lost all of the games I have played due to being beaten by tiny but powerful words such as 'zap', and 'qi'. This is a travesty that such small combinations can be more powerful than big words. It completely disproves the theory that big words make you clever. In fact it proves that less is more, small is beautiful and other things like that that I wish applied to more areas of life. Sigh.

What I need to do is stop playing it. Not only is it distracting me from writing, but also when I do write I am wrought with concern over which words in my writing would score more points and where I could place them within the joke. By this time next week, my gags will be dwindling, but you can count on the fact that they will all contain words with 'z' and 'q' in and be placed on triple word scores.

Small final thingy. We had decided that the kittens, Rosie and Bella, are now allowed all over the flat at night, leaving our doors open. Last Thursday as a result of this, I was woken at 5.30am by Bella licking my head and trying to eat my hair. Despite literally throwing her at the floor, this continued until I was almost in tears, desperate for more sleep. My girlfriend says that its a sign of affection, but I believe a sign of affection would be leaving me the fuck alone at that time in the morning. People say that getting kittens is just a step away from having a baby. If babies wake you up at 5.30am by licking your head and then chew your i-pod headphones in half while you sleep, then I already dread fatherhood.

After now being on the circuit for a reasonable amount of time I feel I can judge most comedy situations accordingly. I like to feel I've learnt from my mistakes and can do ok to good in a rooms where before I would screw stuff up.

However, tonight proved a itself a massive example of me still being able to ruin the easiest of gigs. Background excuse lined up: I am still ill (see last blog. I am aware that by blogging so close to my last blog, that blog may be neglected. Don't be poo, read them both!). Illness can account for poor judgement but not really enough. Unless you are mentally ill, then that can actually count. Or dying ill, which also counts. I am neither of those though.

Tonight was the 'Best Of' Amused Moose Hot Starlets, a heading for a collection of comics that I MC'd last year at the fringe. It was a great line-up of newer to more experienced acts doing a range of sets from 6mins to 90 seconds to allow more acts stage time than on a normal comedy eve. When offered a 90 second slot, I quickly agreed while slightly scoffing at the idea. I am by no means a quick gag comic and find it tough to do even a 5 minute set now that I regularly enjoy being able to pace my gigs and chat to the audience. So I had stressed about this minute amount of comedy time and spent ages working out exactly what I should do.

Despite this, 3 minutes before I was due on stage, I decided to change my material having no idea whether it would fit to time, walked on stage, needed to cough a lot, and raced through my gags at 100 miles an hour, while still managing to bumble through the material. Truly poor effort, especially considering there were many a comedy promoter in the crowd, as well as a large amount of very nice actual audience members.

I have somehow developed a wonderful ability to screw up when important people are at a gig, even if, like tonight, I don't know they're there. I can trace back countless competitions and 'talent spotting evenings' where I have chosen the set badly or gaged the crowd wrong, and yet on any other evening I'll be fine. The past week has been a lovely mix of stonking 20 sets, and great MC gigs, until tonight where a mere 90 seconds became tough. I am starting to believe I may have some sort of ancient curse due to the ancient mosaic I once drove a catering trolley into at the V&A Museum 11 years ago. As the manager said just before he fired me 'you've fucked that right up, now you will be cursed forever by the sun god Ra'. Well he didn't really say that, but it was something along those lines. Well not even along those lines. And he didn't fire me. I quit before he could, because I'm sharp like that.

On the plus side, I chatted to lots of nice comics/comedy related peoples that I know and like and I also did speak to a comedy related fellow diabetic and got some handy tips about things I didn't know, which was thanks to me doing the diabetic material I shouldn't have done. So perhaps, despite the poor set, my health may improve. Swings and roundabouts as they say...when designing a playground.

Other quick notes. Gig last night in Leicester Uni. Thought it would be horrible, but turned out bloody nice if disorganised. Not all students are bad at all. Although there was one who got upset at an acts 'suicide' gags and how insensitive they were and complained to me about it in a whiney way during the interval. I was tempted to tell him to go jump off a bridge, but instead explained about comedy and that he was an idiot in a nice way. He then left crying and I couldn't help but feel I may have accidentally played a small part in his own life attempts. I do hope not.

Fat Tuesday tomorrow/today! Al Pitcher, Marek Larwood, Chris Martin and James Kettle, all of whom are ace. Should be a stonker!

Is it odd that despite being ill, I'm happy about it? I'm not happy that I'm full of a chest infection or the horrible stuff I'm coughing up, but I am happy because I have a gag that I can only use when I'm ill. How wrong is it that comedy rules my life so much that I have reason to be pleased that I'm feeling pretty crap. Very odd. I do like that gag though, and it feels cheaty if I say it when I'm not ill. People can see through lies. Much like dogs.

Admittedly my illness is partly self-inflicted. After the Loughborough Incident I started to suffer thanks to alcohol consumption and journeying home with Matt Green who said he was ill. Damn you Matt, you plague carrier! While there were gigs following this, I did not drink for the next couple of days knowing that I don't really like being ill. I have discovered this after being ill before and rating it on a list of things I do like. It doesn't come anywhere near banoffee pie.

However, on Tuesday I had to travel to Belfast to perform at the brilliant gig at the Empire. While the gig was excellent and the crowd lovely - despite the MC's anti-English banter just before I walked onstage - afterwards the promoters and other acts refused to let me not drink. Apparently my excuses were rubbish and they gave my pint after pint until somehow it was the early hours in a Belfast music bar and I found myself staggering back to the hotel. This extra bit of boozing knocked my illness up from what women like to commonly call 'man-flu' to what is actually known as 'chest infection'. I have been craving attention from my girlfriend since and generally acting pathetic.

Also did another great gig in Leeds at Original Oak. I've heard loads of people say its a lovely room and they weren't lying. After four hours of driving with illness, I was worried that it would be a bad gig and I would just give up all hope on life. Four hours drive by yourself is a long time alone. I often mutter a bit to myself, play music very loud and criticise my own driving. Its all very strange behaviour and I am often so desperate for conversation with someone that isn't me, that by the time I get to the gig I'm actually far too enthusiastic about talking to the audience. This lonely eccentricity must be why most lorry drivers are arseholes.

Since then I have permitted myself two days of no gigs. I say permitted but in all honesty I just didn't have any bookings but it sounds cooler to say I chose it that way. Still its given me time to catch up with an old friend on Friday and see my girlfriend Saturday, two things that were overdue. Watched Atonement last night. Well done Keira Knightly for not being shit for the first time ever! I did however spend far too long sniggering because they used the word 'c*nt' in the film. I am far too childish like that. A recent example is a few weeks ago when I went to see the amazing Joanna Newson at the Royal Albert Hall. She was incredible, but before her was a support act called Roy Harper. He is a folk legend and he sang the whole of his most influential album from 1969. Now the songs were beautiful and his voice was amazing, but the name of the album ruined everything. It was called 'Stormcock', and that meant giggling all the way through his set with my friend. Constant wonderings as to whether the album cover just had a big dick with lightning shooting from it, meant that we laughed so loud that other people told us to shush.

49 hits on the last blog. Woohoo! I feel this is probably because I called it 'I hate students' rather than any of the content. My girlfriend pointed out that at the moment she is a student and so is my mum (doing a PHD) and my brother has just stopped being one, so therefore I cant really hate students. I don't hate students really at all, just the ones that were at the gig last week. All of them.
I also love the comment from Debbie on the last post. If you haven't read it, please do. Its great when people get all bitter and nasty for no real reason. Well done Debbie, you provided me with much enjoyment when wondering how to respond. More comments like that please!

When I was a student I could never work out exactly why people hated us. As far as I knew, I was studying hard(ish) in the hope of contributing to the world much like anyone else whilst drinking lots of booze.

Since leaving University however and doing student gigs I've realised that most students are naive, arrogant, rude bastards who, thanks to lack of life experience make performing to them complete hell. I'll admit that this is not by any means always true, but after this weekend I have discovered a new loathing for them, not least because they made me feel very old.

Saturday night I MC'd at a University Freshers Ball. I wont say which Uni, but its notorious for being full of sports a*seholes and little all else. From the second I and the other comics were asked to do the gig we were wary. This wariness was dispensed with the added offer of not just pay, but free booze and a hotel room too. There were 9 comics booked in and it was to last from 10.30pm until 2am. That's one hell of a long time, but when you also think that the students had been drinking since 6pm and watching crap such as McFly hype them all up, we all knew the last thing they would want to do is sit and listen to 3 hours of comedy.

And goddamn we were right. Walking into the Union bar, we saw the tiny stage in the middle of mayhem that we were to perform on. TV's were on all over the room keeping them occupied with the boxing and when they were turned off for the gig, that was step one in making the crowd very annoyed. Luckily myself and Carl Donnelly had agreed to co-MC, Spank style, which gave us an easy way out and back up against the vicious hordes. Attempting to get their attention and begin the show, we shouted a lot, got some cheering going but generally failed miserably because no-one cared. All acts were meant to do 20mins, with only one person achieving this (well done Pat Gallagher!) and Matt Green getting close. Poor James Nokise who was on first suffered horribly due to being a Kiwi and the days Rugby events. He still held out for 11 mins, which was damn good. Highlights included Tom Bell pretending to be American, Chris Martin getting people on stage to see who could bench press him the most times, and my favourite, Hal Cruttenden shouting at the audience ' I've got to perform to Army troops in Cyprus this week, and they've been to Afganistan and Iraq and they are still a much nicer audience than you c*nts!'

Thank god for the free booze as we drank our way to stupidity as the only way to survive and ended up staggering back after I managed to accidentally steal the sound man's car keys and then drive back to London with them and a mega hangover on Sunday morning.

All the acts that were on on Saturday were great acts and yet the vile students didn't give a single one of them a chance. I don't fully blame them. I remember my Freshers Ball and all I wanted to do was drink and chat to girls. Watching comedy would have a been a far stretch of concentration too. No, I blame the uni event organisers. Who would ever think it was a good idea? Its not fair on the comics to deal with something like that and it gives any audience who did care a bad view of live stand-up. I have since made a very quick note to myself to ask very carefully about agreeing to any of those gigs again.

Had a great gig at the Kings Head last night which made up for it. Very small audience but truly lovely. One man at the back was wearing a Japanese silken scarf so I started some banter. I discovered he was part of a band and thus automatically allowed to wear crazy things. Naturally asking what their band played, he said 'pop', at which point I proceeded to insult modern pop music with venom. Then, thinking I should, I asked what band he was in, only to discover it was Hot Chip, a band who I currently love listening to. Never have I had to backtrack my comments so quickly! Damn Crouch End and its genuinely trendy residents!

My kittens are still entertaining too. So far their destruction count in our flat equals: three vases, two plates, one set of headphones, a funny owl made of shells my uncle got me and I loved but my girlfriend hated and several kitchen rolls. It baffles me how something so small can be so dangerous. I'm only 5'5" and I'm relatively harmless in comparison.

Off to Belfast tomorrow! Truly love that city and looking forward to some mirthing in Northern Ireland.

Last night was the first Fat Tuesday of the new season. This meant that I spent all of yesterday fretting about everything to do with setting up, acts, audience etc worried that it would be a car crash of an evening. Running a club is a very personal risk I find. If for some reason the night doesn't go right, I get sad about it for ages, blaming myself for poor organisation or something I haven't done.

For a first night of the season though, last night was great. Setting up was fine, and despite the fact that - as per every time we return to the venue - all the equipment was hidden in different places and the new light I bought didn't fit on the stand we have, we got everything done in good time. What started to scare me was that by 8ish, there wasn't a soul in the bar downstairs. We had advertised the way we usually do, had been recommended in London Lite, and had a truly great line-up, so no reason for an empty gig. What I hadn't realised though was that Arsenal were playing. Having a gig in Islington sadly means that Arsenal are more important than a lot of other factors. Footie fans obviously don't turn up, but also non-footie fans stay in to avoid twatty footy fans who ruin everything.

So in the end we got 26 in. Not a great amount considering we were selling out before the summer, but they were such a nice bunch of 26 people that they made the night great. As Andrew Lawrence put it 'it seemed full' because those 26 laughed so loudly and enjoyed it so much.

And all the acts were brilliant last night, which does help, and we got 10 new email addresses for the list, so all in all a success. I also actually enjoyed MCing the gig last night. Not least because one of the audience members swore he was from the sunken Island of Caspia. Now he lied about several things, including being a vampire hunter (definitely not true. Or if it is true, then he would have to do something on the side as its not very profitable). He also said his name was Raphael which I am not sure of either. But he had an obscure accent and kept insisting that he was from a tiny island that recently sank. Now this prompted several fun bits of banter ranging from Indiana Jones to Narnia, all of which were great fun. However I cant help but be a bit suckered into his ploy. I have wikipedia'd Caspia and it doesn't come up with anything, so it cant be true (as we know, Wikipedia is the truth) but I cant help but think that he might be the sole survivor of an extinct race of people. If this is true I should have locked him at the venue and sent him to a museum. In retrospect I realise I could have missed my real calling in life.

Last week was filled with ridiculously long drives and I'm pleased to say this week is all not too far from London. Although my weekend will be based in Loughborough. I cant help but feel I must have done something to deserve that.
Had a nice one in Chester last Saturday. Alexanders Jazz Theatre is always a lovely gig, and I enjoyed doing my first 30mins there. The crowd were enjoyably rowdy, which was great. However, about 15 mins in, two small groups of people decided to talk really loudly. One group I heckled and heckled and eventually got the whole audience to shout at until they shut up. This seemed to work. The other group though were truly obnoxious people. I will never understand the motivation of paying to see a show then chatting all the way through it. One of them, a morbidly obese woman, had a laughing fit about something, so I decided to engage and find out what it was. She rudely replied with 'its not you, don't worry, you're not funny'. Now that's a vicious heckle. I retorted, but refrained from any insult about her fatness, which I now regret. I felt at the time it would have been cheap. But she was so rude I feel I should have at least said, ' You're not skinny and you should worry', or something funny along those lines. Why do the best heckle retorts always come to you when you are off stage? Never ever fair.