Last Tuesday it was the turn of Carl Donnelly and myself to be the guests on Sky Poker's live tournament show. Its a fairly laid back show that mainly requires on the guests providing some witty banter while playing against 650 members of the public in an online poker tournament. To many of you that may sound fun, and I have no problems with the witty banter part, being a self-proclaimed master of chat wit. I'm only self-proclaimed because no one else would proclaim me as such a thing, but that's not the point. Where I failed in the requirements on said show was that until one month ago I had played poker all of three times in my life and in all of those I had lost, drastically.

Not drastically to the extent that there is now some large stetsoned man sitting comfortably in what used to be my house, having just driven in what used to be my car and having pointless arguments whether or not to let the what used to be my kittens in or out with what used to be my girlfriend. No, nothing as bad as that. However I was really sad I lost all those chocolate biscuits and £7.50 which cut me real deep at the time.

When my agent rang me about the show his first question was 'Can you play poker?', and I said bluntly 'No. Not in anyway, shape or form' assuming of course that covered all possible poker bases. I've never heard of underwater poker being played with moose instead of cards but if such a thing existed, I wouldn't be able to play it. Hearing this conclusive response, he simply said 'well you're going to have to learn, you have a month'.

This meant it had become a challenge, albeit a slightly shit one, but nonetheless I couldn't back down. So for the last month I have been cramming poker knowledge down my throat. I say cramming, but actually all I've done is the odd bit of online poker with 'play' money, a concept so dangerous that you never really care whether you win or lose and make ridiculous bets, because it doesn't ever matter ever. Someone at a gig sent me the Harrington guide to poker by email which I gave all of two minutes of concentration before getting distracted by anything else that has even an ounce of interest about it. Its bizarre because a name like Harrington would normally make me want to read a book, because it sounds like he might be a detective or someone with worldly knowledge. The sad reality is is that he is probably just a fat, rich man who wears visors, smokes cigars and prays for actual friends. I had recently read a book called 'The Big Blind', which was a fiction all about poker. Sadly I hadn't paid much attention to the clever stuff and more just dribbled about the author who used to front Sleeper, and was well fit.

The last bit of training was Carl spending three hours in a pub teaching me some poker skills. This was most useful until we both had a shandy and became both sleepy and paranoid that people would see us gambling in a club and go all 'Joe Pesci' on our asses.

Despite lack of knowledge the show went well and not least because I got to use the phrase 'I've folded more times than an origami master'. Carl did better than me, winning a whole £30 for the NSPCC, which means maybe one child can get foam padded stairs or something. I however won nothing, but in consolation of letting people suffer due to my lack of aid, we were both told we did pretty well compared to other people on the show and we even lasted longer than a poker pro that was there two weeks before. Not that they named the poker pro, and therefore were probably lying. Either way, I discovered I actually enjoyed it, and am now intent on buying my own visor and gambling my life away big style. My girlfriend and cats had better keep their fingers/paws crossed.

In other Douieb news...Its Edinburgh mental time at the moment, pre-organisation and admin-wise. Its amazing how trying to put together a 40 word description can almost ruin friendships and mental states despite the fact that in reality, none of the festival punters give a toss and only focus on the shiniest poster, 5 star reviews and whether or not it has tits and violence in it.

Long time no blog, sorry about that. Needless to say I am now back, regardless of whether that is a blessing or irritation for you. Although presumably if it was an irritation you wouldn't read this. Unless you were a literary sado-masochist who punishes themselves by reading things they don't like until they feel free of sin, or something. If that is you, then you're a freak and I wish you wouldn't abuse my blog in such a way.

While I would love to regale about hilarious things that have happened since my last post, my memory genuinely seems to be deteriorating and I have little to no decent recollection of what I've been doing. I did however have a heckle war with a journalist from the Daily Mail last week in Brighton which resulted in him losing and being kicked out by security. I think that alone redeems anything less impressive that has happened and will happen for sometime. As he was being thrown out of the door by the wonderful security, he was shouting 'Don't you know who I am? I work for the Daily Mail and I will have you shut down!'. And how would you do that? By making sure all the racists and bigots don't come along? I doubt they arrive in their hordes to such a lovely club anyway, and any further reduction is only a good thing. Haha I win. Muchos satisfaction.

Part of the reason for the blurry mind is because since the beginning of this month I have been on a course for my diabetes that helps control and such other things that sound boring if you have no idea what I'm talking about. What it does mean though is that my entire day is taken up by a rigorous checking and diary system which involves me monitoring every morsel I eat and how much to inject with it. Basically its a pain in the arse, but ultimately it will stop me going blind, getting kidney failure, heart disease, and nerve damage. That is of course if a combination of beer, and general life mismanagement won't result in that anyway.

It does turn out through this monitoring system that being a comedian is possibly one of the worst careers for a diabetic due to the adrenaline and stress affecting blood sugars and blood pressure. I say one of the worst careers, but I can only think that cake taster must be higher up. I have taken the gigging into account and as I have no desire to stop my career, but at the same time do not want to end up a sugared wreck, I have been checking up on what I can do.

According to the news this week, having a cat lowers stress levels and can reduce blood pressure, so I have decided that whether they like it or not, I will take my cats to all my gigs with me in a small carry case. With holes for eyes. And maybe some for legs. I would feel much more at ease watching a meowing box with legs stomp around.
I'm sure there is actually a solution and its been a really great course, not least for giving me a multitude of ideas for an Edinburgh show next year. Aren't terrible auto-immune diseases wonderful for that sort of thing?

Also my cats are far too odd to take anywhere. This week they have been shunning the food the have always liked. Instead they have taken to hitting bees until they die, bringing them in the house and then tucking in. This bothers me for a couple of reasons. One is that I can't work out why they don't get stung. That's just odd isn't it? And slightly disturbing. I might start feeding them scorpions to see if they can survive that.

Secondly, I feel that by eating the bees in front of me, after disregarding the food I have paid for, they are being bloody rude. Its not dissimilar to going to a five star restaurant and taking a tin of spam out of your bag and tucking in. Well, its a bit dissimilar, because they are cats, cat food and bees and not Corden Bleu gourmet grub.

Right off to Chiswick through the hail and rain. On a tube. Not quite as dramatic at all is it?

I'm typing this overdue blog with some difficulty and much squinting today. I had my annual diabetic eye check this morning and they put these drops into your eyes that enlarge your pupils for hours and hours. It basically means it hurts to look at anything bright so I am sitting in a dark house with sunglasses on being bored. After realising I cant watch TV, use the computer or just about do anything of any use, I am attempting to touch type this on a dark screen and see what happens either you'll get a great blog wit ha few spelling errors or all the blood vessels in my eyes will burst due to the strain. Cant resist a challenge me.

So what's been happening in the world of Douieb? the past couple of weeks have been madly gig heavy and I've done so much driving that while I sit on my sofa I'm moving my feet as though they are on the acceleration and brake pedals. I had a true moment of clarity when two of the acts I was with on one journey asked if we could stop somewhere. My prompt response was 'In 17 miles there's the Leigh Delaware Moto Services. Its got an M and S and is half decent, although not my favourite service stop.' They looked at me like I was the saddest man alive. There is no real need for me to know such things but I do feel that now bestowed with this extremely dull knowledge I am indeed truly qualified as a full time comic. I also think that officially part of the fun in my life has died. I look back on those days when I knew only of fun and nothing of bleak Little Chefs and sigh.

Most of the recent gigs have been good, but I realise its wonderfully unexciting reading about those ones so here's what happened at one particular gig that wasn't any fun at all. I had been looking forward to last Friday's gig for the whole week as its a truly lovely club and a place that I would recommend time and time again to punters. Before the gig I asked the organiser how it had all been going and her exact words were that it had 'been going very well with great audiences, although by saying that I've probably jinxed tonight'. Indeed she had, because as the night started it became glaringly obvious that there was a woman in the front row who's level of drunkeness meant that statistically there was a high chance that she would ruin the evening before ending up half naked in a gutter somewhere. She was truly obnoxious and as we had all guessed, as soon as the superb Ray Peacock took to the stage, she got rowdy. Ray dealt with her brilliantly, but when someone doesn't shut up after fifteen minutes, they never will. So the club had her forcibly removed leaving her to, no doubt, fall asleep in the aforementioned gutter. Problem dealt with. Or so I thought. There was now the new problem of tension in the room, and despite Ray re-warming them up nicely, being the first act on I was treated with a starey crowd who couldn't quite deal with anything that didn't directly engage them and so for twenty minutes i took the proverbial 'bullet for the team'. To be fair there was little that could be done. The situation had been dealt with perfectly and by the end of my set they had warmed enough to make the rest of the night great.

My main problem is understanding why people like that go to comedy clubs. If you are going to be that drunk and shitty then go to a nightclub where no one can hear or see you, rather than ruin a paying crowds enjoyment of quality entertainment. Only comedy encourages those sort of people though and its not fair. I'm not quite sure where the rumour that comedians like hecklers came from but I am going to avidly start to discourage it. I think my plan will start by spreading gossip that its increasingly trendy to shout out abuse at the opera and west end theatre. Hopefully this will spread and in three months time our gigs will be full of nice people while Andrew Lloyd Webber productions get the tirade of hate that they deserve. If I heard 'tell us a joke' or 'you're shit' at any point during 'We Will Rock You' I feel my life would be complete. To be fair I'd have to watch it first and that would take willpower I don't have.

My eyes are hurting. I'm off to do something that doesn't require seeing things. I give myself ten minutes before I get hurt.