Thanks to my own sheer stupidity I am crippled in a minor way this week, writing this blog from the sofa with one very swollen left foot up on the coffee table much to everyone in Starbucks' disgust. I'm not really in Starbucks, but I wish I was as that joke would be significantly funnier if true. Instead sadly I am just at home alone and two cats are looking at me like I am worthless.

They have a wonderful way of staying very still and staring right at you as though you are smaller than many of the things they kill. Earlier today I shooed a big ginger cat out of the house because he was harassing our two little kittens. This seems to happen on a regular basis and I have begun to think that he just has no idea how to flirt. He reminds me of a kid at school who thought that by playfully hitting women that they would like them. Instead they thought he was a wife beater and kept away. And now this large furry ginger beast is feared by little Rosie and Bella. So I hissed at him, using cat styles to make him leave, and he looked at me like I was a massive loser, scratched the aforementioned swollen foot, which was already swollen at the time and made me swear, and he pootled out of the flat in his own time. Then my two cats who should have seen me as a hero of catdom, just gave me the condescending expression that the world gives first round X-Factor weirdos. Yes, I have been beaten by cats today. Times are low.

The foot in question is swollen because I dropped a two year old diabetic syringe into it. Why I was carrying a two year old syringe I'm not sure, I had just randomly decided through trying to avoid doing anything else, that it was probably time to throw them away. On the journey to the bin, one fell and landed vertically onto my barefoot. At the time, I thought, how nuts, but how cool am I as I didn't flinch and pulled the offending item out feeling like the Unbreakable King. Two days, a tetanus jab and six doses of the biggest anti-biotic I've ever seen I am not a happy man.

Sitting on a sofa leaves you with little to do but write and this morning more sketches towards our ever nearing show are looming. There are also a couple of new gags for my stand-up set which is nice. Also my left foot is now so big I can finally wear a single clown shoe properly, and the final plus point is that I can drink with these anti-biotics, and I'm off to a friend of my girlfriend's wedding this weekend, with lots of people I don't know. What a perfect excuse to sit down and drink till Sunday. Finally I get to be the odd limping drunkard in the corner that exists at every wedding. That's right kids, dreams can come true. I ought to carry more dangerously infected metal items around more often. Anyone have a rusty ice pick I can juggle with?

Please note: Not a post about weaving tools in Scotland.

I've just returned home after a top night at Fat Tuesday watching Michael Fabbri and Jon Richardson's ace Edinburgh previews (both of which I highly recommend!) , and the Edinburgh excitement has finally started kicking in. This is also heightened by the first Tea and Cake preview show that we did last night, which was the first step in cementing August's major happening for the comedy world, and the arrival of the Fringe Brochure last week. Ah, the Fringe Brochure. A landmark moment in every year where I open it up and go 'wow, I spent several gigs wages just to put that tiny blurb just there'. Priceless. Or actually, pricey.

Knowing its approaching gives me that odd feeling. Somehow its a combination of sheer fear, knowing that day in day out I'll be doing two shows and worrying about the pressures and critiquing that the festival brings. At the same time, I'm damn excited knowing that I get to spend a whole month doing what I enjoy and drinking with people I like. Its almost like uni again, in that there is this close knit community of comedians and comedy types who all actually socialise for once, and not just in a car on the way back from Wales where talking and service stations are the only way to pass the time. At the same time, its not like uni, because you don't have to do any essays. Therefore, its much better than uni. Although you don't get a grant/loan for it. Well you can get a loan. Oh god this is another metaphor that really doesn't work.

Our sketch preview on Monday went well-ish. The audience were 99.9% friends and family which was nice and helpful as they are the most likely to be brutally honest. There's nothing quite like the verbal cold shower of your relatives telling you it sucks. Thankfully they didn't. Mainly because they weren't there. But everyone that was enjoyed it. There's still loads to change and work on and that for me, is the sort of exciting bit that will keep the show fresh until Edinburgh. Once it gets there of course it will stagnate and I'll be sick of it, but until then its all fun.

And what will this year's fringe hold? Well I hope it will bring some forward motion in the career lobby, but mostly I hope its gonna be loads of fun. I'm prepping my liver with small starting amounts of booze, and trying to lessen my sleep just so I can survive as long as possible up there without any. Two shows a day this year, so that'll be more of a slog than last year, but I'm feeling on the ball. Bring it on fringe, I'm ready. Even if my shows aren't.

On a different note, I had a moment that cheered me up tonight. On Saturday, I MC'd the late show at the Komedia. I love that gig, but I was knackered and the audience were too. They were also drunk. Very very drunk. The combination of both of these things made it all a bit of a slog for me. The worst moment being when I got them all to give their last burst of energy for the headliner, the brilliant Danny Bhoy, and the applause ran out of steam before he made it on stage at 00.15am. That's not a great crowd, but also I felt I had failed in the main purpose of MCing, which was to keep them all going.

However tonight, a couple that popped along to Fat Tuesday confronted me in the interval by asking if I was gigging in Brighton on Saturday. They then proceeded to tell me that I had had them in tears of laughter and it was their best night out in ages. Instantly, a grateful grin appeared on my face that hasn't gone away since. Yey for the audience!

For the first time ever I headlined a gig tonight. It was not quite what was intended and the gig was just a very nice charity gig, but it was my first headline spot nonetheless and I bloody well enjoyed it. Yeah I said bloody like a posh Englishman, what are you going to do about it punk?

There is something about the headlining spot that is at the same time both alluring and frightening, like Jessica Alba with an axe. People expect you to be the best act of the night, which is uber-pressure but also seem to give the act a slightly easier ride as they are more relaxed knowing that what they are going to see is going to be good. In the same way the first spot of the night has excellent pros and terrible cons. Pros - you can go home early, you can talk about any topic and it wont have already been said (unless the MC's said it). Cons - if the audience are not warmed up properly then your set can essentially be taking a bullet for the team and if you screw up you can set the precedent for the whole night. Basically, you should always try and go in the middle, although then it can be presumed at some clubs that you are the open spot and people sod off for a fag. The more I type this blog I realise that perhaps there is not a single part of the comedy evening that is 100% guaranteed fun. Wow, comedy can suck.

But mostly it doesn't. Unless of course you do, and if you do, stop it or get better. Grr. Aside from those wonderful words of wisdom, I think the headliner does get the best spot of the night. Tonight as they introduced me as the headliner I got more applause than any had done all night, just because of presumption of my ability. They were wrong, but it was nice of them to assume. I was meant to be the penultimate act, but the headliner had a mini-crisis and had to leave early, so I followed him. I wasn't entirely happy about this for several reasons. Firstly, the gig didn't seem great as I arrived and the audience had talked through most of the acts before us - part of the problem of a no entry ticket charity gig in a student bar. Secondly, I would have to follow the headliner which for the audience would be somewhat like being given a glass of champagne followed by a flat can of Tizer.

Yet strangely despite all this it went really well and the audience were really lovely. So well and so lovely infact that I also combined this first headlining spot with my first ever encore, which was another set of problems all together mainly because I had exhausted a load of material. I did however manage to pull it off because I'm super bad.

I got home after the gig and immediately wrote 5 minutes of new stuff, 3 of which won't work. Its amazing how forcing your brain to churn more material out, gets it working double speed and creativity ensues. It also explains why, by sitting on my arse playing Mario Kart all day, I am nowhere near writing an hour show anytime soon.

I shall end this blog with a moment of cheekiness. Someone gave me the idea to do this, so I've done it, and its working better than I thought. If you are a kind soul and understand the financial pressures of the Edinburgh Festival please do take part and not only will I think you are wonderful in every way, but karma wont hit you in the face which means there is less chance of the UK seeing an earthquake anytime soon, according to brainiac Sharon Stone.

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