Saturday

Well I'm sorry I haven't been back to the internet cafe for a few days. What can I say, I am now in Edinburgh time. Rising around 11am and not getting to bed before 4am. And I have a fair amount of gossip.

So Saturday I saw, An Englishman, An Irish man, and Scotsman. It's actually one man playing all 3, telling the story of how the Englishman, an Irish man and a Scotsman walk into a bar in 1953, and created the joke we all know and 'love'. Such is moral at the time the government employs them to go around the country cheering them up with their act. We're taken through the next 50 years, and told how they went on to invent just about every genre of joke, e.g. Knock knock jokes etc.

Jo Caulfield, very much a comedian who relies on a good audience. Her act is generally to chat to everyone on her front few rows and take the piss out of them. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff.

Seymour Mace had a brilliant first 10 minutes, which we all loved, but sadly descended into some crap character comedy, with a shit Generation Game Conveyor belt moment at the end. Still loved his imaginary Friend stories.

Phil Nichol, a previous Perrier Nominee years ago with Corky and the Juice Pigs. All those who have seen and heard of him before are agreed he is on fire at the moment. He's not in my top 5 shows though.

After the shows I headed to the Assembly Rooms VIP bar with John Pidgeon. He introduced me to a few people, Hattie Hayridge was pleasant enough. Mark 'Joe Mangle' Little came over for a quick word. Sporting shocking hair. As soon as he left there was a large discussion about whether he's dying his hair or if he's wearing a wig. Hattie nearly convinced me to go and ask him, but I chickened out. Probably wouldn't do to get kicked out the bar this early on.

Rob Newman came over to say a quick hi to John. I was only able to utter a hello. Damn it.

And beating all that, I went to the bar and had Aiden Quinn, film star, to one side of me and Jim ' bullseye' Bowen to the other. Now you can't say that every day.

John introduced me to Andy Smart, the Comedian's Perrier Bookie, and the man I was warned about by Nica. Sure enough he tried subtly and not so subtly to get tips on whose going to make the short list. Cheeky thing, he started to rhyme off some of the top acts to see my reaction claiming he was an excellent poker player and could get all he needed to know just from my face. I pointed out that I too was an excellent poker player and he didn't have what he thought he had. He looked visibly taken a back, stupid idiot believed me. He was alright after that. He mentioned he was staying in Paul Merton's apartment, the largest penthouse suite apparently. Andy is credited with saving Paul's life back in 1987, a story I already knew. I explained I'm a massive fan of Paul's and he's agreed to introduce us at the Perrier Party on Saturday, and try and get us into Paul's aftershow at his Penthouse. Oh yes, Saturday is going to be fantastic.

Then just as I was agreeing to one last drink at the bar, I turned face to face with Chris Bartlett. No, he's not famous, but someone I went to school with! It turns out he's a reviewer for the Stage and not only that but has written a play about Peter Cook and Dudley Moore which is on at the Assembly Rooms. How bizarre is that?