The gig last night was hard work. Monday night audiences are not necessarily the rowdiest - I've only had one really kicking Monday night, and that was in Edinburgh. This lot were feeling tough and they were sitting away from the stage. In addition, the show at the Frog and bucket in Manchester has gone gong-show-style with their Beat The Frog competition. Basically, you have five minutes max and the audience can vote you off early if they don't like you. As a result of the nerves and the desire not to have driven 150 miles for 5 seconds on the stage, I gave the most energetic performance I could and managed to beat the frog. I didn't however, win the audience's hearts enough to win the audience vote between the frog beaters - the prize being to go back to that pit of apathy the following week and do 8 minutes before they've warmed up properly... by the way, I really enjoyed the gig, so I will probably go along again sometime. Really, however, it's a lot of travelling to do not to be appreciated.

I have a gig today (well, it feels like tomorrow, since I'm about to have a night's sleep, but it's technically today). I'm playing the comedy balloon in Manchester (another trip along the M62 for me, then!). I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also scared. Over 50% of what I'll be doing tomorrow I've not done before... about 90 seconds of it (15%) I thought of today... so I hope it works and that I remember it. The balloon should be a good place to try these things out.

The gig on Monday in Edinburgh has been extended to 10 minutes, which is nice. So hopefully, I'll have the chance to try something out there as well. The mother of all gigs on Wednesday of next week is my first 20, so I'm hoping to have the most material to choose from to fill that. It's better to choose a good 20 from 40 minutes of material performed, rather than do everything I've ever done and pray it's long enough ;)