Today could be going a lot better than it is.

I had a very restless night. I'm not sure why and I was partially awake and partially asleep, so I've no idea whether I was a disturbance to my girlfriend, who occasionally appeared to be trying to make me do something useful, like resetting the alarm clock, or roll over or something. I suppose I'll find out.

Apart from having interrupted sleep, in which I was having some sort of stand-up flashbacks, I also dreamed that I'd taken the ultimate revenge at a gig, turning the room against someone in song. I was virtually awake at this point, so the song was reasonably coherent as I recall. There was clearly some anger/embarrassment issue getting resolved in my head as I awoke with this vitriol running through my mind.

So, feeling confused, glum and still ill (I've got post-Edinburgh lurghi making me wheeze and feel all bunged up), I dragged myself out of bed and drove to work. Despite having arrived in what seeemed like enough time to get into the office and do something useful, I was still a bit late. D'oh.

I arrived to find an email from someone who had taken offense at a comment I'd made. This person had told me that they were going to learn stand-up at a course. I'd wished them luck and pointed out that the only way to become a stand-up is to go on stage and do it. Lots. I also, self-deprecatingly, pointed out that after coming up to three years and 300 performances, I still consider myself a learner. Apparently, this caused offence. Maybe it looked like I was saying "you can't learn stand-up", when I think I was saying that it's a long haul, but it's worth it. It's rare that one has a meteoric rise through the ranks of the world of comedy. I certainly haven't.

Meanwhile, to make the morning go worse, I got a phone call from my insurers who are using the fact that my guitar is used for gigging as a way of getting out of paying out for its theft from my car earlier this month. I have pointed out to them that I do not use the guitar for business reasons as it is fair to say that stand-up comedy is a hobby, rather than a job. The thing is that insurance companies are there to do their best to pay out as little as possible. So, I may be £600 down on the break-in to my car. Brilliant! Who would like to guess whether the police have looked at the CCTV footage from the car park?

My illness means that I'm unsure whether I'll be able to do my gig tomorrow night at the Comedy Store in Manchester. Doing good gigs for the Comedy Store is on my list of things to have achieved in my comedic "career". I cancelled my last spot there as I had tonsilitis. I particularly want to do some routines which require good breath control and I'm currently feeling a bit wheezy. So, do I cancel again? or do I go along and soldier on? I don't know. I'm currently inclined to just go for it and see what happens.

Work is particularly frustrating at the moment too. We're on the brink of stuff, but lots of last minute details are getting in the way. I shall get back to it and see if I can't make some minor miracles. That might, at least, make me feel a bit better.