... They're great until you try to do something off the beaten track with them. I wanted to use a cheap bit of sound cue software. I wanted it to appear in the new side panel, but you can't do that with many apps. I wanted to get the sounds onto it from my Dropbox: I can play those sounds on the iPad, so surely I can save them in its memory and get them to be importable by the sound cue software? Not on your nelly.

iOS seems to sandbox every application so you can't really share files between them. There may be workarounds, but they involve using the computer to move things between apps using the godawful iTunes software. This is basically retarded. Computer file systems have been around since the 60s... Why can't my iPad have one? 

On my android phone, a free equivalent piece of software was able to do the job in no time, having access to the random download folder that my files happen to have wandered into. Easy!

I digress before I've started, though. I guess these sorts of minor trials and tribulations are the theme of today, but this particular challenge was resolved on Friday.

Today's news is that I'm home having performed at my second Leicester comedy festival. The first was 2009's with mine and Hannah's show the Seven Deadly Jokes. Today I was at the same venue, which was really different to how I remember it. I don't think it has moved, I just thing I remember it wrong.

Putting this show together has been the wake up call my set and material needed, but it has been at a significant cost to my stress and sanity levels. And those of those around me.

Last night I did two run throughs of the final edited script. I was going to perform with notes on the stage, but those notes were more of a diagram of the order of the material with a few clues about its internal contents, which I didn't need to look at in the end, since writing the map basically committed a lot of the detail to memory.

Doing two hour long performances back to back is quite exhausting, especially with a tech setup before and after. Given I've been running on fumes anyway, this was even more draining. However, I was able to get through the show without mishap both times and got a good recording down, which I could use for passive rehearsal - i.e. listening to it back and giving myself notes.

This morning went wrong. My daughter's swimming lesson was threatened by the fact that I realised I had left the house without a swim nappy for her. I should have turned back. I realise that now. I took the double or quits strategy of trying to get one at the other end. I went to three shops, with my little girl running round after me like a micro challenge Anneka, and eventually got her the appropriate swim protection. She then had a third of a swimming lesson before it was time to get back out, so late were we running. Some might have aborted the whole mission, but she was so committed to the swim nappy search, and I was telling her about how to cope with a problem, which is either ignore it, live with it, or fix it... Basically we'd decided to fix the problem, so we were committed.

A quick lunch at home and it was time for me to go to Leicester. This resulted in:

Watching 2 shows before mine. Very good.

Doing my show... Hmmm...

Getting the student radio crew who had come to interview me to help me back to the car... Clever!

Doing the interview... Me blethering long answers to familiar questions.

Going off to watch my favourite Fringe act do a greatest hits show... I would have laughed harder, but was too tired and sore.

Not a bad score for a nearly 42 year old on a Sunday afternoon and evening. The comedy festival even tried to banjax things by taking tickets off sale the evening before the show... This somewhat invalidated the two for one offer they then promoted today. Despite this some people came and some of them even laughed.

I will watch the video later on. For now, I can say that I did a new show. I don't know what I think of it, but it went better than the swimming, and worked well with sound cues courtesy of Android.

The iPad's invite was revoked. It was replaced by a side of A5.

To be honest, though, this has been a really weird process. In an ideal world, I'd be working this hard over more months at an average rate, rather than having to sort it out at the last minute on an essay crisis style deadline. I know the creative process often works this way, but it has been a total baptism of fire at each point where I have moved the show forward.

In January I did new material nights and tried out bits and bobs that I'd half written with the show in mind. So few tryout nights meant I had to extrapolate what the end result ought to be, and I Hadley.e room to cut things. I also snuck some newer bits into sets and MCing gigs... Which worked...

The big question for me was how much of this stuff would end up in the final show and how it would be sandwiched between older material and linking sentences to turn the whole think into a single piece.

Today I ran through various versions of the show a few times. I found I learned it best by not learning it or having the script in front of me. I just fathomed it out. New songs, new bits... New all sorts.

I think my last cuts have brought it down to a 50 minute running time, but I can't be sure. It ran an hour in my last run through. Too long...

I have had a weird day. Equipment and techniques I've not used since before my children were born have been my sole focus. I have spontaneously invented bits and made script decisions, because there is no time to think twice. It has been exhausting but fulfilling...

... And I have a rotten cold and am over tired.

This will be an odd weekend.

Leicester Comedy Festival: 6pm, Sunday 7th Feb 2016. Who Wrote This Shit?

I did.

In a hurry.