Welcome to the second part of my personal Edinburgh top 10...

I was invited no less than five times to take part in Christian Schulte-Loh's Comedy World War. What is the CWW? It's a stand-up show pitting nation against nation, stand-up against stand-up, hosted by a German comedian. I represented Mexico. Being white and English and having never even set foot on Mexican soil, this was going to be a big challenge. Moments before the first appearance, I still didn't know what I was going to do. Then it hit me. Say nothing at first and try to get the audience to clap the rhythm to 'We Will Rock You'. Then in the spoken parts start chanting 'Speedy Gonzales' and get them to join in. Then another thought – do a Cab Calloway style 'when I say 'Arriba!' you say 'Arriba!'...'. This would never have worked had I been introduced by name, so literally a minute away from getting on stage, I asked Christian to not announce my name. This he worked brilliantly by saying 'This next guy, I'd never heard of, but my agent said to book him as he's filling huge stadiums in Mexico, a real big act! The thing is, I can't quite pronounce his name, so I'm going to introduce him as 'THE MEXICAN!". This worked a treat and with every performance I played and added more and more to this first part. After whipping up the audience into fever-pitch with all that and some crazy dancing, I finished the bit with 'Na, I'm from Brixton...' to a really strong response every time.

At the end of a London is Funny show at the GRV, hosted by Mr. Tom Webb, he cheekily invited Josie Long and Rufus Hound back on stage for a photograph, then promptly pushed all of us audience up there to join them in the shot. A magic moment.

One of the days our booked headliner hadn't shown up. Spotting Ava Vidal walking across the road, we asked if she could pop over and close the show for us. Thankfully she said yes, did a brilliant job and no-one was any the wiser...

Well, this was the view from my girlfriend's seat several hours ago, just after boarding our train to Edinburgh at Kings Cross. I'm not going to share a more recent picture than this, for fear of frightening old ladies and children – that's the current demographic looking at my screen as I type. So far the train ride has been fairly without incident. I've had to do a last minute flyer design for someone using the keypad on my laptop. With a 9/11 theme. That certainly scared the old ladies. Well, we've got another hour to go 'til we reach Edinburgh for the start of our month. What will it bring? How will it change me? What shows will I see? Will I be a better comedian for the experience? We shall see. I've certainly got enough gigs booked in as a performer to find out, including our own We Love Comedy event in association with PBH's Free Fringe and the 'So You Think You're Funny?' heat on the 16th of August. Aaaaaaaagggrrrhhhh! Sorry, just got the fear. I'm breathing into a brown paper bag now and it's easing off a little.
Anyway, keep coming back, I'll be posting more regular updates than usual here...