I'm just basically a big kid. There's no point in denying it. I love toys and games - this is pretty much what my life has become. I also love entertainment which has a cuteness factor aimed at kids. This explains how much I enjoyed myself while on the train (both times over the last 24 hours), watching Wallace and Gromit on DVD via my laptop. I sat there giggling and cooing at the loveable plasticine antics of the eponymous heroes of Aardman's animation. Gromit's eyebrows - they're so expressive! With a toy to watch and a cute movie, it's only the playing of games that was missing... or was it?

Stand-up comedy - that's a game of sorts. I sit down and write silly things to say, then I travel around the country at vast personal expense in order to stand on a stage with a microphone and say (or sing) these absurdities. And I enjoy it. And other people seem to do so too... so it's not entirely self-serving. Not entirely.

Yesterday I left work at 4pm, jumped on a train to Edinburgh, hung around a railway station (wouldn't that be Waverley? - yes... yes it was), was picked up and driven to St Andrews and then, after what seemed like moments' sojourn in the place, was driven back to Edinburgh for a brief snooze before being dropped back at the railway station.

It always amuses me that I can reliably get into work earlier when I've started the morning by waking in Edinburgh than I can when I start the morning staring at the curtains in my home in Newcastle. Well, I say always... it's happened 3 times. Twice by train and one early morning dash (Monday morning this week) by car.

Tonight, I'm sleeping in my bed in Newcastle. However, before then I'm taking a wee trip to Whitehaven, courtesy of the promoter of my next performance.

Tomorrow, for a change of scene, I shall be driving back to Edinburgh for another gig. Of course... four trips to Edinburgh in two weeks is perfectly normal behaviour!

Kids!