2003-11-24 - 4:52 p.m.

Went to our local comedy club at the weekend. It�s quite rough and ready but has a great reputation, and I�ve been meaning to go since I moved down to London. Taking almost eight years to go to a place about ten minutes from where I live � not too shabby, huh?

As is the norm at these things, the quality of gags was up and down like a bride�s nightie. You do feel sorry for the first person on, though, as by the end, everyone is drunk and would laugh if you got up and read out the Geneva convention in a silly accent. The first lady was visibly pregnant and pinned her comedic colours to the mast pretty early on (�Anyone here got kids?�), the rest of her set not really that funny if you hadn�t, or, to be frank, if you had. The next guy was Jewish and did a lot of Jewish jokes, which can sometimes be a bit monotonous, but he was refreshingly good (�I�m a rare kind of Jew � I love Germans! I mean, I miss my grandparents, but��), and his amiable bad taste won over most of the crowd. By the time the last guy came on I�d had five or six pints of strong continental lager, so recollection is somewhat hazy, though he did do a five minute bit about gay men wanking in the park, which was a bit much. Four and a half minutes, I could have taken, but he had to push it.