2003-12-09 - 5:05 p.m.

I�m SO NOT in South Africa. The shortest press trip in history ended before we even got to the check in desk, but sadly after we�d arrived at Departures, when we were told that our plane had not yet left Cape Town and it would mean an 18 hour layover in Amsterdam. I thought that would be fine as long as there was a serving bar, but the trip was cancelled there and then. I�m not even sure it qualifies as a press trip since there were no free cocktails or anyone sloping off to have sexual intercourse with prostitutes. It�s postponed to next month, but that doesn�t do much for me. I wanted a tan for Christmas dinner! It would have added a certain exotic authority when I complain to my mum about her trifle layers being in too rigid a formation of strata, but that�s all gone south now.

I took the week off anyway. Now I have a week of nothing. I need adventure that costs little or no money.

The weekend saw a return to the local comedy club � not once in eight years and now you can�t keep me away! There was a jolly group of us, including two of our housemates, who had just broken up after seeing (to) each other for a good few months. Not ideal, but everyone was making the best of it. The sheen was slightly dulled by the fact that every comedian picked out the girl at random, asked her if she was seeing anyone and on finding out the truth, incorporated the sorry truth into their routine. Call me Mr Sensitive, but I can�t think of anything worse than three consecutive stand up comics playing out a comedy version of my three-hour break up live on stage in front of 300 strangers with me in the front row.

The second comic was a Jewish guy whose act more or less centred around taking the piss out of Judaism and Jews. There was tense moment when he quoted the black comedian Chris Rock, who said �I like black people�but I hate n*ggers�. The Jewish comic then said �I�m really weirdly similar because I love Jews�but I hate n*ggers�. Anyone laughing at that had to fight through about twenty levels of ironic postmodernism, and was it really worth the effort and potential for serious offence? Now there are senses of humour, and there are senses of humour.

The headline act was the incredibly funny Rich Hall as prison exchange country singer Otis Lee Crenshaw with such tear-jerking old ballads as �Do Anything You Want to the Girl (Just Don't Hurt Me)�.