I haven't had such a long gap in blogging for a while. I have no idea how the past two months have gone by (chronologically, I would imagine), but here we are, December 15th, and as far as anyone knows, I could be dead.

But I am not! (Of course, I would say this). I have been simply been drowning in a sea of thesis writing, teaching, working, holidays, films, meals, sleep, watching live comedy, performing in live comedy (not dead) and swimming pools. All of which is pretty standard fare, particular for those of us who write theses, teach, work, holiday, watch film, eat, sleep, watch live comedy, perform live comedy (not dead), recycle jokes and swim. So here's a brief snippet of each.

1. My thesis nears completion. It looks and sounds very much like a thesis - earthy and well researched.

2. My teaching has been fun. I hope one day to be good at it.

3. My work has proceeded. I have research papers and journal submissions and I think I'm due a minion.

4. I went to Egypt! I walked like an Egyptian - that is to say, near some pyramids and sand. This was a very good time.

5. I have watched many films. I'm unlikely to reach 100, as I've lulled for much of the year, but I've got through a lot in the past month. Donnie Brasco is absolutely my new favourite film. I like Johnny Depp playing lunatics and the weird, but Johnny Depp playing hardman undercover agent is far better, and Al Pacino's performance? Forgedduhboutit.

6. I have ate and slept. Not dead, you see.

7. I saw Mark Watson - here's a comedian who you should go and see if you want five hours of comedy delivered in under two hours. I failed to see Josie Long.

8. I have done the Imps, and that. There were new Imps who are a delight to be around and old Imps who get better and better, and a director-assistant director team who are doing a lovely job. A student of mine saw a show, which I imagine was strange for her. But that's me, shattering preconceptions about lecturers and their non-participation in improvised comedy shows. In some ways, this carries over into tutorials (no preparation, polite applause, rock music between each section).

9. I continue to Twitter. Follow me on Twitter. This is where you get everything you might expect from this blog - mystery, intrigue, preconception shatterings (bring you own!), jokes about the News and what we should do about it - but shorter (less than 140 characters) and more regular (more than 0 characters in two months).

10. I have continued with swimming. I am svelte. I am doing an exercise class on Saturday mornings. My abs glean in the midday sun. I am getting faster in the pool. My biceps bulge. I take my hands and place them on your hips, pulling you close.

Seeing Kitson tonight at the Playhouse. First time. Glowing reviews to follow.

Home from Edinburgh, having had a great week in Edinburgh.

Aside from performing in a few Imps shows whilst there (more on that later) we got to see around fifteen shows. Some were exceptional. Tim Key (this years main award winner) thoroughly deserved his accolades with his show, The Slutcracker, and his friend Tom Basden's show, Now That's What I Call Music-Based Comedy, was also great. They both have a similar style, delivering what could be described (simplistically) as intentionally bad poetry (Key) or songs (Basden) ("it's not intentional", says Key, "when I sit down to write a poem, I think 'Let's make this a good one'"). Basden is an excellent guitarist, I should also note. Their material is coupled with extensive use of multimedia and some props, making the show seem so much more than just stand-up. Key ends his show attempting to cross the room, aided by the audience, without touching the floor, paying off an earlier bit. Basden litters his shows with slides on his inventions (new boys names, girls names, maths) cartoons, and other ideas (a wordsearch comprising 100 letter Y's and the word 'Patio') set to music. I liked Key's show more, because of the quality of his performance, his delivery, his interactions with Fletch the techie, but Basden has perhaps been underated this year.

I also really like Laura Solon's first show in Edinburgh since winning the Perrier in 2005. She tells a story through a number of charachter (both male and female) which she voices. The story is both good in of itself and serves to allow a number of excellent standalone sketches (the French radio interview where the presenter and the French author debate whose culture is better, England or France is a highlight, as is her Welsh call-centre lady). The performance was energetic, her delivery impeccable and she seemed just, for want of a better word, lovely.

Rounding off my picks (bearing in mind I'm waiting to see Daniel Kitson and Stewart Lee on their post Fringe tours) was Simon Munnery's 2009 AGM. For our ticket, we got an hour and a quarter in the venue, and a further hour in the pub after as he finished going through all the submitted motions, improvising responses leading into more established routines. It's incredible how much matertial he has to draw on, and style-wise, there's no-one like him ("I went swimming in the river: widths, mainly").

I saw a lot of sketch shows - the Bristol Revunions and Delete the BanJaX were really fun, especially the latter. They seemed liked good friends whose palable delight at performing together was infectious, and where bits fell apart due to exhaustion and lost voices at the end of the run, their good natured mocking of each other was pitched exactly right. One of the guys, Dan, was particularly difficult to stop watching, and his enormous personality was obvious in all his characters (both human and horse). I want to do shows with them.

The Durham Revue were disappointing - I've often enjoyed them more than their Oxford or Cambridge counterparts. Cath and I left feeling quite bored by the end, as the show ran out of ideas about halfway through. I enjoyed the Penny Dreadfuls and Pappy's Fun Club, although given the disputes over the latter between Imps, I've had quite enough of discussing its merits and shortcomings. Rich Hall was quite a letdown - it was a bit meandering, and while he's great at dealing with the unplanned bits with the audience, little of his material was as stellar as I've seen in the past.

There's more, but instead, let's talk about the Imps. I did three shows, and to be brutally honest, I didn't enjoy myself a huge amount. Part of this was being a little out-of-practice, and the problems with joining a group of people who have their own momentum. I also didn't particularly like the set lists - I find improvised musicals tedious and I don't have much more love for Shakespeare scenes either. I find them restrictive with their conventions and often too long and convoluted. I'm also not convinced the audience don't share my assessment, for all our own bluster. Quite frankly, I like short form with all its silliness and energy and gimmicks and short scenes which allow quick ideas and short bursts of insanity, and I like long form for the ability to develop ideas and characters slowly and build up layers of humour and bring back themes. Where the group currently is sits between these two, but without the positives of either.

Colbert on Berlusconi, a couple of weeks ago: "Still, Berlusconi maitains a solid 56% approval rating among his people, mainly because they're worried if his rating drops into the teens, he'll try and fuck it."

The whole thing is here.

I could blog about my wedding and honeymoon and I will, in the fullness of time. But for now, I need to blog about Keyboard Cat.

Eddie Izzard is touring in the winter, which I think is the first time he's doing so since around 2003. I know it's not 1997 anymore, but I figure it's still got to be a good night out.

The Obama cartoon on the front of this week's edition of the New Yorker appears to have got a number of people angry, though in all fairness, this anger has mainly been restricted so far to just the left and the right. That leaves, well, the staff of the New Yorker in the Not Angry column.

Which is silly really, because the people that should be angry are the staff of the New Yorker, for having everyone distort a perfectly good piece of political satire into a bit of propaganda that either a.) plays on peoples fears that Obama is a Secret Muslim, or, b.) plays on peoples fears that all Republicans are Secret Racists.

This is unlikely to escalate, thankfully, like the reaction to the Muhammed cartoon a couple of years ago. There, Muslims took to the streets to burn Danish flags. Democrats on the streets burning American flags may not quite send the right message.

What's most frustrating about this is that it is exactly the sort of non-news distraction that Obama has been railing against for months. Steven Colbert has been calling Obama a Secret Muslim for months, and no-one complains. Why does everyone get that joke, but not this one? Maybe the New Yorker is an easy target. The guys at the Daily Show and the Colbert Report would have a field day if they were attacked for a joke.

By the way, I am glad Colbert and Stewart are back.

I went to see James Sherwood tonight, a comedian and musician, whose show, 'Songs of Music' is being taken to Edinburgh. Rachel and I thought he was excellent - he is utterly charming and likeable, and witty beyond belief - wit in stand-up comedy, a mostly scripted artform, being particularly hard to convey sometimes. But it was the little things that made him engaging. The eyes, the faces, the pauses, all adding a little bit of extra joy to the hour. On a number of occassions he smiled at one of his own lyrics, with a face that said, "how clever am I for thinking of that?". I love that, especially as he let the song peter out, without a punch line. And then when he repeated the lyric later, when something else got a muted response. Plus, some of his puns, wrying dropped throughout, were epic.

Definitely an Imps-friendly show. He is everything we love. And by we I mean the template personality we force all members to adopt. And by we I mean the people who should love James Sherwood.

George Carlin died yesterday, aged 71. He was the link from the era of Lenny Bruce, but unlike Bruce (and Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks and Sam Kinison and others that came after) came past drug addictions and obscenity trials to be active, successful and, most importantly, funny well passed the retirement age.

Anyway, I picked this bit as a tribute because I love the build to the final punchline. At 64 years old, George Carlin was still balancing on the line between social commentary and clever word play. He never slipped into ranting for its own sake, nor do he tire of satirising America and Americans of all political persuasions. A genuine loss, to comedy and common sense.

Robin Williams, busting out a short stand-up set while the BBC had some technical problems with their cameras before a debate. Beautiful.

I think I should start to worry that I am becoming dangerously obsessed with Sarah Silverman to the extent that I have been through all the videos of her on YouTube and am now thinking of buying the 2006 Secret Policeman's Ball because it turns out her set didn't make the final TV edit. Which is insane because that show was pretty bad (despite a perception changing set by Russell Brand)

Seriously, I've not been this obsessed with hunting for material by a comic since I first heard Bill Hicks.