Don't fiddle with the mic. stand. gig 14.

Oh dear. Last night in Sunderland I really bombed.

The night / venue is definately the best of the few low level places I've done. Lots of people and all of them up for it. It's just next to Sunderland Uni, and there's a big banner on the side of the pub so it's well advertised. So to die at this place was doubly bad.

It wasn't a total loss- I finished on the Planet of the Apes song, which went well, everyone loves a comic song about monkeys - so possibly it's this positive image that people will remember. Though probably the overall impression would be 'a bit shit, but he does a good monkey song at the end.

However, this isn't a case of having to go back to the drawing board and start again. It seems there was a clear reason why a lot of the act was met with silence, and even the guaranteed big laughs just raised a chuckle.

I never stopped fiddling with the Mic stand.

It may sound unlikely. You may think I am blaming my terminal unfuniness on a small technical glich. But evidence suggests that for almost my entire set the principle thought of the audience was not my words, tone or expressions but- 'Why won't he stop fiddling with the fucking mic stand!'

It was the first thing my brother mentioned when I sat back at our table. It was the first thing my wife mentioned. It was the first thing Callum Cramb (just in the audience this week) mentioned. The first thing some random bald bloke said was 'that would have been great if you hadn't been fiddling with the mic stand'. It was very nearly the first thing compare Matt Reid mentioned after the break.

I didn't even know I was doing it. I did it deliberately first because I have a bit about different mic stand styles -(which is not really working anyway) but I must have just kept fiddling. Oh well. This was the first time I recorded the gig- to see what did or didn't work, but the process is pretty pointless now as the whole thing was sabotaged by my mic fiddling. Rather than hone and edit the routine I'll just have to try it again somewhere minus fiddling.

One bit worth mentioning- as I brought my tape recorder I aslo used it in the act. In my C3P0 / Jabba the Hutt bit I don't really do the voices justice. But my tape recorder has a speed control. So I stopped recording after that bit, rewound, and played it back with the speed fast on C3P0 and slow on Jabba, holding the speaker to the mic. It really works, though I'll have to explain it a bit more- some people seemed to think it was just a pre-recorded tape with the effects on already, this seems a bit desparate and wanky - whereas replaying the actual thing you've just said and manually creating sound fx seems 'stunningly inventive' -which is famously what I am.

Well, at least I can fix my act. If everyone had said 'you're not funny' I'd have a problem. But from now on I just have to avoid touching the mic stand.

TOP TIP: DON'T FIDDLE WITH THE MIC STAND.