No lie-in today either. I was up at 8.30am because I had to write a column for the Evening Standard and also my weekly ConservativeHome column. I finished just in time to leave for an In Conversation event with Scottish comedian Janey Godley all the way over in George Street.
It made me hanker after staying at the George Hotel, which is where I normally stay visiting the Fringe. There were lots of laughs but Janey also talked openly about being sexually abused as a child. This provoked an audience member to ask her how she should deal with being incestuously abused by her own father. That must have taken some guts to ask.
I then went back to the Gilded Balloon venue and spent an hour catching up on emails, which proved to be a mammoth task as I have rather neglected them over the last few days. I went through them alphabetically but only got as far as J.
While I was doing this my broadcasting agent arrived, along with Heidi Allen and Layla Moran for the 4pm show. It went really well and we had an almost full house. I spoke to them both for some time about their backgrounds and how they got into politics before moving on to talk about the current state of politics, Libdemmery and what might happen over the next few weeks.
The 6pm show with Sir John Curtice and Michael Crick was a sellout, and attracted the largest audience so far. I didn't need to speak very much at all, given both of my guests's eloquence and loquaciousness! The audience was riveted and captivated. John Curtice was brilliant in both explaining the current situation and speculating about what might happen next.
I made a hasty exit to head back to the Gilded Balloon to watch my friend Konstantin Kisin's one man stand-up show. He's far and away the best thing I've seen so far on the Fringe.
He made me laugh more than Frank Skinner did last night. His act is based around supporting the concept of free speech and he rails against those who are trying to constrain it. It takes a real talent to make this subject laugh a minute, but he's achieved it. The audience loved it. I really think KK is a star in the making but I think he's worried that the subject matter of his comedy won't go down well with all the woke commissioners of comedy. I think he should stick to his guns. He has a real talent. We went for a bite to eat afterwards and had the usual Edinburgh navel gazing conversation!
Next up, Sadiq Khan and Dr David Starkey.
