If you want to know what a comedian is like, take a look at the crowd they draw in. If you’re looking to raise an violent army of sweary drunks in scuffed white trainers – go to the ticket queue for Doug Stanhope. If you’re looking for actors for a bad daycare sitcom or a cooking competition based around drunken baking, Sarah Millican can help. If sobriety, designer glasses and plastic jewellery is fundamental to your church, then Daniel Kitson is your man.

Weirdly Proop’s crowd is made up of all of these groups. Scary tattoos rub along next to cute emo girls, middle aged women knocking back vodka and men who sit like vicars at tea, far too shy to ask where the bathroom is. And the range of designer glasses on display would make any spotter open is hobnobs early in celebration.

Last tuesday I went to see his podcast recording of The Smartest Man in The World. If you jump to 1 hour and 1 minute of the ‘Pinkies’ episode, you can hear me stutter a question, but you shouldn’t.

You should relax and let yourself be carried off by the best one-sided conversation on the net.

I bought new specs. I’m not very good at fashion. I chose these because they make me look a bit like Jon Ronson.

(sexy sun squinting… ahem…)

One of my favourite people on earth is Jon Ronson. He is utterly brilliant, understated, funny, unique (despite the plethora of great journalist documentary makers) and honestly vulnerable. I try to read, listen and watch nearly everything he makes. I am a fan.

(fan art by me)

So what? Well, right now, I can’t work out whether to be nice to Jon Ronson or not.

For those who haven’t been following the saga, Mr Ronson has been investigating the way people, companies and governments use social networking to influence public opinion. Fake bloggers are used as propaganda – a phenomenon known as astroturfing (as opposed to grass-roots activism).

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Okay, so places I’ve been this week. Guildford, London, Exeter, Tunbridge Wells, Hereford and Chipping Camden. I’m glad I’ve got this week to have a cold in before heading up north to Lincoln and Sheffield. Hack hack, wheeze wheeze. I managed to sleep for 11.5 hours last night. I rock.

Now awake, I’m busy trying to get my show/publicity/venue together for the Edinburgh Fringe. That’s right – Wotnot is going to Edinburgh and I have to go too. I’m already bracing myself for it. I’ve been up many times before, the first time ten years ago when I really should have been doing school work.

It is a psychological tightrope for the jittering ego of your average comedian… and no one wants to be average. I’m still unsure of my strategy. Not for selling the show (although I’m lost as to how I’m doing that) but for mentally getting through a month of industry judgment, or worse, apathy. I certainly wont be reading any reviews til I get home… but I will go and see some more shows than I did in 2009. That year my show was free and I had large audiences. This year you’ll have to part with some cash to see me. This means my crowds will not be crowds so much as dinner parties. It will mean I have to work harder, for smaller laughs.

Like always though it is about getting better as a comedian. Blocking out the hype and noise and concentrating on what it is all really about. Me. It is all about me.

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