Today and yesterday we had casting sessions for my new show Benidorm. Cant really mention any names but I have been amazed at the sort of people who have agreed to come in and read; well known names and very talented actors. Still can't get used to sitting the "other side of the desk" and seem to apologise too much for bringing actors in. They generally smile and look slightly bemused and of course they should. What the fuck am I banging on about? "thank you so much for coming all this way to Soho - oh, you live in Camden? Well thanks for coming out in this heat anyway - oh, you like the heat - well thanks for coming on the strength of the script - oh, you like the script?... etc etc. I've been going to castings (as an actor) like this for fifteen years, if somebody went on at me like that I would think they were either mad or taking the piss. Must write out 500 times before I go to bed, "I have devised and written a comedy series that has been commissioned for television, I am not a competition winner".

Tonight was the recording of my second ep of Green Green Grass at Teddington studios. Unfortunately I couldn't attend and apparently all the cast and crew cried and sang songs around a life sized picture of me while holding candles just before and directly after the recording. Not really… I imagine Ella Kenion said, "I wonder if Derren's coming?" and somebody else with a tool kit on his belt leaning against a lamp probably said, "Darren who?".

Good news, today my building society paid back the money stolen from my account a number of weeks ago. £1,600 in all, I thought it was £1,200 but I assume they can add up better than me, after all, it's their job. According to the letter I received my card had been cloned and the pin number stolen but God knows when that must have happened, I thought I was always quite vigilant when entering my PIN number… obviously not vigilant enough. The exciting part of the letter said that they had apprehended the people who had been using the cloned card, I guess this must have been in somewhere exotic as all the money withdrawals had been in Colombia. I wonder if I will be called upon to star in one of those crime reconstructions with Trevor McDonald? No, of course not, they always get someone else to play the part of the victim of crime. I should like Tom Cruise to play me before my bank card theft and possibly Judi Dench to play me after, she's got slightly more hair than me but apart from that I think the resemblance is uncanny. With this exciting thought in mind I celebrated my good fortune (getting me £1.6K back, not the idea of Judi Dench playing me in a crime reconstruction) with two slices of wholemeal toast spread thickly with Nutella.

Went to see George Benson tonight at The Albert Hall, brilliant concert and a packed, very receptive audience. Was quite impressed with Benson's stage presence, he seemed genuinely surprised by the huge ovation he received when he took the stage and did just the right amount of talking between songs; always feel a bit short changed when singers/groups don't do any talkie bits between songs, I like to hear how much they "love coming to England" etc. I went to see Frank Sinatra in 1990 at the newly built London Docklands Arena and he told the assembled fans how much he loved England and if he didn't live in America he would live here. Apparently he said the same in Scotland about living there when he performed in Glasgow the same year; but as long as he meant it when he said it that's fine by me (the fact that he was still alive for me to see him in the flesh was fine by me). Before G Benson we had a fantastic Indian meal in Kensington, restaurant called "Little India", only a small place but fantastic food, best Indian meal I've had in a long time (and reasonably priced too). On the window it had a sign saying, "The owner of the restaurant eats here"; can't say fairer than that I suppose (and I don't blame him).

Cancelled the dentist for this morning, well, didn't cancel the appointment, postponed it until next Tuesday. Don't know why I'm putting it off, the work has to be done; I think I probably backed out because I'm going to a concert tomorrow night and I don't want a numb face and aching jaw although I've been to a few concerts in my youth where you got that anyway. Thankfully my days of being polite and seeing friends in shit bands in tiny pubs are over; it's Tony Bennett, Gladys Knight, Lionel Richie, Michael Buble etc all the way for me from now on. I seemed to spent most of my twenties apologising for the music I listened to, these days I really couldn't give a fuck what people think (on many levels thank goodness) and if they want to pity me for wanting to listen to Matt Monro then good for them (whoever "they" are). Oh dear, rather an antagonistic blog today, I think I'm annoyed with myself for cancelling the dentist. Speaking of which I've been told I should replace a missing tooth that is right at the back (well, the space is right at the back); apparently a bridge is no good and it would have to be an implant at the cost of approximately £2,000. How much disposable income would one have to have to justify spending £2K on a replacing a tooth that can't be seen and wouldn't make any difference to eating/chewing etc? However much that is I certainly don't have it now and can't imagine I ever will.

Watched the football, England v… oh God, I swear I'm not doing this for comedy effect but I have really forgotten who they were playing. As I feel I keep having to justify, I'm not that into football but like to clap along during the world cup and that other tournament where Gazza always cries. Anyway, as usual England where pretty rubbish, well, not rubbish, that's not fair as they did win in the end but it has to be said they don't make it easier for themselves. Of course the only way they could make it easier is by playing better and I'm afraid that seems to be beyond their capabilities. Somebody on the radio was saying a Germany v England final is feasible due to the way the matches have been drawn; lots of excitable waffling about it being a rematch after 40yrs or something. The only thing they don't mention is the feasibility study kind of goes out the window when you realise the England team are just a bit poo. But, a win is a win (as my friend used to say on his Hook a Duck stall a Hull Fair) and David Beckham scored the winning goal and there were many shots of his wife (the one that used to be in The Spice Girls and has teeth that point backwards like a snake) as she jumped about and hugged her son in such a fashion that it looked as though her spindly arms might break. The player called Joe Cole seems to be shrinking, getting progressively shorter in each game, is it the stress or do they keep leaving him out in the rain at night? The ref looked very greasy and suspicious (he speaks very highly of me apparently).

Watched a tiny bit of Big Brother tonight. I must admit I haven't watched any at all since my last blog entry about Shazam (or whatever his name was) and his mental illness being passed off as TV entertainment (not so bad when you consider My Hero is on it's 6th series). I realise I haven't exactly been an avid fan for this series of BB but I hardly recognised anyone from the first couple of "shows", I can only assume they have several new house mates for some reason; either that or I really wasn't paying attention at all. My 3 or 4 min folly into the world of BB today consisted of a ropey old bird of about 50 with a leather face and comedy tits and a strange boy in the diary room who spent the entire time flinching, barking, spitting, gurning and rolling his eyes. At first I thought the producers had decided to spice things up by adding a touch of Ketamine into the daily food ration but sadly no such luck, this was just another nut case with another debilitating medical ailment (tourettes this time) incarcerated in a designer prison with the usual social rejects gagging for just a bit more than his allotted 15 mins. I'm afraid what with the tennis and the world cup I just can't commit to 3 or 4 (or is it more?!) helpings of Big Brother a week; I'm a busy man…those DVDs of Citizen Smith won't watch themselves you know.

I bought a panama hat today. I feel this is a definite landmark in my sartorial timeline, although to say I have a sartorial timeline is, I must say, a bit grand. The thought of paying more than twenty quid for an item of clothing still makes me shudder. That's not to say that I don't own items of clothing that cost more than twenty quid, I just didn't pay for them; most of them came courtesy of the BBC or tv commercials or anywhere else I can ponce something free that fits me (although with my recent weight gain just finding something that fits me is reason to celebrate; unfortunately I celebrate by eating cake). I'm not sure if my new panama suits me, I may have to go back to the shop and change it for something slightly less 'David Niven'. Although to be honest I should maybe keep it, for me to find a hat that fits my freakishly oversized head it something of a coup. A make up lady on a job last year said I had the second largest head she'd ever had to fit a wig for. I'd afraid I can't tell you who she cited as having the largest bonce in TV comedy today, I've purposely refrained from showbiz tittle tattle such as that in my blog, I'm bigger than that (well my head is anyway). Fuck it, it was Mark Wootton.

As predicted, not a lot of time this part of the week to write the blog. Yesterday (Tuesday) and today we had the first set of auditions for Benidorm. Wish I could write about the people that came and read but don't really want people reading here how rubbish they were. Actually there was only one guy who was rubbish; testament to the brilliant casting director we have I think you'll find. A couple of people were from the year below me at Central; really bizarre to be in the position of dishing out jobs now, who would have thought it? Not me and by the looks on their faces when they saw me sitting behind the table, certainly not them.

Busy week this week, casting for Benidorm at Tiger Aspect and lots of writing to catch up on so not sure how good I will be at keeping up the blog, already been missing a few days here and there. Had lunch at The Engineer in Primrose Hill with Harry Enfield today,. It was just to say hello really with a possible view to writing some stuff with him/for him. I seem to be meeting a lot of people I grew up watching on telly recently (well, I say 'grew up watching on telly', Harry Enfield's first sketch show was in 1990 so I wasn't exactly in nappies) and again I feel like the proverbial competition winner. In saying that I had a great time and found him to be exactly as I imagined he would be; an extremely charming, funny and unassuming man. Plus he paid for lunch; he obviously knows how to impress a Yorkshire man.

Lovely afternoon at The Flask in Highgate. Drinking Fruli (strawberry beer) and scoffing nice food. A very pissed woman with alarmingly short peroxide blond hair and big tits came and told me I looked very camp stroking my dog while she sat on my lap (my dog was on my lap, not the woman). Just barged up to our table while we were all chatting and said that. I told her I had actually been going for more of a Bond villain look and apologised profusely for upsetting her. She didn't seem to get the fact that I was taking the piss and she duly accepted my apology and returned to her seat. Fucking lesbians.

So some dirty thieving bastard has had it away with me money and I have been right royally ripped off. I bought some concert tickets from eBay for a gig at the end of next week, sent the money in March but was told the tickets would be sent out as soon as the guy received them from the promoter. So, I waited, and waited…and waited. I thought it was a bit odd that nothing had come through so I emailed the guy. He said that the venue had changed because Wembley Stadium was so behind schedule (which turned out to be true) so I waited a bit more. Then I emailed him last week and got no reply. So I logged onto eBay to find that he is "no longer a registered member". Now have I lost my money because I put my trust in a fellow human being not to do a runner with my hard earned (OK, I admit, I don't work THAT hard) cash? Or is that God's way of telling me that at 36 I shouldn't be going to see Take That in concert? Either way I am mightily pissed off.

Writing, writing, writing… God, this is almost like a proper bloody job. Worked for so long today that I realised that I had been invited to a drinks party in Soho and it had started 2 hours ago. Now I'm all for turning up fashionably late (in fact when I go to parties my lateness is just about the only fashionable thing about me) but by the time I thought about having a shower and a change of clothes it was about 11pm… Now there's a sign of getting older; I remember when I used to work front of house at the Adelphi Theatre while I was a drama student. The show was Me and My Girl and by the time that had ended and we had waited for the theatre to empty it was about 10.30pm. Then several other 'party animals' and I would stay out until the early hours usually catching a bus home at about 5am with a top deck full of cleaners going to work. And I did that three or four times a week (AND on a student grant!); these days a good midweek night out for me is a steady jaunt around Frien Barnet Tescos… hmm, I wonder if they're still open.

A few months ago I attended a lecture by Armando Iannucci at The Royal Television Society. It was entitled British TV Comedy: Alive or Dead? I believe it was a condensed version of a series of lectures he gave at Oxford University. One of the clips he showed was from an ITV series from 1979 called "End of Part One" (coincidently starring, among others, Sue Holderness who I have been working with) and it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. There's no point describing it here because I wont do it justice but suffice to say it had me screaming and crying with laughter; much to my embarrassment, surrounded in the lecture theatre by every high level TV executive known to man. I must point out that I was not the only person laughing, but when I find something that amusing I seem to have less vocal inhibitions than others. How on earth was something this surreal and hilarious (you'll have to take my word for it, it was) allowed to be on at 5pm, ITV - the Little & Large slot for gods sake (yes, I know L&L were BBC but you know what I mean). Surely people watching TV at Saturday teatime wouldn't appreciate it?? Hmmm, what was the point of all this… oh yeah, I know, I had a dip into my new complete Laurel and Hardy DVD box set today and was once again reduced to a screaming mess watching Stan and Ollie, this time clean up a house to music in "The Music Box". Were things allowed to be this funny in 1931? I refuse to believe that the audiences of that era were sophisticated enough to appreciate every nuance from the legendary duo. Did they really understand every hapless gesture from Laurel, every pedantic twitch from Hardy? Of course they did, because not everyone feels the need to analyse comedy, they laugh because it's funny. Which begs the question, why the fuck are people laughing at "My Family"?

Well it's still too cocking well hot but I've managed to recover from yesterday's fatigue and I think I might be able to string more than a couple of sentences together (although I can't promise they will be either humorous or interesting). Been writing since early morning today so come about 6.30pm, what with the heat and me being a rather work shy Yorkshire pudding, I decided to lie down in the bedroom for 10mins. I had put the TV on and soon fell asleep; when I woke up I was thrown completely by seeing Noel Edmunds and Deal or No Deal on the box. Had I slept until Tuesday afternoon? Had I fallen into such deep slumber that I had actually gone back in time and it was now two hours before I had gone to sleep? No, turns out that the inevitable has happened and Deal or No Deal has gone primetime (as well as still running in the afternoons) and quite right too; I think two half hour helpings of DOND a day should be the absolute minimum on channel 4. It did remind me, many years ago, of the time my Nana fell asleep one very hot Sunday evening at my parents house. It was the middle of Summer and my Nana was having her usual post Sunday dinner nap, four cardigans on, head tilted back, mouth open and making a noise like a broken espresso machine. My brother and I were obsessed with the film The Sting (as I still am) and we whooped with joy when we were allowed to put it on yet again. It was better watching it with other people because my brother and I would take much pleasure in irritating them by joining in with most of the dialogue, "You see that fella in the red sweater over there? His name's Donnie McCoy. Works a few of the protection rackets for Cunnaro when he's waiting for something better to happen. Donnie and I have known each other since we were six. Take a good look at that face, Floyd. Because if he ever finds out I can be beat by one lousy grifter, I'll have to kill him and every other hood who wants to muscle in on my Chicago operation" and as the credits rolled my Nana stirred and her eyes gently focused on the telly. By this time the film credits had ended but he video tape was still running (we had recorded the film from the TV a few Xmas's ago) and we now had a BBC logo covered in snow and the presenter wishing us "good night and a very merry Christmas". My Nana's reaction still makes me laugh, "fucking hell, how long have I been asleep?". Yes, my Nana swore like a trooper (no wonder writing for Catherine Tate's old woman character came so easily) and although I still don't know if she was trying to raise a laugh or was genuinely confused, it remains one of my few vivid teenage memories from family life in Hull. Right, it's cooled down a bit now, I'm off back to bed as soon as I can find my collectors edition DVD of The Sting.

Too hot… can't write. No, but seriously, it's actually too hot to write anything. I know I've managed this much but apart from that… it's just too hot. Not only is it too hot there's no air. No air to breathe… and I love breathing, it helps me get through the day. No… it's no use… can't go on… must stop typi-

En-ger-laaaand, En-ger-laaaand! Oh, isn't it all too, too exciting? The World Cup is upon us once again and it's time to drink too much alcohol, fly scraggy, wind battered St George's cross flags from the sides of white vans, paint our faces red and white and talk endlessly in pubs about football in words of no more than 2 syllables (except, of course, "metatarsal") or, if that seems all bit too involved, just run out into the street and punch a foreigner. I don't follow football that much (as I have mentioned here before) but do enjoy big matches with a sense occasion like the one today so settled down at 2 o'clock with the rest of the nation for 90mins of excitement. Well we got about 45 mins of excitement followed by another 45mins of "oh no, somebody has gone into the dressing room at half time and reminded them that they're actually rubbish". I know a few names of the England team, Beckham, obviously, Michael Owen, erm… somebody related to Ian Wright, Theo Woodcock who is on the team despite the fact he has never actually played football before or hasn't left school yet or one of the two… erm, don't tell me, errrr… Ian Rush? No, that's not right… Oh yes, the one that looks like an advert for electronic tagging, Rooney, Wayne Rooney. Oh my god and that new one, the one who is about 9ft tall; where in the name of Basil Fawlty did they find him? He looks like a daddy longlegs in football socks, I've never seen anyone look so hilarious running around a football pitch since.. well, since I last tried it. So England won (though not very convincingly) and the agony is prolonged a bit longer until the inevitable happens and we have to sit watching people like gary Linekar bang on about "what went wrong". Nothing goes wrong; as a football team England are not the best, that's all there is to it… Fast forward to the end of the tournament as Sir David of Beckingham lifts the cup (why do they call it a cup? How would you drink out of that?) and a red and white face painted Derren screams and punches the air knowing "we" could do it all along….

Drove into town in the blistering mid morning heat, thankfully kept cool by the air conditioning (it seems to be stripping the skin from my throat but at least it stops me sweating like a pig). Was meeting Barry Humphries at 11am to work with him on a new project; I won't go into details because it's not my venture and just because I'm stupid enough to put my day to day thoughts and plans on the internet for all to see it doesn't mean I have to do the same with other peoples. They say 'never meet your heroes', I assume because they can only disappoint but not in this case; I had a lovely afternoon and it was an incredible honour to spend some time with one of my comedy heroes (and that aint gonna happen very often, most of them are dead). After that I went into Virgin and bought more dvds that I shall never get around to watch; oh it's not a bad life, I'll admit that much….

Got a phone call today asking if I was free tomorrow to spend a day writing with Barry Humphries. Surely writers aren't "asked" if they want to spend a day working with Barry Humphries, aren't they just told where and when to turn up? Anyway, the where is an office in Soho and the when is 11am tomorrow morning. Not exactly sure what the project is but I do know it's for his character Dame Edna. I always associate Dame Edna with huge TV comedy show stopping moments like when she would abort her celebrity guests down trap doors on her shows or like the other week when she appeared on a charity version of blind date on TV and said to Roger Moore, "I bet when you heard me clunking down those stairs you thought it was Heather Mills McCarney didn't you?". That line literally stopped the show with wave after wave of laughter mixed with screams of disbelief. The show had been very middle of the road until then and once again Dame Edna left the host (this time Patrick Kielty) utterly speechless. I read recently that she (Edna) did it again on Sharon Osbourne's US TV chat show when the Dame presented the X-Factor judge with a gift of a purse made out of a kangaroo's scrotum. Tomorrow promises to be an interesting day.

A superfluity of cds arrived through the post today. A vast range of styles and genres that make up my car crash musical taste. Complete Madness - Madness, Beyond The Sea The Best of Bobby Darin, Surprise - Paul Simon, The History Boys - Alan Bennett (something to listen to on long journeys in the car), The Best of Acker Bilk, The Definitive Jimmy Scott and, wait for it, The Best of Chas and Dave. Now, not that I need to defend any subsection of my musical taste (Christ alive, if I did I would be writing this all night) but I feel I must explain. Last year one of the sketches I wrote for The Catherine Tate Christmas Show was for The Old Woman character with Charlotte Church. Catherine had the brilliant idea to have Chas and Dave play after the old woman's line, "What a load of old shit" (re Ms Church's singing). So on the day of recording during the rehearsal at BBC TV Centre Chas and Dave walk in. Pandemonium. Everyone over 30 (and that very much includes me) was running around saying, "Chas and Dave! It's THE Chas and Dave!". Poor Charlotte Church (who had been there most of the morning) didn't have a clue who Chas and Dave were and must have thought two tramps had wandered in off Wood Lane (sartorial elegance is not the overriding impression one gets when meeting C & D). So we rehearsed and danced to C & D play "The Sideboard Song" and the memory of every party my parents ever had in their house came flooding back. A few weeks after the recording a load of us from the show went to see Chas and Dave at The Shepherds Bush Empire. We had an amazing night; in the circle were stood we could see the incredible cross section of people that make up the C & D fan base. Below us, the stalls seats had been taken out and there were rowdy football fans moshing and throwing their beer over each other to songs such as 'Margate', 'Gertcha' and 'Rabbit'. Seated in the circle there were an incredible mix of fans from Oxbridge-looking students with their glasses, corduroy jackets and long scarves to a woman who must have been at least 85 who sat throughout with her coat on and handbag on her knee singing the lyrics to every song. The finale was the legendary "Aint No Pleasing You" (legendary in our house anyway) with Me, Matt Horne and Catherine Tate with our respective partners in a long line arms around each others waists with Chas and Dave's wives and their kids all singing and dancing to two blokes who are sometimes considered by the uninitiated a bit of a joke. Well I for one had one of the best nights of my life. No joke.

Dentist again today. When Pam Ayres wrote the poem "I Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth", I wonder if she had me in mind… Actually my teeth have never been better, all manky metal fillings changed for white ones, two wonky teeth at the front straightened and generally polished and spaces filled. (Five house points for me for getting the words 'wonky' and 'manky' in the same sentence). The annoying part is if I had brushed my teeth more and eaten less sweets when I was a child I wouldn't have so many fillings to replace and if I had worn the braces on my teeth I wouldn't have paid thousands, yes, thousands to get then straightened. All this for someone who smiles about twice a year. At this point I am reminded of one of my favourite jokes,

Man: What can you recommend for yellow teeth?

Dentist: How about a brown tie?

Oh, how I laughed when I first heard that as a child. On my own. Without showing my teeth.

More intensive writing today, really loving the fact that I'm making a living from being a writer; it's weird, I can't say this was never a dream of mine as I never thought for one moment it could happen. I know the vision I have for my series 'Benidorm' may be not quite be what we end up with but I'm certainly going to make every effort to make the show the end result is as near to my initial idea as possible. A script goes through many different people after the writer, the art designer, the actors, the director, the editor, everyone has their own interpretation and their own input which goes to towards how a show finally turns out. As I look back on The Catherine Tate Show some sketches I wrote were nothing like I imagined they would be, sometimes for better, a few times for worse. Occasionally characters I created surprised the hell out of me due to their popularity, a couple of times the end results really made me laugh when I had initially thought they were just 'fillers' and going to be a bit of an embarrassment. One of the many characters I came up with for the show was Derek Faye (and his long time companion Leonard Mincing), it took a while to convince Catherine that her playing a man would work but what we ended up with was, in my opinion, a great collaboration of funny scripts, incredible make up and brilliant acting. I was even more pleased to hear of some extra publicity for the show today when a complaint to the BBC about the character of Derek being homophobic was rejected by BBC governors. http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/June06/gay05062.php . You can't please all the people all the time but with over 5million viewers (a record for BBC2) for the Christmas Special last year I think we must have done some things right.

So, back to the writing now; as I near the end of this current episode my crap three finger typing can't keep up with the dialogue in my head… I've never been this excited about acting, maybe that's because I've never really had a good part to get my teeth into? The obvious answer, of course, is to write a part for myself in a show. Too late for the series I'm writing now, maybe the next show? What am I talking about "the next show"?! Let's see what happens with this one first….

Sunday 4th: Just heard a song on the radio and found it on the web; I think it's amazing. Father and Daughter by Paul Simon (just ordered the new album it comes from, "Surprise"). The lyrics, from a father to his daughter, are beautiful...

"I believe the light that shines on you will shine on you forever
And though I can't guarantee there's nothing scary hiding under your bed
I'm gonna stand guard like a postcard of a golden retriever
And never leave 'til I leave you with a sweet dream in your head.

...there could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you".

Listen to it here; track 11.

Two people rang me tonight to say they had seen the VW Golf commercial on TV, the one I did the other week. You notice I didn't say they had seen me in the commercial because, of course, those of you who have been reading my blog regularly (yes, both of you) will know that my character is carryong a secret camera in his bag so you only hear my voice. On the subject of commercials I've done a lot ads over the years and last year I did one for Dyson cleaners for the USA. Although the ad was for quite a lot money I was more excited about which thrilling location I'd be whisked away to for the filming; New York? L.A.? Maybe somewhere mad like the Arizona desert?! The excitement didn't last long when I found out it was to be a one day shoot in Kentish Town (North London). However, I looked up the director, Nicholas Barker, on the net and watched some of his ads on his website. There are lots of very funny TV commercials on his bit of the web but I think the one that made me laugh most was this one: Cheesey Bread. Enjoy the ad (check out some of his others too on www.nicholasbarker.com ) and wach out for me in the VW Golf ad; well, don't watch out for me, you wont be able to watch me in the ad, just listen for me, although you do see a bit of my hand at some point… oh OK, I'm boring myself now.

Drove to Teddington Studios this afternoon in the lovely sunshine listening to Matt Monro. It was the recording of one of my episodes of John Sullivan's sitcom, The Green Green Grass. Went early to avoid the traffic but there wasn't really any so I decided to taste the delights of Teddington for me tea (northern expression meaning dinner or evening meal). I ended up eating in Pizza Express, so I could have been anywhere really, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh; I do think it's a shame that every high street in the UK is going to end up looking the same and I thought about making a one man protest by eating in the local family run restaurant; but it looked shit so an American Hot with a mixed salad it was! After my early dins I went into the studios canteen and said hello to John Sullivan, Julian the producer and some of the cast; then got lost trying to find dressing rooms to annoy people that had escaped me by not going into the canteen then before long it was time for the recording. I was given the choice of either sitting in the gallery (where the director, vision mixer etc sit) or in the audience; being a supportive type of guy I opted for the audience seat; mainly so I could laugh very loudly for the soundtrack when my jokes were met with inaudible indifference from the 200 or so Only Fools and Horses Fans. The show went well and after a drink in the studios bar (not the nice one round the back near the river, a horrible, atmosphere-less one I'd never been in before that looked not unlike a school canteen) I whizzed off home and straight to bed… Gone are the days when after a studio show it would be out to a club to party until the early hours. Although it's not quite the same being at a TV show recording in the capacity of writer rather than performer; there's not quite the adrenaline rush from playing to an audience. At the end of the first week of filming for BBC sitcom Perfect World in 1999 Paul Kaye, Nina Wadia, myself and a couple of production people went out to some bizarre night club which seemed to be part of a shopping centre in Ealing (this was after getting very pissed in the Ealing Studios pub). Must have been a good night because I can't remember a thing about it but I fear those days are long gone. In saying that, all the location filming for 'Benidorm' is going to be in Spain, Benidorm itself, in fact - now that would be just rude not to go out and get blathered during that…. Watch this space.

Much writing on my series 'Benidorm' today. So much in fact that my eyes are hurting from the computer screen. How often is one supposed to take breaks when staring into a monitor? I imagine it's every couple of hours or so but of course I've never been told because I work for myself and as I was constantly being told as a child, "you've only yourself to blame". Yes, I do have only myself to blame and do you know what, I quite like that. Supposed to be a nice weekend coming up, I shall probably spend most of it in the park playing with my little Charlie (steady…), I'll blame myself for that too.