This was my first time at the BAFTAs, although I was at the Royal Television Society Awards a couple of months ago and that was basically the same set up (at the same venue) but a bit more glitzy. We arrived ("we" being Gordon, CT Show director and Josie, Catherine's mum) at about 5.30pm to have the glorious embarrassment of people craning their necks to see past you in case anyone they recognise is walking behind you on the red carpet. They had a section of stadium seating, like at the Oscars, where people sit for half an hour and watch people walk down a red carpet, just in front of the entrance to the hotel. Two people shouted "Derren, Derren!" but I knew if I waved or acknowledged them in any way I would look an idiot as they looked past me trying to get a peek at Derren Brown (or god forbid I had misheard them and I had Darren Day lurking behind me… never a thought to relish). The one thing which was slightly bizarre during the ceremony was just how much noise everyone made 'The Great Room' in the Grosvenor House Hotel is indeed that with well over a hundred tables and about 8-10 people on each table. Consequently when Davina made her entrance and began reading her autocue we couldn't really hear much so just carried on talking anyway. I'll have to watch a bit of it on the telly on Monday night just so I can see if they managed to 'cancel out' the noise on the soundtrack somehow. The Little Britain table was next to ours and it was nice to be able to meet Matt Lucas for the first time; I've known David for some years and often used to bump into him and chat in Camden town when I lived near there but I'd never met Matt and he was rather lovely and very complimentary about the show (CT Show, not the BAFTAs which wasn't much of a show at all to be honest). The presenters of the awards (or 'citation readers' as they call them) weren't that exciting; the gardener out of Desperate Housewives, Anna Ford, Patsy Kensit…oh God, I'm really selling this as a TV show aren't I?... Anyway, the party after was hilarious, Catherine, Geoffrey (our producer), Gordon (director) etc all had to go home because they were filming on location the next day so it was left to Ash Ditta (co-writer for CT Show) and myself to embarrass ourselves by talking to as many obscure and hilarious 'celebs' as possible. Having absolutely no shame I, of course, took my camera and have several pictures of myself and Ash with such TV luminaries as Trisha, Carole Vorderman, Bradley Walsh and none other than the man of the moment Noel Edmonds. I got Bradley Walsh to take the Noel Edmonds shot and after about 2 attempts I could sense that Mr Edmonds was about to walk… not a chance sunshine, I just told him I was a competition winner and had been guaranteed a photo with him - he wasn't impressed but it bought a few more seconds of valuable time as Bradley worked out the complexities of a point and shoot digital camera. So now I have to work out how to upload these pictures onto my website… Don't worry, I know my hardcore website blog followers (that's Alan and Noel) will give me a hand. The world should not have to wait for pictures as damming and shameless as these.

Watched Deal or No Deal tonight. If there is anyone who I must worship at the feet of at the BAFTA's on Sunday it is the coiffured God that is Edmonds. I have seen this programme before on week day afternoons but they obviously save the juicy ones for Saturday night (well, 5.30pm). Morris had got down to two boxes, one contained £250,000, the other £20,000; he had to decide to either take the very generous offer of £101,000 from the banker or gamble that his box was the one containing the ¼ mill. I have no shame in stating that I was standing on my sofa, hands on head screaming "noooooooooooooooo" when Morris decided he was going to go for glory and told the banker to shove his £101,000 up his saggy old arse. (I'd like to make it clear at this point that I do not know the banker on an intimate level and the state of his arse is purely a matter of conjecture). Noel wrung every drop of exhilaration and theatre out of the situation and even went to a commercial break where I had the opportunity to calm myself and remember that I was cheering on a man called "Morris"; a name I had always assumed was reserved for kiddy fiddlers with wooden teeth. The final section of the show started and Noel masterfully raised the atmosphere back to fever pitch as he revealed that Maurice had been a prize 'C U Next Tuesday' and just lost 81,000 quid. But my God what a journey to get there, Edmonds extracting an unprecedented amount of excitement and drama from the opening of twenty two boxes. ('Cause obviously before Deal Or No Deal, whenever I'd seen people on the telly open twenty two boxes in succession it had been shit....) HEAR THE BATTLE CRY, "NOEL FOR A BAFTA!" HOORAH!

Such a beautiful day. All of a sudden it's summer (although apparently it's only Spring), I love the sun but of course the best part of it being sunny is that I can sit in my car with the air conditioning on until my face gets really cold, my eyes sting and the bogeys in my nose go hard (nice….). I must stress at this point that I do actually go somewhere in my car, I don't just sit in the car in my street getting a cold face, dreaming of the day when I can afford air con in my house. So… I went to get me free penguin suit today from this posh hotel in London... I got there and at the reception a very camp Malaysian man (I say "man" he was about 23 and to be honest probably well on his way to becoming a laaaaydeee) said to me, "which company you frooooom?" (now at this point if you are in London I suggest you adopt a highly un-PC Benny Hill oriental accent to help you with the story. If you are reading this in the north you were probably doing it already). So he says, "which company you froooom?". I said, "I'm not from any company, this is the BAFTA hotel for this years television awards; I'm a nominee". The man then said, "you want television?". Oh dear... now there is a man behind me waiting to be served and I feel very self conscious even though it not my fault this guy doesn't know what's happening in the hotel where he works. Would I feel like this if the guy I was speaking to was stupid and English? Is the fact that he is stupid and Malaysian making me feel unnecessarily defensive now? (I say Malaysian only because he looks like the waiters in my favourite Malaysian restaurant... now how much of a racist do I sound??...) So anyway, much more weary nonsense on the lines of "you want television in hotel?"

Me: "No, I was told this was the official hotel for this years BAFTA television awards"…

Him: "You want BAFTAAAA?"…

Me: "Yes, yes, BAFTA, where in the hotel is BAFTA?"…

Him: "You work for BAFTAAAA?"….

Me: "No, I don't work for them, I'm here because I'm a nominee"…

Him: "You don't work for BAFTAAAA?"

Me: "Well, no, not really" …

Him: "Oh, OKaaaaaaaaay"…

Long pause.

Me: "Yes, actually, I do work for BAFTA"

Him: "Oh, OK, which part of BAFTAAAA you work for?"

Hang on, a minute ago he'd never fucking heard of BAFTA, sorry, BAFTAAAAAA.. now he wants to know who is head of my department… Now I feel like asking for a ball of wool and a loom and I'll make me own suit, it'll be quicker.

Me: "I work for the suits, for the people who are giving suits to people today"

Him: "Okaaaay, I think you go to room 510, fifth floor"

He THINKS??? Where the fuck did this magical piece of information spring from??? Has he just been taking the piss all along????

So I go to the fifth floor, room 510 and sure enough there are lots of racks of suits and men rushing around very efficiently with tape measures. So I got my suit, the money on my parking meter didn't run out and I wasn't asked to be the new candidate for the BNP party, North London…

They also had a room there where people from Audi were booking cars to take nominees to the ceremony on Sunday but I thought at this rate it would probably be quicker to walk.

Went into Soho this afternoon to watch a private screening of a new British film, "Scenes of A Sexual Nature". Lots of great people in it, Eileen Atkins, Ewan Mcgregor, Adrian Leicester, Catherine Tate and many more. A brilliant actor in it called Tom Hardy who I've never seen before, he was hilarious… just looking on imdb.com, he's been in loads of stuff… and quite right too, he is fantastic. Best part of it all is that the film is written by a mate of mine, Ash Ditta. It's weird to think that I have lots of friends that have been on the telly, in films even but I've never been more proud than to see a mates name at the begining of the film 'written by Aschlin Ditta'. Can't wait to see it again the minute it hits the cinemas. It's the BAFTAs on Sunday and as a nominee (as part of The Catherine Tate Show team) I have the opportunity to go to some swanky hotel tomorrow and get a free penguin suit. Not an actual penguin suit of course, I mean a dinner suit/tuxedo. Although on second thoughs…..

Location filming started this week for John Sullivan's sitcom "The Green Green Grass", I've written two episodes of this series and it feels weird to just send in a script from my office and that's it. Of course that isn't it, I will go along to the studio recordings and probably some rehearsals but I'm use to being involved all the way along the process as I was with The Catherine Tate Show; but then I was a performer in that show too. To be fair I was invited to the read through a couple of weeks ago but couldn't attend because I had a script meeting for Doc Martin; I've been asked to write the final episode of that for it's third series. So yes, what with those two shows, the Don Black musical and my own series I'm writing for Tiger Aspect ("Benidorm") I am busy boy! Oh, have also managed to squeeze in something for Sports Relief (Comic Relief on steroids I assume) so I guess I have to admit that I am a writer. Or am I an actor who writes? Or am I now a writer who acts? Well I've got an acting casting on friday so we shall see if I've still got "it"… Huge assumption there of course that I ever had "it" in the first place.

David Blaine began his new stunt today. He's going to be in a human goldfish bowl for a week. I'm actually a fan of David Blaine, I think he's the world's greatest living showman and the most incredible self-publicist since P.T.Barnum; oh no, hang on, I think Houdini was after Barnum, anyway, you know what I mean; even if you think Blaine is a twat, you've heard of him, you know what he does and he provokes some kind of reaction. I remember going to see Mr Blaine in his little Perspex box hanging from a crane near the Thames in 2003; two people were having an argument on if the stunt was impressive or not. One said Blaine was a fake because he was supposed to have nothing but water to keep him alive during the 44 days but he had read that they had been putting sugar in his water. Well, the fat, greedy-eyed bastard. We had been assured he was wasting away in that little plastic box for our own personal entertainment, being driven insane by the wafts of double cheese burgers and freshly fried doughnuts being sold underneath him and all the time he was having midnight feasts on gallons of sugary water. Some people just have no will power. I'm surprised they didn't have to roll him out of the box on the last day. I say good luck to David Blaine in living in his fish tank for seven days and with his stunt at the end of it where he's going to try and hold his breath for more than nine minutes. Not that impressive that last bit… when Charlie my dog let's one rip sitting on the sofa next to me I've been known to hold my breath from Coronation Street 'til News at Ten.

There were articles in the tabloid newspapers today saying Catherine has "defected" to ITV. How can an actor who does not have an exclusive contract with one channel (and not many do) 'defect' to another? It's just a question of an actor booking their next job but of course this doesn't make very interesting headlines. It's amazing how many people (many who should know better) believe what they read in the papers.

Watched wife swap tonight, where does this reality tv thing all end? After wife swap there was another show called "Wife Swap's Little Brother" or something like that on E4. This was a show giving us the opportunity to watch the two families that we had just seen while they watch themselves on the show that just aired. Surely it doesn't have to stop there, after that why can't we tune into 'E4+1' and watch jade Goody watching the wife swap families watching themselves on Wife Swap. Then perhaps we could tune into 'More E4+1' and watch contestents from Deal or No Deal watching Jade Goody while she watches the wife swap families while they watch themselves on the original Wife Swap programme. Then we could tune into... no, you're right; enough.