I am intrigued by the trend to hand your trousers low and have your pants on display.  I am intrigued for three reasons.

1) do they have to allocate a specific part of their budget for pants?  I spent a bit of money on clothes a few years ago, and I struggle to make the money go far, so I have a very limited number of 'good' pants.  The rest fall into the 'adequate' category.

2) How in the name of bog-eyed-billy do they get them to stay up?  I keep my trousers up by pretty much hanging them off my arse.  If they aren't on top of the arse, what's keeping them up?  I can only assume that they have to think erotic thoughts and have a permament semi-on to maintain leverage

3) Why?  Seriously kids, just why?

That is all.  Love to yo' homo's.

Had fun last night at the long live comedy.  It started strange, and got stranger.  And at one point, someone asked - very timidly - if I was robin ince.  Obviously I hadn't been onstage, or his mistake would have been nipped in the bud before he asked me, but nonetheless, that is the best of my comedy lookalikes ever.  Not because he's a pretty man, but because he is a lovely one - reportedly (never met him, I'm going from rumour).

It beats into a cocked hat my other comedy lookalikes, namely Rowan Atkinson, Toadfish from neighbours, Heidi Klum and David Hasslehoff.  I am at great pains to point out, I came up with none of these.  Heidi Klum.  Seriously.

There were yet more good newbies last night, but they have an irritating habit of bringing friends who bugger off the moment they have been on the stage.  Rudeness!

Also, at risk of being rude to a highly respected MC, it seems that pete, cal and I have made this room our own.  For what ever reason, other MC's who outclass each of us by a country mile struggle like hell to compere at the dog and parrot.  That rather makes me proud, but it may go some way to explain why I struggle in big rooms - I fear I have trained myself to be good at working rooms of no more than 20 punters.

Next time I have a big gig, I may ask 150 of them to go and make me a cup of tea, and ask a further 75 if they'd be a love and nip next door to get me a twix.  Then when they come back after I've finished my set, we can sit down and have a nice chat.

I am a good cook.  I like to cook.  I like cooking.  It is pretty much the reason I was, and most likely will again be, fat.

But to ward off the weight issue, I chose to practise safe eating.  I always use a condiment.

I'm here all week.

Try the veal.

I recommend this as one of the most daring and funny blogs around.

Also, further to the last one I wrote, I have to make it very clear that the lovely Katie did not steal many chips at all.  In fact, I had half of her potato.  The incident I was referring to was a generic boy/ girl meal situation, and doesn't necessarily refer to a specific relationship past or present.

Besides, I was wrong to suggest it was a boy/ girl thing.  Plenty of times I have been eating with a male friend who was surprised by the fork-induced bleeding from his hand when he casually reached across to eat one of my chips.

You have to remember when eating with me, I am from a family of 4 kids, and meal times often involved wider family members (parents, grandparents etc.).  Meal times are very competitive environments, and if there aren't exactly enough roast potatoes to go around, expect fireworks.

I'm not ashamed to tell you that I will gladly butter-knife my own brother for a couple of roasties, or even put my lick all over them.

General agreement has been reached.  All alcoholic drinks are calorie free.  Also, I have unlocked the annoying truth of the girl-in-a-cheap-restaurant argument.

You are in the gastro-pub or similar, and your missus orders a baked potato with her meal.  You order chips.  You state UNEQUIVOCALLY that she has made her starch decision, and is expected to stick to it.  These are MY chips, you chose against.

You then get in an argument because you salted the chips, and she only got a couple before you ruined them.

You politely, but firmly, repeat the above rules, which earns you the stare.  The one that tells you that you are ALWAYS acting up like this.

What you have failed to take into account in the above conversation, is that the chips don't count if they didn't order them.  Even if she is paying for your meal, she didn't order them, so they are effectively zero calories.  It's quite a good loophole.

I am considering getting her to order all my wine in the future, and see if I still get drunk.

I currently a building that should be carbon neutral within the next 6 months.  This is a good thing.  I am considering changing my job title on insurance applications to 'environmental super-hero'.  Mostly to impress the ladies.

Its nice that people are taking the whole green issue seriously these days, but it was more fun when people didn't believe you, because you were a bit of a crazy, hippy, oddball thinker.  Since sustainability went all mainstream it has lost its edge for me.

A bit like when you see Muse live 12 years ago, and declare them to be your favourite band, but then start calling them rubbish now everyone else likes them.  I sometimes want to put glass bottles in my normal rubbish, just to feel like a maverick.

I had a man in a bad suit tell me he knew all about 'green issues' the other day, and to prove it he switched off my computer monitor.  I wanted to string him up with a hemp rope, but instead I smiled and did a staccato laugh - YEAH!  Fight The Establishment Dawes!

I also got into an argument in an indian takeaway recently.  They put my takeaway into a metal container, with a foil/ card lid, into a brown paper bag, which then went into a plastic bag.  Clearly he was over-packaging the food.  I'll be honest, I was still in a bit of a huff, because I couldn't decide if I was allowed this double-calorie laden meal, so his rank irresponsible attitude to sustainability irked me.

I was winning the argument up until I used the phrase 'you people'.

I was referring to small businesses who do themselves no favours, but he works in an Indian takeaway, where the phrase is used quite a lot, and has a slightly more aggressive inference.

Next time I will just bring my own bag.

The last few days have been distinctly child-related.

I met my nephew Alex for the first time on Monday, which was lovely.  He is a sweet little thing, and he covered my jeans in vomit.  How terribly darling of him.  I'm still undecided about whether or not I like babies.  I definitely like kids that I am related to, and close friends kids are alright too.  I definitely want to have kids at some point, if for no other reason than the fact that I am awesome, and there should be more.

Then last night we were celebrating the birth of m'good mate Tony's new boy.  They made a vain attempt to christen him Luke, but all family and friends know that his proper name is Fernando.  It was very lovely - and amusing to watch Tony sneak out to the pub whilst Mothers old and new were cooing over the new arrival.

I'm still unsure about why the effort has gone into the nursery though.  Baby comes out of hospital unable to see more than a few feet, and exploring most things in the world by putting them in his mouth.  Baby doesn't know that the room looks nice.

When I have kids, I'm going to keep them in a box in the hall.  That way, baby gets a new bed every few weeks, and I don't have to bother with painting.

Having discussed the matter with a number of female friends, I am not getting fat, which is good.  I don't know why it worries me so much.  I had a haircut the other day which was rubbish, and it made my double chin look bigger.  I am considering a beard to hide it.

I work in an office at the moment which has lots of ladies in it.  This means that there is an almost constant supply of cake.  I never used to like cake, but I am starting to weaken to it's charms.  Having discussed with the same group of female friends mentioned above, any cake that I didn't pay for has 0 calories.  Any free food at all is 0 calories.

The downside is that restaurant and takeaway food calories actually count double.

I have yet to work out how beers and wines count in this whole scale.

I was quite pleased yesterday to try Marmite for the first time in years, and found that I could take it or leave it.

haven't slept properly for weeks am starting to go a bit mental not sure if this is healthy or not a sensible man would have gone home from work sick but oh no not me I had to be all faux professional and power on through anyway which means I have little recourse for fun or rest until a week on sunday god knows I'm looking forwards to it going home this weekend but its a bit of a cheeky one because the gigs I have in the diary are closer to mums house than mine so really I'm just using that place like a hotel.

On the positive side, I've been collecting panini stickers, and I've nearly completed the book!  I know, really early in the season too!  All I need is the Basil and Mozzarella and I have a full set.

Sh!t gag?  Don't care, it made me laugh....

I'm being a mercenary at the moment.  Whilst most comics are up in Edinburgh displaying their art, I am travelling around doing the surfiet of gigs that became available as a result, peddling my dire knob gags and drinking stories for all they are worth (to date about £7.35 and a handful of ennui).

I have also been made aware that in some places in the North East, they don't have much truck with you southerners, so I had better be funny!  On a couple of occasions, just not funny enough.  Poo.  I've lived here for nearly a dozen years divven't you know.

But I refuse to be drawn into the posh thing.  Yes I am southern, yes the accent is only a handful of miles north of BBC World Service News Reader, and yes I am occasionally particular about good manners.  But I'm not posh.

I'm from a posh village in Oxfordshire, but back there I am one of the Oiks.  We had the Village shop, which put us somewhere on the social scale between the Poacher and the Farmer.

Don't get me wrong, we had rough parts of town.  Well, Village.  There was Cottage Road.  Not all of it, but at the bottom of the road, near the farm.  Some of those houses had stuff in the front yard, like broken privet hedges.That part of town had a few charvers on it.  As much as you do have charvers in rural Oxfordshire.  They were called townies in my Village, because you just don't know what goes on in them Metropolis Market Towns.

They were kids that used to sit in the parks drinking cheap white...well, wine.  And you'd often see them smoking nefarious substances, like Salmon.  Honestly it was like something right off daytime telly, entire families who looked like they were from that program with Jeremy...whatshisname...Clarkson.  The kind of people who had never heard of them posh supermarkets, like Lidl.

And the Pubs!  They were rough too.  If they ran out of roast duck there'd be hell on!  They would spill out into the street and cause havoc, tutting and frowning at each other.  There would be a policeman everywhere, trying to maintain order with his gentle pleading and threats of a strongly worded letter.

Oh no doubt people, I may not have grown up in Compton, but it was hard on the mean cobbled pavements of Stanford-in-the-Vale.  Just trying to make a livin', kicking up with my gangs and homie-owners.