Another nice show (I know I keep saying that but thankfully we have had a lot of nice shows). It was also the second outing for my as-yet-unmentioned new cardigan, which, it has to be said, is getting pretty much the same reaction as my old cardigan (nothing – it’s just a bit of knitwear).

One of my uni mates was in the audience so I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with her before heading to Helen Arney, Matt Parker and Steve Mould’s comedy science show Festival of the Spoken Nerd.

I’ve been to several editions of FotSN in London, in a lovely but cramped room above a pub. The Edinburgh “Best of” show was in a much, much larger room – and still cramped, as nerds from across the city poured in, attracted by the promise of maths, physics and fact-checked jokes.

I found a spot right at the back of the room where I could see the screen (not wanting to miss a single graph) and ended up sat on the bar for the duration of what was (unsurprisingly, based on previous experience), a funny and educashunal show. And I’m now one Helen Arney CD heavier – hurrah.

(I use parentheses too much in these posts, don’t I? It probably says something deep about how my mind works. And the lack of redrafting.)

The day concluded with the antidote to Edinburgh, the always fun Comedy Countdown.

Dan Atkinson’s misanthropic hosting is a joy; James Sherwood makes a wonderfully scatological Susie Dent; Paul Sinha was in suitably abusive form, especially when the audience shouted down his solution to one of the numbers rounds, which was frankly much more elegant than theirs; and Danny Pensive nearly had me on the floor with laughter when he reached into a Poundland bag and pulled out a homemade Wordy outfit.

What I learnt today: How super-absorbent polymers work. And how to spell “objector”.

Recommended show: Comedy Countdown (again)

Obligatory plug: I’m in Three Man Roast, 2.35pm weekdays and Saturday 20th at Finnegan’s Wake on Victoria Street – free entry. Also at the Amused Moose Comedy Awards Showcase at the Pleasance Dome, 4pm on August 17th (book online).

I woke up stiff (hush) but able to move and with no sign of any serious damage from my fall (I’ll let you know when my pride comes back). I limped off to do some flyering and then to do the show.

The room was so full that we couldn’t stand at the back as usual and had to wait outside while each other was on stage, entering to do our bits via the door by the stage. This looked more showbiz, although uncomfortably so, as if we’d confused our free show in a small room for Live at the Apollo. It’s an easy mistake to make.

I have informally been nominated the Three Man Roast cashier and so it’s my job after the show to count up our donations (thank you, generous audiences) and divide up the spoils. This is my favourite bit of the day: not because I’m avaricious but because I love doing maths. When that was done, I carried my share to the bar and changed the coins into more manageable notes. I still can’t believe it’s taken me a week to think of that one.

Much of the afternoon was spent enjoying the rock and roll Edinburgh lifestyle, by which I mean I sat alone in my room updating my spreadsheet of shows to see. This is the backbone of any manageable Edinburgh Fringe and I don’t know how people expect to cope without. Going to shows “on a whim”? Making your mind up “in the evening”? Scribbling in a “diary”? Lunacy. When a man is tired of spreadsheets, he’s tired of life.

As instructed by the spreadsheet, I took myself off to see Paul Duncan McGarrity and Jay Cowle in Nonsense Duet, their free double-header stand-up show. My favourite part of their show was Paul’s remarkably unsuccessful attempt to avoid a social faux pas.

Without giving too much away, at one point Paul finds himself a red-blooded heterosexual man in the audience and suggests that he (Paul) is so cool that said man will want to sleep with him.

Paul picked on me and just as he was about to launch into that section, he stopped.

“Oh. No. I’ve just remembered. I know something about Will that means this bit won’t work. No, it’s, er… It’s just there’s something about Will that I’ve just remembered and it means this bit won’t work. No.”

Bless him, he went out of his way to be discreet. And then he turned to the man next to me and said, “Sir, are you a red-blooded heterosexual?”

Anyhoo, Paul and Jay pulled off a good hour in a difficult room – do go and see them if you can. Paul beat me in the Amused Moose Laugh Off semi-final a few months ago and that in itself is a guarantee of quality, obviously.

My next stop was The Stand III on the other side of town where, in that traditional demonstration of Britishness, I joined a queue just because it was there. It was ten minutes later that I finally checked with the woman in front that she was waiting to see Paul Sinha too. She was, but then realised anxiously that she hadn’t checked with the people in front of her.

Paul’s show was a beautifully constructed piece of stand-up. The smooth structure has a bitter edge, but like a good gin and tonic, the bitterness is just on the right side of the line and set off nicely by the, er, lime of self-deprecation. And above all, it’s very funny.

What I learnt today: I have won more TV quiz shows than Britain’s 20th best quizzer.

Recommended show: Paul Sinha: Looking at the Stars

Obligatory plug: I’m in Three Man Roast, 2.35pm weekdays and Saturday 20th at Finnegan’s Wake on Victoria Street – free entry. Also at the Amused Moose Comedy Awards Showcase at the Pleasance Dome, 4pm on August 17th (book online).

The Edinburgh Fringe can be a bit of a bubble at the best of times. As you dash around performing shows, seeing shows and napping (not so much while dashing around), it’s easy to miss the news. I got the feeling a collective jolt went through the ex-pat Londoners up here yesterday evening as the enormity of what was happening back home fought its way through the fog of ticket stubs, alcohol and street performance.

On the one hand, I’m glad to be well away from the rioting. On the other, I feel – entirely irrationally – like a coward, as if I’d run away. My city under attack, I had an unexpectedly macho desire to be there to protect it. In practice, “defending” would probably have involved switching off the lights, peering through the curtains and pontificating on twitter, and there is plenty of pontificating on there without my adding to it. My best plan to get back at the criminal mobs is to put it about that they’re organising everything through Grindr.

Still, I worry about my friends and wish I was closer to them.

Immersing myself back in the silliness of the Fringe was a welcome distraction. Having enjoyed seeing Ben do ukulele cabaret yesterday, I’d snapped up a spare spot and so took my uke down to do a couple of songs (Media Gay and Jim Bergerac: A Love Song). They went well – not aided by a coughing fit just before going on – and I only muffed a couple of chords. It’s a lovely, supportive show and I’m looking forward to doing it again on Thursday (leaning towards doing My Favourite One Off of Thundercats and Why Aren’t There Dolphins on Only Connect?).

The highlight of the show for me, though, was the final singalong on stage with host Tricity Vogue and fellow Uke of Edinburgh contestants Pure Joy and Penny Dreadful and regular Karaoke Circus star Thom Tuck (who’s up here with his first solo show, Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD). We did Hit the Road, Jack, which consisted of four chords I could play. Win.

I bumped into Thom again later at Comedy Countdown, where he faced off against We Are Klang’s Steve Hall. That was an excellent show, mixing the obvious pleasure of a words and numbers game with which you could play along with, well, comedy – not least hilariously grumpy host Dan Atkinson, combative Carol Vorderman clone Paul Sinha and prize neologist and Richard-Stilgoe-alike James Sherwood in dictionary corner. Very tempted to go again tonight as it’s only a fiver.

What I learnt today: I am not the only comic up here to have actually been on Countdown. Alex Horne also has that claim to fame. Damn him.

Recommended shows: Conor O’Toole’s Manual of Style and Comedy Countdown.

Obligatory plug: I’m in Three Man Roast, 2.35pm weekdays and Saturday 20th at Finnegan’s Wake on Victoria Street – free entry. Also at the Amused Moose Comedy Awards Showcase at the Pleasance Dome, 4pm on August 17th (book online).