Here's the picture I completely failed to get last Sunday, courtesy of the Brighton Argus, which clearly employs photographers who aren't easily put off by a lack of breakfast. To be honest though, even if I had postponed my Oatibix for ten minutes, I'm not sure I'd have recognised Fatboy Slim with a beard. And judging by most of the feet in the background, I wasn't the only one looking in the wrong direction.

But anyhoo, as I write this, Lisa and I are in Chelmsford at my parents' house, celebrating the birthday of my Dad, who's 68 today. Unfortunately he's celebrated it by leaving the country for two weeks and going to stay with my sister, so he's not actually here to join in. Which is why I haven't bought him a present. But I am doing my best to eat all his food. It's the least I can do.

Of course, the other reason we're here in East Anglia is this...


My play opened in the west end... of East Bergholt last night. The first reviews are already in, courtesy of my mother, who travelled up the A12 to represent me on opening night, and reports that it played to a packed house. Well, enough people to pack a house. Which is nowhere near enough to fill a hall. The place was half empty apparently. Which is good news, as it means that very few people got to see Keith Raby forgetting his lines.

As for me and Lisa, we decided to forego the chance to attend my play's opening night, in favour of contracting deep vein thrombosis by sitting in a traffic jam on the M25 for two and a half hours. It may not have had the laughs of Ledgers, but it did feature a lot of the same suicidal tendencies. The 90 minute journey from Brighton to Chelmsford ended up taking us four hours, and having got here ten minutes before my Mum was due to leave for Suffolk, the urge to go and see my name up in lights was outweighed slightly by my determination never to see the inside of a car again for as long as I live.

But hopefully that will have passed by tomorrow. We have complimentary tickets for the Saturday night. That's if it hasn't closed by then.