It’s that time again: the Edinburgh fest. I’m not planning to indulge too much this as a result of time and budget constraints, but I did last night make my annual pilgrimage to see The Comedian Richard Herring. His show, ménage à un at the Underbelly, is, like last year, your basic no-frills stand-up: one man and his microphone. And a glass of water. And some fruit and veg. OK, few-frills.

With donkeys years of comedy and Edinburgh Festivals behind him, Herring’s delivery is relaxed and polished. There were plenty of funny moments throughout, only some of which depended on the innate comedic value of rude body parts, and the intertwining of apparently unrelated subjects marked out a well-structured routine. An attempt to “push the comedy boundaries” just about worked and was worthwhile, and did succeed (if that was the intention) in making some of the largely-receptive audience uneasy.

There were, unfortunately, some moments that detracted from the show: the set was a little slow to get going, some gags didn’t really gel with the rest of the act, and a few bits of observational comedy were a bit naff. The nadir was a section on the de Menezes shooting which, while trying to make a worthy point, failed to say anything fresh or original and came 13 months too late to be topical.

Slightly underwhelming, then, but not at all a bad show by any means and there were more than enough laughs scattered throughout the set to make this an hour well spent.

Yesterday I auditioned for long-running popular Channel 4 afternoon game show Countdown. The audition was in Leith (Tom Baker: “Leith, founded in 1974 by chef Prue Leith, sold to the Scots in 1986 for a penny and an artichoke”), so it also involved my first trip out to the port, which, thanks to my magic bus pass, went smoothly right up until the last minute when I couldn’t get it at the stop I wanted because it was being tarmacked.

The audition was as simple as playing a few Countdown games with five other people and took around half an hour. We did six letters games, if I remember correctly, plus three numbers rounds and three Conundrums. We were advised on the numbers games that the aim was only to get within 10 of the target, so I deliberately didn’t try too hard to get the exact figure. It’s amazing how much faster the thirty seconds goes when you’re actually on the spot as opposed to sitting at home playing along with the TV when the outcome doesn’t really matter. I had variable success, spotting the longest words in the letters on some games but managing only a 5-letter word on one, doing OK on two numbers rounds but fluffing one, and getting all three Conundrums.

And that was it. Very straightforward. I was told to expect a letter in around a week (very quick for these things), but if I don’t make the show this time I’m allowed two more attempts and apparently plenty of contestants who do make it on do so after their second attempt. Fingers crossed though…

Amid the grim terror alert, here’s something to cheer you up. The Doctor’s got a new companion and a new suit. (Via.)

The UK threat level has been raised to CRITICAL. This allows us to confirm that this image will always reflect the current level, so – as long as the Intelligence Community don’t mind us using the image, we can bung it in our sidebars and ensure we always know how likely we are to be deadened.

This means, by the way, that

Critical – an attack is expected imminently

So don’t go to work, don’t go to the shops. Duck and cover.

The reason the terror level threat level has gone up is that a plot to blow up planes has been foiled. This is excellent news and once again shows that our security services are capable of dealing with terrorist threats under existing laws.

As a result of this, hand luggage is being banned from flights and the threat level has been raised. But doesn’t that imply that the plot wasn’t foiled? (Indeed, the text of the article uses the word “disrupted” which implies something different.) Presumably this plot was only discovered overnight – or the information changed – and was immediately acted on – otherwise, why was the threat level only raised once arrests had been made?