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Your support makes all the difference.I feel something of a sham writing a piece on "My Edinburgh" this year. I am "doing" Edinburgh, a bit like Prince Harry "did" Glastonbury. I spent the first three quarters of the fest doing my fair share of sweating – mainly from the searing heat of the Caribbean, blogging for the Jamaica Tourist Board (those blogs don't write themselves) while my comic peers risked trenchfoot and mouldy lungs in the squalid basements of dampridden Scottish boozers. And now I rock up for the final week, rolling out my new show with the type of positive energy one feels after a vigorous massage.
I'm basically glamping – you can hate me for it, but, in return, I can guarantee you seven nights of fresh-faced comedy, performed with the kind of spirit you can only find in a man who has shunned the heavy lifting that began in earnest back on 31 July.
Still, it's surely a feather in the Scottish tourist board's cap for me to say, honestly, that flying straight from a Jamaican paradise to my digs in Canonmills has not been any kind of comedown.
Sure, there is less white sand and mangoes, but Edinburgh is still a place that takes my breath away – that feeling of gradually walking up hill, then looking back and realising the city has split in two beneath your very feet. I love that.
Fittingly for an Arts festival, Edinburgh is hauntingly dramatic and I'm adjusting to it far quicker than to the knitwear.
Doc Brown, Pleasance Courtyard (0131 556 6550) to 25 August, 10.30pm
Doc Brown's Must-Sees
The guys who always produce the goods – Glenn Wool (Assembly George Square, 9.50pm), a supreme storyteller, and Colin Hoult (Pleasance Courtyard, 6pm), master of the darkest disguises. I'd also love to see Joe Lycett (Pleasance Courtyard, 7.15pm). He has a different energy to most – a unique performer.
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