As you know from my previous entry, I was due to review Frankie Boyle last night until his people decided otherwise.
But every cloud has a silver lining and being banned from Boyle did free me up to pop downstairs at the Royal Court to see Robin Ince's new show.
It was sweltering down there but I really like the laid back, friendly atmosphere and the fact you can only really get about 100 people into the room.
Robin meanwhile was trying out his new stream of 100-mile-an-hour consciousness on us.
He's so full of enthusiasm, and boundless knowledge, and genial good humour (apart from when he starts a typical cerebral Ince rant!) that you can't help but get swept along by it.
You won't get rapid fire gags about sex and celebs at an Ince show.
Unusually though, he was full of poo stories as he enthused about becoming a dad to five-month-old Archie. And it wasn't all down to Archie either.
Afterwards, over a quick beer, he did a quick dissection of his performance - concerned about writing notes and then failing to stick to them, about whether he'd spoken too quickly, about whether people got all the wide-ranging references.
Most people, if they know anything about Rob, know that he's mates with Ricky Gervais and that he pops up as a talking head on all those "50 best moments of this or that or the other" TV shows on Channel 5.
It's been a slow career trajectory, but at 39 he's now wriggled out from under the shadow of Gervais and is really beginning to come into his own.
I know him from the days when he was a skinny 20-year-old, who styled himself (and he'll either yawn or wince at this but I'm going to repeat it anyway) as "the little lad with the big haircut".
Not that I'm suggesting for one minute that we were bosom buddies.
We were union 'hacks' together at university - I was an editor of the student newspaper, and he was in charge of chairing student union meetings which is where I suspect he learned some of his skills of dealing with idiots who shout back at you by speaking very fast to talk them into submission.
No one gets a word in edgeways at a Robin Ince gig.
Anyway, he was also something of a thesp. An old university friend of mine who now works for the Beeb up in the north east texted me earlier in the year to say she was at a Ricky Gervais show and Rob was the support.
"Do you remember his Bottom in Founder's Quad?" she asked.
Well, to be honest, no. As I said, we weren't THAT close. I don't recall seeing Robin's posterior at any time during our three years of study - and said so.
"No," she replied. "His Bottom. In A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Ah.
Anyway, we knew each other well enough to have a post-gig drink so I mentioned this exchange to Robin last night in the bar - and it turns out I was right all along, I never did see his bottom.
Turns out he played one of the other Rude Mechanicals.
Just another evening in Capital of Culture!!
