Jokes From The Edinburgh Fringe....

Top ten best jokes judged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

1) Tim Vine - "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again."

2) David Gibson - "I'm currently dating a couple of anorexics. Two birds, one stone."

3) Emo Philips - "I picked up a hitchhiker. You've got to when you hit them."

4) Jack Whitehall - "I bought one of those anti-bullying wristbands when they first came out. I say 'bought', I actually stole it off a short, fat ginger kid."

5) Gary Delaney - "As a kid I was made to walk the plank. We couldn't afford a dog."

6) John Bishop - "Being an England supporter is like being the over-optimistic parents of the fat kid on sports day."

7) Bo Burnham - "What do you call a kid with no arms and an eyepatch? Names."

8) Gary Delaney - "Dave drowned. So at the funeral we got him a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt. Well, it's what he would have wanted."

9) Robert White - "For Vanessa Feltz, life is like a box of chocolates: empty."

10) Gareth Richards - "Wooden spoons are great. You can either use them to prepare food, or, if you can't be bothered with that, just write a number on one and walk into a pub…"



And the worst…

Sara Pascoe - "Why did the chicken commit suicide? To get to the other side."

Sean Hughes - "You know city-centre beat officers... Well are they police who rap?"

John Luke Roberts - "I made a Battenberg where the two colours ran alongside each other. I called it apartheid sponge."

Emo Philips - "I like to play chess with bald men in the park although it's hard to find 32 of them."

Bec Hill - "Some of my best friends are vegan. They were going to come today but they didn't have the energy to climb up the stairs."

Dan Antopolski - "How many Spaniards does it take to change a lightbulb? Juan."

Doc Brown - "I was born into the music industry. My dad worked in Our Price."

I Need Help With A Title!

Hi All. I'm stuck trying to come up with a title for my latest book and wondered if anyone out there has any ideas!

The problem is that I write my books in pairs with matching titles. So far I have Hard Landing/Soft Target, Cold Kill/Hot Blood, Dead Men/Live Fire. All good. But my last book was called Rough Justice (I know, Jack Higgins used it recently but it was the perfect title for a story about police corruption).

Now here's my problem. I need a title to pair with Rough Justice. In the book my hero (Dan Shepherd) goes undercover on a container ship being targetted by Somali pirates, and there's a sub plot about two IRA assassins on his trail.

All I can some up with is Smooth Sailing but that's too weak, no sense of menace etc. Does anyone out there have any ideas?

Container Ship Hydra Arriving At Southampton (September 9, 2010)

Back to Southampton after 18 days on board the container ship Hydra.

I had a great time and wrote 55,000 words of the new Spider Shepherd book!

I was questioned for an hour by two detectives from Hampshire Police, but that's another story!

Leaving The Suez Canal (September 2, 2010)

Engine Room Of The Container Ship Hydra

This was amazing, the engine is the size of two double decker busses!

Sailing Into The Suez Canal (September 2, 2010)

It was awesome sailing through the Suez Canal on board one of the world's largest container ships!

Sailing in convoy in the Gulf of Aden (to avoid pirates!) August 29, 2010

Two convoys each protected by warships pass in the Gulf of Aden. We went right between them. We were too big and too fast to be worried about pirates!

Walking from stern to bow of container ship Hydra in a 30pmh wind!

The captain said it was ok but only afterwards did I realise it was a Force 8 gale! I asked him why he'd let me go and he shrugged and said he figured if it was too windy I'd come back inside!

Joining The Hydra in Port Klang - My Home For 18 Days!

Abandoning a ship at sea!

This was a drill we did on the Hydra after we'd been at sea for a few days, just before we entered pirate waters!

Back In The UK After 18 Days At Sea!

I'm just arriving back at Southampton after 18 days aboard the cargo ship Hydra. I wrote 55,000 words of the new Spider Shepherd book, which is based around Somali pirates. Here's a video of me on the dockside at Tangiers. I'll post lots more videos over the next few days!