A weekend of much comedy here in Sheffield, where the inaugral Sheffield Student Comedy Festival took place. It was organised by the universities own 'Shrimps', an improv comedy troupe, and featured sketches, improv, standup and more from around the UK.

We ventured down on Friday night for some jolly good fun. Highlight for me were the Cambridge Footlights, who were superb, but the whole event was incredibly well organised and I didn't see a bad act.

Sunday saw the Sheffield heat of the Chortle Student Comedy awards, which was also held at the university. The competition consists of ten heats around the UK, with around twelve participants in each. The winner of each heat is decided by a panel of judges from Chortle, “The UK comedy guide”.

Thoroughly milking my postgraduate student status, yours truly entered the contest. I didn’t win; that honour went to the hilarious, and very deserving, Joe Lycett but I had lots of fun. Unfortunately the clip of me selected by the good people of Chortle includes me telling an absolute stinker of a joke, which will never be aired again.

But a good night had nonetheless.

All the acts were lovely, and very amusing. I’m backing Joe to win the final in Edinburgh.

You can see video clips of us here, and vote for your favourite act here... (One more act will progress to the final based on the public vote)

I was stood outside Topshop on Monday harrassing women. Not in a strange way; I was asking them about Barbie for a radio piece.

We have mock news days every Monday, where we perform the function of a real radio news team, and I had improved my dress accordingly. Resplendent in newish brown boots, close fitting jeans, flamboyant white belt, metrosexual scarf and retro red leather jacket, I confidently strutted up to gaggle after gaggle, asking ladies about their favourite Barbies, favourite Barbie memories and the like.

I was shocked out of my pretend reporting when a young boy, who could have been no older than five, ran up to me with a cheeky grin on his face, as if the little royster-doyster was going to coyly give me a picture he'd crayoned or such like. Instead of giving me a charmingly daubed image, however, he merely shouted "You look like a puff."

Quite taken aback, I sternly inquired "Excuse me?" to the tracksuit clad youngster.

Unabashed, he repeated "You look like a puff."

At this point, the child's father came running up behind him with a friend. I awaited an embarrassed apology and enthused retraction. It did not come.

Instead of compelling his offspring to apologise, the father had a rather different message - "Tell him again, son!" - he commanded.

"You look like a puff, you do." The son faithfully repeated, before adding, "A big puff."

The father and his friend caught up with their son, stopped, looked at me and laughed. I began to glare back, and a stand-off may well have ensued, but the tension was broken when I spotted a giggly group of girls leaving Topshop.

I cleared my throat. "Excuse me girls, did you know it's Barbie's 50th birthday today?"

A cold December night, 2002. My pals and I decided to end a pleasant evening in England's recently crowned newest city with a visit to the 80s bar.

Back in 2002, the 80s bar, or 'Reflex', as the management prefer it to be called, had only recently opened, and had swiftly established itself as the place to see, and the place to be seen, among the Preston glitterati.

This particular eve happened to be a Tuesday, which was karaoke night at said establishment. Slamming down his bottle of Orange Reef onto the bar top with an assertiveness that suggested he had come to a decision, one particular friend strode confidently across the sparsely populated dancefloor and approached the DJ booth.

Removing his aviator sunglasses and baseball cap, the DJ leaned over and accepted my cohort's request that we perform Level 42's seminal work 'Running In The Family'.

Before we knew what had hit us, the four pals were stood on the makeshift stage - an allotted corner of the dancefloor - gazing at the blue screen and harmonising along to this classic record.

Not being much of a singer myself, and not wanting to jeopardise the group's portrayal of the piece, I concentrated on my 80s head-bop, and pointing the microphone playfully at members of the crowd. The crowd in this case consisted of a gaggle of girls jiving along to the Level 42 beat, inbetween swigs from bottles of brightly coloured alcopops.

To my lasting surprise, one beauty in particular had seemingly taken an interest in yours truly, and flashed a flurry of coquettish smiles through WKD Blue-stained teeth. This gave me a renewed vigour for my performance, and whilst remaining relatively silent singing-wise, I turned up the visual volume through the medium of dance. Trialling a range of moves that, nearly 7 years later I am yet to perfect, I maintained her gaze despite the rigorous workout I was now giving myself.

After 4 minutes, the performance was over, and we stepped down from the stage to widespread apathy. I sashayed over to the young lady, and introduced myself. She was of medium height and build, with a shock of blond hair, a glittering array of jewellery and thoroughly applied make-up.

Unusually, my methods appeared to be working, and when I leant towards her, she did not recoil. Soon we were locked in a passionate embrace, and my heart pounded as she ran her sovereign-laden fingers through my bequiffed plumage. Images flashed through my mind of a whirlwind romance. Dinner at swanky, but reasonably priced restaurants. 3 star holidays to Magaluf or Benidorm. Perhaps even a ring, lovingly selected from an Argos catalogue. My imagination was running wild.

Was this love?

Sadly, I was never to know. As she and I were locking lips, one of my friends, heavily booze-fuelled, had crept up behind me. He raised his bottle of Smirnoff Ice, and with a single tilt of the wrist, poured its contents over my head. My quiff drooped, my hair gel ran into my eyes. As I struggled to regain my vision, blinking through the 5% ABV liquid, I saw my love turn on her heel and storm from the bar, friends in tow.

The fires of passion had truly been extinguished.

I’ve been following the terrible terrorist Mumbai attacks over the past couple of days.

Sky News rolling coverage was commendable, but as with any breaking event, the presenters have had to fill, with varying levels of success.

The presenter this morning was commenting on gunshots that had been heard in one of the hotels, showing an alarmingly accurate of knowledge of weaponry.

“That sounds like an AK47 Assault Rifle to me” he commented to the ‘armed combat expert’ they had in the studio.

“Hmm.. I couldn’t really be sure just from those sounds.” Replied the expert.

“Yeah, definitely sounds like an AK47 to me”, the presenter asserted, adding, “Possibly on single shot fire.”

There was a brief awkward pause, and it seemed they’d have to agree to disagree. Before long the presenter chirped up again, with some relish.

“So if it was an AK47, it’d fire high velocity bullets wouldn’t it? So it could easily shoot through a hotel wall couldn’t it?”

The expert nodded gravely. “Yes, yes it could.”

This seemed to excite the presenter, who sat up a bit more in his chair. “So it could shoot through a man then?”

The expert agreed.

The presenter got more excited. “So, the bullet could easily shoot through one man, into another man, killing both?”

The expert shrugged his shoulders and shot a quick glance off camera, probably looking to the producer for help. None came.

As I walked towards the television to turn it off, I heard the presenter leading off on a new topic.

“So these grenades they have there...”