Yesterday’s blog was supposed to be about my journey back from the Edinburgh Fringe to London on Sunday but I got side-tracked by the unexpected news of the death of TV producer Danny Greenstone.

So it goes.

I should have paid attention at the start of the journey. At the St Andrew’s bus station in Edinburgh, young Fringe wannabe theatricals about to catch an earlier coach were chatting at the departure gate by me and one of them – I think trying to impress the others with his cool – started talking about the death of 21-year-old Kyle Jean-Baptiste, the 21-year-old who was the first black actor to play the Broadway lead – as Jean Valjean – in Les Misérables. He lost his balance and fell four storeys to his death from a Brooklyn fire escape early on Saturday.

So it goes.

“But at least he left something,” the young British theatrical said in Edinburgh. “He did something first. He had a record.” His young Fringe wannabe theatricals seemed to agree this was important.

Being ‘a success’ may also involve a large dollop of loopiness. Before I left, reviewer Kate Copstick had told me something which she later posted on Facebook:

After the dozens and dozens of acts who seem to regard my non-attendance at their show as a deliberate slight on their brilliance and an attempt to derail their deserved success, to say nothing of those PRs and promoters who seem to think I am part of their team, I get this (I have removed the name of the performer, but it relates to a review – a hugely positive review) in Scotland on Sunday that I wrote. If I was not so tired I would be angry …

“I don’t mean to be ungrateful but I was expecting a review with stars. A good review would have been very helpful because the English press have been hating us. I’m sorry but I need to ask this.”

This is almost surreal in that the performer:

appears to be unable to spot a good review when he reads it has not noticed that Scotland on Sunday never includes stars in Copstick’s column seems to think a good review without stars is not a good review thinks it is either likely or possible that a newspaper is going to reprint a previously-published review with stars added (which is what he was actually asking for)

Reviews, of course, are both the dream and the nightmare of performers at the Fringe and some of the fly-by-night publications employ (unpaid) youngsters who are barely literate, let alone knowledgable.

Either last year or the year before, promoter and performer Bob Slayer got talking in one of his late-night chat shows to a ‘comedy critic’ for one of these Fringe publications whose reviews are coveted on many a poster.

It turned out that this young comedy critic passing wise judgment on shows at the Fringe had not only never seen but never actually even heard of Morecambe and Wise. For this blog’s foreign readers, this is akin to someone writing learned history books who is unaware the Second World War ever happened.

Last year, the online Fringepig website appeared, which reviewed the reviewers.

This year – last Saturday night – the first Ham Fist Awards were announced on board Bob Slayer’s BlundaBus on behalf of Fringe Pig.

I could not go but Sandra Smith, this blog’s South Coast correspondent, could. She tells me:

The evening kicked off a little after 12.30am, when Bob was presented with the Flying Fuck Award, specially made for him out of copper wire. It was presented to him because, by common consent, it was decided that he really doesn’t give a flying fuck.

Bob appeared very pleased with this, and carried it with him for the rest of the evening.

Ian Wolf, data specialist for the British Comedy Guide, was awarded an Unsung Heroes Award. He received a panda mask and a pen. Rules were being made up as they went along.

At one point, Bob was trying to recall an event. Convinced that I knew the answer from a half-remembered John Fleming blog, I leapt to my feet and shouted: “Was it the joke told by Julian Clary about fisting Norman Lamont at the British Comedy Awards?”

It was not. I was a quarter of the way through a beer at the time, so I can’t even put it down to alcohol. Just old age, a bad memory and enthusiasm.

Amongst the chaos that ensued, Bob replied with two questions:

“Do you know what fisting means?”

and, pointing at me,

“Who’s got my mother pissed?”

Not feeling in the slightest bit ridiculous, I still resolved not to be so hasty in future… until the next time. People then thought that I WAS his mother, yet again.

The evening continued apace, with the Ham Fist Award being given to Stuart Goldsmith, the reviewee, who will be receiving a £200 prize.

The Ham Fist Award reviewer for 2015 was Graeme Connelly, of The List, who won £50 for writing Stu Goldsmith’s winning review.

Runner up was Chortle‘s reviewer Paul Fleckney, who had reviewed a show not by going to see it but by watching it live on Periscope

Sometime after 2.00am, everyone piled outside for a group photograph and Stuart Goldsmith headed off with his fiancée. They are expecting a baby on January 29th 2016 and seemed very excited by it and keen to tell people. Or was that Bob?

I should point out that Sandra has admitted drinking a little while on the BlundaBus.