I've started keeping an autograph book as a bit of fun between now and when I leave for the UK. Had a lot of fun riffing about that and looking up some stupid shit online to do with autograph books. Also detailed how and why I lost the best part of $1000 this week on the Gold Coast. We're learning!!Aidan Jones

I'm flying to the Gold Coast in the morning, can't wait to do the show on Saturday night. I've been running ads on Facebook/Insta and Google all week and I have no way of knowing whether they're working, but hey we'll find out on Saturday! I need to go to sleep.Aidan Jones

Went down to Rose Chong in Fitzroy this morning to get fitted with a 19th century costume ahead of the photo shoot on Friday. I can't wait to get these photos and have a bunch of cool shit to post on social media to promote the tour! I have a show on the Gold Coast next weekend which is effectively the last chance to tune up before Perth Fringe in …

I called it The Beatles because that's what I spent the last while talking about. I've been watching that Beatles documentary from a few years ago and god I love it. I also started watching a Harvard Lecture from Leonard Bernstein about the origins of music and language and that was really good too. I'm all over the place mentally - I've been in be…

I spent this weekend in Adelaide and as much as I felt the trip would be an unwelcome interruption to my life, it was actually fantastic. I think I have a tendency to see anything that isn't work as annoying because I feel like there are so many things I need to do and I need all the available time to do them. But that's exactly why I should be for…

This week I spent a couple afternoons working on four variations of a Russian folk tune called Korobeiniki, better known as the music for the game 'Tetris'. I wrote variations in four styles, baroque, classical, romantic and latin dance, then recorded them. It was heaps of fun, but also very frustrating trying to record each one with no mistakes. A…

The three baby birds outside in the nest our kitchen window are growing so quickly! Last week they were barely big enough to cover the bottom of the nest, now they are almost spilling over the top. Yesterday I heard them tweeting for the first time. Google says they usually leave the nest 14 days after hatching, so we have one more week left with t…

It's my friend's funeral tomorrow, I'm flying to Adelaide in the morning for it and I'm really looking forward to seeing a bunch of old friends again and remembering what a wonderful, funny person we all knew. Then I'm hoping we can see fit to get a shisha on Hindley St.Aidan Jones

Still feeling a bit of grief this week, but also looking forward to the next few months of working on the show and keeping ye olde head down! I watched the movie 'Pretty Woman' and really loved it, and during the pod I found a very prescient parallel between the main character and a story from my life which I had a great chuckle about. Good stuff, …

I did a gig last night, then another one, then had a really nice chat with a friend who works behind the bar. Read a bit of poetry, some short stories when I got home, then today I went and got a sandwich.Aidan Jones

This podcast is three days late, which is annoying to me and I'm somehow letting that ruin my mood right now hahahaha... I landed back in Melbourne yesterday afternoon and don't have much work for the next week so I'm going to use this time to quite literally get my house in order. I've got one year left in Melbourne and I want to enjoy it, and tha…

I'm still having the time of my life in New York. I didn't even talk about my own comedy or creative ideas once in this podcast, I was just too busy recounting all of the wonderful experiences I've been having. God, this is the best!Aidan Jones

I'm here.Aidan Jones

The Edinburgh Fringe is over for another year. It really is the most beautiful thing in the world, and to celebrate the last night I went up Arthur's Seat with some friends to watch the sunrise. It's a huge Fringe tradition but for one reason or another I've never gotten around to it. When the sun came up over the horizon, the several hundred peopl…

The podcast is quite late! The fringe continues to be an all-encompassing beast, and my piano show continues to be delightful and well-received. Went to Furiozo last night and it was, once again, incredible. Five days left. Come on.Aidan Jones

I'm so tired man. I didn't realise until I turned the mic on, but yeah. Uhff.Aidan Jones

My show has been full the last three days and it's really exciting! Each one has been great, and it feels like people are talking about it. I've seen a few things as well, but the one part of the Fringe experience I feel like I've neglected so far is the hang! So I reckon tonight and the next few days, that's the focus. Let's hang, baby!…

Today is the first day of the Edinburgh Fringe! I'm a couple days late to record the podcast this week because I landed in London on Monday afternoon, got the overnight train up to Edinburgh, and then have been racing around getting everything ready for the first shows ever since. My first show is in under 5 hours, I'm excited, scared, happy, grate…

By the time the next podcast is out, I'll be in Edinburgh! Or maybe not, maybe I'll decide to record in the airport or something, but the point is, I'm heading to the Fringe very soon! And I'm so excited about comedy, and about playing the piano, and about life generally! What a blessing to be able to do this, and how funny that despite all of it, …

Last night I went out for dinner with my beautiful boys and after a fantastic bit of Indonesian food we thought we'd go get some baklava. We went to a place called International Cakes and the food sucked so bad. Also when we got in there, the first thing the guy behind the counter said to us was, "Don't get too comfortable.", which we laughed about…

In the last few weeks something has shifted for me about the way I think about Melbourne and my future here. I don't think there's any way for me to have the career I want as a comedian in this country, so I'm doing the only sensible thing, next year I'm going to apply the visa that I was supposed to apply for last year, and I'm moving to London. I…

Four weeks until I am off to the Edinburgh Fringe and freed from this PRISON!! Nah only joking. I mean I am working a lot and it is tiring, but also it's fine and I'm having a nice time. Lots of ideas, lots of thoughts, I mean at this stage I'm not really a comedian with a podcast, I'm a bus driver with a podcast. Honestly, isn't that so much more …

Five weeks until I'm off to Edinburgh for the Fringe! It's not long at all, and as much as it feels like I'm just repeating myself every week about how I'm working and I'm making progress and blah blah, it struck me last week while talking to a friend that it is actually true. In October I said that the next year or so would be mostly hard work and…

I just recorded this while sitting next to a campfire I built at a little spot near Beechworth. I'm going to get up tomorrow morning and drive just up the road to this lookout nearby and watch the sunrise. It's been such an incredible few days in the Alpine region of Victoria. I feel perfectly happy and at peace.…

Last week I did the podcast after a long day of work and I regret to admit that the quality of the pod reflected my energy levels at the time. This week I've waited until waking up the day after a long work day, and boy did I have way more fun! Lots of laughing here.Aidan Jones

Thank god I have the day off tomorrow holy fuck. The show is on Saturday, it's gonna be sick. Goodnight.Aidan Jones

The idea of music being a literal language for communicating in the same way that English or French is can feel kind of trite, but I genuinely believe that it's true. Not in a metaphorical sense, but in a very literal and true way, music is a different way of communicating shit that we feel to each other. It's completely unique among all other lang…

I've done so much stuff this week! And I feel like I've been pretty relaxed about it as well. I copped a pretty big reminder a few weeks ago to just slow it right down, and I'm trying to listen. I mean I say that, but then here I am putting the podcast up at a quarter to midnight on Tuesday again ahahaha.…

I've been working all week and it's actually been great! Still happy! Still loving working on the show. Going to Cairns on Friday which I am trying to tell myself will be really nice even though I somehow resent the fact that I'm going to be away from work ahahaha I really struggle to take time to relax and do nothing. Right now, I need to go to be…

The weather is perfect, I've got two days off work, and I've just come off the back of a week of wonderful gigs in my beautiful home of Melbourne. It doesn't get much better than this, folks.Aidan Jones

Spent a lot of time in my head today just ruminating on shit while I drove the bus. Some of that time was relatively well spent thinking about jokes that I ended up doing on stage at an open mic tonight. Some of that time was less productive. It was all just time though, right? Yeah man, time is crazy hey. Woah!…

There's a new bakery on my street in Coburg! I mean, it's not new, it's been there for a year or so, but I just found out that they do sandwiches. Huge game-changer. I'm back in Melbourne now and I flipped my room around today, damn it feels good.Aidan Jones

Man, driving across Australia with your friends is so nice. I'm learning about Ned Kelly, former Prime Ministers, doing great shows and meeting lovely people. I also can't wait to get home to Melbourne though, and I promise both you, and myself, that apart from a 4-day trip to Cairns I have planned, I won't do any more travelling until the end of J…

Last night I saw one of the best, if not the best show I've ever seen. I couldn't speak afterwards, and I had to leave quickly to go and be alone with my feelings. The next three months I'm going to be working on the branding for the new show, as well as researching as much as I can about Chopin so that by the time I get to Edinburgh I'm prepared t…

I gave myself food poisoning last night. God that is a humbling thing to say. It's fair to say - and I say this with full appreciation of the irony of the word I'm about to use to describe the situation - that I well and truly cooked it last week. I only just now feel like I'm back in my own body. Sorry for the last pod this week! Stay safe xx…

I had the most inspiring and inspired weekend!! I went to the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Festival on Saturday afternoon, partied Saturday night with friends, went on tour as a trainee on Sunday with a new analogue camera and took some photos and learnt the beginnings of a new skill, and then had a wonderful, relaxing night in my hote…

After my piano lesson this evening I took myself for a lovely dinner on Lygon St and wrote a bit of stand up. I told the stories here - stories about the woman who Chopin dedicated his first set of Nocturnes to, and her various sexual/romantic adventures. A young man spending a week in a horse-drawn cart with a dress and two loaded guns, and anothe…

I got hit in the face by a bed frame at work today and it HURT!! I wanted to cry, but I didn't cry. Isn't it funny how girls cry when they get hurt? I've never thought about it before, but guys don't do we? We just get angry. I talked a bit about this on the podcast today, and about how I just gave a lecture on stand up comedy at Melbourne Universi…

Dude, I swear every time I go to the Gold Coast I come back way darker! I legit remember it happened the first time I ever went there in 2013, there's a picture of me somewhere at the end of that trip in a nightclub or something, and I'm super dark. I remember being really proud of it at the time, I thought I looked so cool. And you know what? I wa…

Honestly, I was way too excited to record the podcast this week. I actually had something to talk about - the incredible book 'Good Material' by Dolly Alderton which I ABSOLUTELY LOVED!! I was sure I was going to be able to talk coherently about it for ages, and then when I turned the mic on I started rambling, and I'm not sure how well I spoke abo…

Not you, I'm talking to the person behind you. Hahaha nah only joking, it's YOU that I like :) I'm tired as hell man, and I have to get up for a flight in like 4hrs or some shit whatever boo-hoo-hoo wah-wah baby cry-cry. Shut up. What a great podcast this is.Aidan Jones

I did two gigs tonight, the first was bad in a very bad and frustrating way, and then the second was bad, but in a much more satisfying and productive way. Both of them were bad though, because it was hot today, and I spent the whole day distractedly trying to sell tickets to my show in Brisbane next week, which are of course being very stubborn in…

It was my birthday yesterday! I had a lovely day driving the bus down the Great Ocean Road, even had a lovely stranger gift me some sunglasses! It's a much funnier story than that actually, but you'll have to listen to the podcast to hear it, because that's what this is, it's a teaser! It's supposed to tease you, so that you listen to the podcast. …

I've been re-reading Stewart Lee's 'How I Escaped My Certain Fate: The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian' this week and absolutely loving it. I read it ten years ago when I first started stand-up, and reading it again with fresh eyes gives me a new appreciation for where he was at in his life and the artistic choices he made. Stewart Lee rules…

I've had a wonderful few days over the weekend relaxing, playing piano, seeing friends and even doing a bit of stand up (if you can believe it!) but as I stand now on the precipice of 5 long days of work, I feel as insecure as ever. When does it end? But I guess without these moments to propel us forwards, life would be one never-ending moment of e…

I've had an absolute dog of a week this week, which I've been told are the best episodes, so enjoy this one you rat cunts, because I am absolutely off it.Aidan Jones

So Grumpy! Surly even... I just had a not ideal gig on my friend's show in Sydney, I was distracted because I thought my piano was broken. It's not... anyway who cares, on Sunday I went to a swap meet and found a cassette of stand up comedy from a comedian based in Geelong that was released in 1983!! Incredible stuff. I bet you can't guess what kin…

Today while driving the tour bus I put on 'Love Yourself' by Justin Bieber and it really perked me up! I remember Hunter S Thompson describing music not as this sacred thing people always insist that it is, but simply as 'fuel', and today when that song got me through a tired patch, I really understood what he meant. I think I finally get it!…

I woke up at 5:30am on Christmas Eve and drove down to Torquay to go for a surf on the new board my friend gave me. I didn't stand up once, but that's not the important bit. Then I went for a walk up Hanging Rock before heading to Bendigo where I spent Christmas with my cousin and his family. On Friday night some dork after the show at Republic cam…

I'm at my Dad's new house in Ardrossan, I've been awake in bed since around 2am thinking about heaps of stuff, so I thought rather than just sit here stewing, I'd set my mic up and record the podcast. Glad I did, this was the best one in a while I reckon.Aidan Jones