The Funny Women Awards 2013 are now open. And as well as looking for the funniest female stand-ups in the UK, the awards are also on the hunt for come...

As I'm sure you'll be delighted to know I have taken to the airwaves in an effort to bring common sense and rationale back to the lefty nonsense that most of our media is saturated with ad nauseum.

Writing is, as I tell my nieces when explaining verbs, “a doing word” – by which I mean, to qualify as a writer, you really need to be engaged i...

After you do something like writing and directing a sketch, you feel compelled to help others who might want to achieve their own dream of writing and directing a sketch. So you do what comes naturally: explain How You Did It, in 17 easy steps.

Please spare a thought for one group of vulnerable people who will be hit especially hard by the effects of the Health and Social Care bill that has just been hustled through parliament. Lonely, confused, and often delusional, these people are comedy writers.

This month marks 50 years since the first episode of Steptoe and Son aired - and we may have the star of legendary writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's previous hit to thank for its existence.

Comedy is all about recognition. Michael McIntyre points out one of life's foibles. You recognise said foible, then chuckle lightly and die a little on the inside. But there is a thin, unfunny line between highlighting some hilarious, unearthed observation and lazily trotting out a creaky comedy cliché that was hackneyed when first used on Round the Horne.

I have a confession to make. I posted recently about my leaving Twitter. Well, it's true I did but the good people at Tweet central give you 30 days in which to chew on the prospect of committing social suicide and it pains me to say I did skulk back like a recently divorced man to his mother.

If you love writing, especially comedy writing, can I share a little secret with you? Write for radio. Write books, for magazines, greetings cards too, but give radio a go because radio loves writers.

As for Ian Hislop's point about women not putting themselves forward in the way that men do: again, I'd argue that whether it's for cultural, social or biological reasons (most likely all three), he's pretty much correct.

If you are an aspiring comedy writer, you may want to absorb or entirely ignore these, not rules, erm...things? Yes. Things. This is the flotsam that is knocking around my head all day, by the way, like scum on the tide.