A potty-mouthed prankster? That's why we love Russell Brand

Russell Brand has returned to stand-up. Fiona Sturges witnessed the comeback
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Radio column: Video games

The last time I played a video game was in 1985. It was a pocket-sized, black-and-white "LCD cardgame" called Trojan Horse, the aim of which was to prevent Trojans from getting into a castle by either pinging arrows at them or drowning them in the moat. Every now and then a horse would appear bursting with hundreds of the blighters. It was quite an adrenaline rush, I can tell you, though gradually I began to tire of the senseless slaughter.
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TV review: Toast of London, Channel 4/Our War, BBC3

Comedy pilot. Now there are two words that strike fear into the soul. While they're undoubtedly useful for rooting out new talent, for me they always bring to mind focus groups in which hollow-cheeked students sit in subterranean screening rooms tittering unconvincingly at "the next Noel Fielding" in exchange for a beer and a fortnight's supply of Pot Noodle.
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Radio column: Golden games

It was the morning after the night before and at the crack of dawn on Monday, Radio 4's Today presenters were searching for adjectives to describe the Olympic closing ceremony, the kind that would mask the widespread sense that, had it taken place in the back room of a pub in Nantwich, we would have raised our glasses to a hen party well done.
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Book review: Adventures of a Waterboy, by Mike Scott

Mike Scott received a lesson on the perils of fame long before he found it for himself as the front man of the Celtic rockers the Waterboys. As a young punk fan in London in 1978, he came face to face with his idol Patti Smith after a concert and watched her cutting hangers-on down to size like a "haughty queen toying with her subjects".
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