I came off my bike while navigating the cycle lane by Preston Park (pictured) yesterday.

I had seen a pedestrian slip over in the same area when passing the same junction in the opposite direction earlier the same day, and I’d already been warned that the cycle lane along the seafront hadn’t been gritted.

Plus – and I have no science to back this up – the shiny blue and green paint that so defines a cycle lane always seems to be a bit slippier than the main carriageway.

So I should have known better than to cycle on a Brighton cycle lane after freezing weather.

And yet… I know from experience that cycling in the road when there’s a cycle path explicitly alongside usually leads to aggression and close passes from drivers furious that you’re not using the infrastructure their road tax has paid for, the way I lose my shit whenever I see a car using anything other than a motorway.

I thus hesitated when approaching the gyratory, for just long enough to lose momentum.

The back wheel slipped at I navigated the turn at around 13mph. I fall with style; I have a big bruise on my left hip, a graze on my elbow, but otherwise I emerged unscathed.

I locked myself up and cycled off to meet Hattie, at a Japanese cafe just off West Street, near Nando’s and the Victory Inn. Hattie has been having a time of it of late, but we talked of optimistic things, like future shows and venues that are accessible.

Today (technically yesterday: it is now after midnight) was a blur, but ended nicely in a Next Level Sketch producer meeting up at our spiritual and actual home of The Miller in London Bridge.

Disappointingly only the male-identifying members of our cabal of sketch-producing elders could make it, but we did a good job not just talking about man things (beer, fighting, etc) the whole time.

We’re in a good place as a comedy collective. Earlier today (yesterday) I moved the Next Level mailing list from email to Substack. This feels the right place for it to be accessible online to a wider readership, especially as we tend to plug other interesting London-based alternative comedy shows. One idea I had was to do silly interviews with future guest acts based around a specific theme; so look out for Yuriko Kotani’s Favourite Leisure Centres, coming to an inbox near you soon.

Home was by a largely deserted Thameslink train hurtling past frozen fields, watching the final embers of the Ashes on a screen beaming to me the unreal heat and beauty of a southern hemisphere summer.