All trousers and no trousers
Including a joke about a spacecraft and an important personal realisation
Hello. It is July 2025. This is the thirty-first monthly instalment of Interesting Skull, an emotionally inconsistent newsletter written by me, fragile dandelion Mike Rampton. At least ten jokes, a revelation or two, and probably a few heartfelt pleas for work.
SOME IMPORTANT PERSONAL NEWS
I was invited to a fancy party the other day. HarperCollins throw it every year in the V&A, a big posh event for all their authors. I obviously put a lot of stuff in this newsletter about how phenomenally successful I am, but it isn’t actually true — while I think my books are selling reasonably well, I earn very little money and am in minimal demand, so I don’t feel like I belong in the same sphere as the big names showing up to things like that.
But I thought I should go, so I went to London and spent the afternoon working in the British Library. It was really hot, so I was wearing shorts, and had clothes to change into for the party. I didn’t want to carry an extra pair of shoes around all day, so was wearing a pair of vaguely smart boots. This looked, with shorts, extremely bad. Like the kind of person Beavis and Butt-Head would look down on for not knowing how to dress. But I was in the library on my own, it was fine.
Then it was time to go. I retrieved my bag from the cloakroom, went to the bathroom to change and… nothing. I’d lost my trousers. I’d somehow, on the way to a party that hundreds of authors and people in publishing would be at — people who either have the career I am trying to have or are in positions to help me with mine — mislaid my trousers.
I’m a children’s non-fiction author. Nobody expects me to look cool. But there are limits, and I couldn’t go to a fancy party at the V&A looking like this:
That’s so bad. So I had to scramble about, find a shop and buy some trousers. I got really stressed doing so! I spent money I don’t have on trousers I don’t like! And I was sad that my trousers and shirt were gone. But I managed to get some new trousers, and sweatily got changed in a pub toilet, and went to the party, and had a nice time. It was very posh. There were massively wealthy and successful people there. I saw some very, very famous people. At one point when I was getting a beer I was stood next to Princess Diana’s brother. If I’d not managed to get hold of some trousers, the sight of my boots/socks/shorts combo might have been the worst thing to ever happen to that family.
And when I got home, obviously, there were my trousers, waiting for me. I was, as ever, the architect of my own misery, and had prepared for the party by carefully choosing some clothes, folding them up to put them in my bag, and walking away.
It would be easy to read the first part of this anecdote and think I had impostor syndrome, that my feeling of not belonging in the company of legitimate authors is unjustified. No, as I hope I’ve made clear, I’m right to feel like I don’t belong in places like that because I am an impostor. I should go and live in a hole in some distant woods. I think I might be a very, very stupid person!
1
What did the depressed surfer feel?
“Whoa.”
2
“Do you know Huckleberry Finn's favourite Russian spacecraft?”
“Yes, Soyuz-2.”
“Okay, no need to show off, what is it?”
3
“My friend has a new job where she manages, organises, administers, supervises...”
“Oversees?”
“No, locally.”
I’m also a genius though, right? I must be. I wrote a book about becoming one, and I couldn’t have managed that if I was anything less than a full-on intellectual powerhouse, surely? I’ve spent a few days this month doing events for schools in Cambridge, Peterborough and “the internet”. I’m getting slightly more comfortable with them, but I’m not sure whether that’s because I’m getting better at them, or that I’m so swamped with other work and Life Stuff that I just don’t really have time to panic. I did three assemblies/talks/presentations/performances (I don’t really know how to refer to them) on the trot the other day — three hours on stage, hundreds of kids, loads of questions — and god, I’ve never been more starving. I might start taking those gels that runners have with me. Or I could spray water all over my head and throw the bottle off to the side like a footballer, but not playing football, telling people some interesting facts about space.
Before this stage in my career, the majority of the ‘performing’ I had done was at night and usually in a state of at least semi-advanced refreshment. I’ve been trying to remember if I used to come off stage hungry before, like when I was in my silly band or did comedy nights, but I think I generally had so many pints of liquid in my body that there wasn’t any space for food, and it definitely wouldn’t have occurred to me to eat any. These long, knackering talks in the middle of the day are mentally and physically exhausting (I scream a lot, and move around constantly during them, and try to remain in a frenzy throughout, because I guess I’m not totally sure how to entertain without being in a frenzy), but there’s no equivalent of hanging around watching the other acts and having a beer. I just say thanks and get in my car and eat a whole bag of Haribo to try to feel alive. It’s really weird.
I suppose if I were a rapper, I’d maybe rap about it. How would that go? Well, I suppose it might go a little bit like this!
When I do a school visit / It’s rarely horrific / The kids barely fidget / They’re pretty terrific / Then I get in my Civic / As my sweeties are in it / And sit for a minute / Tangfastics —exquisite! / The children were friendly / About my assembly / Gave me compliments plenty / But my confidence: trembly / So I sit in my Honda / Relax a bit longer / Eat sweets like a plonker / Until I feel stronger / While knowing that the unusual chemicals within them are not doing my insides any good and wishing I could really get into carrots or something but it feels too late in life to build a habit like that and I have so few sources of joy that to strip away the brief feeling of aliveness that comes with a small fizzy shark just seems self-destructive like I’m the architect of my own misery.
4
“I’ve been playing cricket with a bunch of TV presenters.”
“Yvette Fielding?”
“Funnily enough yes, Noel Fitzpatrick was the wicket keeper.”
5
“There are two reasons I did poorly in that cricket match. Firstly, I’m very short-sighted. Secondly, I was trying to hit the ball with a rolled-up window covering.”
“Blind as a bat?”
“Yes, and I’m very short-sighted.”
6
“I've just been given a device by a TV ghost-hunter to make preparing apples for a crumble more convenient.”
“Acorah?”
“No, a peeler is the item I was gifted by Yvette Fielding.”
Rap, there. I bought some cheap sunglasses recently. They’re non-prescription, of course, but I could wear them while swimming — it’s something. They had a price tag on one lens, which left adhesive residue behind when I removed it. I looked for tips on removing this, and found white vinegar recommended. I’m currently out of white vinegar, so used balsamic vinegar instead, and now I have sunglasses with adhesive residue on the lens that smell incredibly strongly of vinegar. I’m going to spend the summer smelling like a Greek salad. I’ll have to explain that this isn’t deliberate, and it’s not a feta-ish thing.
I wrote an article about short shorts for the i paper (wearing, and I don’t remember why, the same boots/socks combo and looking dreadful) and hope that if I ever become famous enough to be on Wikipedia, the article is cited alongside a description of me, something like “Rampton lives near Cambridge with his daughter. His thighs are a surprising expanse of blank, unremarkable, off-white, hairy meat [¹].”
7
“One of the stars of Chinatown helped me work out the mass of an object.”
“Faye Dunaway?”
“No, Jack done a displacement calculation because Jack knowed the densities involved.”
8
“I’m going to try to really impress the inventor of the concept of horsepower.”
“Awe Watt?”
“Or I’ll be disappointed I suppose.”
9
I’ve spent so much time and money working on my replica of America’s 21st-largest state that I’m in real trouble. I am the architect of my own Missouri.
JUNE IN NUMBERS
One of the things I wear when doing these talks in schools is a Flavor Flav-style oversized clock, and I always want to say “Everyone likes me because I’ve got a really massive clock” but shouldn’t and mustn’t. Drove 456 miles in one day, from Cambridge to Aberystwyth and back, and drank so many revolting energy drinks on the way home to stay awake that I pretty much had jetlag. Bought six — SIX! — doorstops. Went on about twelve fairground rides. Met a swan. In Star Trek, the Enterprise is a silly name for a ship because you don’t enter a prize, you enter a competition hoping to win a prize. Alternatively, the Enterprise is named after two things you can do with doors. Yes? Thought about trying to popularise the idiom “farting up the wrong tree”.
SUPER COOL ACTIONS FOR SUPER COOL PEOPLE
Buy my books from my exciting store on Bookshop.org that I possibly get a small cut from.
Or, There’s No Such Thing As A Silly Question is on Amazon UK, Waterstones and Nosy Crow.
The US version, retitled There Are No Silly Questions, is out in October and available from Amazon US, Bookshop.org or Target.
Become A Genius In A Year can be bought from Amazon UK, Waterstones or HarperCollins.
Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Strava or BlueSky. Actually Strava’s a waste of time, I’ve not broken into anything faster than a saunter in months.
I will be doing a brief turn at Comedy Club 4 Kids on October 12th, I believe. I’m leaning towards a lot of vomit-based material at the moment, so that if I’m sick with nerves when onstage it’ll seem like part of the act.
I am perpetually available for freelance work and/or self-aggrandising promotional appearances on stuff. Also, if I’m totally honest, I’ll do pretty much anything if the money’s there. Wash you? I’ll wash you, for money, if you want.
Next issue: August 1st.
10
CURRENT READING
We’re Just Not Happy by Rocky Marriage
Like Hairdressing For Grass by Lorne Mower
Said A Lot Of Bad Words by Kirsten Awfullot
Mr Brooks Was Tired by Melody Nuff
Come Again Another Day by Wayne Wayne Gower-Way