Battleship truncheon
Hello. It is March, and this is the third instalment of Interesting Skull, a monthly newsletter by me, Mike Rampton — tennish craptastic gags, some half-thoughts and a bit of self-promotion.
1
I walked past the labour ward of a hospital and heard people shouting, “Toni can’t! Bill won’t!” There was nothing to worry about, they were just Braxton Hicks contractions.
2
Did you hear about the Frenchman who got sacked from the circus for falling in love with the animals he worked with? He was a lion je t'aime-er
3
“I really love having a thing on the front of my house I can go in and out of.”
“A door?”
“Yes, I adore having a thing on the front of my house I can go in and out of.”
There’s a huge industry of freelancers teaching other freelancers how to freelance: doing talks, teaching courses, selling advice. I could always do with more money, so toy with joining their ranks a lot. But I’m also not particularly successful. Sure, I keep the lights on, but the face they illuminate is incredibly stressed! I’m mostly moving in the right direction, but nobody would look at my career and want to emulate it. But that’s probably true for a lot of the people doing it — they’re making more money teaching people how to make money than doing the thing they’re meant to be great at.
But I find the idea of giving advice on something when I’m by no stretch of the imagination excelling at it myself really uncomfortable. Hey, here’s something gross to illustrate: I haven’t used shampoo in three years. Other than when I’ve had facepaint on, I’ve also not washed my face with soap in about a decade.
And my skin and hair are fine, pretty much — I get about one zit a year and once got told off by a hairdresser for being “dusty” — but they’re not glowing or magnificent enough to proclaim that this is the way forward for everyone. It’s really annoying. I can’t be all evangelical about this amazing breakthrough while my hair is still objectively a bit crap. It was crap when I used shampoo too!
The other frustrating thing is that the cosmetics I used to use all came from Poundland so I haven’t even saved much money. (They were all called things like Battleship Truncheon and Violent Snowboard, of course, because products aimed at men are silly.)
So, despite there clearly being loads of money in it, I can’t offer anyone career advice when my own career is the equivalent of “I saved £12 in three years by having a really dusty head, ask me how!” Shame really.
4
Richard III, after outsourcing his articles about rap beefs to a wine merchant: “Now he's the vintner of my diss content.”
5
Denholm Elliott is the only actor named after what ET would say if he was asked what jeans were made of.
6
“I’ve just asked Anna from Brookside if she’s self-employed.”
“Freelancer?”
“She hasn’t yet, no.”
Three jokes about acting, there, sort of. Last week I briefly wondered whether the band name Goo Goo Dolls was meant to be a pun on ‘voodoo dolls’. I emailed the band’s PR, because I had a lot of work to do, and found out that it wasn’t. I’ve got loads of showbiz stories like that and am available for after-dinner speeches.
(Or cooking dinner, in fact. Or washing up. Or hoovering or whatever. It all depends on the hours and the cash. Need your lawn mowed? I’ll mow your lawn. Like, I’d rather be hired for writing work — and am always available for commission — but I’ll also pretty much dance for coins at this point.)
Explored a new skill recently: improvising while puppeteering. One take, magic.
I’ve written some fun stuff recently. For Cracked, I really enjoyed this piece about St Lawrence, who did a cool one-liner while being roasted to death and became the patron saint of both comedians and chefs. This one exploring the phenomenon of pareidolia via two separate cases of haunted scrotums was also a lot of fun. I dug deep into Rammstein’s cameo in the Vin Diesel movie xXx for Louder and bigged up Marks & Spencer for the i. Again, I am available for commission.
Hopefully, within the next two and a half weeks, I will submit the final section of a book I’ve been writing for absolutely ages. There’ll still be edits and notes and stuff, but it’ll be a huge load off (and hopefully be followed up with news on some other book projects). I had hoped to get it finished before Christmas, but now I’m using my 40th birthday as a deadline.
Yeah, 40th. Bonkers. I made a flyer for my birthday drinks and am far too proud of it. (I have redacted the details here, not because you can’t come — you can come, please come, tell me I’m good — but because it would feel odd to include them.)
7
“That was amazing, wasn’t it, seeing a talking horse from a classic sitcom play snooker.”
“I can’t believe it! Mr. Ed!”
“Not every shot was on target, no, but it’s a horse. Even holding the cue was impressive.”
8
Give me a drum kit, great. Give me another drum kit, and there’ll be repercussions.
9
Rick Wakeman plays progressive rock. Rick Wokeman plays really progressive rock.
Thanks for reading, if you read this. Any/all feedback is really welcome — I’d really like to get more people subscribing to this as the numbers are woeful. Would something shorter but more frequent be better? Should it just be jokes and links with none of the pontificating? Or are you very pro-pontificate? Let me know, and tell me I’m good! HAVE A LOVELY MONTH
10
WHAT I AM CURRENTLY READING
I Enjoyed The Campfire by Adam Arshmallow
The Proctologist Needs To Cut His Nails by Claude McCavity
And Just Like That by Oliver Sudden
Attempting To Improve Matters by Amelia Rating
Prosecutes The Children’s Home by Susan Orphanage