Hello. It is February. This is the second instalment of Interesting Skull, a monthly newsletter by me, Mike Rampton — ten or so cheerfully excellent gags, some half-thoughts and a bit of self-promotion.
1
“I’ve had a factory built, but the level where the blueprints are made is inaccessible.”
“Sounds like a design flaw.”
“It doesn’t matter what it’s called, nobody can get to the bloody thing.”
2
"Rodney Trotter's gone on holiday to one of America's smallest states!"
"Delaware?"
"I presume he'd have mentioned his holiday to Connecticut to his brother, yes."
3
“I watched a film with Dolph Lundgren in it that had a really good ending.”
“Big strong finish?”
“No, I think he’s from Sweden.”
There was a Dolph Lundgren joke last month as well. Maybe that can be my trademark. In January, I began two new hobbies, which I have done three times each: I joined a running club and started performing stand-up. After one of them I am exhausted and gasping for breath, soaked in sweat, stinking, trying not to throw up, leaning against a wall doing little spits to try to prevent my body purging itself of everything. The other one is running.
The thinking behind doing the comedy was to try to make some local friends, but I get incredibly twitchy and anxious beforehand, so don’t necessarily come across particularly well. A proper comic who does the night saw my first two sets and congratulated me on my on-stage persona and how aggressive and intense I was. I wasn’t going for that! I was hoping people would think, “Hey, he’s funny!” rather than “Gosh, what an unpleasant atmosphere he is creating”.
I don’t know if I’ll keep doing it — everyone else seems a lot more ambitious and focused, while I’m mainly in it so I can talk to adults once a fortnight, drink six beers and miss a bus.
4
Why was Mr Warburton a bit slow?
His family had been in bread for generations.
5
What are kinky bakers into?
Roll play.
6
I recently ate a sandwich, which looked at me witheringly and said “Oh really?” It was made of wry bread.
Some bread jokes, there. I am available for commission if anyone reading this works in publishing and wants to put out a book called — and I’m just spitballing here — 1000 Primarily Bread-Based Jokes. I’ll need some time for the remaining 997 though. Wednesday?
I’ve done some fun work recently. I was in two newspapers in January, the Metro and the i, which I don’t think has happened before and I enjoyed the novelty of. The piece for the i was fun, about learning to drive as an older man, and it spurred me on to finally booking lessons. I’ve only had one so far, and I slightly damaged the car, and the instructor yelled at me for overstating my abilities, but other than that it went reasonably well and I expect I’ll get a medal soon.
I have also been doing a bunch of writing for Cracked, about things like dad jokes, the time a Backstreet Boy’s fart got to number one and the global Mr Bean impersonator industry.
I can’t emphasise this enough, I am very much available for commission.
7
“I bought some bicycle shorts with a protective section in the rear when visiting the home of the Viking gods.”
“Asgard?”
“Yes.”
8
"I'm hiding from railway staff members to get a free journey into my job teaching people how to wave batons at orchestras."
"Train conductors?"
"Yes."
9
“I just ate an ecclesiastical cup.”
“Goblet?”
“Yes.”
Three jokes with the punchline “Yes”, there. There’s a project I want to get to one day called I’ll Kill You: The Movie, where I will write 100 jokes with the punchline “I’ll kill you” and make an incredibly long video of them all. Lots of work, basically unwatchable, not rewarding in the slightest. Awesome.
A fun thing to do periodically in my line of work is search Wikipedia to see where articles I’ve written have been cited. I don’t like to show off or anything, but I am cited on the entry for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory — potentially, without my pioneering journalism, the fact that Alien Ant Farm’s video for Movies has a Willy Wonka bit in it would go undocumented. I’m also cited on the Russian Wikipedia page for the song Loco by Coal Chamber, and the French Wikipedia page for Avril Lavigne’s first album. Yes, I am very famous, well done me.
I tried drawing a small knight the other day. It became something else, because I am not very good at drawing, but I like it.
That’s about it. I’ve reluctantly started putting stuff on Instagram, so if you’re on that, follow me on that. I changed my username to my actual name — for many years it was ‘fartpoliceman’, which I continue to think is hilarious, but possibly isn’t. HAVE A NICE MONTH
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WHAT I AM CURRENTLY READING
How To Be Your Own Aunt by Marion Uncle
I Think I Hear A Fire Alarm by Isabel Ringing
The Church Needs More That Just A New Bell by Annabel Ringer
I Want To Declare My Affection For Something by Professor Liking
What Satsumas Come In by Annette Bag