Strong medication up a magical tree
including two jokes involving dogs and one where a 1950s-speaking kid refers to a person as a "cat"
Hello. It is April 2024. This is the sixteenth monthly instalment of Interesting Skull, a newsletter containing jokes and other things written by a man for whom it is always winter and never Christmas, continental-drift-speed-careered writer Mike Rampton. And how are you? Was that thing with your hair deliberate? GREAT JOB, SWEET ‘DO, LOOKING SHARP, HERE WE GO.
1
“My cat was just neutered with a piece of medical equipment.”
“Spayed?”
“No, something much smaller.”
2
I was recently asked to comment on a study that suggested handsome men are bad listeners.
“About half past five,” I said.
3
A barber friend has invited me round for a Sunday roast with all the trimmings. No thanks, mate! Put them in the bin and cook in a sanitary environment!
March vanished swiftly, like a very efficient table restorer. No, wait, that’s varnished swiftly. Yes, that is a high-quality opening.
I had a birthday. I don’t like to show off, but I’ve had loads of them. I also had my NHS Health Check, recommended for people over 40 (I am 41, so — again, no desire to show off — am exactly perfect for it). I was slightly worried about my cholesterol after an optician said something. I can’t remember the exact phrasing, something like, “There’s a big bit of ham in the corner of your eye”. But it turns out I’m in magnificent shape, resemble no less than absolute human perfection, and have been prescribed a daily chorizo booster.
I ran the Cambridge half-marathon, which was mostly fine other than my knee doing something completely crazy. I don’t know a lot about knees beyond them being (a) part of my favourite jerk reaction and (b) one of my favourite body parts to repeatedly urge Mother Brown to raise. But I think they usually have some quantity of synovial fluid in them so that running doesn’t feel like scraping the ends of two roughly-sawed tree stumps together. I think all mine fell out at some point. I don’t know. I am not — and I really, really mean this — a doctor.
I went to the theatre on my birthday and watched a musical, during which I cried about six times. I am extremely aware that a theatre company is a well-oiled machine and reproduce the same two-hour spectacle hundreds of times, that there is no spontaneity involved, that everyone on stage is going through the motions, especially on a Thursday afternoon for an audience of mostly sleepy French tourists. And yet I’m incapable of maintaining any composure and will openly do big ugly full-body sobs midway through every third song or so. There was a panto I went to about eight years ago that I can’t describe without having an enormous physical reaction. It’s odd, because in a non-theatre context, the only emotions I ever feel are hunger and contempt.
The MRI I had last month was part of a study which also involved two sessions of possibly taking ADHD medication, doing some tests and receiving some electric shocks. It was a double-blind study, and I knew one session would involve the drug, and one a placebo. After the first session, I felt sure I’d had the drug — I was tired, clumsy, kept mislaying things and felt out of sorts. Then in the second session it became extremely clear that I was in fact now on the drug, as my eyes kept going crossed, then I’d swear a bit and fall asleep. (Not a great drug! Two stars!) So it turns out the first time, when I was all clumsy and irritable, that was all me. I was just… rubbish? Ledge.
4
“Aw shucks, Daddy-o, turns out you’re the best cat among us at clarifying butter.”
“Ghee whizz!”
“Yes.”
5
As a teenager I was always misbehaving, getting up to no good and reciting satirical Latin poetry from the second century in dactylic hexameter. I guess I was something of a Juvenal delinquent.
6
“Four of my five dogs have been cast in a toilet paper commercial. Spot, Fido, Buster and Wolfie will all be in the advertisement.”
“Andrex?”
“No, as you know, Rex is a hideous and disobedient dog, and for these reasons was not cast in the Cottonelle ad.”
I am not entirely certain how to pronounce ‘ghee’.
I was reading about Raymond Chandler the other day — a man named after the worst character in one sitcom and the best in another. It was for an idea that didn’t really pan out (very few of them do!). At one point, a film was in production that he hadn’t finished writing the screenplay for, and he managed to convince the studio that the only way he could do it, the only possible way he could get the work done, was if they got him really drunk and provided him with staff — drivers to take him from bar to bar and secretaries to write things down. Chandler was an alcoholic, so it doesn’t seem right to go, “Ha ha that’s so cool”, but at the same time, in a way, ha ha that’s so cool.
7
“Quick, it’s nearly time for the birthday surprise. I’ll finish detailing the cake, and you prepare for a rendition of Happy Birthday To You.”
“I sing?”
“Yes, that is what I am using to detail the cake.”
8
“I don’t know what to do now that I’ve finished applying a new sprinkled pattern to this surface, to substitute for the old worn-out sprinkled pattern.”
“Re-flecked?”
“Yes, you’re right, I should take some time to think about what a great job I did.”
9
I’ve been reading the hilarious comic-strip adventures of a spiky-haired mischievous boy and his dog, who loves covering pastries in creamy icing. Dennis the Menace and Ganacher.
March in numbers: I think I watched five films, went out once at night (and had one very raucous afternoon) and read about six books? I don’t know. All year so far I’ve been filling in a Google form every morning about what I’d been reading, writing, watching and drinking, and I’ve kind of let it slide. I therefore have no idea of anything really. At a guess, I had six thousand lagers. As I say, a raucous afternoon.
Project updates: PROJECT SLURM, also known as There’s No Such Thing As A Silly Question: 213 Weird and Wonderful Questions About the World, Expertly Answered!, written by me and illustrated by Guilherme Karsten, draws ever closer to its October release. I think they’re using a drawing of me instead of an author photo, something I’m absolutely not taking personally at all, and why don’t you shut up.
PROJECT POPPLERS is becoming bigger and more difficult while involving the same small amount of money, so that’s fun. It’ll be fantastic, but I might be living in a puddle outside a disused tyre factory by the time it comes out.
I’ve written one of the two books in PROJECT SOYLENT COLESLAW, or done a first draft at least. There’s another one to do, that is somehow very different to what I pitched. I don’t know how that happened. I’ll do it, it’ll be great, I am honestly terrific, but I really can’t quite work out what’s gone on there.
I saw the first illustrated spread from PROJECT BACHELOR CHOW this week, illustrated by Gareth Conway (of Greg the Sausage Roll fame). It looks great, and will be at the Bologna Book Fair next week, with people from Bloomsbury talking about it being good and trying to sell foreign rights and stuff. Fun! I won’t be there, I’ll be in my house.
There’s hopefully some other stuff in the pipeline as well, but it’s all at early stages, too early for cool secret project names. I don’t want to waste a great name on something that goes nowhere. Feel free to PayPal me £5.30 for a lovely grown-up pint. Or just tell me I’m good!
Next issue: May 4th. That’s that date people like, isn’t it? They always say to each other, “It’s the fourth of May, hello!” Hang on, no, May 3rd, but I’ve already written the preceding sentence and can’t go back. HAVE A LOVELY MONTH
10
WHAT I AM CURRENTLY READING
Did You Have Soup For Lunch? by Noah Sandwich
The King Of The Jungle Is Destitute by Paul Ion
Ancient Poetry, You Know? by Enid N. Stuff
I Stammer When I Get Ideas in Meetings by Aurora Aurora Aurora Whatabout
I Sat in Some Nettles by Scarlett Buttocks