Fatigue-addled gladiatorial tragedy
Including a joke based around the word 'inveigh', which I only just learned, and some very bad German
Hello. It is January 2025. This is the twenty-fifth monthly instalment of Interesting Skull, a newsletter of strikingly terrific jokes and woefully underwhelming thoughts written by me, author and house-rarely-leaver Mike Rampton.
It is 2025, which is a mad thing, an absurd year for anything to be. I am young and beautiful, and shouldn’t be able to remember being drunk a full quarter of a century ago. And yet, when the fireworks went pop pop pop to celebrate the dawning of the year 2000, there I was, being violently sick in my friend Keith’s house and — allegedly — pulling the toilet out of the wall while doing so. Also I was dressed so badly. SO BADLY. I entered this year, 2025, in a slightly classier way — still drunk, but mainly upright, in a bar in upstate New York.
At about 11pm a fire extinguisher exploded, and a cloud of noxious smoke filled the bar. A man who was running a karaoke system grabbed his microphone and shouted that we had to clear the bar because, when not DJing, he was a firefighter. He kept repeating the whole thing, complete with the bit about DJing. I liked that a lot. He could have just said he was a firefighter, but he wanted to make it clear in case anyone bent double and choking on nasty chemicals doubted he knew what he was talking about because he was simply always DJing. He wasn’t even DJing, he was running a karaoke machine. Cool start to the year, loved it.
And it’s going to be quite a year, I reckon. I have submitted the copy for my forthcoming book Become A Genius In A Year, which is out in May. (It’s available for preorder, which is bonkers given how much work still has to be done on it — I don’t think the esteemed illustrator To Be Confirmed has started yet. I don’t know how we managed to convince To Be Confirmed to work on it: what a coup! If I’m totally honest, I haven’t actually finished writing it. I’ve submitted it, sure, but it’s not finished.)
I’ve got another similarly manic companion book to write at some point this year, and two books I wrote for the straight-to-schools imprint Big Cat are out on January 20th — if you have a child in primary school there’s a non-zero chance they’ll bring home one of these two at some point. (Links included only for any head teachers or school librarians reading.)
Plus There’s No Such Thing As A Silly Question is going to a second printing, I’m scheduled to do some talks about it (which is horrifying) and I’m getting irate emails from German translators about große Ungenauigkeiten1.
(That German I’ve just used is probably not good German. It’s not the worst German ever though. We know who that guy was! He was dreadful! But hey, Entspannt euch, Leute2. Let’s all have a nicht durchgegartes Braten-Abendessen3 —thank god for the Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz4, right? — play with a Raumfahrt Spielzug5, ride in a Hilfeleistungslöschgruppenfahrzeug6, sign up with a Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften7 and just flipping beruhige dich8, you know?)
1
“I don’t know how to compliment my direct boss on their terrific piece of crownless headwear.”
“Supervisor?”
“Yes, I could say that to my line manager, yes.”
2
The best way to prepare the evening before the object-withdrawal section of a proctology exam is with a late-night cramming session.
3
“I’ve just written an article in which I criticised, railed against, rallied against and complained about the country that neighbours ours. Someone should do something about that place.”
“Inveighed?”
“If it comes to it, yes.”
I think in 2025 I’m only going to watch telly that features Sabre from Gladiators or a voiceover by Roger Tilling. I’m still slightly jetlagged, and emailed one of my publishers this morning offering to write a book either with or about Sabre from Gladiators. The fatigue-addled tragedy of that email is only now sinking in. Oh crumbs.
Currently, I look completely terrible. I got fat on holiday, and slightly before it, and since. I bought a bunch of new clothes while away, but always feel like walking around in new clothes right at the beginning of a new year makes it look like they were all from Santa.
It would have been nice if Santa had brought me a haircut, but at the same time, would it? If you woke up on Christmas morning missing a bunch of hair, even if you looked nice, you’d be horrified. I’ve pretty much skipped over a whole haircut, and am due for the next one I’d have needed if I’d had one when I needed it, so I’ve saved myself £14 (I pay £3.50 per corner).
Hope always springs eternal that, if left alone, my hair might end up crossing the growing-out threshold and looking alright, but getting there would involve looking terrible for a very long time and possibly never looking anything but. I tried growing my hair once before when I was about 23 and looked so, so bad. It never reached “man with long hair”, just “that man’s wig isn’t on properly, and he has a disease that makes him smelly, and the medicine he’s drinking for it isn’t helping him stand up”.
Obviously I’ll get it cut if I end up having a meeting with Sabre off Gladiators. I’ll turn up in a tuxedo looking laden with regret and loudly insisting that I didn’t get it from Santa.
4
“I’m making a bolognese for the director of Freaks (1932) and am on the very first step with the mince.”
“Browning?”
“No, opening the packet.”
5
“I hate this small air conditioner, and I’ll tell you why.”
“Not a big fan?”
“That’s merely the first of my many criticisms of it.”
6
“Do you think any pop stars would be up for following a French postmodern literary movement's constrained writing techniques?”
“Do Oulipo?”
“Maybe, I don't know much about her.”
A joke about Dua Lipa, there. The only thing I know about her is that she’s nicknamed “Two Pints”, but I can’t remember if that’s true or something I made up. It’s very funny, so it’s probably not my work.
I told my daughter the joke about people going down a water slide and saying what they want the pool to be full of, where the punchline is “Wheeee!” — it’s a classic. She insisted on then knowing what the person did afterwards, how he felt, and so on. Then she told it back to me with the genie replaced by the person that works in the swimming pool in Cambridge, and the extra punchline “FETCH THE TOILETS”. People were to fetch their toilets from home, bring them to the pool and pour wee, from their toilets, into the pool. It was very complicated. I don’t think they’d take the actual toilets. I broke a toilet some 25 years ago being sick in it, and the thing with a disconnected toilet is, it doesn’t hold anything. Fetch the toilets, though. What a line. Every possible scenario that could call for someone to shout that is hilarious. The urgency of it, the plural toilets and the implausibility that the solution to any active emergency is for people to run in struggling under the weight of loads of porcelain —I love it. She is 28 and should get a job.
7
“I’m about to perform a song about a rod used in a rebellion.”
“A coup stick?”
“No, with heavy distortion.”
8
I know a high-earning voodoo priest with a vendetta against a large family. He’s making six figures.
9
“Would you like a tequila before I tell you about the time shooting water out of a tube led to muscle pain?”
“Hose ache? Where though?”
“Yes, that is the only brand I can name to be honest. Enjoy it and I’ll tell you about when I got hose ache in my, I guess, arm?”
December in numbers: I don’t recall. This newsletter was meant to go out a week ago but I was on my holidays and simply didn’t do it. It’s fine. Nobody reads this. Fun holiday though. I read a lot, in part due to flying on a budget airline with no in-flight entertainment. Ate two slices of pizza in Keflavik Airport. Drank some of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s brand of very middling lager. Lost my voice and had a hoarse row with an Uber driver in the sort of empty, fog-covered concrete space that only exists for fight scenes in films. Went skiing.
Buy my book / PayPal me £5.30 for a pint of Kronenbourg / Follow me on Instagram / Enjoy my jokes on Blue Sky / Or just tell me I’m good!
Next issue: February 7th. I have terrifyingly few plans between now and then, other than OH GOD I’VE JUST REMEMBERED A REALLY HARD THING I HAVE TO DO IN A WEEK OR SO, aw no, aw no, I can’t believe I’ve done this.
10
CURRENTLY READING:
What I Want To Do On Sports Day by Wynn A. Medal
Bass’n’Drum, Blues’n’Rhythm by Roland Rock
Part Of Your Brain by Sarah Bellum
Smart Haircut by Sayid Parting
Texas by Jane Sawmassacre
Enormous mistakes
Chill out, dudes
Undercooked roast dinner
Cattle marking and beef labeling supervision duties delegation law
Toy spaceship
Fire engine equipped specifically with rescue equipment
Insurance company offering legal protection
Calm down