Muscular busman's holiday
Including sums and a joke for fans of East Anglia and visual effects technology
Hello. It is September. This is the ninth monthly instalment of Interesting Skull, a newsletter by me, Mike Rampton. Normalish-looking dude, often looks like he’s panicking. Sweaty guy, that’s him. I’m him, he’s me, we’re I.
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I like using the phrase "busman's holiday" when I travel. The thing is, I use it so much at home...
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“I looked over there and spotted a guy.”
“Spied a man?”
“No, I’d have specified if it was him, that would be a much more exciting anecdote.”
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“My wife, sickened by her Honda, went to the West Indies.”
“Jamaica?”
“No, she went off her own Accord.”
I am in Spain. I’ve been here for just shy of three weeks, after a two-week holiday got extended by an air traffic control incident. More like air traffic out of control, am I right? I am so right.
We’re staying in a house with a pool, and I worked out — using MATHS — that if I did twenty laps on the first day and added two per day, on the last day I’d do fifty. That seemed fun: 525 laps in total, of course, because that’s 15(50+20)/2 as any fool knows. Then the trip became longer and, at some point between writing this and boarding a plane this afternoon I’ll have to do fifty-eight. That’s simply too many. Fifty-eight of anything is too many of that thing. It’s boring and difficult. I get caught up in the maths of it all — it’s now 19(58+20)/2, btw, which is 741 obviously — and try to get excited about things like how long it takes to get from a fifth of the way through, to a quarter, to a third. It’s very tedious. I am very tedious. I do the same thing when running, working out every time I’m another one percent done, and really irritate myself.
Something that has happened, though, is that I now have rock-hard muscles in my chest. Not in a way that makes me look good, annoyingly — most of my swimming has taken place after a few Estrellas and before too many more Estrellas, and I’ve eaten so much bread, so these astonishing rock-hard muscles remain laminated in the plump breast tissue of a declining indoorsman. I’m also not quite sure what to do with this newly ironlike chest. I can’t do the fun Terry Crews thing where you make each side dance, and I don’t use my chest for anything, so there’s no point. There’s no point to anything, really. I’m always saying that!
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I watched a film that ended with hilarious outtakes of privately funded surgeries. It was a BUPA reel.
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“I live opposite 221B Baker Street, and can see one of the people who lives there — not the famous detective — watching telly.”
“Watson?”
“I’m not sure, my view isn’t good enough to see what Mrs Hudson is watching.”
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“I’m making a film about opening a lock in an East Anglia resort town using green-screen.”
“Cromer key?”
“Yes, that is the green-screen technique I am using for my film about knowing the correct combination in Wells-Next-The-Sea.”
Going for the East Anglia VFX joke market, there. It’s expanding, probably. I spent a lovely week in Cromer at the beginning of the month, eating giant ice-creams and winning at mini-golf. In fact, I’ve pretty much been on holiday for all of August. Somehow I’ve managed to get quite a lot of work done while exclusively wearing swimming trunks and being half-cut. Got a few book things coming along nicely, and more day-to-day work than I can generally manage.
So I’m going to have a very sensible September. I’m aiming for more non-drinking days than drinking ones and more days where I run or cycle a reasonable distance than days when I don’t. I’m doing a half-marathon in early October, and my extraordinarily hard chest muscles aren’t going to help with that at all.
Here are some thoughts about the demise of Wilko for the i paper. Quick thing about how many free snacks is too many for Mental Floss. Otherwise I’ve been doing industrial amounts of lists for Cracked — I think I did 40 this month — and book stuff. I’m going to try to split my day hyper-efficiently where I do the more industrial work until noon, then book stuff and more one-off freelance pieces until school pick-up time. Every time I’ve tried to stick to a rigid structure it’s lasted about fifteen minutes, but this time it’ll be different and it’ll work and everything will go perfectly to plan and I’ll make loads of money. I am absolutely certain of this and extremely confident about my future, both long- and short-term, for no reason whatsoever.
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“I’m not sure whether to take this author to Cheddar’s famous gully or a water-hole you throw money in and make a wish.”
“Gorge or well?”
“No, Barbara Cartland. And I think you said that name wrong.”
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I met a 288-year-old man. He was two gross!
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I was given three new sofas every day for a week. I was offered one additional sofa, but the offer came with a twist: I could only have the sofa if I didn’t want it. It was a real couch-22 situation.
That’s it. A sensible, productive, healthy month almost certainly lies ahead, although I do have (a) a few fun things planned; (b) a tendency to get bored and (c) a worrying feeling I’m going to waste loads of time pitching articles based around my newfound muscularity, like testing kendo sticks/pool cues/wizard staffs by having people smash them against my disconcertingly diamond-hard chest.
Thanks for reading, if you did. Sorry for excessively focusing on my incredible body. Please tell people about this newsletter — well, maybe tell them about better, previous months — and tell me that I’m good! HAVE A LOVELY MONTH
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WHAT I AM CURRENTLY READING
Illuminating Work by Des Clamp
What I’ve Done Since Becoming An Estate Agent by Shona Bungalow
I Am Outrageously Wealthy by Gillian Air
Chicken & What? by Anne Rice
The Contents Of This Tissue by Beau Geese