Hello. It is October. This is the tenth monthly instalment of Interesting Skull, a newsletter of ten-plus wonderful jokes and some thoughts by me, Mike Rampton. You know me — bad posture, permanent expression of abject terror, could be a youthful 60 or the world’s hairiest, least healthy boy. Oh hi!
1
“The darkness is coming for me. The darkness, the darkness, the endless pit approaches. I shall be ready for it. I will be ready for the bottomless chasm. I am equipped with exactly what is required for the eternal void of blackness — not only that, but the equipment I have for the everlasting crevasse of night is very upmarket.”
“Fancy abyss kit?”
“Yes please, I think I need a sit down, I'm getting a bit het up.”
2
“I got a wide piercing through my nose in early autumn.”
“Septum bar?”
“No, Morch, I’m Austreelien.”
3
The doctor said they'd need me to deliver a stool sample, if that wasn't too difficult. I said, “Piece of piss!” The doctor said, “No.”
Next week, publishers Nosy Crow will be taking my book There’s No Such Thing As A Silly Question: 213 Weird and Wonderful Questions About the World, Expertly Answered! to the Frankfurt Book Fair (an event which, insanely, has been taking place since before Columbus set sail) in the hopes of, I think, impressing translators, foreign publishers and so on. It’s being published in conjunction with Cambridge University, which (a) should shift a few copies; and (b) increases my chances of one day being given the key to the city, which would really be handy in terms of finding places to park my bike. I got sent a blad — publishing lingo for book layout and design, a kind of sampler — of a few spreads complete with glorious illustrations by Guilherme Karsten, and it looks amazing, I’m really excited. I’m reasonably certain I’m not allowed to share it, which is a shame as it’s properly beautiful. The book is out in October 2024 in the UK and October 2025 in the US, and depending on how Frankfurt goes, maybe some time after that in, you know, other places. There are other places I reckon. October 2026, space and the North Pole!
I am currently — and I genuinely apologise for how this sentence is going to end — enjoying my body.
Not, like, while I type. How absolutely dare you. In a more general sense, over the past few years I’ve enjoyed how much I’ve felt myself physically change during my brief spells of fitness. My body is used to such a low level of exercise that within about six days of solidly doing something it starts to properly transform. And then, within about three days of stopping, it goes completely back to normal in a way that, while slightly depressing, is kind of impressive. Like, I am confident that if I was sufficiently motivated, which I’m not, I could begin November looking incredibly muscular and finish it alarmingly hideous, like a neighbourhood monster, all with fairly minimal effort.
I had a hit-me-with-a-kendo-stick-go-on-you-swine chest for a week when I came back from my holidays, and now I’m back to my usual flaccid bustiness. Not a fat man, but a thin man who just looks like he’s wearing several ill-fitting bumbags under his clothes.
(Irritatingly, rather than looking good when I briefly had an outrageously muscular chest, it just meant more of my bottom-crack showed than usual due to my shirt hiking up. Given that the usual amount of my bottom-crack showing is too much — 4cm or so? — this arguably nudged me over the line from ‘untidy’ to verging on what baboon experts would call ‘presenting’.)
I’ve been running a lot lately — I am doing a half-marathon on Sunday in the beautiful Cambridgeshire town of Ely, home to the cathedral Netflix uses whenever it wants to pretend to shoot something in Westminster Abbey — and reckon I could lie on my back and lift a supermarket trolley effortlessly with each foot, like I’d stolen a giant’s rollerskates. But as soon as I stop my legs will go all floppy and marionettelike within days. It’s fun! It’s also, now that I think about it, probably not great for my ageing cardiovascular system! Ha ha ha!
4
“I’ve made a thing that’s a bit like a drawing board.”
“Easelly?”
“No, with immense difficulty, I really struggled.”
5
“I’ve been trying for ages to make working at an easel more difficult, but can’t do it, so I’m going to abandon the whole thing and start again.”
“Back to the drawing board?”
“By god, you’re onto something there, that’s exactly how I should stand.”
6
What do you call an Anglo-Saxon rebel based in the beautiful Cambridgeshire town of Ely who is towed behind a boat shredding gnarly tricks?
Hereward the Wakeboarder.
I’d like to achieve more. I am big fan of the idea of building all these positive daily habits — the idea being you’ve always got a few minutes to do x, y or z, and before you know it you’ve done it a thousand times. But I keep running into two problems. The first is, the beginning of the month sneaks up on me and I find myself thinking, “I can’t possibly start a daily habit on the fifth of the month, that would be anarchy, I’m not a savage animal!” so end up just never bothering. I bought some drawing stuff in June intending to start drawing every day, missed the first of July and somehow it’s October and I haven’t drawn a line. I also briefly considered doing Sober October before realising it was October 3rd and I was drinking a can of Kronenbourg.
The second thing is, I’m self-employed and have short, school-defined working hours — if I did all the things I keep telling myself I should be doing every day (drawing, writing jokes, working on several of my inevitably-doomed projects like my novel about befriending a giant, cycling, running, a bunch of video things I’ve been intending to do for ages, etc etc) I’d get to the end of the week and shriek madly in a high-pitched voice that I hadn’t earned any money and would die in a debtors’ prison.
(Running daily is, as everyone knows, a habit of champions. That’s why there’s never been a famous runner called Weekly Thompson.)
It’s all just excuses. I somehow always find the time to eat big bags of crisps in the night and read nonsense on the internet and play stupid fish-themed games on my phone. I think I need external forces to get anything done, but nobody is clamouring to hear more about my bicycle or see my drawings of hats. I get a lot of work done because while in theory I’m my own boss, in reality I have several bosses, none of whom know each other or are particularly thrilled I’m seeing other bosses. It would be cool to have people in my life who were interested in how all these non-work things were going, and oh god, I think I’ve just invented the idea of friendship, how incredibly bleak.
(One of the things I keep thinking would be fun to do daily is go on Instagram and tell dudes they look great. Like, this is a huge generalisation, but women tend to comment really positively on one another’s pictures, while men just don’t — I thought it would be nice to go on male friends’ picture and write stuff like, “Henry, your arms!” with a bunch of heart-eye emojis, or, “Albert, you look like a film star from the golden age of cinema”, or “Gerald, your body astounds!” and so on. Just to make people feel a bit nice. Maybe add an extra element by scrolling a few months back in their feeds to do it. I remember the first time I was called handsome — 2015, what a year — I got really emotional, because I hadn’t realised until hearing it that I’d never heard it before. Would we all be happier if we threw that word around a bit more? I don’t know. This whole bit in brackets is probably best disregarded.)
7
I have a friend who works in finance who used to share both investment tips and front teeth. He’s now in prison for incisor trading.
8
I've just asked Fred Durst whether he thinks I should get rid of my four identical statues of The Thinker and a groundbreaking steam engine. He told me to keep Rodin, Rodin, Rodin, Rodin, Watt.
9
“My grandmother just enjoyed a book about a famously unready king.”
“Ethelred?”
“No, she listened to it on Audible, the book about Harold Godwinson. He’d only just been crowned and was exhausted from repelling Harald Hardrada in York, he wasn’t prepared for another battle. How did you know my grandmother’s name?”
That Rodin one is properly rubbish, sorry. The “fancy abyss kit” one earlier, though? What a talent. I wrote about eco-friendly binge drinking for the i paper this month, as well as a nice little piece about obedience in children being overrated. I keep pitching stuff to them which is faintly horrifying, like recently I had a week where about ten pairs of underpants just fell apart because they were all the same age and had eroded at the same rate, and I wondered if there was something in that, and no there isn’t, of course not, Jesus. I also had a nice chat with Charlie Day for Kerrang!, which was a lot of fun. And I continue to do industrial amounts for Cracked, and probably a bunch of other stuff as well. I’m a few days behind on delivering part of book number three to Bloomsbury, so that’s fun, ish? I’ve no idea when that’ll come out, 2026 or so?
Thanks for reading, if you did. Too much stuff about my body again! Please tell people about this newsletter — perhaps just say that it’s interesting and fun rather than going into too much detail about how lonely and unhinged it sometimes seems — and tell me that I’m good! HAVE A LOVELY MONTH
10
WHAT I AM CURRENTLY READING
That’s Ruined My Picnic by Anton McUpcake
I Can Feel A Breeze On My Bottom by Nicholas Lady
Ever So Scary by Sophia Inducing
You Made Quite An Impression Coming In Here by Ella van Entrance
Adobe Photoshop And Others by Imogen Software