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Maybe as a result of playing football in the freezing cold on Friday and then returning to a house with only Herrings (I mean fan heaters in this case, but it's also true there were only Herrings in here too), Phoebe has picked up a bit of a sore throat and cough. She had a bad night (which meant that I did too - having kids is the worse) and she got the day off school.
And if Phoebe is skiving, then like a modern day Bagpuss, her parents can skive too.
Unluckily she is now old enough that you can sit her in front of the telly and get on with stuff, but I did my best to avoid working anyway. I actually managed to get a small amount of writing done in the afternoon, so maybe things are turning round.
It was the last day that my favoured poker site was going to be working and so I had to play a few games there. And I could risk going on a few higher stake tables as I am now not going to be able to build my money into thousands. I didn't win, though I am left with around about £100 so that's a 100% profit. I will now spend it all on roulette or become a millionaire trying. It should open up a lot of writing time.
It's not like social media can take up loads of my writing time any more. Twitter, which used to be my playground, my shop front and a place to make friends is a horrible quagmire or prejudice and idiocy. It's not fun to post there and it no longer functions as a place to promote stuff. The place used to be such a help for selling tickets, raising kickstarter or charity funds and trying out jokes (one of which became a book and without Twitter no Me1 vs Me2 snooker, so it wasn't all good) that I would willingly have paid a subscription. But I am not giving any money to Musk and in any case if I did pay all that would happen is I would promote my work to the kind of people who think they should pay for Musk's Twitter. And they, I think it's fair to say, are not my audience.
I try to post stuff on Bluesky mainly now, but it's not the same. Yesterday I tried to do a witty subversion of someone's post "What can you say during sex and but also on the bridge of a Federation Starship?" by suggesting "Are you enjoying us having sex?"
Of course it's possible to say anything on a Starship Bridge and if you're telling me that no one ever has sex up there, you're living in a dream world. But the fun part of this for me is what a terrible thing "Are you enjoying us having sex?" would be to say wherever you are having sex. Though very much the kind of thing I would probably say. If I ever were to have it. I think the worst thing you can say during or just after sex is "thank you", which I know I did a few times in my early days of human intimacy. A thank you of disbelief. As if the person had done something truly awful for me. Which I suppose they had.
It was my true feelings, but it was not sexy.
Try saying "Are you enjoying us having sex?" the next time you have sex (not something that many of my readers will experience sadly) and see what atmosphere that creates. At best, you're going to get a laugh. Occasionally laughter can be good during sex, but not usually.
The worst thing about me posting my joke (which to be fair was mainly just to amuse myself alone - mission accomplished) was that quite a few people then just posted genuine attempts at the joke, about klingons or engaging or whatever, which meant they had really missed the point of my joke or maybe thought I didn't understand what I was meant to be doing or possibly that "Are you enjoying us having sex?" was something that was actually said in Star Trek at some point.
Threads is a good place to subvert ridiculous or click-baity posts (though obviously interaction is all that the latter group want so you still lose).
Today someone posted "RIDDLE TIME
A man dies of old age on his 25 birthday. How is this possible?"
A riddle of such little depth and charm that it seemed beneath even a bot to post it. Yes, you've got the answer, well done.
I decided to answer thusly "Sadly this can happen with various degenerative illnesses. Not sure that's really the subject for a riddle, but I guess at least I got it right, so that's something."
As usual some people failed to see what I was doing or realise that I might be intelligent enough to get the right answer. Sue said "He was born 29 February".
I replied "Good guess, but sadly mine was the correct answer. People born on 29 Feb still celebrate their birthdays annually."
You either choose to do it on the 28th Feb or 1st March.
Lissspenn also chipped in "Leap year birthday" so I doubel down "Incorrect. It was as I said, a terrible disease where a young person ages much too quickly. Horrible subject for a riddle though it may be."
No one got any pleasure from all this. Least of all me. And I can't see this ending up being a book or raising money for charity.
Though the failure of my tweets and posts did at least send me into my office to do an hour of actual work. Which migth end up being a book.
The jury is still out about whether I should just give up on this comedy lark. But it's only because the jury is staying in a nice hotel and enjoying the free sandwiches. I will get drawn back into the swamp soon enough.
You're getting a brand new RHLSTP with Mat Baynton in the next few weeks, but whilst you wait, here is his first appearance on the show alongside Jim Howick
