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Ernie is a sensitive soul for whom excitement and fear live side by side. Tonight at bedtime, he was thrilled about the imminent arrival of the Easter Bunny but also freaked out. He asked me whether the Bunny was a male or female or gender neutral. I said I didn't know but that I thought they were maybe female, as I've always told him that the bunny lays the eggs (in boxes and foil), which is something he has bought into and which probably hasn't made things any less scary. He wasn't convinced by this so he left a note to the Bunny asking if they were a boy or a girl, which was very much a case of kicking the can down the road for us.
The Easter Bunny was quite evasive on this, saying that sometimes they were a boy and sometimes they were a girl. I think the Easter Bunny was keen to represent they were a role model for everyone so that Ernie could be proud of his gender without being dismissive of others. It's a tough job being an Easter Bunny, even without the shitting out ten billion eggs a year.
He also asked me if the bunny was human sized with arms and legs or usual bunny size. He was unsurprisingly scared of a human-sized human-limbed rabbit entering the house when he was asleep. But then if the bunny was just rabbit-sized it made the prospect of them giving birth to even one normal sized Easter egg almost too horrible to think about.
I suggested that as the Easter Bunny was magic they would look however you wanted them to look, but no one was really sure as the Bunny carried out their odd work in secret and I didn't think anyone had seen her, or him or them.
He wanted his mummy to come up and comfort him, which I thought was rude, as aside from making him think about a huge rabbit full of eggs, breaking into people's houses and shitting them out, I hadn't said anything to make the situation worse. Catie reminded Ernie that he wasn't scared of Santa or the Tooth Fairy, but Ernie said he was a bit scared of the Tooth Fairy and to be fair, so am I. Of all the magical beings that come into your house to give you stuff, the Tooth Fairy is surely the dodgiest. It feels like they are taking more than they give and that they're really doing this for themselves, rather than for the kids.
Ernie said that every house has its own Tooth Fairy and that they use the teeth to build a castle. Which is as good a guess as anyone can come up with.
I wonder why so many adults are screwed up and believe in insane stuff to get them through their days.
The Easter Bunny popped up in tonight's SNL UK and was very much large adult sized with adult limbs, so I am glad Ernie didn't see it.
We've been really enjoying SNL UK - I caught up on episode two this evening, (which I think was the most consistent of the three so far), and managed to just about stay awake for the third one.
I like that they are getting in some quite surreal ideas like Jools Holland as a lord of time and medieval people glueing wraps. It's found its tone very quickly and for me has much better ideas than SNL USA and generally the sketches hold up for their longish run times, whereas the US ones usually fizzle out, sometimes before they've even begun.
Every month I send a box of old scripts, DVDs, old kickstarter rewards, T shirts and whatever else is kicking around my office to a randomly selected monthly badger. This month it was won by Andy Slater who has been sending us £1 every month since 2015. He'll probably just about get his £120+ back if he sells the stuff on ebay.
The £1 a month level is no longer available to new subscribers, but if you'd like a chance to win and also get badges and a membership card, ad-free podcasts with early access, access to a website with all the videos we've done for RHLSTP (and new ones added every time we film one - no waiting three years on youtube), plus stand up specials and news about guests before we tell the non-badge scum and more, plus (if you pay at top level) two bonus podcasts a month.
All your money goes into making more podcasts and keeping our crumbling empire running. We keep everything free so those who can't afford to pay or who don't believe they should pay can still access pretty much everything. If you want to support us (and get a chance to win those sweet, sweet prizes)
head to gofasterstripe. 
