A CURE FOR LOVE

So, I’ve taken a plunge. A mild one, of course. Hardly the stuff of an Acapulco cliff dive or even a New Year’s Day dip at Eastbourne, but a plunge nonetheless.

Emboldened by the example of the brilliant Bobbie (@cherryaimless), I decided to venture into the previously taboo-to-me arena of self-publishing.

Indie films and indie music have always had a cool cachet, but writing and publishing your own book traditionally brings a sneer to the lips, mine included. Bobbie, a Bridport Prize-winning author amongst other things, just decided to forego all the usual channels and take control. Starting her own imprint Typewriter Press, her debut novella Hollie’s Dream of Consciousness reclaims the teenage working class girl voice from the Vicky Pollard screech and thumps it vibrantly and AUTHENTICALLY into the here and now.

The book’s done well and deservedly so. It’s not troubled the charts, it couldn’t. But it’s sold out its small run and another run after that. So, Bobbie says to me, halfway through our fishcake and chips, why don’t you give it a go?

The reasons I didn’t want to.

1 – FEAR. I used to do stand up. I wasn’t terribly accomplished at it but I did it. And I enjoyed doing it. But the only reason I could do it at all was A HUGE DRUNKEN SHIELD. Being arseholed on stage gave me the confidence of another persona. I couldn’t be held accountable. It didn’t matter. You can’t do that with a book though. It’s there, forever. And, whilst this has been the only ambition I’ve ever come close to realising, it still terrifies me. What if people think its shit? Jesus, I’ve spent all this time doing this and it’s shit. That’s what’s kept me from sleeping. Fear. But Fear becomes something bigger, a lie.

2 – VANITY. I did a creative writing degree and I did well. I just thought I’ll write a novel now and I’ll get published and that’s it. I honestly thought I could just sit down and smash one out (Steady – ed) and that would be me, another impoverished scrivener on the shelf at Big Book. It didn’t happen and I watched as friends and peers not only wrote books but got them published. People mentioned just going it alone. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. It reeked of defeat. Vanity publishing, I spat through my beer-flecked lips, is for talentless losers. And I wanted no part of it. But Typewriter Press feels different, an exercise in giving people control of their work, of how it’s released and how it pays for itself.

3 – A LIST OF EXCUSES DRESSED UP AS A MIDLIFE RUT. Too old, too silly, not good enough, too poor, too tired, kids, depressed, pandemic. Etc.

So many writers out there, so many good writers god damn it, it’s hard to get spotted. I’ve had the occasional bit of notice but nothing to make enough people go HEY WHO’S THIS GUY etc. I like short stories so I write them. Short stories don’t sell. And there are loads of short story competitions you can enter but who can afford that? If I entered all the ones I wanted to, I’d be 3 years behind on my rent. So it prices a lot of people out.

Anyway, I’ve talked myself into it. Bobbie’s the real brave one, she did it first. And she’s allowed me to share her imprint with my own book. You can order it by emailing typewriterpress@gmail.com or DMing me at @fourfoot on Twitter.

I’ve overcome my fear by hiding behind my real name. I’ve called myself JENKINS for three reasons.

1 – There’s already at least two authors with my full name.

2 – I wanted to reclaim the surname from its traditional place of being a name of a minor character (usually some minor jobsworth clerk) in a sitcom episode or a butler. Why should Morrissey have this forename-free world to himself, the burger-dodging racist twat.

3 – I thought it would be funny to be honest. (“THIS SENSE OF HUMOUR OF MINE, IT ISNT FUNNY AT ALL “– Kate Bush)

So, to summarise. I’ve written a book. If you've ordered a copy then THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PLACING YOUR TRUST IN ME AND THIS BOOK. I can't wait for people to tell me they liked it. Because anything other than that response would make me cry.

 I just wanted to see what it felt like to say I’d written one. I hope people like it. Oh God. Oh fucking God. [PULLS EDWARD WOODWARD SEEING WICKER MAN FACE]

Not My Child

My daughter was born nearly eighteen years ago in a warm hospital in south Wales. She was a few days late, had inconvenienced a few people by moving into the breach position, only to somersault the day before a Caesarean was scheduled and, thanks to the gargantuan efforts of her mother, crashed into the world one November evening. She was wrapped in a blanket and placed in a little cot on the maternity ward next to her shattered mother.

It was a moment of pure joy, tinged with relief and exhaustion and all the emotion that accompanies a new life. She was someone we had longed for and tried for. In the midst of the delight, we were all moved to a ward of new mothers.

There were maybe a dozen beds in the room, a dozen conversations and a dozen doting dads and beaming mums. The efficient glide of midwives between them all. The bed opposite ours was empty. And then it wasn’t.

A child of maybe no more than twelve or thirteen years of age was being wheeled in by a midwife. Her own baby was placed in a cot. At that moment, I was trying to concentrate on being in the moment with my own precious family but couldn’t look away. The child had an expression of deep shock, of having gone through an unimaginable horror and not yet having the vocabulary or the energy or the context to articulate it. She was a child with a child. She did not look at the baby. She sat and stared into some fixed point ahead of her, some lost moment behind.

I have never seen such a broken person. 

I think I indicated to my wife, unintentionally I hope, the girl sat in the opposite bed. Either way it distracted us for a few moments from our own fresh arrival. As if sensing our presence in this moment, a midwife came and offered my wife a cup of tea. Another nurse hovered into view and then drew a curtain around the bed opposite. 

From within the thin curtain there came the unmistakable sound of someone having their heart broken. I felt a terrible sense of powerlessness. A man and a woman, both dressed like salesmen, came into the room. They had briefcases and mackintoshes. A nurse ushered them into the heartbreak. There was crying, lots of crying. I noticed a policewoman at the door.

When I talk to my daughter about the night she was born, I leave all this out. I talk about the first time I held her, the way I pointed outside roughly in the direction of our house. Outside the night was wet, was dark. There were distant lights. There were distant lights.

I tell her about the tiny row I had with her mother when I accidentally named our daughter whilst her mum was in the shower. I tell her about the long walk home I enjoyed in the rain and the large scotch my next door neighbour poured me when he saw me at my front door. 

I tell her how much she was loved from the very start and how she will always be loved, no matter what.

I leave out the bit about the little girl and the even smaller child this life had seen fit to give her. I leave it out not because it’s not part of her story, but because I hated myself for being glad when the midwife separated her from the joy in the room. I did not want to be reminded of the horrors of the world so soon after the birth of my precious daughter.

Most of all I did not want to be reminded that sometimes a man cannot do a thing, not a single thing to help, even if it was a small terrified child barely an arm’s length away. 

I do not want my daughter to know I could not help and did not try.

When I came to see my wife and child the next morning, the bed opposite them was empty. The child and the other child had been moved in the night to whatever future the girl had stared into the night before. 

I presume they were both taken into care and eventually from each other. I try not to think of her, but sometimes I get the bus home that way, over the hill and past the old hospital. 

Through tears I cannot show, I remember her pale wet face and beg for their forgiveness.

Just more ranting - ignore

The government deliberately mismanaged the handling of the coronavirus to create a crisis ripe for exploitation. Having asset-stripped and privatised much of the NHS already, the government (guided by the Home Counties Rasputin, Dominic Cummings) dished out multi-million pound contracts to friends and families to make the PPE necessary to help halt the spread of the disease. Friends and families who had neither the experience nor expertise in manufacturing such equipment. The government refused help in sourcing PPE from around the world.

Despite the advantages of watching the disease come slowly towards them, they failed to do what was blindly obvious to the rest of the world. Shut the borders. Go for lockdown. Two weeks and the virus would be gone. Terrified of the cost to the economy, the Government dithered fatally. Not for them, of course. For 65,000 people.

Hurrying elderly people out of hospitals into care homes, where the disease spread like wildfire, hastened the deaths of many thousands of elderly people. The lockdown wasn’t a lockdown, just a set of vague instructions that continually changed. Dominic Cummings broke the rules his puppet government had announced and then apologised to the nation by lying to them.

The daily press conferences that were supposed to give the country a sense of how the fight against the disease was going were abandoned because the Prime Minister was bored. People were told to work from home, then labelled as lazy for doing so. The virus disproportionately affected overweight people – the government funded a half price eating scheme for pubs and restaurants. The biggest chain of which, JD Wetherspoon, is owned by a man who sacked all his staff once lockdown began and claimed expenses from the government for doing so. The same man who was the biggest cheerleader for the most calamitous decision a government has made in the last hundred years.

As the world economy contracted, the decision to go ahead with Brexit was never once under threat. Despite all economic forecasts indicating that this would further impoverish an already stricken nation, we are told that Brexit must happen. Her Majesty’s Opposition do nothing, the protest is minimal and dignified, playing the ball and not the man. Realising now that The Racist Vote is the only vote in town, they sit content to watch the suffering of their traditional voter base. An avoidable massacre, blatant corruption and cronyism, these make no differences to the opinion polls. Boris is the perfect symbol for the national decline, an inexplicably popular slice of fuck all. A rambling, incoherent mess of incompetence and privilege.

BBC News is now a propaganda arm for the government. It offers no challenge to the government’s dishonest narrative. Meanwhile the R rate (the rate of infection) is climbing again. It doesn’t register with the public, content as they are to fill the beaches and top up their tans. In the distance, if you squint, perhaps you’ll catch sight of a camera crew on a boat in the English Channel watching as feet away, desperate people try to stop their makeshift boat from capsizing. The language is of invasion, of viruses. Handfuls of people fleeing countries that we have either bombed, invaded or paid for the bombing and invasion of. The human instinct is to pity them, to want to give comfort, shelter, help to. But forty years of Thatcherism has blunted those instincts. We only hate people now. We only care about our house price, our cars and holidays. And when people speak out, they are silenced. Called traitors, scum, idiots.

For the umpteenth summer in a row, the record temperature in this country has been broken. Temperatures in the Arctic soar and the ice caps shrink. The waters rise. Disaster beckons. Perhaps even extinction. There will be nothing we can do, only look back and rue the opportunities squandered. The coronavirus will be remembered as a footnote and finally forgotten. The human virus will not be remembered at all.

Muppets and Grunge

“I miss the comfort in being sad”

Nirvana, Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle.

I was watching The Muppet Movie the other day and I realised how much of an influence the Muppets had on much of great 1990s American art. Kurt Cobain was Animal. Animal was grunge. The Muppets is one of the few things in what is ostensibly children’s television to not shy away from sadness and the causes of it. Remember when Mr. Hooper died on Sesame Street. Big Bird asking where he’s gone. And the human adults taking the time to sit him down and talk about death with him and how it was okay to be sad. That blew the world’s minds.

I don’t remember where I was or when it was that I learned about death. I do remember my sister finding out about it. We shared a bedroom then, a big one. She was five, I was seven. Our grandmother had died. Anyway there’d been lots of crying and sadness and then we got taken to bed and my sister asks my mum “Does this mean you’re going to die one day?”

Anyway it was awful because what do you do in this situation. You can’t lie but you can’t upset your kids any further because fucking hell you’ve got to go and deal with your own personal reaction to this and the housework and other shit. Any pause here is disastrous. A pause to a child is confirmation of the truth.

So, there was a pause and my sister starts losing it. Then she realises that she too will die one day and my sister, just five, is having a massive existential crisis. Death is inevitable. He’s coming for us all and one day you won’t wake up from your sleep.

So Mr Hooper dying wasn’t our introduction to death but it will have been for millions of American kids. They showed it on Thanksgiving Day 1983. Kurt Cobain is what, 16. So he’s too old for Sesame Street most likely but I guess he’ll have seen it, it was a massive cultural moment. For a generation of kids that's their introduction to the end of it all. No wonder emo happened. Emo was Grunge plus Elmo.

The Muppets didn’t airbrush death, they just explained it away as part of the natural order of things. Gonzo the undefinable flightless bird came from a fine tradition of glass half empty children’s characters such as Eeyore and Droopy. His perennial sadness wasn’t there to make the other characters seem even happier, it was the other way round. Kermit’s unflappable goodness, Fozzie’s indefatigable efforts to entertain – they put Gonzo’s inner torment into perspective. In the Muppet Movie, a film made memorable by one of the very best soundtracks of all time, Gonzo sings a campfire country lament called “I’mGoing to Go Back There Someday.” The Muppets car has broken down and their journey to Hollywood with it. Rather than have an optimistic, never mind anthem sung by Fozzie or Miss Piggy, it’s Gonzo’s turn in the spotlight.

This song devastated me as a kid. I was that kind of kid mind. It still floors me now. It’s like Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel.

“Sun rises, night falls. Sometimes the sky calls.

Is that a song there and do I belong there?

I’ve never been there. But I know the way.
I’m going to go back there someday.”

Gonzo is singing about dreams, about flying, about the elusive nature of meaning. But, to me, he’s also singing about the pointlessness of it all, that death is coming anyway and we might as well accept it. It’s not a million miles away from “I miss the comfort in being sad.”

Anyway, I was going to talk about the influence of the soundtrack on artists such as Grandaddy (listen to He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot and then listen to the start of Muppets Rainbow Connection) and Mercury Rev whose albums from Deserter’s Songs onwards show the same affection for the big American music as the Muppet Movie. I was going to talk about that and the influence of Fozzie Bear on Stephen Tombolowsky’s unforgettable Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day (now there’s a movie that I’d love to see a Muppet retelling of). I was going to do quite a lot of things but Death is calling and I haven't put the bins out.

366 Day Challenge - A New Hope

Hi

I just thought I'd say that I am no longer the captain of the good ship 365(6) Day Challenge. I've really enjoyed doing it but lately it's become too much work for me to do alone and I feel more worn out by doing it than inspired. Rather than let it fall away into ruin like an abandoned funfair or my own body, I felt it best to look for a new, younger, fitter skipper at the helm, and quietly walk away with my carriage clock for loyal service. That cavalcade of mixed metaphors thankfully over, I'd like to give my sincere thanks to everyone who has ever responded to a challenge. It wouldn't have worked without you all. I've been genuinely amazed at how popular it's been which it's why it's best for me to sneak off now before neglecting it etc. I'm talking about the challenge now, not my body.

Show some love and appreciation to Duncan McVey, the new skipper. He's already got off to a flyer and I'm happy that it's going to continue.

I won't single out anyone for thanks, you've all been wonderful. I'll be back on Twitter soon, poisoning the air with libellous descriptions of world leaders and drunken tirades against Muse.

x


PS - RESOURCE CORNER - If you've ever wanted to know if we've asked a question before - the links to everything up to May 22 2020 are here.

2020 So Far - the 366 Day Challenge Questions

Links to 2019 questions here.

Jan 1: GUEST QUESTION from @CountryChic1976 - Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions and do you have plans to realise them in 2020? 

Jan 2: GUEST QUESTION from @markcurtains -What's the weirdest cover version on an album you own?

Jan 3: GUEST QUESTION from @joannethejenius -What's the strangest thing you've queued for?

Jan 4: What forgotten and obscure catchphrase do you still say? 

Jan 5: GUEST QUESTION from @AWrightStuff -Which Twitter bio do you find hilarious or clever or fantastic?

Jan 6: GUEST QUESTION from @den_jw -What’s the best insult you've ever heard?

Jan 7: If you could live in any fictional universe (already committed to screen or print) which one would you choose? 

Jan 8: What’s the most "How did they do that" thing you've ever seen? 

Jan 9: GUEST QUESTION from @treharrisboy - What's your favourite outro in music? 

Jan 10: GUEST QUESTION from @morefromchris -What’s the big gossip from your first week back at work? 

Jan 11: GUEST QUESTION from @dmartw -Which song is the one guaranteed to get you on the dancefloor?

Jan 12: GUEST QUESTION from @Rover9495 -What quote sticks in your head, not necessarily your favourite or most profound, but the thing off a TV film or song that always pops up?
Jan 13: "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" - HOWARD BEALE, Network. Given your own sudden live slot on the news channels, what 12 words would you say to the world? 

Jan 14: GUEST QUESTION from @YPLAC -What phrase or euphemism that you've learnt in the last six months do you use the most?

Jan 15: Have you ever assisted someone in their aim of securing a romantic partner a la Steve Martin in Roxanne?

BONUS GUEST QUESTION from @diaryof annepank -If you could buy a candle that smelt of someone's penis, who would you choose?
 

Jan 16: GUEST QUESTION from @CountryChic1976 - For what achievement do you still seek recognition/adulation/awe? 

Jan 17: GUEST QUESTION from @LapsedCat -Please give a brief review of the last film you watched in the style of your mum or dad. 

Jan 18: GUEST QUESTION from @DeanoB24 - What is the most overrated or underrated? 

Jan 19: GUEST QUESTION from @StaggerLeeF -What fact, that you've vigorously argued for all your life, later proved to be absolute nonsense?

Jan 20: GUEST QUESTION from @CassInTheAttic - Have you ever held onto a grudge, which you know to be petty and ridiculous, but you can't let go?

Jan 21: GUEST QUESTION from @MariaDonovanWri -What puns make you smile?

Jan 22: GUEST QUESTION from @drunkenbutcher -What remake/reboot do you prefer to the original? 

Jan 23: GUEST QUESTION from @k8andrews - What's the pettiest rage-induced thing you've done?

Jan 24: What is your "happy place"? 

Jan 25: GUEST QUESTION from @llanerch -Have you ever been a "have-a-go" hero? 

Jan 26: GUEST QUESTION from @den_jw -What’s the stupidest thing you've ever done that still fills you with pride?

Jan 27: GUEST QUESTION from @ChrisSamsDad - If you could live your life over again, but remembering only one piece of wisdom you've learnt this life, what wisdom would you choose?

Jan 28: When was the last time you cried in public? 

Jan 29: GUEST QUESTION from @MoroneyAl - Who is your favourite ancillary characted from a sitcom?

Jan 30: GUEST QUESTION from @DaveThePitt- What is the last song that got stuck in your head and will probably get stuck in everybody else's?

Jan 31: GUEST QUESTION from @sonofmars - Explain the reasoning behind Brexit to a European.

 

Feb 1: GUEST QUESTION from @scareyjoe - With the possible Brexit food supply problems, what emergency food might you be forced to survive on? 

Feb 2: What town have you sworn never to return to and why?

Feb 3: GUEST QUESTION from @lloydbinding - What does your city/town smell like?

Feb 4: GUEST QUESTION from @Travers2002 - Name your eight Desert Island Discs, book and luxury item?

Feb 5: GUEST QUESTION from @felicefan - What's the most cringeworthy word?

Feb 6: GUEST QUESTION from @kloob - Give us your wisest, wittiest quote that sums up life today and which will be uttered for centuries to come.

Feb 7: GUEST QUESTION from @robertdee - If you were a choo-choo train driver and could drive a train between any two destinations, what would they be, what would you name the journey and who would you have as a ticket inspector?

Feb 8: GUEST QUESTION from @boosh71 - If you had one day to yourself, what would you do?

Feb 9: GUEST QUESTION from @felicefan - Name a song that would be vastly improved by the changing of one member of personnel

Feb 10: GUEST QUESTION from @ChrisDuzTweets -  Whose looks don't match their character?

Feb 11: Which siblings that you know are the least alike - in terms of physicality or personality?

Feb 12: GUEST QUESTION from @matronboy-  Which minor pleasure never gets old?

Feb 13: GUEST QUESTION from @StuartLaidler - As in the film Indecent Proposal, what job/task/thing would you never, not ever, do, not even for a billion quid deposited questions-free into your bank account?

Feb 14: GUEST QUESTION from @Rover9495 - What credits for a TV show do you love?

Feb 15: GUEST QUESTION from @IanNorris87 - What makes a great Ploughmans and where serves the best?

Feb 16: GUEST PICTURE ROUND from @Sergio-Georgini (photo is of a bouquet in a pub urinal) - what does this represent?

Feb 17: GUEST QUESTION from @ChrisSamsDad - What would be a 100% deal breaker in a potential new relationship?

Feb 18: GUEST QUESTION from @lloydbinding- Name your eight nightmare Desert Island Discs, book and luxury item?

Feb 19: GUEST QUESTION from @cherryaimless - The crew of the ISS are to get access to BBC iPlayer. If you were up there, what would you watch?

Feb 20: GUEST QUESTION from @drunkenbutcher -What fact/truth do you know intellectually but your heart still doesn't believe?

Feb 21: What have you done in your life that you feel necessitates a film-style montage sequence, and what music should soundtrack that?

Feb 22: GUEST HOST - @BigPaulWales - five part question

If you won a Golden Ticket at a Pie Emporium, what would you request for the following

a) The filling of the pie
b) The shape and size
c) The side dishes
d) The beverage
e) The background music

Feb 23: GUEST QUESTION from @Rover9495 - What's the worst business name you've seen?

Feb 24: ANONYMOUS GUEST QUESTION - What rude alternative lyrics do you sing to famous songs?

Feb 25: GUEST QUESTION from @drunkenbutcher - If you could shout to the rest of the world, what would you tell them to stop being so selfish?

Feb 26: GUEST QUESTION from @lloydbinding- What did you catch yourself doing tat makes you cringe?

Feb 27: GUEST QUESTION from @PRICEYBAY- What's your go to film/TV series and comfort food when you're ill?

Feb 28: GUEST QUESTION from @Junkyard_Fool - What politician that's sort of under the radar/doesn't enter most people's consciousness have you despised the most?
Feb 29: GUEST QUESTION from @drunkenbutcher - What did you initially reject on principle or without trying ?

 

Mar 1: GUEST QUESTION from @TheStevenThomas - If you had the power to create new patron saints for the modern day, who would they be and who or what would they oversee?

Mar 2: GUEST QUESTION from @browniemaker69 - What's the most brutal break up you've been through?

Mar 3: GUEST QUESTION from @nutupdate - What's the most inappropriate song you occasionally find yourself singing?
Mar 4: GUEST QUESTION from @YPLAC - What names did you have for things when you were younger that were way better than their actual names?

Mar 5: GUEST QUESTION from @cherryaimless - If you could revive a game show/quiz show, which one would you bring back, who would present and who would be the regular team captains?

Mar 6: In the spirit of Denmark at Euro 92, What unlikely location have you been happily summoned from?

Mar 7: GUEST QUESTION from @Marshallmedia - What song will you and your mates be singing when you're 75 and on the bus home from an all dayer?

Mar 8: GUEST QUESTION from @CassInTheAttic - What's the strangest event/place/appointment you've ever decided to attend on your own?

Mar 9: GUEST QUESTION from @lloydbinding- Which act would you only buy a Greatest Hits of, and not a proper album?

Mar 10: GUEST QUESTION from @TheStevenThomas - What's the one commodity nobody's yet realised we ought to be stockpiling?

BONUS GUEST QUESTION from @MickMuldoon - show us your CLEAN device wallpaper.
 

Mar 11: GUEST QUESTION from @MichaelGVine -  Without telling us a date or age tell us how old you are.

Mar 12: GUEST QUESTION from @felicefan - What are you REALLY good at, that if it were something worthwhile, would make you rich and famous?

Mar 13: GUEST QUESTION from @FifeDawg84 - If the Coronavirus was human, which human would it be?
Mar 14: If you were a TV show, what kind of TV show would you be?

Mar 15: GUEST QUESTION from @lloydbinding- Which song do you shamefully know all the lyrics to?

Mar 16: GUEST QUESTION from @mogwynfeather - Without naming names, who is your greatest nemesis and why?

Mar 17: GUEST QUESTION from @TheStevenThomas - What's the one tweet you've written that should be on your gravestone?

Mar 18: Did you ever keep a diary?

Mar 19: GUEST QUESTION from @stymistress - What's the best/worst fib you've ever told?

Mar 20: GUEST PICTURE QUESTION from @mogwynfeather - Share a photo of a time you were proud.

Mar 21: GUEST QUESTION from @drunkenbutcher -What do you have in your cupboards and can people help out with recipes?

Mar 22: GUEST QUESTION from @safeasfuck -a) What was the last gig pre-lockdown you attended and b) Which gig do you most hope will still go ahead?

Mar 23: GUEST QUESTION from @lloydbinding- What are the top 5 things you are going to do post-lockdown?

Mar 24: GUEST QUESTION from @SiHudPod- Which great song has an ever better video?

Mar 25: GUEST QUESTION from @Denchthefirst - What would be your pitch to Dragon's Den in these troubled times?

Mar 26: GUEST QUESTION from @dmartw -What is your food heaven and food hell?

Mar 27: Have you ever sabotaged something?

Mar 28: GUEST QUESTION from @drunkenbutcher -What nonsense superstitions do you have?

Mar 29: GUEST QUESTION from @Sue_Pook -What is your current favourite lyrical couplet?

Mar 30: GUEST QUESTION from @drivenbybordom -What would your crap coat of arms be?

Mar 31: GUEST QUESTION from @Rover9495 - If you could do over one non-relationship thing in your life, what would it be?

Apr 1: GUEST QUESTION from @nutupdate - If you could bring someone back from the dead for just one day, who would you choose. Also, if you could bring someone back from the dead just to give them a slap, who would you choose?
Apr 2: GUEST QUESTION from @mogwynfeather - If you could go to any fictional place, where would you go?Apr 3: GUEST QUESTION from non-Twitter person Roberta Smoke - What's the most British thing you've ever said?
Apr 4: GUEST QUESTION from @zellishrows - If you ran a Theme Pun, what would it be called and what would the theme be?Apr 5: GUEST QUESTION from @robertdee - Which supporting character from a TV show would you like to have their own show?
Apr 6: GUEST QUESTION from @Rover9495 - Which fictional character would be your choice for a PM?
Apr 7: GUEST QUESTION from @cherryaimless - What was your last Big Night Out or day trip before lockdown?Apr 8: ANONYMOUS GUEST QUESTION - Who would be in your celebrity threesome with you?
Apr 9: GUEST QUESTION from @kloob - Invading aliens have asked you to challenge them to a game. Lose and they will destroy everything. Win and they'll leave. What sport or game do you choose that you think you'd win and what's your special cheat move to ensure the survival of the planet?
Apr 10: GUEST QUESTION from @YPLAC - What song have you introduced to someone cool and muso-y that has genuinely impressed them?
Apr 11: GUEST QUESTION from @_davebrown_ - What is your favourite fictional character's name?Apr 12: GUEST QUESTION from @PeteDavies2006 - If you had to wait 27 years for something, knowing that it would make you just really, really happy when it came, what would it be?Apr 13: GUEST QUESTION from @felicefan - Is there a moment in a film/TV show that, no matter how many times you've seen it, still makes you nervous and tense in case it goes wrong?
Apr 14: GUEST QUESTION from @kloob - the following fights are taking place, the losers will be destroyed forever, the winners are never going away - who do you want to win? Continental vs Full English, Film vs Theatre, Pizza vs Cake, Piers Morgan vs Frequent Flatulence, Capt. America vs Batman, Sex vs a good book, Higher Wages vs More Holidays, Drugs vs Rock N Roll
Apr 15: GUEST QUESTION from @robertdee - It's 1988. You have to give Pablo Escobar a prostate exam. How do you escape, knowing you can't be allowed to live.Apr 16: GUEST QUESTION from @drunkenbutcher -What piece of misinformation were you told as a child whch spoiled things when you found out the truth?
Apr 17: GUEST QUESTION from @kloob - What's the most disgusting thing you've come across that people seem fine with?
Apr 18: GUEST QUESTION from @Phulax_Wolfgang - What films, books, authors etc have you discovered through Twitter?
Apr 19: GUEST QUESTION from @TonmeisterJones- What long forgotten bit of telly or film gave you the most joy when you found it on YouTube?Apr 20: GUEST QUESTION from @brennig - Are you avoiding (not blocking or muting, just avoiding) following someone on Twitter who you know personally?
Apr 21: GUEST QUESTION from @markcurtains -What will you miss most about lockdown?Apr 22: GUEST QUESTION from @MrChrisRoyston -What opinion do you hold that you suspect that you're wrong about and everyone else is right?Apr 23: GUEST QUESTION from @fluffybagelmix -If you had to isolate for weeks or months at any other point in your life when would they choose?
Apr 24: GUEST QUESTION from @safeasfuck -What won't you miss about lockdown?Apr 25: ANONYMOUS GUEST QUESTION - What is the nearest you've come to death due to a faulty or poorly designed consumer product?
Apr 26: GUEST QUESTION from @sipperana -What esoteric names do you have for different types of music?
Apr 27: GUEST QUESTION from @DeanoB24 - What is the favourite piece of memorabilia you own?Apr 28: GUEST QUESTION from @MariaDonovanWri - What life tips did you inherit and what tips will you pass on?
Apr 29: GUEST QUESTION from @joannethejenius - Since Lockdown, have you become addicted to eating or drinking a particular thing?Apr 30: GUEST QUESTION from @WhyAyeMrs -What song have you adapted for a mundane chore e.g. Putting Out the Bins for Putting on the Ritz?

May 1: GUEST QUESTION from @KirstyKomodo -What ridiculously expensive thing do you own that might see you up against the wall, come the revolution?
May 2: GUEST QUESTION from @Shadow_Chaser -What thing did you own in childhood that you miss most?
May 3: GUEST QUESTION from @zellishrows-What is your one luxury coveted item but is financially out of reach?
May 4: GUEST QUESTION from @danielson264 - What phrases need to "get in the sea"?
May 5: GUEST QUESTION from @robertdee - You've been commissioned by the government to create an artwork to commemorate the Corona Virus but you've forgotten and the unveiling is today. Using only what is around you right now, make something. What is it called? EXTRA POINTS FOR ACTUAL PHOTOS!
May 6: GUEST QUESTION from @YPLAC - Have you ever worked with a complete shithead who, if you had to admit it, taught you to do something extremely well?
May 7: GUEST QUESTION from @johnfidler - Which movie would you most like to do a Carry On remake of, complete with original gang?
May 8: GUEST QUESTION from @bensutherland - If you could find the answer to any unsolved mystery which one would you pick?
May 9: GUEST QUESTION from @Rover9495 - Who is the best at their "thing" whilst looking effortless?
May 10: GUEST QUESTION from @simon3862 - What do you do for a job and what would be your dream job?
May 11: GUEST QUESTION from @NickDentsBrain - Inspired by the Repair Shop my wife and I spent two days trying to work out what the oldest item we still owned was - that we had purchased AFTER we had got together 25 years ago. It turned out to be a set of pans. I wondered if your followers were a little more romantic than that….
May 12: GUEST QUESTION from @MoiraWalton - What piece of work gossip from your past could have made a good film plot?
May 13: GUEST QUESTION from @candycane_girl What would your "The Chase" nickname be?
May 14: GUEST QUESTION from @kloob - What is your favourite stock/cliché movie character?
May 15: GUEST QUESTION from @Phulax_Wolfgang - What is the most hipster moment/best demonstration of niche knowledge you've had?
May 16: GUEST QUESTION from @MarkFaulkner24. Does anyone have or is friends with someone who shares a famous name?May 17: GUEST QUESTION from @dmartw - everyone has an inner pedant, what really winds you up pedantically speaking?
May 18: GUEST QUESTION fr0m @Owenradford - what silly pet names do you have for partners/kids?
May 19: GUEST QUESTION from @valleyguitarist - what music do you want soundtracking your final moments?
May 20: GUEST QUESTION from @lloydbinding - if you had a celebrity best mate, who would it be and why?
May 21: GUEST QUESTION from @YPLAC - What everyday feeling does your patented middle-age party drug replicate?
May 22: ANONYMOUS GUEST QUESTION - What are your Lockdown confessions?
May 23: GUEST QUESTION from @sgt_rendall - Which character from one TV show could plausibly show up in another and what might happen?
May 24: GUEST QUESTION from @Phulax_Wolfgang - Based on their tweets, who would you put money on to do well on a quiz show and on what topic?
May 25: GUEST QUESTION from @sonofmars - Just what has Dominic Cummings got on Boris?
May 26: GUEST QUESTION from @DaveThePitt- What wild excuses have you used when you've been caught bang to rights, doing something you shouldn't have been.