Hello. It is January 2026. There’s a stranger sitting on a bench outside your house. There wasn’t a bench there yesterday. What’s going on? This is the thirty-seventh monthly issue of Interesting Skull, a newsletter of gentle plugging and sinking feelings by me, fragmented author and occasional train passenger Mike Rampton. New year, new attitude, a new joke coming along any month now.

The difference between a self-assembly office cabinet and your bottom is that one has files and parts…

Poo! What? Where? is out from Bloomsbury on January 15th. This one has been a long time coming. I first pitched it in December 2021, but now it’s finally coming out: a picture book about poo — what it is, how it works, the problems it causes, what it can be used for and more, more, more. It’s beautifully illustrated by Gareth Conway and is a lot of fun. It doesn’t necessarily seem like the best time of year to bring a book out, and I’ve not managed to plug it anywhere, and the publishers don’t seem to be doing much in the way of promotion, but I really hope it finds an audience. It’s really fun and has a lot going on in it, everything from Picasso painting with his daughter’s poo to how astronauts press one out in zero gravity. I’ve never seen an educational title with anywhere near as much dung in it, and feel like there’s a subset of “I like science and farts” kids (which I both was and have) for whom this couldn’t be more perfect. If you know such a child, please nudge them in the direction of it.

(I am flush with pride, I hope this big release makes a splash, it’s a bum-hole lot of fun etc.)

There’s a huge fog and a small fog. Which has the most spouses? The huge fog, as it’s a bigger mist.

I took a photo of an Indonesian sunset reflected on the sea which has proved very popular with tennis players. After all, they love orange Bali water.

“I’ve just been cast in an advert for a vegetarian version of a hoisin duck wrap.”
“Is it a plum role?”
“There’s slightly more to it than that.”

The year shouldn’t start in January. It’s cold and miserable. I am a very different person in easier times of the year, and don’t think it makes any sense to, mid-winter, make massive pronouncements about your next twelve months. My parents are teachers, so I always think in school years, which feel like they make far more sense — the hard bit comes about a third of the way in and then it’s uphill all the way. I’m never going to do Dry January: January sucks, so why make it worse? I could probably handle Dry May, because it’s a nice time of year and there’s lots of fun to be had, but I’m also not going to ever do it because I don’t want to. I only enjoy about ten things, and by ten I mean four, so why would I remove one of those from my silly little life? If you want pints, have pints!

But the Gregorian calendar — make your mind up, pal, is it Greg or Ian? — is a powerful thing. The efforts of the fat-cats at Big Gregory, these businesspopes in their zucchettos and ties, mean we’re still compelled to see this as the start of a new year. Its arrival at the most depressing and broke time of our journey around the sun surely makes us that bit more likely to beat ourselves up. It’s wet and grey and cold and rubbish, and I’m swallowing about four pints of sniffed-in snot a day: that’s a stupid time to judge yourself or your life. My life is broadly pretty good — I have the greatest child in the world, do a job I mostly love and am (as long as you ignore the occasional weird thing growing out of my neck) fairly healthy. But looked at through rheum and gloom, the things I don’t have cast a bigger shadow than the things I have. There are only two things I’m missing really: money and money. I know that’s the same thing said twice, but that’s how little money I’ve got! I don’t just have no money, I also have no money.

All of which is to say, I’m not making any huge declarations about aims, goals or resolutions for 2026. I’m just going to keep going, keep writing my silly books and doing my best. That said, if I can find the time this year to burn down the offices of the car parking company APCOA, wee on the ashes and then make their CEO eat them, I’ll do that, and I welcome you to join me.

Recreation, fresh air and a Best At Fishing trophy: that’s what I’m angling for.

“I’m going to watch this film about Shakespeare then set up a website selling pork products.”
“Hamnet?”
“What a great name! I’ll register the domain after I’ve finished watching All Is True (2018) starring Kenneth Branagh.”

The people speak of Athos, the eldest Musketeer,
A man whose reputation none shall ever dare to smear.
And people speak of Aramis, a soldier yet a bounder,
Whose skill upon the battlefield would make a villain flounder.
And people speak of Porthos, a hero pure of heart,
Seeking of attention yet with knowledge to impart.
Which brings us to d’Artagnan, the hero of the age,
Whose exploits were immortalised on Dumas’ printed page.
And yet there was another man, who history denies,
Ignored by Alexandre in his manuscript of lies,
And left behind in time although a hero just the same:
He came up with the lava lamp, and Mathmos was his name.

I have bought a fish tank. Don’t have any fish yet, because I am yet to get something for it to go on, and I won’t be able to lift it when it’s full (despite being VERY STRONG). So currently it’s just a really expensive box. Eventually it’ll have some fish in it, so that’ll provide up to eight minutes of interest per calendar year. I’m definitely not awash with financial regret about the whole thing though!

Fun band name if anyone wants it: Terry’s Chocolate Apple.

Came second in a pub quiz. Missed out on a £400 jackpot. Will be angry forever.

That show Stranger Things just ended. An actor called Finn Wolfhard plays the main character, Mike. What a cool name: Mike.

I had a brief chat about dog mess with a stranger the other day. There were little pellets of dog mess along a stretch of path, maybe 100 metres long. He said, “They must have just been falling out of it.” I said, “Like a smelly Hansel and Gretel” and then he didn’t say anything else but we were walking in the same direction very near one another for several more minutes.

“My slime menagerie will get me on the list of high achievers.”
“Ooze zoo?”
“Yes.”

Who’s the rudest poet? Roger FcGough.

“One of the stars of Fawlty Towers painted a picture of some boxes.”
“And drew sacks?”
“No, Ballard Berkeley just painted a picture of some boxes.”