Work hard, play hard...
Exactly how much shite can one man buy on eBay? A newsletter to find out...
What’s the weirdest thing that happened in your family recently?
I didn’t think anything weird had happened last week, as life for me was pretty standard. But, as I discovered on Friday night, Lee had a little mini adventure this week.
The story came out some way down a few bottles of wine with our friends in the village. (Aside - one of these friends sells wine for a living, so as friendship groups go - we WIN). It’s the usual chat - who’s been doing what, what we’ve been up to at work etc. Lee has been pretty busy at work recently, even going back to the office in the evenings after dinner, which is virtually unheard of, but he’s waving his wine glass around telling us about the project when he remembers that he has some unrelated news. Now Lee is a bit of a sucker for saying yes to literally any request for help by his mates. It doesn’t matter if he’s in the middle of doing one of his own tasks - like running an underground meat racket, or assembling the world’s most dangerous childrens' activity - if one of his mates needs help, he will drop it all at a moment’s notice and pitch in.
So when his friend asked if Lee could meet a woman from their village who was looking for some help, he had jumped at the chance to do someone a favour. Of course he’d meet her! Luke had said Lee was exactly the right kind of man she was looking for - he was practical! He had loads of tools! He could fix almost anything given the right amounts of cable ties and/or gaffer tape! Whatever it was she needed, well - sure, he'd be happy to help!
So he told us all how he'd met up with this woman, on Monday morning. I listened in, as this was the first I'd heard of this. Because he's been working late a lot this week, we hadn't had much of a chance to catch up properly. Anyway, turns out they'd had a nice chat. He'd asked lots of probing questions, trying to work out whether he could, indeed, be of any help. Fixing things? Well of course! He'd happily try his hand at most things. Repairs? Sure! As he told it, they were quite some way through this chat, him asking plenty of questions, when it began to dawn on him that this woman was also asking quite a lot of probing questions of him. An unusual amount of questions. Why was she asking him so many questions?
He said it was only when she started talking about him turning up, at 8am every morning, just to 'open up' it began to dawn on him what was actually happening:
He was inadvertently interviewing for the role of caretaker at this village's primary school.
And apparently, being successful enough in the process to actually be offered the job.
Christ.
Now Lee is a man of many talents, but not a man who is really in the market for a new job, let alone one which involves turning up every day at a school our children do not even attend to unlock their doors, unblock their toilets or jovially accept lighthearted insults from other people's children. No. I can categorically state that this was not the role for him.
What was also unusual was that he hadn't seen fit to mention this unlikely turn of events to me, his wife of thirteen years, until five whole days later. "Do anything nice today, dear?" "Oh, just accidentally interviewed for a new job I neither want nor need. You?"
So. Normal service is resumed in our household.
Well well well, if it isn't literally months since I wrote a newsletter. I've been busy doing quite a lot of other things (none of which involve accidentally interviewing for a new job though). I've had lots of work on, which has left little room for thinking my own thoughts, let alone being hilarious on the internet for no money. I write on a freelance basis for a living, and the busier I get doing paid work, the less I feel up to more typing in my spare time. I've had a few people recently tell me they miss this newsletter though, so I'll try to be a bit more frequent with it (which does rather rely on Lee doing or buying stuff which may pain me, so be careful what you wish for etc).
Here's what's been going on in LindsayLand:
I wrote a book proposal and to date have actually sent it out to agents, only one of whom has replied so far saying that it's unfortunately not for them, so from this I'm taking that there is still hope. JK Rowling had Harry Potter rejected twelve times! I will persevere...
I'm reading this book called How To Kill Your Family, by Bella Mackie which is very very good, and hasn't alarmed the children one bit, no no. It’s funny and sharp and dark and clever and you might enjoy reading it too.
My eldest child started secondary school, which means we have to leave the house a whole hour earlier which has been an unmitigated JOY as I’m sure you can imagine. As an unexpected side effect, I now go to bed some time around 6pm. Wild times indeed.
Back in June this newsletter was longlisted in the Freelance Writing Awards. Go me! It can be a lonely life as a freelancer, so any recognition in the real wide world really means a lot.
Fun stuff you might enjoy that I've been laughing at recently:
Arcane bullshit. Perfect for wasting all of your time down an instagram wormhole instead of doing any actual work. I particularly enjoyed the story of Marty harvarti…
King Gary. On the face of it, I didn't think this would be my cup of tea, but the sheer physical comedy in most of the scenes makes it a grower. My children like it too.
On that note, have I wanged on about Ghosts on here yet? Ghosts is one the best things I have ever watched on my telly, ever. Watch it with your (I'm going to say probably around 9yrs and over) kids - it's great.
If you’re not following Munya Chawawa on twitter, you really should be. His sketches are so quick and the subtitles are *chef’s kiss*. His tv show Complaints Welcome starts this week on Channel 4 and should be good.
This amusing eBay description might be right up your street…
Finally, I enjoyed these cats being idiots.
If someone forwarded you this message, you can sign up to get it directly by putting your email address in here to subscribe. It’s free, I’ll only ever send you this newsletter, and you can tell me to piss off at any time and unsubscribe whenever you like.
You can also read old editions of the newsletter here to discover what kind of damage a crossbow causes, how to move a half-ton pizza oven using only bricks and sticks and how to piss standing up for wimminz. Go on, have a look.
If you read it and enjoyed it, I’d love for you to forward it on to a friend too just like a normal email. Go on. Do it now.
Who am I anyway?
I'm Lindsay. Bit of a dickhead, freelance writer for money, author of And Other Idiots and other internet shite for kicks. This newsletter will be a short story of some idiotic exploits from quite close to home, for no other reason than to make you smile every two weeks. Exactly how much shit can one man buy on Ebay? I intend to find out.
Find me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook too if that’s your bag. Made you laugh? I don’t get paid to write this, but you can show your appreciation and buy me a coffee. Or commission me to write something with less swearing for you business? I’m nothing if not versatile.
You can reply to me by hitting reply just like a normal email - it’s really nice to hear your own stories, and feedback. If you’ve seen something funny that might be good to include, you can send me that sort of thing too. I bloody love it.
I’d love for this newsletter to reach as many people as possible. Please do forward it on to any friends you think might enjoy it too and ask them to subscribe.