CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

I am trying to work the word 'inchoate' into a sentence.

[Mick Harper]

I have got the opening line of my stand-up routine off pat, "This isn't the best time to start on a career as a stand-up." But of course this won't apply by the time they allow audiences back in the theatres. I can change it if necessary to "This is a great time to start on a career as a stand-up." Or I might leave it out altogether.

[Mick Harper]

Hatty's suggestion that I replace my daily half-hour dance routine with a half hour stand-up routine rather misses the exercise point. No, wait, "The Dancing Comedian".

[Mick Harper]

As my health and fitness regime increases in fanaticism I am going over more and more to Nature Valley products. They have given up the hypocrisy of being 'chocolate chip flavour' cereal bars and actually give you a slab of chocolate as the base for the mixture of nuts and treacle on top. Don't be put off by the word 'cereal' either, you can eat them all day. Not for long though. 'Being a fat bastard' is on The List and I'm not allowed out to replenish my stocks. I've started tying messages to my library books and throwing them out the window but, living in Notting Hill as I do, this mostly gets the response, "Already read it, thanks!"

[Mick Harper]

Ever since I can remember, I have suffered daily, sometimes several times a day, 'twinges'. An achy leg, a sneeze, smoker's wheeze, a bit of a head on me, a shivery sensation, an am I coming down with something. Honestly, my life's been one long health nightmare and they've never been able to diagnose what. Only now do I know positively that it is coronavirus. There's a lot of it about. Mustn't grumble though, I've never had any underlying health issues which, apparently, is what you've got to really worry about with this one.

[Mick Harper]

Finally my home page news provider presented me with something worth clicking on. It was a picture of rows of empty shelves and the headline "Tesco Acts Against Food Hoarders". Blimey, I thought, I'd best get down there with a couple of my expandable holdalls before those bastards clean us all out. But I'd forgotten to factor in the media's tendency to somewhat overstate the case

[Mick Harper]

What do you do when you need an endorphin rush but you've already done your half-hour's dancing? Do tomorrow's session today! Genius.

[Mick Harper]

Great story about Konga, a British fifites re-make of King Kong. In those days there were always parties of visitors trouping round the studios, so whenever one was due to visit the set, Konga (an actor in a rather lifelike gorilla suit) would sit morosely in his cage. Then a stage-hand would shout, "Christ, someone's left the door open!" Cue mayhem. Apparently it worked every time. You don't get that sort of realism with CGI.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Grim news from Tesco. I got the last ready meals, not surprisingly three chicken chow meins. What I'm going to eat tomorrow is anyone's guess. The irony is there's so little on the shelves that you are obliged to take what's there and then everyone thinks you're a hoarder. I mean, come on, who's laying in stocks of Barbecue Indian Party Snacks? Tesco have been rationing checkout staff though. One per shop, so we can all queue up together for the requisite fifteen minutes.

PS Tumbleweed on the Portobello. Three pounds fifty? It's cheaper at the garden centre.

[Mick Harper]

Here's a fine conundrum for you. There's a list of Elmore Leonard novels that are worth reading in this week's Guardian Review so you go onto your library's website and start instructing them to assemble them ready for pick up. Only to be told the library is not only closed for the duration but isn't even accepting new orders. Why they're worried about their computers catching the virus is beyond me. You can see the problem though: how do I keep the Guardian Review for weeks, maybe months, and even if I manage to do that, how am I going to remember why I kept it?

I may follow Hatty's strategy of 'posting something up on the AEL in case I forget it' except now I have to remember, when looking at an elderly copy of the Guardian Review, to look it up on the AEL before binning it. Wish me luck!

[Mick Harper]

I subscribe to an outfit called Academia that gives you access to scholarly papers we need for our books (Oh, yes, they're not all entirely constructed from the ether) and as part of the service you are bombarded with papers that mention your name. Here for example is one I did with my brother

[Mick Harper]

For those of us without a wife, and I understand in many cases a dog, these social distancing rules have played merry hell with sex. Don't think for a moment that premium phone lines are unaffected. My normal Aunt Jemima in Surinam is off for the duration though in truth I am slightly relieved. She does rather put one through the ringer. But of course it is the sphere of personal visitation that has required the most adjustment. Not necessarily for the worse. "You know it's a school day, don't you, you naughty boy" works very well from a staircase away. I must write a book about the origins of human sexual predilection, it is so little understood.

My own sexual development however was greatly affected when I was required to do field work for my PhD

[Mick Harper]

I've signed you all up to be NHS coronoavirus volunteers, I hope you don't mind. There was a bounty of £10 per. With 400,000 in the queue, the duties won't be that onerous. Probably taking a jab for your country, something like that. I ticked the box that said you had your own hazmat suit by mistake so you might want to sort something out. Later I attended the London Chapter of the Comedy Club of GB & NI (via Skype) and it was agreed coronavirus routines are OK now. I voted against so while I have to go with the flow you can see my heart's not in it. Stuart Lee says 'hi'.

[Mick Harper]

Something for you conspiracy theorists. I need one box of decaf capsules for very late at night so I wanted to include one in my latest order. Only to discover that every decaf flavour was simultaneously 'unavailable'. Odd, I thought, the biggest coffee company in the world running out of every type of decaffeinated coffee. But not a single type of caffeinated. Then, with coronavirus firmly established, I get this