This is the thing, they can easily mute occasional booing when he comes on the big screen. A proper crowd will execute an all-night character assassination.

This 'Knicks fans, fuck Trump up!' thing is a real test of whether US sports crowds can truly deliver beyond just booing. If it was even a League One football team, there'd now be 79 songs in circulation taking down each year of his life to the tune of a pop classic, and they would rotate all night.

If you want your pub or bar or cafe to become so popular with self-employed people that you can retire 5 years from now, it really is as simple as just having lots of places you can plug things in to charge.

I think this is the greatest 'bad poem in a paper' I've ever seen, and I've looked out for these on social media for years. It defies all your expectations of what can be done in a poem. It's made my day.

You know the World Cup hype is down on usual levels because I've barely even seen any of those contorted ads like HUNGER BRINGING YOU DOWN? FREE-KICK OUR DOOR OPEN FOR A PIZZA! or IS YOUR EMPLOYER'S SAFETY POLICY OFFSIDE? WE COULD GET YOU A PENALTY.

I'm in a nice hotel. It's not posh but it has a lovely little steam room. I'm going there now & taking some dumplings & broccoli in with me so I can relax & save energy by cooking my dinner at the same time. Climate change is real. We all have to do our part.

Thanks to three great audiences in Exeter; also my parents for making it possible by raising me. Work-in-progress is in promising shape. Edinburgh tickets below. Meanwhile, from the kids' show, here I am in a bin again. (T-shirt art: @petefowlerart.bsky.social) www.thestand.co.uk/fringe/2973/...

Looking up something to do with swim goggles and you wouldn't believe how hard to it is type 'goggle' into Google, every fibre of you believes you're writing Google.

There are two places in southern England called Gillingham, pronounced differently from one another. Not everyone can say they've been to both. But, well, not everyone lives a life like Mark Watson's.

Someone walked into first class on the train, realised, reversed out without breaking stride, and it was so much like that meme where Homer reverses back into the bushes.

Honestly if they published the Taskmaster 'cheeky texts' in one volume, for charity, but then sneakily gave the money to me, I would never have to worry again. I must get on to Alex about that.

Enormous thanks to anyone who shared this or, lord, even bought the book on launch day yesterday. The hardback sold so few copies I was pretty much able to visit each buyer at home and shake their hand. But this is going better.

My most recent novel is out in paperback TODAY. As you can see, there's been a dazzling redesign of the cover. Meanwhile the Kindle ebook is 99p all month. For those with no time for books, you can also buy it as a chocolate bar, a roll-on deodorant, or I can WhatsApp you the entire thing.

Also, while I'm recommending things. I will be in Exeter myself for this. I think I'm sold out because of course I am, I'm massive*. But the lineup is awash with quality comedians. *The room's pretty small

This guy's shows are super interesting as well as funny. Strongly recommend. (Those of you who listen to my podcast have also heard him do a haunting cameo there.)

It's true: my last novel comes out in paperback this week. These two free ones might have gone, but I'm going to talk to Simon about doing some sort of special offer to mark the occasion. (Also, it's 99p on Kindle all month. Which is cheaper still, obviously. But that's fine by me.)

It's a great question, this. In theory I'd trade in all my stand-up comedy skills just to be able to play the bloody piano, but if you were a pianist at my ability level of standup you'd make about £900 a year. Same for a lot of jobs. We're overvalued. So I probably have to stick rather than twist.

In an email confirming my appointment, my hairdresser says I'm now 'only a few steps away from looking and feeling great'. I wonder if they'll let me know what these steps are at some point after the haircut.

Who wouldn't be excited to go see MW:SPABOCWTSWIPbTTIR!!! (I'm going with: Spabbock-wits-wip-butter for pronounciation.)

Edinburgh show. New material. My title takes up most of the available word allowance for show description. www.thestand.co.uk/fringe/2973/...

Yep, vote for Ted tonight. You don't have to watch it. Just imagine someone winning a nationally televised, Simon Cowell-driven show with a bunch of awkward PowerPoint slides and graphs, and that should get you over the line.

At the weekend I went to see the very great band the Super Furry Animals and there I ran into probably the best, funniest standup of my generation of comics, Mr Rhod Gilbert. He was pleased to see me too, I think, this is just his face in photos.

They're absolutely right to complain about ageism, but the headline made me laugh. 'An actor called Chris or a talking animal' are made to sound like more or less the same thing.

Well, not 'tangentially involved': he has edited several episodes. And without editors it would be shit. And that goes for almost all podcasts, by the way. Anyway, I do agree you should look mine up. There aren't loads of long form crime drama podcasts.

I'm in a WhatsApp group for a (big) birthday party which has more than 100 members, and someone has just LEFT A VOICE NOTE. I just don't think you can do that. I'd track down all 100 people and relay my comment in person before I did that.

PEACE NO WAR PUTIN - THINK THAT. If Vladimir is passing through Taunton this'll certainly give him something to ponder.

This is the best petty grievance I've seen EVEN ON HERE for a while.

The hotel I'm staying in was playing an easy-listening-croon version of 'As It Was' by Harry Styles and I'm wondering if that's the shortest gap I've ever seen between a song's release and the hotel lobby treatment of it.

This is just to say I wonder if we can now Revert to Normal forms of communication Because A lot of my mates Think it's weird How we always break news This way

If you manage to send an invoice using train wifi, the recipient should pay you an extra 25 percent in recognition of what you've gone through.

My teenager's an Arsenal fan (north London-born). They're not my team but I've lived it with him and I was screaming at the final whistle last night. Then I pondered the fact he's, at 16, had better things out of football than I probably ever will. Is this how resentment of young people begins?

I'm going to do an Instagram Live at what I would estimate is about 5.15. This week I don't think it will be interrupted by chest pains.

The past week has unleashed enough bad football opinions on here to make me think Bluesky really has made it as a platform.

Almost got mowed down by an electric scooter while using WhatsApp's edit function to add a full stop to a sentence that was otherwise fine. I would have had no regrets. I have my standards.

I bought my little niece this Paddington Bear toy which talks when you squeeze it, but now my sister's dog has got hold of it and is savaging it ruthlessly while it says things like 'I wonder what adventures I shall have today!' and 'I'm your friend!'

MY MUM, PERUSING THE SUNDAY TIMES RICH LIST: 'The king's still doing pretty well for himself'.

It's a sorry state that they have to have a 'do not abuse our staff' sign in WH Smith. Who is kicking off in WH Smith?(GRABBING HIM BY THE THROAT) NO MOTHERFUCKER I AM NOT INTERESTED IN ADDING A MONSTER ENERGY DRINK FOR 99P

Starmer, Burnham, all of them should face off in a school sports day-style event. Sack race, egg and spoon, throwing a little beanbag. We'll quickly learn who is a real winner. The TV rights would help the economy through the uncertain period. I can't believe more people aren't suggesting this.

A body of absolutely brilliant comedy work here.

I will shortly appear on an Instagram Live. I've been personally asked to do this by the people who run Instagram; they used the phrase 'a clamour of demand'.

Well there you go, we got there: you can now add someone to a WhatsApp group and give them the whole chat history. We've got almost no problems left to solve as a species.

I'm not going mad, am I. There already has been a show here, called Lingo, which predated Wordle, and is more or less the same thing. Well, maybe I am going mad but I'm right about that aspect of existence.

Once, a woman asked me for a selfie but she was part of a group of about seven, and as she posed her drunk friends laboriously around me, two or three of them kept saying things like 'who the fuck even IS this guy' as if the photo had been my idea.

'Mark Watson is also there'

A sneaky London appearance for me on Wednesday, doing all new material. I happen to know some of it is going to be pretty good, some garbage. (Vix's show is watertight, though.) I believe the tickets are also quite cheap. That's important in the current climate.

Were kids in other countries doing the 'six, seven' thing in their own languages? Or saying 'six, seven' in English? Or did the strange phenomenon only happen here?

Edinburgh show. New stuff, under the radar. Obviously will be more on the radar now I'm saying this. I'm afraid, as you can see from the thumbnail, babies can't come. Not my choice. www.edfringe.com/tickets/what...

That 'hardbacks are outdated' article had a lot of flak, but for lower-ranking authors like me the guy does have a point. You only really get one chance to promote your book, but it's in a format that costs £17.99. By the time people have 'waited for the paperback' they've very likely forgotten you.

It's a weird old atmosphere when local elections are going on. Some people are obsessed with local politics, some totally oblivious. I enjoyed this by @paradisoalcatraz.bsky.social, a semi-fictional account of the scene in Hastings. paradisoalcatraz.substack.com/p/fear-and-l...

This is presumably the name of the song, but it sounds like the bot is rolling its eyes at 6 Music's choices.