I can't ignore this material

And I apologise in advance

Whenever people from my old life meet me and pretend they have no idea what’s been happening to me, when they ask “What have you been up to?” I always say “Oh, you know. Staying out of trouble.” My favourite response to this is the double-take but I once got a double-take and a snort.

Of course I’m not staying out of trouble! I’m always in massive amounts of trouble! Most recently I got into trouble for forgetting that my recent activism has somewhat overshadowed the fact that I am a comedy writer, and so when I post things like this people get mad. Well, I won’t post the joke, because people got mad. But this was the follow-up to the joke that got everyone mad.

Graham Linehan @Glinner

Please don't make fun of me

Of course, that’s just my face on Sam Smith’s body, which he insists on sharing at every opportunity, a practice that I insist I am allowed to mock. I realise pop stars are becoming an endangered species, but I refuse to gaze at them with the benevolent affection we reserve for pandas or toddlers, no matter how striking the resemblance is to members of both groups.

(This was my favourite response to the photograph of me, by the way.)

There’s also Bingo Bongo the vicar/imaginary friend in Inside Out. Am I supposed to ignore this absolute GOLD?

Graham Linehan @Glinner

"I'm afraid you're too late, Mister Bond. My poisoned mascara brushes are already being circulated in gift bags at The Hague. What a pity we couldn't see...eye to eye."

Of course I can’t ignore it. I’m astonished that all my former comedy writing chums are pretending it’s not going on either. You’d think Bingo the Vicar/imaginary friend from Inside Out would prove juicy pickings for the likes of Frankie Boyle but he’s as cowed by a man in a collar as Irish society in the Seventies.

Perhaps funniest of all though, is ‘Trace’ Peterson’s ‘Everyone is A Little Trans’.

Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @realchrisrufo

UConn professor Trace Peterson reveals everything you need to know about Queer Theory in this atrocious poem, "Everyone Is A Little Trans." Modern universities have substituted identity for scholarship—and taxpayers are subsidizing it. More: youtu.be/n7B0moIpnaE.

Everyone is a little lurker

Everyone is a little mako shark

Everyone is a little romper wearing narc

Everyone is a little tailor with a broadcloth under zir arm.

This is like a smuggled Hannibal Lecter puzzle from one of the books. Put it under a blue light!

The whole poem is absolute garbage, but Pen America says of it “Trace’s work is thrilling, which is to say it induces a shivering, excited awareness of nuance and nearness.” For me, it induces the last scene of a George storyline in Seinfeld.

So please be patient with me, my tender-hearted friends. I do indeed care about women’s rights, but I am also a comedy writer, and it would be a sin to ignore all this material laying around. Why, doing so would make me no better than Professional Ignorers like Stewart Lee and Frankie Boyle!

I have to laugh at this stuff because laughter is kryptonite to these idiots. I have to laugh at this stuff because otherwise I’d never stop crying. I have to laugh at the this stuff because I don’t accept joke policing by anyone, and I certainly don’t accept the authority of the kind of people who supported Mermaids (which Sam Smith did, by the way).

So if you’re following me on Twitter and you don’t find a joke funny, don’t worry, sit tight, there’ll be a better one along in a minute.

Onwards!