Trouser holes, boxes, and truncheons 👖🎁

Trouser holes, boxes, and truncheons 👖🎁

My face is one giant grin right now because I’m reading the reviews coming in from yesterday’s Find Your Funnybone microworkshop.

Julia’s starts with:

“The “find your funny bone” workshop had all the elements of a perfect workshop…”

YAY!

She goes on to say:

“…a fabulous host, great attendees and the right balance of content delivery and work. I came away having had fun, learned some things I never knew and with useable material for my business. Highly recommend!”

FYFB Workshop

This makes me SO happy because we cannot learn if we’re bored. Not effectively, anyway.

And I do not want to just impart information in my workshops — knowledge is only power if we do something with it.

Yesterday’s microworkshop went so well that I am thinking of doing one every month during 2025 — I had so much fun! And I have so many more fun writing and creative games to share. So in March, I’ll be running Find Your Funnybone part 2.

In the meantime, here are a couple of other rave reviews!

And if you can’t wait until March, come and join the Creative Playground — the only membership that practically guarantees you’ll write every single weekday.

(as long as you show up, of course)

Here’s how it works:

  • Twice-daily co-writing hours dedicated to whatever project you’re working on right now. Yes, you could set a timer and do it alone… but you won’t, will you? (There’s always something “more important” or “urgent” to do.) You’ll be amazed at what you can achieve…
  • Monthly Q&A hotseat sessions with me and the group: bring your current problem, challenge, or project and we’ll break it down and figure it out together. Never underestimate the power of a group of kind, creative people working on YOUR challenges.
  • Free access to every microworkshop I run — you can attend live, or access them from the library you’ll have the keys to.
  • library of micro-lessons and discussion from the daily writing power hours — if you’ve got an issue, chances are we’ve talked about it at some point!
  • Membership of the private Voxer group where you can chat with fellow creatives, writers, and business owners any time — share your wins, difficulties, and get a nudge when you need one.

It’s a small group and I intend to keep it that way — I want a maximum of 25 people — so I’ll be closing the doors when I reach that number.

Best of all? You can join us and try it out for just £1 for the first week!

Three of my members have been with me since I launched in 2020 (and before that, in my previous group). It’s not Hotel California, they could leave anytime… but they don’t. I feel like that’s a pretty good recommendation.

Try us here!

Writing + Fun!

Right — time for the Friday Goodie Bag.


This week, I’ve found the following delicious treats for you…

This video that explains how many holes a pair of trousers has

Humour is magic! Here’s one of my favourite recent videos that uses comedy to explain a complicated mathematical idea about holes. Think you know how many holes a pair of trousers has? Or a balloon? Think again!

This company that can sell an empty box for £59

“Emptiness. Redesigned.”

Behold the Bōks, a parody of every pretentious luxury marketing campaign you’ve ever seen. Want to know how they can charge so much for a portable game-carrying device? Check this out.

Cards Against Humanity also once sold literal poop and donated the money to charity.

Next time you’re struggling to sell something, think about how you’re going about it — then do something different.

This funny subversion of annoying tropes trotted out by EVERYONE

You know the trolley problem? You do. There’s a trolley and if you don’t pull a lever it’ll kill 10 people and if you do pull a lever it’ll kill 1 person — what do you do?

Legit thought experiment from way back when, massively overused by influencers who like to skim the surface of thinking without actually thinking. And boring, now.

Well, I found this little comic series on Instagram and the very first slide cracked me up:

“Nobody is in any danger. You are a professor for moral philosophy. Do you tie people to the rails to save your job?”

Snort.

This good news in the ongoing fight against fascism

It’s easy to think that nothing we do can make a difference. That is what those with fascist leanings want us to think, because the next step is apathy — and apathy is death. The loudest voices aren’t necessarily the majority — there are more good people who want equity and safety for all of us than those who are filled with hate.

This is a great example of that. (I’m so sorry that the first thing you see is Farage’s giant face.)

Reform — and the Tories — lost a VERY conservative seat in rural Wales to an independent candidate, largely because of an educational leaflet and picketing campaign from the group Stand Up To Racism.

I love this. Next byelections in my area, which is… problematic — I’ll be one of those leafleters. We can do something. We can use our voices and we can share other people’s voices.

Because when the most disadvantaged among us are safer, wealthier, and healthier, we ALL rise. The enemy isn’t those who are different from us. The enemy is the ultrarich, and 99.9999999% of us are never going to get there.

This lovely way of looking at life as a human

I’m always talking about finding the unusual angle and seeing things differently. That’s what creativity is all about.

So check out this Japanese artist, Keigo, whose art in this post “imagines the awkward daily life of a crocodile living amongst humans.” Delightful!

What I’m reading

I’m reading another Becky Chambers book! A novella this time, called To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a story about a small group of humans travelling far away from Earth to investigate — as ethically and non-invasively as possible — other worlds around nearby stars.

As usual with Chambers, her writing is warm and cosy and thoughtful and filled with humanity.

What I’m writing

I’m planning Find Your Funnybone part 2! And also finishing up a client ghostwriting project (taking bookings for April onwards).

And starting a brand new Substack documenting our home renovation. There’s nothing in it yet but you can subscribe here if you’re interested!

Word of the week

Truncheon.

It’s a funny word and it makes me laugh. Not sure why. What words are inherently funny to you? There’s science behind why certain sounds and letters are funnier, btw. I’ll write a piece about it at some point…

Quote of the week

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

— Maya Angelou

And that’s all for this week!

Have yourself a merry little weekend — and create something fun!


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