Ayoade on Top

by Richard Ayoade

This is a narrative that will resist easy (or even logical) answers.

Lord, this onion’s layered.

As an only child, I never learned to conspire, no one showed me how to rebel. I simply did not know how to transgress. I did everything I was told. My first words were, ‘Will that be all for today?’

When my parents weren’t watching the news, they were either waiting to watch the news or recovering from watching the news. The news confirmed their feeling that things were terrible everywhere, and there was nothing anyone could do about it apart from keep abreast of developments. I’ve avoided the news ever since.

The ‘staffers’ on the Goop website tell me that the egg is ‘pre-drilled for string add-on’ (they recommend using unwaxed dental floss, but I suppose you could decide to attach a yo-yo) and that the item is ‘non-returnable’. But surely it should only be non-returnable if you’ve inserted it into your vagina. I would suggest that most consumers presume that once they’ve inserted goods into their vagina, those goods are non-returnable, whether it be a moth strip, a travel kettle or a fidget spinner. Once it’s gone in, it’s a keeper.

Some of the worst things I’ve ever smelt I’ve smelt after opening a business-class toilet.

Whenever I fall, it’s rare to find a catcher in the receiving position. Purported ‘loved ones’ won’t stop laughing until I prove to them that the puddling blood is mine, and even then it’s not a given. When I see someone fall, the only thing I catch is my breath, before leaving the vicinity, lest I feel compelled to use up my valuable time pretending to help.

The savagery of moth is chilling. The only way to beat the bastards is to encase everything you own in plastic and suck out all the air; you have to live like a budget astronaut.

Winston Churchill said, ‘Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.’ But he never said anything about letting go of your fury. Fury is something you need, and if someone tells you otherwise, try screaming at them. They’ll often go quiet and start to cry. That’s when you know you’ve won.

America is an immigrant country, or at least it used to be until some of the Caucasians decided to pretend that they’d always been there.

The American Constitution enshrines the pursuit of happiness, but the key word here is ‘pursuit’: it’s all about the chase. It’s no good having a nation filled with happy folk emitting contented sighs and settling down for another in a long line of restorative snoozes. That kind of attitude is not going to scare off the Man in the Black Pyjamas. You need military might. And for military might, you need economic power.

Donna opens the package. It’s a watch that has two faces, so that Donna can set it to two time zones simultaneously. Ted says that whenever a passenger asks her what the time is, she can think about him, even though the two things have nothing in common.

I, too, studied law at university. And to the amazement of all who taught me, I graduated. I have, out of respect to The Law, never practised it, nor made any attempt to understand it. But my degree does mean that when people ask me what I studied at university, I have the opportunity to see how easily other people can detect shame. I am ashamed of many things, but studying law is the only thing of which I am ashamed to degree level.

I’m proud of what I pretended to learn. Without that fake solid grounding in law, I might never have gone into light entertainment.