A Decade of EE!

Plus: a dash of avian plop

Mar 24, 2026

Friends. A pigeon pooped on me while I waited in line for pizza.

I wasn’t feeling particularly well, and looking down at the dash of avian plop on my shirt made me feel worse.

Carefully, I took off the sharted shirt and the nice person at the pizza counter gave me a plastic bag to wrap it up in.

This didn’t leave me shirtless, you understand. I was wearing my wife’s CHIPPENDALES t-shirt underneath my main shirt in honour of laundry day.

I bet you think this is the whole story but it’s a three-parter. Follow the pigeon.

Help

Faeces aside, the main thing I need to tell you about today is the plan to get Escape Everything! back into print for its tenth anniversary.

I’ve written a new afterword and it would be nice to repair an act of cultural vandalism by reinstating the book’s original title and beautiful Houdini cover.

So! If you order a tenth anniversary edition of Escape Everything! here (and/or buy one for a friend or colleague or pet), you’ll receive it in the post as soon as the printer stops making noises.

Plus you’ll be helping to nudge it back into bookshops and libraries.

It’s a bit like that Tom’s Shoes thing where you buy a pair of shoes and the company sends a matching pair to someone with bare feet. Except with this, you get a book while two or three other copies appear in a bookshop where they’ll silently wait for a customer to have their life turned inside-out.

Here’s the link again. Thanks if you do.

Joke

What did the egg say to the tattie scone?

We’re on a roll.

Your eyes do not deceive you, this is an actual joke!

The pigeon’s shit-and-run was followed by a strange wave of nostalgia. It seemed like the sort of thing that happened in the ‘80s. People were jobbed on by birds all the time back then, but you don’t hear so much about it now.

So I texted my sister about it.

“I just got shat on by a pigeon,” I said.

“Today?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“That’s weird,” she said, “I also got shat on by a pigeon today.”

To be continued in Part 3. Keep following the pigeon.

Pitch

My latest pitch for an uncaring world:

Gyliner. It’s guyliner for women.

For Eccentric Millionaires Only

The standard pledge level in the EE! Kickstarter is just £13 for the new book, but there’s also a £100 mega bundle for flush folk and sugar parents keen on the project.

The pitch doesn’t specifically say what these angel investors will get in their mystery box because I wasn’t sure at the time of writing it, but I now think it will include a signed copy of Tether and a New Escapologist Issue 18, plus the advertised postcards, EE! and tGLfWS.

Spotted

This funny cartoon by fine artist and producer of post office tat David Shrigley has strong Mister Bob vibes.

Cultural Recommendations

I’ve been catching up on Black Mirror (2005-present). Series 6 is incredible, especially the one about Jessie Pinkman in space.

I really enjoyed the Nightingales’ Edinburgh show. They’re still touring (just about) and you can also buy their records and kazoos like I do.

Service (2026) by John Tottenham is good. It’s a darkly funny novel about a miserable bookseller. I’m calling it Blacker Books.

You can always nose into what I’m currently reading here.

“You know whose fault it is, don’t you?” said my sister, “It’s Ted.”

Ted is my nephew. Her son. How so?

“He’s become a pigeon bully,” she said. “It must be in the genes. He just started doing it.”

“Meh,” I said, “Let ‘em have it. Bloody feathereds.”

“Yeah, but now they’re taking it out on us,” she said.

Sweet Pigeon Jesus, I think she’s right. The God of Pigeons is angered and now His minions are shat-attacking Ted’s allies.

To any pigeons reading this: your plan will not work. We are not really Ted’s allies. Honestly, we hardly know him at all. Befouling his mother and uncle will make no difference to his campaign of terror. If you don’t like being pigeon-bullied, take it to the pigeon bully himself. I’m just a tired old man eating a pizza and trying to get his book back on the shelf. Leave me alone. And anyway Ted’s only 2. How bad can he be?

“He was chasing them around with a stick this morning,” she said, “Casting spells on them.”