Sharpish and funny

Apparently the peeps at BBC Writersroom who are running the Sharps competition were hoping to get their shortlist sorted sharpish (see what I did there) and get the e-mail out today (20th June) which would have been pretty good.

Well the general verdict is that they didn't ... except I did get an e-mail from the Writersroom, in fact I got 5 in total.

13:59 You applied but we didn't get your script...
14:08 Automatic recall of last e-mail
14:09 Please ignore the "we didn't get your script" e-mail
14:39 You applied but we didn't get your script...

However I have this e-mail that arrived on Wednesday that confirmed they had received my script.

So, as instructed by the last e-mail, I replied sending the Wednesday e-mail as proof. That's when I got the 5th e-mail, which was an out-of-office automatic response. (It was 10:00pm on a Friday, I didn't expect them to still be there.) Is this a record?

Of course the optimist in me wants to think that they were really trying to tell me that I'd been short-listed but being all in a rush they messed up.

But the realist in me keeps beating the optimist over the head with a wet kipper.

Let's get funny for a minute.

The department at work went for a fun evening out at the local comedy club last Friday. There was a late addition to the bill, a chap called Steven Violich. Who just happens to work on my team (ooh, I like the sound that: "my team").

Steven is a New Zealander, a web developer and a stand-up. (Hey, and why not, I'm a Senior Web Developer and I write scripts, novels, poetry, etc.)

I didn't go to see him as I was on my way back home (doing the weekly commute) but some of the guys went to see him and a good time was had by all; though apparently, to quote The Blues Brothers, the room was a "f*ckin' barn".

But that wasn't the funny bit, just background, this is the funny bit (now I have to modify things here otherwise you'll see the punchline coming).

On the Monday people were talking, as they do, about it and then discussing how hard it is to be funny and someone mentioned dead goldfish (I don't know why) and I said something about having to get the plumber in to fix the toilet when my pet dolphin died.*

And great merriment was had by all. If you don't get it, I refuse to explain it.

Maybe the Sharps thing will sort out on Monday, I hope so because I'm running out of kippers.

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What's on the turntable? "Love You To" by the Beatles, this version is on the Yellow Submarine movie album.

* As I explained this is not exactly how it came out. The dolphin came first and was not originated by me, and the plumber was actually Lars's idea (after me) and he's German! But the bit in the middle, the funny bit, which I've left out because it's funnier if you make the connection yourself, that really funny bit was me.