Patrick W. Reed

you don't understand. as someone who isn't inherently good at art, stealing paintings from the museum is the *only* way i'm able to express myself creatively. i wouldn't be able to paint beautiful portraits. but by breaking into a museum and stealing the paintings, now i am

The exterior of the pub, the Shirker's Rest, with a road sign on the pavement outside reading "Diverted traffic" with an arrow conveniently pointing right at the pub.

Sorry I'm late, there was a diversion....
@theshirkersrest.bsky.social

I have not, but he is on the list! He would have been in the last series, but was too similar to at least one other episode there

My podcast about historical con artists and bullshit returns for its third series, to talk about a phony psychic and his Road to Damascus moment.

women's sports: hello, we need funding, protection from exploitation by power structures and better opportunities for competition

some fucking cranks: oh we heard you want us to check in your pants to see if we'll let you play pool

unfortunately, when it comes to transphobia, the adult babies takeover is very much in full effect.

Adult Human Baby.

Born as *women*? I pity the mother.

nice of AEW to announce the date for NXT's November special.

it's a very WWE thing to frame a heel turn as "turning your back on the fans", and so that's all that Cena talked about. But he didn't turn on the fans, he very specifically turned on Cody Rhodes.

There's no joined up thinking. Booking for the "viral moments", not for the next show.

it was doomed to fail from the first promo, when Cena didn't acknowledge Rock or Scott or even Cody as part of his motivation, it was obvious nobody had thought it through beyond the initial shock value. Cena just did the promo he'd have done if he had turned heel at any time in the last 20 years.

The God of Wrestling: Karl Gotch and the Discipline That Built an Empire He never chased stardom, but he reshaped it from the shadows. This is the legacy of Karl Gotch, the man who taught wrestling how to hurt again.

It would have been Karl Gotch's birthday yesterday, so I spent a portion of the weekend putting together something to commemorate it.

Published it yesterday, forgot to plug it here:

allancheapshot.substack.com/p/the-god-of...

As a regular Soho drinker, do you know what the biggest risk is to you in London's West End after 9pm?

Being vomitted on by a forty-something lass down from Kent for her hen do, wearing fairy wings.

they played the New Cross Inn a few months back. They are a RATM tribute act with a Nicolas Cage impersonator as a frontman. I don't know if the joke holds up well enough to sustain an entire gig, but fair play to them.

all the more reason to go outside, maybe have a nice walk around the West End.

"after dark" - vague, nebulous, spooky
"gone midnight" - the witching hour, evil is in the air, all manner of possibilities
"at closing time" - drunkenness, debauchery, lawlessness, the social contract breaks down"
"after 9pm" - fuck off mate, the little Tesco is still open

I’ve noticed a strange, paradoxical mentality in some people who seem to simultaneously believe that London is basically Gotham City - terrifyingly full of crime and fundamentally unsafe - but also that the people who live there know nothing of ‘real struggles’?

"after 9pm" is such a pathetic time to be afraid of

...Triple H's only booking ideas; when the audience don't like something, openly acknowledge that it was a bad idea on-screen (kayfabe be damned) and dangle the shiny keys of, "you liked this before, though, right?".

if we weren't living in an era where WWE are judged on the basis of 30 second clips and nebulous "content" rather than actual wrestling programming, Cena as a heel would be remembered as infinitely worse than Austin's 2001 turn.

And turning him back the way they did is indicative of one of...

though tbf, I'd have had a much nicer time on Saturday if a few hundred more people *were* afraid to go to the West End after 9pm.

The Mousetrap finishes after 9pm!

It was bleakly funny when they said this stuff about Tower Hamlets - apparently a No-Go Zone where police feared to tread, but where I routinely hung out with wrestling nerds & drag queens - but the idea that no one will walk around *the West End* should get you laughed out of any room you're in.

I know the fearmongering about London is all to scare people in the provinces anyway, but it falls apart at a *moment's* thought - the idea that no one dares have their phone out in one of the busiest commuter and tourist cities in the world; no one's taking photos or checking the train times?

The Spear of Destiny, according to this book's blurb, has been owned by "the most powerful men in history: Constantine the Great, Atilla the Hun, Adolf Hitler."

It then goes on to proclaim that "now, it has fallen into the wrong hands," suggesting that all those previous hands were the right ones

the whole company is a morally bankrupt cesspit, but it's *very* funny to have such a fragile ego as to want the whole world to know that it's *your* cesspit.

if Paul Levesque were half as smart as he seems to think he is, he'd have not been spending months on the ongoing project of presenting himself as the sole mastermind behind WWE decision-making right in time to have to take the blame for the ongoing shitshow happening on his watch.

Greetings, grapple fans! Ex-wrestler Brian Glover wrote DARK ANGEL (1981), a classic Theatre Box episode repeated as a Dramarama. Three young wrestling fans are eager to see the mysterious heel Dark Angel - "one look at his face can kill!" For Bill Maynard's promoter, this may prove prophetic...

Colby on X: --- I’m sorry to everyone who has worried about me these past few days. I went to the hospital on Thursday night and was told I needed emergency surgery on my neck and back. I never thought something like this would ever happen. I’m still processing everything, but I will be okay. I don’t know if I’ll be in a wrestling ring anytime soon, but at this point, I just want to be able to pick up my son again. I’m not looking forward to this long road of recovery, but I pray that my family and I make it through it I ask that you respect me and my family's privacy for now and not taking it personally if I do not get back to you. I appreciate everyone who's reached out and love you all.

Our dear friend Colby Corino had to have emergency spinal surgery on Thursday night. If you can spare some money, please consider donating to his GoFundMe so he doesn't have to worry about supporting his family while he can't work. www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-f...

Also, some great comedy credits and an 85 minute runtime, both of which score highly with me.