iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 6h

Do you realise the clocks are going back this weekend and we're getting an extra hour in bed? OK, well I've told you now so it's time to start looking forward to it. Long, sweet oblivion. Autumn's little warmup for death.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 12h

JUST HAD A 'AN AVERAGE VIEW TIME' OF 17 SECONDS, CAN YOU IMAGINE HOLDING AN AUDIENCE FOR THAT LONG, I AM SO BACK

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 13h

My son's history course this year includes a paper called 'Britain Transformed, 1913-1997' which means the events of 'history' for him include 'me doing history GCSE'.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Is Starbucks a morally upright company? No. But, to be fair, is the coffee nice? Also absolutely no.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Once Romeo and Juliet have both killed themselves I'd have Friar Lawrence quickly come back on stage and go 'well, this is absolutely fucked'. I realise I'm inserting a whole line there but it feels justified by the story.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It's been happening forever, and will happen forever, that rich people fuck off to lower-tax areas and frame it as political defiance of some law they personally don't like. 'Seatbelts in cars make it impossible for me to deliver wealth.' 'Without smoking in pubs, how am I meant to...'

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I know it's late in his career but I'd like to see Tom Jones release a follow-up song called 'It IS Unusual', which focuses on rare but documented phenomena like Halley's Comet.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It was Paul Ready, most recently seen on Ann Droid (but also Motherland). Several of you *did* guess it. I don't mind it at all. I basically want people to think I've got some sort of talent.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I've seen this observation a few times now, but they didn't have social media in 1972. If they had, people would have been arguing the fuck out of iced coffee then too. It's not really about the Washington Post. We've just become a civilisation that talks nonsense 24/7 because we can.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Fans of the ancient 'I am always mistaken for Chris O'Dowd' storyline will be excited to hear that a new lookalike has dropped. A stallholder at the market was adamant I was 'that actor' BUT NOT O'DOWD. Any guesses?

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Man on train served me a tea, asked 'anything to nibble on?', I involuntarily pictured myself as a sort of giant rabbit and was forced to say no thanks to get out of the moment.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

'It' is learning, or 'they' are learning? YOU CANNOT HAVE BOTH IN ONE SENTENCE. People are angry about this article for more important reasons, but let me speak my truth.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Imagine how much the Mack is going to hype himself if he returns again. He went huge last time and we weren't even aware he'd been gone.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

If you're designing a website for a restaurant, my tip would be: making it easy to find the menu is important, a 30-year breakdown of the founder's original vision and evolving philosophy less important.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I've returned to the app Cameo, where you can commission personal messages from me for friends/lovers/even yourself. On average, when I mention this here, I get 1-2 requests, and that puts me in a good mood. So you can see why I'd do it. www.cameo.com/watsoncomedian

cameo.com

Client Challenge

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Bizarre things that happened in your assembly: each Friday a different teacher spoke on their topic of choice. One day an ancient English teacher overran by HALF AN HOUR, eating almost the whole first lesson. But I was late that day, so I was on my own thinking there'd been some sort of apocalypse.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Someone said 'give me a little more time' and I can hear Gabrielle's song in my head, clear as 30 years ago. Incredible how a lyric can trigger your brain like that. I hope nobody mutters the phrase 'the final countdown' when I'm on my deathbed.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Now we're so used to WhatsApp and other apps where you can stalk a message recipient like a hawk, sending an old-school text feels like posting off a letter and waiting hopefully by the letterbox three days later.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

If you're on Instagram, and don't follow me, I'm just short of a landmark number (for me, that is, it's not 20 million or something); and when I reach that number I am going to do something which is - even for me - ambitious to the point of stupidity.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Just offered my train seat to an elderly lady because of train overcrowding (the right thing to do, feel virtuous, looked good in front of other passengers) but she also turned it down (my preferred outcome), what a double stab of dopamine.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I've said versions of this before but social media is meant to be fun, WAS fun for some years, and we hit problems when people started to believe it was a viable way of conducting debate.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I don't think it should be legal to have an Out Of Office which specifies that you've gone somewhere nicer than the location of the person who has to read it.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I think you could demonstrate the first part of this proposition in 15 minutes of film. The 'power and influence' part depends upon how you measure those things. He certainly hangs out with famous people but in fifty years he won't be seen as significant.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Someone I follow is live-posting about an overseas version of 'The Traitors' and I've got no idea what they're on about, obviously, but it sounds like some of the people are not all they seem to be and it's tricky for the group to work out who's telling the truth!

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

If I lived in a place called Piddington, I would stop weighing in on politics and just accept I was in an ITV Sunday night drama starring Martin Clunes and Sarah Lancashire as mismatched detective colleagues.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Nine years today our series of Taskmaster began airing on TV (I believe). To mark the occasion, I have begun something on Instagram which Taskmaster fans have been requesting for ever so long.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

One of the great wins for 'don't know' in recent times. That will give supporters of not knowing things a lot of confidence.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I would say (as a producer as well as a comedian) since Covid, people have been far more reluctant to buy tickets for things in advance; everything sells in the week or even day of the event. Perfectly fair, but as Jonn says, if you *can* book ahead, it really helps.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

POV: your degree was Chaucer-heavy, you started out as a novelist, your standup still is rambling and discursive, your career probably isn't going to survive as everything shifts more and more inexorably towards 60-second videos.

A screenshot from One Of These Social Media Sites, showing that on your last video, 'most viewers stopped watching at 0.01' - that is, seconds.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

If you're even having to have an argument over whether your passenger was truly 'sucked out of the window', you've perhaps not provided perfect service as an airline.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I have around 100 questions between here, Instagram, and YouTube itself. Thank you. New episodes by the end of September; keep the enquiries coming.

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Reposted by Mark Watson

Mat Ryer @matryer.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

All phones are foldable if you’re strong enough.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

It's a happy birthday day once more to your friend and mine, Alex Horne. I have to do it this way because he's blocked me from sending him WhatsApp messages.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

(I didn't know about this video, but it is a good introduction to the series so far. That's not to say it necessarily makes that much sense. I can't always be ensuring things make sense.)

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

YES, HOW I CAN HELP? My YouTube series is returning soon, after a year's drought. It's exciting. Exciting for me, anyway. I am inviting questions on *any subject in the world*, as before. Regular viewers will recall, I have learned all the information available to humans. Ask away, now!

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The headline makes it sound like the corpses are piling up, but that average number of deaths is one (1), and this year it has tripled to three.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I love this story, and especially the idea the guy's goalkeeping style 'appealed to the committee' that picks the king. 'Did you see him come out and punch that cross? He should rule over our people.'

A screenshot from Sky Sports News headed 'non-league goalkeeper reportedly chosen to become king of Ugandan kingdom' explains how a minor footballer called George Desmond Kamurasi, based in South East London, has apparently been lined up as the new king of the Tooro people in Uganda, after the death of his cousin who was the previous incumbent.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

MATHS PEOPLE! Before my Fringe show I had a playlist with 80 songs from my favourite band, shuffled randomly each day. Doors opened twenty minutes before show, so typically about 6-7 songs got played. One track came up three days in a row. What's the probability of that? Hmm? Well?

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

This is true, Amstell is a very good standup. It's probably the cleanest transition I've ever seen from major TV household name to 'just doing really good live stuff'.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

When I was really young that song came out that went 'we don't have to take our clothes off/to have a good time' and I remember thinking 'of course you don't, what has taking your clothes off got to do with anything'.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

It has been pointed out to me that their 'in-between' status was nothing to do with age, really, but status in school. I suppose my broader point is, I'd love to see the industry stop reheating ideas from twenty years ago, but there's a new Ali G movie so I don't think I'm winning that argument.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

THEY ARE ALL NOW IN THEIR FORTIES, WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY 'IN BETWEEN' AT THIS POINT? LOSING THEIR VIRGINITY AND THE ICY GRIP OF THE GRAVE?

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

If you were the first person ever to sneeze, you'd be like 'I hope what just happened was fine but I assume I'm going to die pretty soon'.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Even if he was right, chess isn't meant to be 'solved': games are for entertainment and companionship. It's a similar situation to AI-generated novels, or paintings - these people are constantly pitching machine-led 'solutions' to things which aren't problems in the first place.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

You know how if you've been wronged, they tell you to write a nasty email and then never send it, just to get it vented? What I can also recommend is ACTUALLY SENDING the email.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Tim Key 50 today. I was at his 25th and, being a little younger, thought 'the guy is already 25! Imagine that!' Anyway, I really like him.

A group of three middle-aged men playing a parlour game, via Zoom. Mark Watson says 'the thing is, we can have a discussion about this; we're all grown men'. Much of the context is lost to time, except in the hands of some very attentive fans of the game. But top left, wearing a green wig, is the movie star Tim Key. He's 50 today and that's the point of the post.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Social media often feels like you're at a loud party talking about zebras and someone wanders up drunk going 'I couldn't help overhearing you were talking about zebras, have you seen that film' and after 8 minutes it turns out they mean The Lion King and they're thinking of hyenas.

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Mark Watson @watsoncomedian.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I'm in this and it's funny. Give it a listen. But you'd probably want to start at the beginning, or it won't make any sense. Although sometimes I start things at the beginning and I STILL don't know what's going on.

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