Infrequently Asked Questions with Thomas Ridgewell: “The repercussions of my incredibly inconvenient death”

We’ve reached the end of last year’s Infrequently Asked Questions interviews.

And omg we’ve learned so much. According to the YouTubers we interrogated casually chatted to at Summer in the City 2019, the creator most likely to be a werewolf is Daniel J. Layton (the only person to receive more than one nomination), and the members of One Direction that seem like they have the most hygienic bottoms are Harry Styles and Zayn Malik. Most importantly of all, 43% of them said that, if their YouTube content were a medicine, it would be taken anally.

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Obviously we’re going to go away and have a good long think about what we’ve done, but first, here’s our chat with TomSka. It starts with him talking to someone else about something else, but don’t worry, we quickly turn the conversation around to what matters: time travel, wizards, and The Chase.

TOM: “—and I’m like, ‘Tight! Good!’ We are thrilled for our first ever live show! [laughs] We are CON. FID. ENT.”

Hi Tom. That sounds really interesting, and exactly the sort of thing a good journalist would ask about.

TOM: “However, we’re doing Infrequently Asked Questions.”

I’m so glad you understand. What is objectively the best film in the world?

TOM: “17 Again.”

That’s right, it’s The Muppet Christmas Carol.

TOM: “Hmmm, I—”

What existing story, from any medium, would you most like to see retold with the Muppets?

TOM: “Oh, fuck, 17 Again again. Kermit would be returning to the body of his 17-year-old self to relive his mistakes and hopefully rekindle his marriage with Miss Piggy.”

What’s the most fun you’ve had with your clothes on?

TOM: “All-you-can-eat buffet at Pizza Hut. That’s pretty crazy.”

What’s the most fun you’ve had with your clothes off?

TOM: “Domino’s order-in.”

What’s the most fun you’ve had with someone else’s clothes on?

TOM: “I did film a video in a dress once. It felt incredibly liberating.”

Whose dress was it?

TOM: “Primark.”

That’s not really somebody else’s clothes. It becomes yours once you’ve bought it.

TOM: “Look, I don’t need your shit.”

If you had a time machine, where would you go?

TOM: “The future. I mean, I could really go anywhere – I’m a straight, white man, it would be fine. So I’d probably go back to 2007.”

Why 2007?

TOM: “I could be 17 again.”

Strong callback.

TOM: “Thank you.”

If the time machine started malfunctioning, so it only did one-way trips and only worked on other people, who would you condemn to a life in the past or future, and where would you send them?

TOM: “Shit. That’s deep. That’s a lot.”

I mean, you must have enemies. You seem disagreeable.

TOM: “I am very disagreeable, thank you for asking. Oh, mate. I just don’t trust any of my enemies not to use this to their advantage.”

You think they’d use the time to plot against you?

TOM: “They’d get rich. And even if you send them forward, they’re going to become famous because they’re a fucking time-traveller. So it depends. If it’s a malfunctioning time machine, maybe it will just transport them to a different place in space, in which case I’m thinking of a name but I can’t say it for legal reasons.”

Which member of One Direction do you think has the most hygienic bottom?

TOM: “Which one’s the bottom? That one. Whichever one is the bottom in the group.”

I meant—

TOM: “No, I know what you meant.”

If your YouTube channel were a medicine, what would you take it for, and what would be its unwanted side-effects?

TOM: “It would be taken for ADD, and it would make it much worse.”

And how would you take it?

TOM: “Suppository. Straight up there.”

If you were secretly a werewolf, how would you conceal it?

TOM: “Become a furry. Put on a fursuit.”

Which of your fellow YouTubers do you think is most likely to secretly be a werewolf?

TOM: “I mean, I haven’t seen Dan Howell for a long time.”

And the surname is a giveaway.

TOM: “Ooh.”

Is that not what you were going for?

TOM: “Yeah, I’m clever.”

You’ve upset a wizard. He’s going to put a terrible curse on you. What do you do, as a non-wizard, to either defend yourself or make amends?

TOM: “Punch him in the face.”

But he’s got magic powers.

TOM: “Punch him in the face. He doesn’t get the chance [to use them]. He’s just got a shiny stick, I’ve punched him in the face.”

Invent a new public holiday or festival, and tell us how it would be celebrated.

TOM: “Jehovah’s Witness Day. You just go to your neighbour’s house.”

What happens once you’re there?

TOM: “Well they don’t answer, obviously. But you try your goddamnedest.”

For the whole day?

TOM: “Yes. Well they’re not in, because they’re also at their neighbour’s door.”

Have you ever had an amusing encounter with a postman? And if not, can you please make one up?

TOM: “Hold on. Let me think… let me think… Yeah, I was coming home quite recently and the postman was in front of me, so I followed him up my garden path, and I was like, ‘You can just give me the post’, and he was like, ‘I don’t know that you live here, please go away’. I was like, ‘No, I do, and you’re in my way’, so I couldn’t prove that I lived there because he was in front of the door. Anyway, we had an awkward stand-off for a good 30 seconds. Then we kissed. I made up one part of that story.”

What’s your favourite mnemonic?

TOM: “‘Bake eight cakes, use seven eggs’ for ‘because’. It’s not quite right, but it gets you there.”

If you were a chaser on The Chase, what would your intimidating nickname – like the Beast or the Dark Destroyer – be?

TOM: “The Fat Controller.”

By the time you die, what do you want the Controversies section of your Wikipedia page to say?

TOM: “I want it to be full. It’s the only thing [that matters]. I mean, do you want me to write the whole thing?”

Give us the key points.

TOM: “I want there to be an afterlife controversy – stuff that comes out after I’ve died. Or the repercussions of my incredibly inconvenient death. My ideal death would be to be assassinated in the middle of an incredibly public thoroughfare, like Waterloo Station, so I just completely fuck everyone’s day off.”

If you die in the incredibly public thoroughfare outside this room, can we still run this interview?

TOM: “They’d probably just scoop me up and move me out of the way.”

Finally, in what circumstances might you consider becoming a nun?

TOM: “If I get cancelled. What else am I going to have to do? Just go to a nunnery. Is it called a nunnery? Monastery?”

Convent.

TOM: “A nun-house. Go nun-house. Yeah, basically if I just get cancelled, I’ll fuck off and become a nun.”

Photos by Christy Ku.

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