accountability

Email to Armando Ianucci, filed 2026-10-12, 17:12, Berlin

Subject: (NOT URGENT!!!) question about the correct link to use when mentioning Armando in a possible blog post

Just some context up front: I would like to write a joke in a blog post I am planning where I write an email to Armando Ianucci about something. So I just wanted to run it by him and this was the email address I found. I am an autistic person and I like to have my 'i's dotted and my 't's crossed. Meaning that I like to do all the things, my computer and the fonts I use generally take care of the letters, it is simply an expression that people use. And I am a person. Anyway, no reply needed, just wanted to send it for the commitment to the bit. The actual email starts on the following line, this is just preamble.

Armando! Mate. How are ya'?

I hope you forgive me the usage of the word 'mate' I felt like I needed something warm to create an instant bond but must admit, I have been away from the UK for the last twenty years, and if mate has now morphed into something offensive, I can only apologise upfront and plead ignorance. I also chose the word because that's what local people call each-other and you filmed a segment of your show in Kingsbury, north west London. Right around the corner from the house I grew up in.

If that doesn't make us seem enough like neighbours to refer to one another as 'mate', I don't know what does. As another dear friend once told me, everybody needs good neighbours, because that's when good neighbours become good friends. 

Well, if that argument fails, I have another; maybe it would help if I said my little brother saw you filming a scene where you were jogging. I watched the episode again on YouTube and think it is the scene where you were jogging. I am almost certain it was that scene, there was another one at a dinner party and I did think it might have been that one, but you were in a room and not jogging, so I crossed that one off as a possibility. In any case, that seems like enough closeness to be able to refer to someone as 'mate'.

I am actually in London anyway, visiting family, so I can ask my brother if he remembers seeing you jogging in the street, or in a dining room pulling pre-written punchlines out of meat pies. I think it was definitely jogging. That's like running but it works better on camera, especially on a BBC budget, which I imagine you were on, seeing as how you were filming for the BBC. Anyway, I digress.

The reason I am pretending to write you this letter on my blog is because I wanted to add a link so any readers could go straight to some fresh Armando Ianucci style satirical barbs and whatnot, without having to pay for them. And so I did what I always do. I put google into the address bar of my internet web browser. Which funnily enough landed me on a google search engine results page (SERP), where I have inexplicably googled google.

Thankfully, I am not writing this email from within some kind of ouroboros paradox after being sucked into my computer screen to live out my days as a digital gladiator, throwing glowing discs at Jeff Bridges in increasingly futile attempts to rouse him out of another weed induced coma. So I've no excuse for not getting back to the reason for writing to you.

Well, I googled and Twitter came up, I use this particular platform's official title. I will call it Twitter, and trust you know what I am talking about. In any case, that was the first result that came up so I was about to copy paste when your last message caught my eye. I am attaching a screenshot but in case that doesn't come through, and to save you a click, you say something like "You’re reading my last post on this hate-addled pipe of septicaemia. Goodbye all!".

Now that seems a very clear message, but I understand positions can change, so I was just writing to see if you had a better link I could use when I hit publish or whether you had after all that, decided to go back to the platform you did, again, describe as something like a "hate-addled pipe of septicaemia". (Strong message here indeed.)

Anyway, I just wondered if a later rebranding or drip-fed, personalised, AI-infused digital marketing campaign might have been enough of a hook to draw you back. I appreciate that you are probably a very busy man, and probably, someone else is dealing with the drip.
Probably someone you pay.
Probably someone earning enough for a comfortable living, eating out a couple of times a month; nice, reasonably priced holiday every other year. Somewhere local. Not abroad, but a seaside nonetheless, Camber Sands or Skeggie would be my guess depending on which part of the country they mainly reside in and whether they like to travel far or stay closer to home. They'd probably go in July. To beat the rush. I imagine they would be the kind of person who likes to just get it over and done with and probably doesn't like the crowds.
They likely have a lot of projects half finished at home seeing as how they spend a lot of time answering emails on your behalf. From my experience, it does get exhausting, especially trying to get a response out of [mailer-daemon@gmail.com](mailto:mailer-daemon@gmail.com). I keep telling them that I don't understand whatever it is they are trying to sell me. Willing to hear them out, and 100% up for being moved by a reasonable argument, but just saying bounce bounce and repeating my own message back to me is getting tiresome.

That's it, enough out of me, I've asked my question, ready to quietly let myself out, no bother, no mess left. That's something I learned in Cub Scouts, and then Scouts (no noun adjunct or premodifier), and then Venture Scouts. So I learned it well.

I've decided I'll not close this with 'mate'. I feel like this missive will have brought us closer, but that we'd still be working on the exact word to describe this thing now.
It's just energy at this point, pure vibes, beyond understanding.
We're just having fun; trying things out.
Inventing new nicknames for each other, stuff like that. I was thinking of "the taskmaster", but that might be triggering for you because of the stolen valour aspect of it all. Specifically, claiming to have won taskmaster when you only came fourth. I did confirm that on the searches because I had only heard it on the radio. Not sure who said it, maybe that Richard Herring, between bits about his testicles. It was someone from Fist of Fun fame, perhaps even Kevin Eldon, now that I think about it. I don't remember if there was anyone else on that show, but if there was, it could have also been them.

Ok that's enough from me. For real this time. A cast-iron guarantee that you can take to the bank, (just don't cash it till Tuesday). And maybe I'll attach the article itself, just for context, it won't go out for a while but I'd still like that link, it can be to a website or your twitter account, if you have decided to go back to the platform by the time you respond.

Thanks for indulging me, neighbour, see you next time you are jogging around Kingsbury. I am making a couple of big assumptions there; one, that you still jog, and two, that you would be back in Kingsbury for any reason seeing as how your show has been off the air for probably more than twenty years at this point. Oh, but that means it should be due a reboot, so I just want to be among the first to say that I am looking forward to the new season. Glad you are making it but I will keep it a secret until a respected newscaster like Vaughan Savidge has properly announced it via the correct channels. As is tradition.

All the best, hugs and kisses, xoxo
Adrian John Doonan

P.S.
I just checked and you hadn't gone back to twitter between me starting this email and getting to this point so it's still an open question on my end and I don't like open questions, that's a 'being on a spectrum thing' but that's ok, nothing to worry about, just something to bare in mind. Pressing send now, bye