rionaleonhart | It's A Shame My Hands Aren't My Feet.

More Taskmaster! We're halfway through series ten. Goodness knows what I'll do with myself when we run out.

Seeing Ed Gamble dressed as a donkey while people play Buckaroo with him really drives home the fact that this is the kinkiest show on mainstream British television.

holy shit, that lengthy sequence of Greg and Alex whispering with their faces right up to each other

TURNS OUT THERE'S AN EVEN LONGER VERSION IN AN OUTTAKE, OH WOW. I love that Alex is clearly wondering for most of it whether he's about to get kissed.

Ginger: Riona, I'm going to ask you a question I may not want to know the answer to. How did you find that extended clip of the Taskmaster whispering scene?
Riona: I - I was just searching for the actual clip from the episode.
Ginger: Follow-up question: why were you looking for that clip?
Riona: I don't appreciate all these questions, Ginger.

Rereading one of my old Danganronpa 2 fics, I'm horrified to realise that Komaeda reminds me of Alex Horne. Just in the way he's incredibly obliging, to a weird extent, but also quietly reluctant and bitter when it's something he really doesn't want to do.

I feel everyone involved in series nine somehow sensed that social distancing was coming, and went 'better get up close to Alex and fuck with him as much as possible before everyone's fucking-with-Alex options become much more restricted'.

(I sometimes catch myself planning out how to dom Alex to victory on particular tasks. Impress this mayor. What are politicians impressed by? Power. Dom Alex Horne.)

I enjoyed Greg getting increasingly freaked out by Jo's prowess at Horse or Laminator.

Disintegrating laughing at hypercompetitive Ed and hapless David being paired up for the 'draw on your teammate's back' task.

I smiled at how excited all the other contestants were that David Baddiel won that episode. Also enjoyed Greg thinking that Rose Matafeo just... happened to have a semi-nude snowglobe of herself lying around.

Although Rose was probably my favourite contestant in the lineup, I'm glad Ed Gamble won series nine, because I'm slightly afraid he'd have killed everyone in the studio if he hadn't.

Series ten is definitely the weakest series of Taskmaster for me. The competitors feel like they lack chemistry (although Mawaan is very endearing), and, unfortunately, Johnny Vegas is there. But it's not bad television; I'm still entertained. Even at its weakest, Taskmaster remains a worthwhile watch.

I laughed so hard at Daisy May Cooper's upside-down chicken film. Truly a masterpiece.

I'm enjoying Katherine going into every task with a very sensible air and then being a disaster, too. I loved every moment of her catapult attempt. Beautiful. Alex awkwardly trying to fire shoes from her feet while struggling not to collapse laughing.

Awww, I like Katherine hugging Alex to celebrate when she finishes the 'make the phone ring' task. They've got a good dynamic going on!

Something about Alex makes almost every possible interaction with him delightful. I love it when people are nice to him. I love it when people torture him. I love that he manages to seem uncomfortable either way.

I keep catching myself humming the Taskmaster theme as I go about my day.

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Series 10 now! It's oddly heartbreaking, seeing them all spaced out on the stage with no audience. Though Alex does seem to be using the opportunity to see just how much he can get away with, now that Greg is too far away to lunge at him. ("Big boy.")

I like Mawaan being a complete disaster, and then having a sudden brilliant surge into competence in the "make the largest object vanish" task, and then going straight back into being a disaster again. (Who fills an egg with helium?)

Alex continues his subtle campaign in studying how to be a serial killer when he shuts competitors into a dark locker room without cell reception and gives them radios which only pick up numbers stations.

S10E05, Greg's link into adverts at the end of Part 1, he says "You've just got time to reflect on the bad decisions you've made in life before we come back to distract you!" And I wonder how many people watching Taskmaster can adequately reflect on their bad life decisions in the length of a standard advertising break. Are advert breaks in the UK, like, three to six days long?

You can't give us space to adequately reflect on our bad life decisions before you distract us; that's exactly what the distraction is there to prevent!

It's oddly heartbreaking, seeing them all spaced out on the stage with no audience.

We started on series twelve, which was socially distanced, so the disconcerting thing for us was going back to the first series. There were so many people in the venue! It was so loud!

Who knows if YouTube will let you watch this Would I Lie To You clip, but I've just learned of Alex Horne's elaborate contraption so his wife can let him know when lunch is ready (presumably so he can inhale it in under 5 minutes), and I have learned that Alex can make anything sound implausible, while simultaneously being innately weird enough that it's hard to put anything past him. It's a hell of a combination. (Also, I feel like Taskmaster was just in Alex's soul yearning for a chance to burst out, and also also, I want to know if Alex spent his childhood playing The Incredible Machine.)

I feel very sorry for the contestants who had to name US states. If you put me in front of a camera and gave me a time limit and also made me multitask by painting a teapot, I feel like I wouldn't do well at that task either, and I live here. (If you were to ask me about English cities, I would make an absolute fool of myself.)

All the word tasks are also the worst! They seem so stressful. I can barely think of words when I'm in a quiet room in a comfy chair in front of a friendly word processor. (I also tried playing a few random rounds of Guess My Word and felt an absolute fool, because my brain will quite helpfully deliver up guesses like "janissary" and completely fail to recall simple words like "janitor".) Also, I'm surprised that it took until Daisy May Cooper for the four-letter words to become vulgar, because "JUST START CURSING" would have been my first response, if only so I didn't have to count letters in my head.

"Much like a Roman emperor, I've bathed in ass's milk, and had vigorous sexual liaisons with my personal assistant!" GREG. When was S10 filmed? If this was before either or both of his revelations about Taskmaster smut on the internet, he has forfeited any right to be surprised that people ship him. If it was after, I'm not sure how one can read this as anything other than deliberate provocation.

I hadn't realised Alex Horne had been on Would I Lie to You?; thank you for letting me know! The clip is blocked, but I did find a version I could watch. Alex really faced a challenge there; it's such an Alex Horne thing to do that it'd be hard to persuade anyone it's untrue.

I might do all right on listing US states in isolation, but the moment you made me multitask they'd probably all go out of my head.

I tried Guess My Word when I first saw this comment, and I spent ages going 'wh... what's after "beet" but before "beetroot"?' before remembering 'beetle'; the Beatles had managed to confuse me on how it was spelt.

"Much like a Roman emperor, I've bathed in ass's milk, and had vigorous sexual liaisons with my personal assistant!" GREG. When was S10 filmed? If this was before either or both of his revelations about Taskmaster smut on the internet, he has forfeited any right to be surprised that people ship him. If it was after, I'm not sure how one can read this as anything other than deliberate provocation.

It was after his erotic poetry duet with Alex! I think Alex is responsible for writing the autocue bits, though (or at least the credits say 'Devised and Written by Alex Horne'), so he might be to blame for this.

[I tried Guess My Word when I first saw this comment, and I spent ages going 'wh... what's after "beet" but before "beetroot"?' before remembering 'beetle']

This is exactly the fork where I got stuck! (My brain desperately wanted S to come before R so that it could just be "beets".) Not helped by the completely nonsensical conviction my brain's picked up that says a vowel must follow a consonant in English, at least so far as iterative guessing is concerned. I eventually just started going "beeta... beetb... beetc... beach is not spelled like that, and neither is beech... beetd... beete... beetf..."

The first one I tried had the answer cabbage, and I had to give up and let it tell me because my brain emptied out after I'd tried all the obvious words, like cabal and cabaret and cabochon.

[I think Alex is responsible for writing the autocue bits, though (or at least the credits say 'Devised and Written by Alex Horne'), so he might be to blame for this.]

Man, now I want to know if he does! If so, that changes the readings on a whole lot of the show. I'd always assumed that Greg was just cheerfully being awful to Alex and Alex was down for it. But if Alex is the one writing those bits, then A, I suspect he is fueling fandom with full knowledge and foresight, and B, this man's humiliation kink is more multilayered than I thought.

It's A Shame My Hands Aren't My Feet.

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