27 Comments
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Rachael Pells's avatar

Please interview tortoise hotel lady! I bet she's got some great insider gossip from those fridge parties...

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Tara's avatar

This was just so delightful

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Ant's avatar

When you collect all these pieces into a book, I WILL buy it. (And that's coming from me, an anonymous internet person, so you know 100% I'm not lying. (But seriously, I LOVE your stubsacks!!! (That's what I call a Substack post: a stubsack.))) Btw, in the Substack app you can get an AI voice to read your posts out in a monotonous American accent and inevitably drain all the comedy out of them. So that's nice. Thanks, Substack. Thanks a lot.

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Stevie Martin's avatar

ohhh thank you! sending a screenshot of this comment to 400 publishers can't wait to get a book deal

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Jess's avatar

My stepdad has managed to voice train our tortoise to come to him on command, so he can now play an extremely long and one sided (sort of version of) fetch without the actual fetching.

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Stevie Martin's avatar

Oh my god. I need to know how to do this.

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Jess's avatar

I think he sometimes permits the tortoise to hump one of his leather shoes :/

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Stevie Martin's avatar

right is the tortoise male because i once saw a male tortoise's genitalia and it was the most harrowing sight of my life

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Jess's avatar

yeah it's truly harrowing but he does like to get amorous with a shoe. Be grateful you've never heard the noises lolololols

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Stevie Martin's avatar

I heard the noise a bit when Alison humped her sister - absolutely haunted

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Rebecca Coxon's avatar

Hilarious. Always here for more tortoise content 🐢💚

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Readout_Noise's avatar

Tres amusant! And I thought, from your sketches, that you only had problems with technological things. You appear to have invited the complications of the biological world into your life as well. We are all the better entertained for it!

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Kirsty Garry's avatar

This was amazing. I too will buy your book - I hope our comments start a bidding war with the publishers

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Stevie Martin's avatar

can’t thank you enough for this opportunity - DMing penguin NOW

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Stephen D Forman's avatar

I'm just hare for the ratio

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Sascha Camilli's avatar

This was hilarious as usual and also thank you for adopting and not shopping

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Jenny Jacoby's avatar

We have a tortoise too - might have to hit you up for the tortoise hotel info as last winter we bought a tiny fridge and have now given it away because partner says there’s no room for it in the summer months (we don’t drink that much wine). Hadn’t considered winter boarding option.

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Stevie Martin's avatar

There are lots of tortoise boarding options across the UK! Alison had one and then we moved two counties away and found an even better one so worth a google!!

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Mari Elin's avatar

I just got a tortoise a couple of months ago. It's the best thing I've ever done.

My husband, however (who has spent most of life being as barefoot as possible) now spends his days shouting at said tortoise: "This is MY house. I was here first. I shouldn't have to wear socks in MY OWN HOUSE!" I am glad to hear that 'bald tort' is an issue elsewhere.

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Tim O'Connor's avatar

Wow. Our Eastern Hermann’s Tortoise (Sheldon - our niece named him, sorry) has free rein in our place in chicago. Reign is more like it. Little sassy tortoise loves to run out of his “room” (terrarium) to defend his turf. Never ever look at his cloaca (or whatever that thing is called) or you’ll be forever haunted. And oh does he ever love his booty scratches!! (Follow him @sheldonthesassytort on TikTok )

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Karen Sinclair's avatar

What a wonderful read to wake up to! ❤️

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Lisa McLean's avatar

I’m so pleased to meet you Stevie and Dr Alison Parker. I just know life is going to be better now. Especially when you write your book.

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Adriana Spalinky's avatar

It took me a while, I was wondering why SubStack was spamming Steve Martin at me, but now I see it, but I read a little, but I'm not quite with it, it feels like the show might be good, but I'm trying to tune the TV and it's not quite tuning in properly, like there's something familiar, but the pictur’s Wibbly Wobbly,

I think I'd like to know more.

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Marianna Manson's avatar

‘I won’t go into her pregnancy’ - WHAT!! Why not? Is Dr Alison the matriarch of a long an illustrious tort dynasty or not? How many baby Alison’s are there? These are the things we need to know

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