I’ve had my beloved “biscuit” tic for almost six years now, and soon it’ll be the longest-serving of my vocal tics … but not quite yet. Before “biscuit” there was “squirrel”, by itself, or with variations like “squirrel, squirrel”, “squirrel tits” and even “A squirrel wearing its mum’s jumper.”…

My tics fall into three broad categories. First, the regular tics I say hundreds of times every day. Second, the occasional tics that I’ll say only once or a handful of times. These two categories have already been discussed. I haven’t yet talked about the third type that are intense explosions of themed tics which come out over a short period of time with fearsome force.…