THE FABLED ARS MAGIQUE CONSUMER PAGES - DO THESE THINGS!

Standing in the queue at Ikea, my hackles rise to somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000 feet. This is something I can only do with the aid of pulleys and string, so I try to keep it to a minimum, preferring to find things to do with my time. Here are some that I'd like to share with you, as well as a few thoughts and concepts that might be useful for using up excess brain space and preventing ennui...

 

Things that I've later pretended I had said to people in shops when they've said something stupid to me:

"I'd like a salad box without rice and without potatoes" (urgently)
"We don't do rice or potatoes!"
"Well I still want it without rice or potatoes"

Whereas what I actually said was "okay".

 

Imagine how you would feel if you saw these things written on a wall, or printed on a poster.

  • Hairdressing for the unhappy.
  • Found in a telephone box: "LOST - in the jungle"
  • Masturbation seeds.

 

Small (and pointless) observations

  • A Meg? That's nearly a RAMful!

 

Things that murderers think to themselves (in some cases stopping them from carrying out the acts that would make them murderers)

  • Why do I want to destory? Why do I not want to build, like I know I should?
  • Is drunkenness the addition of new impulses, or the removal of a mechanism that inhibits us from feeling or acting on impulses we always had, but didn't see?
  • I have within me such a rage of undirected energy. I want to burn things.
  • What makes a person a murderer? When do they step over that line, if such a line exists? Does that person change, with the committal of the act? Or is it just the expression of a pre-exisitng moral flaw that could find its outlet elsewhere, to cause less harm?
  • Soon I will be doing the killing of you.

 

Descriptions of the dress of a regional weather presenter.

  • A thin grey running top, with fluffy grey cuffs and matching fluffy bobbles on each end of the drawstring around the neck.
  • A medieval-looking black dress, with large cuffs and a criss-cross panel across the front.
  • Pink blouse with large collars and a black leather jacket.
  • Leather.

 

Children's TV programmes we may have seen during the 1970s, had the second world war gone the other way.

  • Mary, Mungo and Hesse.
  • Herr Benn.
  • Bagputsch.
  • Kristallnacht and Alastair.

 

Things you can say to shopkeepers when they recognise you and talk to you (especially if they know your name (perhaps after you used a credit card or bought a bus-pass in their shop) and you have no idea of theirs

  • Hiya.
  • How are you?
  • Are you busy?
  • Alright?
  • Do you sell many of those?
  • Tell your chicken-leg eating daughter to get her greasy hands off me!
  • Which of these pornographic magazines is best?
  • You drink too much. It's a living hell.
  • Who did you leave for dead?
  • I'll race you to the end of your life.

 

Finish it in the morning!

Do you often find yourself dropping off while reading late at night? I certainly used to, and fretted constantly at missing the end of many great books. That was before I discovered the virtue of "finishing it in the morning".

If you own a book and you want to "finish it in the morning" then just let your face fall against the open page as sleep claims you. During the night, the ink from the pages will seep into your skin, recording the final passages on your cheeks.

Then, just use the bathroom mirror to continue reading, possibly while brushing your teeth. Literature and dental hygiene? It's a winning combination!

This image was especially commissioned from Bink, a local artist. We have yet to get our money back.

 

 

Pickling gnomes: the new avantey gardey.

 

It must be said that gnomes are awful. So pickle 'em. There's a kind of spurious scientific cachet to be had by sticking them in jars and labelling them with some obscure latin terminology. I've found that the surface of my gnomes started to bubble and peel as the paint started to lift after just 48 hours - making them much more interesting. It also begs the question of what would happen if you put these fiendish monsters in the garden and it rained. Water-based paint, anyone?

 

Praise the Dead

If you're bored, all you need is a friend or family member, a camcorder and some choral music and you'll be in business. Film your colleague with the camera and play the tape back very slowly. Turn down the colour on the TV and chuck some sombre choral music on the dansette. Hey presto! They're dead and you're praising them...

If you're feeling really flash you could even put a caption on the botom. Of the picture. Not the person.

Hurly Thurly 1972-2004

Which is almost five past eight - time for the Farmyard Lottery Results. The results were PIG, CHICKEN, TRACTOR, HEN, DUNG and the bonus SUICIDE.