Treat Five: Disturbing image

Saw this in Wrexham the other day in one of those cheapo nasty shops that I never know the name of. Hope no one gets this for Christmas.

Treat Three- Arm Wrestling

Some time ago i submitted an article to the Guardian Guide Hard Sell, although it wasn't used it did get some positive feedback. Here is the article on the Petits Filous advert. You know the one, and if you don't it's this one.





Arm Wrestling has long been the playground barometer for strength, popularity, and a great way of making friends. It’s a challenge, a test of muscular power. It’s all about the bicep. It was taken very seriously when I was at school. Dinner hour became arm wrestling club. The first rule of arm wrestling club is you don’t talk about arm wrestling club. If you did the teachers and playground supervisors would find out and put an end to arm wrestling club.
After the end of the school day, Eye of the Tiger would be on the ghetto-blaster and the dumb bells would be out, a bar would be installed across your bedroom door to do chin ups. No one seemed to want to swallow the pint of raw egg though. Arm Wrestling club was important but not that important, plus it was all about building up the muscles in your arm, how could raw egg help that?
What we never thought of doing was eating Petits Filous , which apparently has calcium to help make your bones grow stronger. This helps the girl in the advert win back her friends’ marbles. Surely this would obliterate his self esteem, to be beaten by a girl at arm wrestling would mean the end of your world and there would be no point in ever showing your face again.
But it’s all based on a lie. It wouldn’t matter if she’d have eaten her Petits Filous, the calcium might help your bones, but you need muscles to win at arm wrestling. She would have lost, you’d have never got your marbles back and people would have mocked you for making a girl fight your battles. That’s the real world, the world which arm wrestling club prepared me for.

Treat One: The Death of Mr Boring

The Death of Mr Boring

The world’s most boring man was about to die. Only he didn't know it. He was sat at home living his life in the most boring way possible. The day before he'd been lying in a hospital bed, letting his usual boring thoughts fire against his dull synapses, when the doctor came by his bedside to tell him the bad news.
"I'm afraid it's worse than we thought."
"Oh" said Mr Boring. This was not his actual name, which was so boring it would induce a coma in anyone who read or heard it.
“I’ve got two pieces of bad news for you.” continued the Doctor. “Firstly I’m afraid we’ve found you have lung cancer.”
Mr Boring took it all in his stride, to do anything but would be to break his boring mould. The doctor was taken aback; this moment usually induced tears, snot and high emotion. He decided it was a refreshing and relaxing change, and boded well for his second piece of bad news.
“Secondly, we also found that you have the onset of Alzheimer’s.”
Mr Boring took a second or two to take it all in. Then spoke one sentence.
“At least it’s not cancer.”

He walked home at a slow monotonous pace wondering why on earth he’d been at the hospital in the first place. Upon arriving at his boring two up two down home, in which he lived alone Mr Boring had a spark of memory. Maybe these illnesses make me interesting, he thought. He smiled, the first smile, in fact the first sign for years that he even felt emotion, to himself. The moment passed quickly though. Fourteen seconds after thinking the thought he’d forgotten the moment ever happening, forgotten it forever. Mr Boring was back to where we joined him at the beginning of the story, sat at home living his life in the most boring way possible, oblivious to the fact he was about to die.

Mr Boring had the most boring selective memory. Over the next few weeks he remembered to go into work every day to do the most boring of jobs, but forgot to go to a house party he had somehow been invited to.
He remembered to pick up Charlie every morning. Charlie was in his twenties and was temping during the summer holidays to fund him through university. Charlie sat quietly everyday in the passenger seat, and they travelled to work in silence.

It was a normal Friday and Mr Boring picked up Charlie for another boring day in their boring job. Their job consisted of pressing the number 5 followed by Enter every thirty seconds for twelve hours. This normal Friday was changed by one small utterance made on the journey to work. It must have been another spark of interest firing in Mr Boring’s brain, for as they waited, and waited, and waited some more at a roundabout he turned towards Charlie and spoke.
“My favourite day in work is Friday.”
“Why’s that?” replied Charlie. This was turning into a conversation now.
“Because for two days after it you can pretend you’re not coming back.”
This made Charlie smile, which made Mr Borings heart skip. He’d never made anyone smile before. Maybe he was becoming interesting. This moment made it the best day of his life, the only thing which sullied the day was the constant coughing.

The coughing continued all through Friday night. Every time Mr Boring coughed he wondered what was making him cough. He thought he must have been coming down with a cold. Unfortunately it was his lungs in their last throes of life, and equally unfortunately Mr Boring never got to pretend for two days that he was never going back to work. Most unfortunate of all was that Mr Boring didn’t get to see Saturday morning, at around four o clock in the morning those cancerous lungs just stopped working, and he died. Because Mr Boring had no friends it was weeks until he was found. Apparently the smell was very dull and boring.
This was the end of Mr Boring’s life, he had nothing else to add to this world. You’ve now learnt about his death, to tell you anymore would be to bore you into the same fate.

The 12 treats of Christmas

Hello,

Tomorrow is the first day of opening your advent calendar as we count down to yet another Christmas. Wasn't it January only a few moments ago?
Anyway as an extra bonus treat, and to make me do more stuff on my blog I will be posting the twelve treats of Christmas up on my blog before Xmas Day.

These could be anything, mainly becuase I haven't decided what they're going to be yet myself, so stay tuned as I go mental trying to update my blog with twelve treats before Christmas.

While you wait for the first treat here's a link to something you should treat yourself too, and quickly before they are all gone.

http://www.jonathan-e.com/#/sketchbook-vol-1/4545757773

Brilliant sketches throughout, the goon on Page 7 is my favourite.

Now i'm off to learn how to have a picture be the link that you click. If anyone can inform me of this in the comments, please do.