Brond

I wasn't going to do a blog entry today until I came across this in the studio. Many years ago I had a fascination with plaster of Paris and casting. Nothing was safe from a latex coating and I managed to cast everything from ornaments, everyday objects and eventually my own hand. I found a finger. Not just any finger but one of mine that I cast over twenty years ago so I did the obvious thing, compared yesteryears finger to today's with surprising results.

The surprising thing is that there is no difference, absolutely zilch. I could have cast it yesterday, all the same lines are there and in exactly the same proportion too. Focusing on the nails they are the same too even down to the length and width. The fingerprint I knew would remain the same but the wrinkles on the knuckles and the vertical lines between the joints I had expected after twenty years of growth to at least have increased but no, they are identical.

It's weird that part of the body that gets such a lot of hammer remains the same whilst everything else slowly gives in to gravity and either sags or sprouts hair. I suppose that's the fun in getting older, it's the gift that keeps on giving, hair grows where you don't want it and you suffer from overspill, a term I find increasingly useful as my belt rides higher and higher up my waist. So on that cheery note and in an effort to stave it off a little longer I now go swimming most days. This is where it gets odd, because swimming improves all the parts of the body that sags but get this, it makes your hands go all wrinkly, don't you think that's weird?

So if I did the same experiment with the plaster finger after a quick swim I would find little to compare as my fingers have acted like an enourmous sponge and millions of new wrinkles have been added. Another thing, why doesn't every part of your body wrinkle after being immersed in water for a while? Not that I want to get out of a swimming pool looking like a prune soaked in milk but its strange don't you think?

Come to think of it and I'm going off on a tangent here, why is Doctor No called Doctor No? Being called an answer to a question must be so confusing, how many times has he turned around when somebody has inadvertently said no to somebody. You would get very paranoid always thinking you're being talked about.

"You talking about me?"

"No, er, No Doctor No, I was saying No to henchman twenty six when he asked me if I wanted anything from Greggs, he said No, Dr No. Want anything fetching Doctor No?"

"No"

If you are going to be an evil genius have an evil genius name like, oh I don't know, Doctor Devious for example, although that sounds a bit crap too. On another tangent did you know a few years ago a newspaper actually carried adverts for henchmen jobs based on James Bond films to see if henchmen could be hired in quantities only to be inundated with applicants?

They ran something like this...

Staff required for moderate/large organisation with big expansion plans. Applicants will be expected to work on own initiative during our frequent security drills with a view to working alongside a team overseeing an international world changing space program. Applicant must be willing to relocate at a moments notice. Light arms experience preferred. Flexible moral code. Uniform provided. Must like cats.

Apply to Dr Julius No, Crater 29, Crab Key

So what started as no blog entry today has, as usual, descended into some weirdness, I really don't know how this keep happening, is it normal to think these things?

Jumpers. Why are they called that when quite obviously they cannot jump or indeed make you jump, unless of course you have a really bad knitter in your family who regularly supplies jumpers of frightening quality and design.

See, here I go again.

Note to brain - Stop.

Why is stop called stop?

The more you type stop the more it looks wrong. Stop, stop,stop,stop,stop,stop,pots,stop,stop,stop,stop. See, it looks kinda kooky.

I hope you were paying attention 007 and spotted the deliberate mistake in the last paragraph. This is no ordinary gadget Bond, you twist this bit here and press down hard on the top and it turns into a handy writing tool. Reverse the action and it no longer writes as the tip ingeniously retracts. We got the idea from the Russians who use a simpler version called a pencil, we needed a snappier name so we dropped the cil and named our improved version Pen for short. We don't really know what to do with it yet I'm sure you will find a use for it somewhere in the field Bond.

'I'm shore I will Q' (say this bit like Sean Connery, to warm up try saying "You're a shite for shore ayes")

Where was I? Ahh...

Stop.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Yet Further Adventures Of Dr Do

Travelling in his extraordinary postbox shaped time machine that moves through time and space under severe restrictions such as only being able to travel between 9am and 5pm on the same day and only being able to transport the Doctor to supermarkets Doctor Do's adventures are legendary amongst Do Do's, the Doctors biggest fans, let us join the Doctor on his latest adventure.

For those of you unfamiliar with the good doctors adventures you can find the previous episode here

Today's episode is Doctor Do Run Run And Rise Of The Garlics

After spending the last week tinkering with his time travelling postbox the Doctor had managed to extend the working hours to fit in line with the extended openening hours of most supermarkets, so enjoying his new found extended time freedom we find the good doctor on a Friday night tucking into a curry after parking his time travelling postbox outside Lesco's, safely away from the centre of town and the threat of inebriated young men urinating through his slot. "Mmmmm, this vindaloo is hot, hot, hot! It reminds me of the time I tackled the Sausage Sirens on aisle twelve, they were hot too". The Sausage Sirens were five scantily clad females with rollers in their hair that called to male shoppers to fill their trollies with Aunt Bessies, eventually the Doctor had to subdue them through the cunning use of prawn earplugs and a gravy gun water pistol.

"Mmm, what's next? Ahh, my favourite, Rogan Josh. Nom,nom,nom..."

"Oh no! No,no,no!!!" the Doctor had wolfed down several spoonfuls before he realised that his curry had been spiked. "Garlic! I told them when I ordered, under no circumstances use garlic, they know what happens when I eat garlic or at least they should know, they had to clean it up last time!"

A little known fact about the Doctor is that garlic is equal to Supermans Kryptonite, it evokes a tremendous bowel action that threatens to turn the Doctor inside out unless he can, how shall I say, evacuate it from his system within thirty minutes. The countdown had began...

Jumping up the Doctor tipped the curry down his new cords. "Damn, these are brand new, only £5 from Asba's back to school range, thirty minutes until blastoff and it looks like I'm going to need some new trousers too, I must concentrate. The Tardydis doesn't have a loo and I'm not using the post slot again not after last time when that old lady tried to post a letter, last I heard she was still in therapy"

Due to an unfortunate oversight the Doctors time travelling postbox, the Tardydis was just that, inside it was only large enough for the Doctor, his scalf and a few pieces of mail after failing to install a space expander so the Doctor relied heavily on supermarket facilities to compensate. Thinking the Doctor remembered a branch of Waitnose stayed open until 9pm and after a nifty manoeuvre he turned around enough in his cramped space to initiate the time slip.

Whooosh, the Tardydis flickered out of existence, moments later reappearing a hundred meters down the road outside Waitnose. Bursting out of the postbox smelling heavily of spices the Doctor ran through the sliding doors and was immediately rugby tackled by the security guard.

"Not you again, I have told you before, take your Turdis, your stupid overly long scalf and sling your hook, you're barred. Remember? You ran naked down aisle eight trying to scare off a Yoghurt Yeti that was trying to steal all the petit-filous, it turned out it was our assistant in a large coat after returning from the freezer. Now get out! God, you stink too, what's that down your trousers? Urgh, I'm going to be sick"

Picking himself up the Doctor glanced at his Casio watch, a bargain at 50p. Twenty minutes left, time is running out. Looking around the doctor spied the disabled toilets away from the main building. "Just the ticket!" said the Doctor sprinting across the car park unbuttoning as he went.

"Damn, another sabotage!" One of the Doctors enemies the Turgis (Series 2 Episode 24) had visited before and dropped a giraffe rendering the facilities useless. With only minutes left the Doctor returned to the Tardydis and hit the controls. "There's only one thing for it, that new Lesco's Megastore, I haven't been there yet I was saving that for a special treat but needs must before I bust!"

The Tardydis landed with a thud outside the new Megastore, a thud that knocked a minute off the Doctors shortening time span, it was coming. Learning the Doctor walked through the doors avoiding a comotion and straight on to the escalator. "Hmmm, this is new, never seen this type of layout before." At the top of the escalator was a sign 'Store, Homewares, Toilets this way >'

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" With seconds to spare the Doctor ran and ran until he found himself surrounded by toilets. "Wow, first time I have seen so many and they all look posh too, unusual layout being able to see so many, not good for privacy but what the hell, here I go."

The noise was bad enough but the following localised vacuum floored several passerby whilst the lingering smell took out a few others. In hindisght the Doctor should have realised he had stopped short of the real toilets and was actually in the main Homewares bathroom section, something he only realised after frantically pumping the handle in a vain attempt to flush an unplumbed toilet. "Go damn you, go!!! Why won't you go?? Do I have to beat you with a stick?"

In the managers office pending charges the Doctor could see a hazardous material squad cleaning up and carting away a toilet with a cracked bowl. What was the good Doctor going to do now? Just then he heard the familiar sound of a Sausage Siren, "Aunt Bessie's calling" he whispered to no one in particular and started to remove his trousers...

Enjoy more of the Doctors antics as be descends into mental meltdown in the next episode The Doctor and The Ready Meal Massacre coming soon!

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Fagin

Got myself one of those new fangled free EcoMeters, fitted by our electricity supplier it allows us to monitor live electric and gas usage to try and reduce the bills.

It only took twenty minutes for it to be installed but we had to endure a instructional talk from a nice man who went on far, far, far, far, too long. After all do I need to know that if you press this button it shows you your current usage? Oh, and if you press this button it shows you your current usage. Did I tell you if you press this button to show you your current usage?

"Yes, I get it. This button shows you current usage."

"But if you press it twice..."

"Yessss?"

"If you press it twice it shows you current usage and seven day usage, but if you press it again..."

"Yes?"

"It goes back to current usage."

"Have you got a problem with that bloody button or a strange addiction to saying the words current usage? Either way pal I'll do some current usage with my fist if you don't move on" I said a little tersely.

"Ok, Mmm, and this, these colours are red, amber and green, we call them traffic light colours, green means go or good, amber means your using electricity and red means your using a lot of electricity. You can check your current usage at any time by pressing this button"

Right, for frikin sake, thank you, I think we have had enough patronising traffic light button pressing for one day, please, let the door hit you where the good lord split you"

And with that he was off, really, thirty minutes to teach us four buttons, two of which he did not explain as we didn't need them and one useless one that told us our emissions for the day, I ask you. The only one I was interested in was the current usage and the peculiar traffic lights that warned us if we were draining our bank account funding the national grid.

So for the next few hours merriment was had switching on various combinations of appliances to see just how high I could get it. Even with the bare minimum on I could not get it to go green so stuff that I thought, lets go for a red alert. Well, that was easy I thought standing back proudly as the house shone like the sun and the electric meter whizzed around like a manic roundabout. Lets see how much that lot costs.

"How much!"

"£2.25 an hour!"

Jayne complained when I got the candles out but I'm sure she enjoyed a night without power, after all we were saving money and I did manage to get the green light to come on which I gleefully pointed out with my fingerless gloves.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Interwebspace.whatthehellhappened?

According to popular computing magazines way back in the late 70's early 80's the new computer age would revolutionise life as we know it, they imagined paperless offices, robot arms serving us cups of coffee on a whim and even considered using some of the most basic computers to control home lighting and electric grids the only downside was that most enthusiasts into computers at this stage were either beardy types that looked like they had stepped straight out of the Open University programs shown at night and more often used to pointing out oscilloscope patterns or they were smart kids with rich parents, all of which could be found at 'computer clubs'.

Basically these involved enthusiasts gathering together to Ooh and Aha over Video Genies, Acorn Atoms and that particularly fetching Nascom that the beardy chap in the corner has built into a walnut travelling case and played Baa Baa Black Sheep using three tone deaf notes. Computer program's were exchanged on cassette tape like government secrets and discussions about the potential 32k Ram expansion or should I invest in those new costly Apple chaps (no change there then!) or wait for the all new BBC Micro kept us all enthralled. Riveting stuff I'm sure you would agree...

See, look how cool it all looks, computers the size of small cars, printers that required ear muffs to sit next to as they thumped out their text and a storage system that could hold close to a quarter of a typical MP3 file today. Not exactly the future quite yet but they were already doing useful things especially with the new fangled spreadsheets, word processing and database software already appearing. Although our lady model here looks sat rather awkwardly and certainly a candidate for potential back and neck problems, tut, tut.

To show how enthusiastic people really were according to the blurb '...shuttle Columbia was about to lose all contact with Earth: for 21 agonising minutes, touch-down would be touch-and-go. All the world held its breath, the £4.5 Billion project relied on a £165 hand-held calculator...". You would be gutted to read this wouldn't you? Ok then, thanks for that, I have just wasted the entire US deficit, spent twenty years of my life making sure that we could do it and you put it all down to a calculator. Gee, you will be telling me next that the £1 million I spent creating a pen that could write in space could have been done by just using a pencil. Damn.

Now here's a bold claim, let's use a small black and white £50 computer with 1K of Ram in old money, for those of you that are unaware of the limitations it basically has a memory that can hold 1024 characters, less than this blog entry and certainly no photos, to run a power station! Wow, your telling me that the ZX-81, which had a tendency to overheating, crashing on a whim (not as often as Vista!) and with the addition of a 16k expansion pack was also prone to 'wobble' so if anyone as much as broke wind within six feet the accompanying gust would wobble the expansion pack and your last three hours of typing on it plastic keyboard would disappear in a cloud of pixels, could do this?

Nah, not really, but you have got to think big haven't you? The article allows you to build at home a handy I/O port and send pulses (On and Off basically) to control stuff, not exactly ground breaking but it paved the way for all the Serial, parallel, USB and a multitude of other ports that do similar things. The great thing is a follow up article had enthusiasts if I remember controlling motorised Lego, cat flaps and the usual robot arm fumbling with cups and milk bottles. They did have a tendency to go wrong though and often the cat would be left meowing outside avoiding a whacking whist the flap flapped uncontrollably and robot arms unable to judge distance would frequently smash a milk bottle in your face, not to mention when they crashed you got coffee instead. On the roof.

Still, we all dreamed of this hip office, an explosion of hair, spanking new technology that nobody knew how to use and lots and lots of brown...

And what did we get? The Internet. It's all cats and tubes if you ask me, and another thing when am I going to get a personal hover board? I used to set fire to Kindle, eat an Apple and a smart phone was one that was shiny red and made an attractive trilling sound. Tablets I ate, Lol was what I used to do in bed on a Sunday and Twitter was what the birds did to wake me up.

What the hell happened? I remember when you could by a computer for less than £50 and it would control everything from power stations to NORAD, once I wired it up to your auntie Mable and marched her around the house robot style until the power cord came out and she crashed pulling down the curtains and smashing through the coffee table. The vicar wasn't impressed. Neither was the postman as Bonzo became the first Robodog on the street, it took me three days to work out how to stop the automatic humping mechanism, the postman was a physical wreck but I kept his spirits up during the sleepless nighttime sessions whist he was pummelled senseless with tea and biscuits.

Ahh, the good old days...

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

The Olive Stroker

A while ago I told you a tale of a hotel stay that involved an unsavoury breakfast, a breakfast that involved sausages that bent in the middle when pressed with a knife, beans that had formed a crust and toast that looked like a blackboard, indeed you could even scrape letters into it. The worst thing though was watching over Jaynes shoulder as a member of staff decided to fill up the little jam tubs you get, a bit of a fumble and one fell off the tray an plopped into the serving jug full of orange. You know the one, the serve yourself jug that always dribbles full of orange juice chemically enhanced with flavouring. Anyway our staff member decided that instead of messing about and replacing the now contaminated juice they decided to roll up their sleeves and plunge their hand straight in to fish it out, job done they wiped themselves on the tablecloth and walked away. Needless to say orange juice and many other things were off the menu that morning.

Roll on to Monday and a visit to the market, a pleasant day but as we have travelled up and down the country you do come across similar stalls, one in particular was seeking olives in quantity, something we have seen many times with its familiar setup. Jayne was preoccupied with looking at ribbons or something like that and I was curiously observing the olive stall as he attempted to entice members of the public to try a sample. Not many people were buying even though it was busy so he started to rearrange the front of the stall a little, a thumb dipped in here and a thumb dipped in there as each bowl was moved, not very nice but I have seen worse.

One of the bowls of black olives was looking a little bit empty and mostly full of salty water that the olives came in. Our stall holder noticed and pulled it towards him for a refil. Now I can only assume that this is not the normal procedure unless I'm not privy to all the information regarding filling olive bowls but normally I would expect some kind of utensil to be used when moving olives. Off came the lid from an enourmous tub of black olives drowning in salty water, up went the sleeves and in went the hands. Urgh.

Now we are talking big hairy hands, really big hairy hands which were now being thrust deep into the olives, up they came with an handful and they were cupped together and squeezed until all the liquid came out of the olives. The now dryish olives were chucked into the bowl ready to be sold, get this, sold using a special ladle to pop them in a tub to give the impression of hygiene. In between olive dipping his hands were wiped on his trousers, how hideous.

I don't know why I always seem to see things like this, I nudged Jayne to look but by the time turned around he was already back to giving out samples. 'Are you sure?' She questioned. 'Yes, look, see that man, he's about to take a few as a sample, oh no, he's going to eat one! Should I tell him? Ugh, I'm going to hurl!'

And so it goes on, these little things I see and my mind doesn't forget, so arriving home I downloaded a few free apps for a diversion from any olive related horribleness only to have this thrust in my face so to speak.

Oh my, I shudder to think what this character can do, who on earth named it the STIMULATOR, it's a kids game for god sake, whatever next the KNEE TREMBLER or how about the FORNICATOR, no, I know lets go all out and call it the THRUSTING FAPPER!

I'm off for a lay down, I just hope I don't have nightmares of a man called the AROUSER who is naked and using his big hands to drop olives in jugs full of orange juice which I am then forced to drink.

See! see what today has done! Sob!

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Christmas With The Impossimals

I have been invited to take part in a special children's charity Christmas Card Art Competition in conjunction with The Evergreen Art Cafe and Waitrose cumulating in a special Christmas prize giving appearance at the gallery on Saturday the 8th December, it one of three special Impossimal events as part of the Christmas With The Impossimals we have lined up over the coming months so keep an eye on the blog and website for further details. I'll now hand over the blog to the Evergreen Art Cafe to fill you in on the details...

We're looking for children to take their inspiration from Peter's famous striped, rotund characters called the 'Impossimals', which feature in all his paintings including his new Autumn Collection. Maybe they could paint an Impossimal Santa and his Impossimal Reindeers or how about an Impossimal Snowman?

This is a fantastic opportunity for kids to get involved in art and Peter's delightful characters will open your child's imagination to a world of creative fun. Peter will be choosing winners from each of the age categories (4-8 and 9-13) and local printer JR Press will print the Christmas cards for free.

The cards will be available to buy in the gallery from Monday 12th November and are also being promoted within Waitrose's Daventry store. All proceeds from the card sales will be donated to local children's charity, Pete Spencer's Helping Hands Memorial Fund.

The closing date for entries is 31st October so don't delay, get their painting pots out today and who knows, your child could be a budding Peter Smith in the making!

All competition entries should be posted in the special drop box in Waitrose (Daventry store). Don't forget to write your child's name, age and full contact details (including an email address) on the reverse of the painting. If you can't get into Daventry to hand in your child's entry, you can post it to us (address below) or email it to sales@evergreenartcafe.co.uk.

Peter Smith will be at Evergreen Art Café for an exhibition of his work on Saturday 8th December and will be presenting the winners with a signed and framed copy of their Impossimal masterpieces. As part of the exhibition, we will also display every competition entry, so your child still gets to see their work on the gallery walls even if they are not one of the lucky winners.

Full details can be found HERE

Evergreen Art Café | 30 Sheaf Street | Daventry | Northants NN11 4AB

www.evergreenartcafe.co.uk

Good Luck!

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Gangnam Day

After following a line of 25,672 cones and according to the over zealous placing of all the road signs around this small hole I was congratulated that I have 'Way Control' with my driving skills by the middle sign which I was pleased to see rather than no control and end up ploughing through and ending up in the ditch upside down with loose change boinging off my head and my feet touching my nose. Judging by the arrows I take it the also want me to keep right.

Before I go on look at this snapshot from my blog writing software. Spellcheckers are picking up such atrocious language skills, I mean did I really want to say 'end ump ploughing' as I write the blog. Ump as far as I can find doesn't exist, silly spellchecker what a flumper. You nearly got what a silly motor flumper you winker it's all a load of bollards.

Anyway what was I doing, ah, yes, being told I had way control. We were off to market or to be more precise off to Bakewell on market day, a great day to go but we forgot it was also the cattle market day so it was heaving with animals and livestock before we even got there. Lots of mooing and oinking later, we stopped doing that when we realised we were getting funny looks, we made our way into Bakewell.

It did look very fetching though in the October sun, 1st October, who'd have thought it and the market was great everything you want, didn't want but bought anyway and didn't even think off but bought two just incase you never get a chance again. Shoe laces, how useful are those? I'm now the proud owner of two yellow ones three feet in length, now all I have to do is find the shoes to match. Although thinking about it I may have made a rash decision unless I find a stall selling shoes for clowns and have to chalk it down to experience just like the home barber kit. I'm still lucky to have the full use of both my ears after that I can tell you. Cut your own hair like a barber they said, it'll be fun.

The real reason I'm writing this drivel is an excellent shop I found, some kind of emporium run by a most excellent gentleman with a very quirky taste in clothing. He was seemingly dressed in an eclectic mix of smart elegant wear crossed with a scarecrow, a mish mash of differing styles with loops of heavy cotton portruding at angles from various parts of the suit like the whole thing had been hastily sewn together but with great skill too. Now I say this with the greatest affection, he really did look great and suited the business or the business suited him, either way it was all very tasteful and a breath of fresh air to see a business to be just that, a business that was based on a personality. It was like walking around what you would imagine his house to be like and I like that, it gives a real sense of being.

Then he did something really great, he reached behind the counter and played his music, the emphasis again on personal taste at a high volume to lift spirits far and wide. What did he play? Psy and Gangnam Style? No, although it would have suited his style and I'm sure he could have horse rode gangsta style around the shop, instead he played the enchanting Doris Day's Que Sera Sera, his face lifted, his pace quickened and he was lost in his little world, he had found his happy place and was damn well going to keep it that way.

And with one simple act everyone who entered the shop immediately smiled and relaxed, what a great place.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Sketch

Work is well underway with new Impossimals after a burst of activity over the last few weeks entailing plenty of new sculpting, set building and oil sketching so full painting can start in earnest next week now everything is prepared.

A new addition is the oil sketches, although I have done them before as shown above they were primarily used to get the colour balance right and certain ideas across but now I have changed them again to be even more useful so they include a list of oils used and certain mixes that creates specific colours and tones, a date when the piece was created and relationships to pieces if necessary to link stories to other Impossimals.

This small 10"x10" image gives you an idea. Even though it doesn't include the oil paint information yet what it does show is the heavy black border I have quickly put around the piece to frame it. Using a plasticine model as a guide a rough approximation of the light is added, to help this further I will paint this again in black and white to get an idea of the depth then finally paint the main piece using all the reference materials and models. A bit more work than usual but I'm dying to get stuck in, just one more to finish off today and I have left the best till last, it's got rabbits in it!

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Bunny Comforts

Bunnyopolis is ready for the winter with its installed double glazing in the living quarters and Perspex sheeting around the open run to ensure that Aaran, Jura and Iona, our three continental giants keep snug and warm over the coming months. So what were the bunnies doing at 9am this morning?

Jura was outside enjoying appreciating the sun and taking a break from all the rain over the last few days, she's looking very regal and relaxed with her laid back ears, always a good sign. All she needs is a cup of tea and a biscuit to complete the refined lady look.

Iona on the other hand was milling about around me convinced as always that you are the bearer of gifts, namely food. Always the first in for tea and the last to leave her appetite knows no bounds but still she retains a sleek rabbit look and has the biggest eyes of all three, possibly to match her stomach. She followed me into the run where I found Aaran.

Sleepy eyed Aaran was enjoying stripping bark from some fruit tree cuttings, these are plum, which is perfectly safe but can lead to distress if you don't expect the colouring to come out the other end, yes, it is plum coloured. The bunnies love it though.

A peaceful morning at Bunnyopolis and hopefully a nice sunny day to boot.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Eye Cream

Mansfield on a wet Tuesday, miserably I had an eye test booked so going out in all the rain couldn't be avoided. Trudging through any place when it's raining is not a pleasant experience, the streets are grey and miserable, litter gets washed together to make unsightly piles and you constantly run the risk of a stabbing injury from flailing brollies. I hastened to my appointment and was ushered into a darkened cubicle.

Eye tests by their nature invade your personal space and out of choice I wouldn't sit face to face with a total stranger touching noses especially if they had just drank a choca mocha frappe latte triple coffee and still had a bit of cream below their nose. I don't know why but I became fixated with this anomaly barely inches from my face, unfortunately it fought for attention with the aroma of strong coffee, garlic and vinigar breath, a combination that made me feel faint as a hot blast whipped up my nostrils, what on earth had they had for dinner? Fighting the urge to suddenly stand up and in my best shirty voice shout 'For god sake eat a mint!' I tried instead to think of something else, puppies, rabbits, anything, but every time my eyes lazily refocused on the cream.

Look up, look down, look to the right, all of these things became nearly impossible as my eyes would not stop looking at the way it wobbled up and down as they spoke, clearly I was afraid it was going to tumble down to their mouth and be catapulted into mine when they said the word 'blink'. Mmm, they said in such a way as to make you think they have spotted something medically impossible at the back of your retina only the shape of the mouth forming the 'Mmm' had curled the upper lip enough to transfer a little of the cream down to create a smear. Urgh, immediately I jumped, immediately they jumped when my knees hit the underside of the equipment that was across my lap, it wasn't my fault that they nearly dropped their torch thingy but I noticed the room temperature drop several degrees.

"Please sit still until I have finished", obviously I had annoyed them. "Please don't eat weird combos for dinner, suppress a burp in my face or try wearing cream as a moustache, it's so yesterday, and while we are at it those shoes don't go with anything, ever" was what my mind said to comfort itself now I had to regain my composure and watch an ever expanding cream slick. If one bit gets sprayed from the human flocking machine onto me I swear I'd do something, I don't know what but I would do something spectacular, like lavishly throw up over them.

"Right, I'm going to put this coloured dye in your eyes, things will look sunny".

Sunny? Really? You mean yellow don't you? If you can make me see sunny then why didn't you tell me, I could have had my own personal summer instead of the crap one we had. Hey, why not do pink, then I could live my life through rose tinted eyes and ditch my spectacles. Oh, and wipe your face.

As the dye hit my eyes automatically shut, as they slowly opened everything had a yellow tinge and I was witness to my optical examiner licking the cream from their top lip with a overly extended tongue.

Looking back I must have made the people waiting quite nervous as I ran from cubicle screaming "Oh my god, Oh my god, they ate it!" and retching uncontrollably.

It doesn't bode we'll for the my dentist appointment does it.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

Pencil Power

Pencils whilst quite useful for drawing, easing our ear wax, nostril cleaning and probing foreign objects that look decidedly unappetising they can also provide hours of amusement in other ways. Maybe 'hours' was stretching it but a few minutes diversion at the very least. Lets start with a jape, tell your friend or colleague that your pencil has been specially developed to write any colour, ask which colour they prefer to see your pencil write.

Voila! The miracle pencil that mysteriously can write any colour! You can add variants to this such as my pencil can write exactly like a pen, after disbelief from your friends simply write 'exactly like a pen'. I'm sure you can come up with many, many more and keep yourself and onlookers amused in post office queues, banks and when signing your name on important documents like last wills and testaments. One for the brave though is announce to a random stranger that you can draw their portrait in five seconds, wait for them to finish saying "no you can't" and "go on then" then simply draw a school cock. Be prepared to run after this pencil jape as most strangers may not see the funny side even though the portrait may be accurate.

Don't you hate it when this happens? Well make the best of a bad job by following this little tutorial 'The Rubber Wrecker'. This one involves a bit of work but it can be left as a joke mine, one to go off unexpected a little later. Simply take the broken lead and put it to one side and find a pencil, preferably someone else's, with a small rubber on the end.

Using a compass point or something sharp (watch your fingers!) poke the rubber it make a small hole.

Carefully insert the piece of lead you saved until you cannot see it then wet the rubber end end rub lightly on a piece of cloth to clean it up. Place the pencil somewhere it will be used.

Then laugh uncontrollably as any attempt to erase causes mayhem. Imagine the fun as your boss takes notes in a meeting only to have his work ruined, hilarious I'm sure. As you can see I have run out of ideas today and possibly if you followed my advice you have got the sack too.

It's never a good idea to do a five second portrait of your boss.

Or maybe it is.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

The Doctors Big Adventure

Travelling in his extraordinary postbox shaped time machine that moves through time and space under severe restrictions such as only being able to travel between 9am and 5pm on the same day and only being able to transport himself to supermarkets Doctor Do's adventures are legendary amongst Do Do's, the Doctors biggest fans, let us join the Doctor on his latest adventure.

Doctor Do and the Horlicks

A freak electrical problem on the Doctors postbox time machine caused by a passing inebriated member of the public urinating through his post slot finds our Doctor flying out of control sometime around 12:33pm on a Saturday only to find himself at a unknown location...

The Doctor stepped out of the postbox covered in last nights mail and smelling of wee, it had been a rough one he thought to himself, "I wonder where I am?". The place was filled with a familiar setting, trolleys were in the entrance, tills to the right and snacks and newspapers in front of him. "Hmm, seems familiar but something's wrong. Where is the comforting green text of Waitnose or the orangeness of Saintburys? All I can see is blues, yellows and reds. I must investigate further."

Before the Doctor could take it all in thundering through the door came a family of, well, a family. A chain smoking couple dressed in leisure wear approached pushing a trolley, twenty six kids followed each one eating a slice of Billy Bear and sporting a language the Doctor instantly recognised as pottymouth, a dialect that seemed to be on the increase. They swarmed around the Doctor in their eagerness to get to the frozen chips and the Doctor found himself swept further and further into the supermarket.

As they all swarmed away to look at frozen pizzas the Doctor suddenly realised where he was. "Noooooooooo!!!!!!". He was in Libl. In serious danger the Doctor pulled out his sonic ballpoint pen, it didn't do anything he just called it that because it sounded cool at parties, he spoke softly to his ballpoint comforter as he had not yet realised that a pen friend is a completely different thing altogether. "Don't worry my little ball pen friend I will guide us to safety"

He was in the bakery area, that's not good either as they are always at the back of the store but he knew supermarkets like the back of his hand, if he went up the baking and egg aisle, through the crisps and snacks he would then need to take a right at the fizzy pop then a quick left through the tills avoiding the small temptations stacked along side them and the special offers that seem so enticing.

Avoiding any type of contact the good Doctor weaved and dodged through the surging throng of bargain shoppers doing their big shop to make it as far as the salted peanuts when he realised that this store had fooled him, no longer was things ordered and easy to find, he was in the supermarket equivelent of Pyremark. Double trouble. Each aisle was unlike any he had witnessed before they all looked like a jumble sale, salted nuts next to tinned peas, beans next to pasta, it was all so wrong. In bewilderment he wandered around the next corner and along the sauce aisle. He couldn't help himself, he had to reorganise things, "Order must be maintained!" he screamed, "Or the space time continuum and my shopping list will be ruined!"

Working like a demon the Doctor scooped up an armful of tinned tomatoes, "These need to go near the tinned beans, then all the pasta shapes need to go near the spaghetti, then chocolate near the crisps, so much to do so little time!" As the Doctor run around the corner with six tins of beans he heard a shout over his shoulder. "Oi! what do you think your doing?". it was a Libl Lumpa, the guardians of the aisles and creator of the mayhem he was now trying to put right. Dropping the tins he ran as fast as he could down the coffee aisle, if he was caught it was all over and Libl would take over the world.

He ran that fast he didn't see the eight foot display of chocolate Horlicks. The good Doctor was found under three hundred and seventy two boxes of the stuff that had taken three weeks to construct, they were on offer too, not that it did the Doctor much good as he was restrained and taken to the managers office pending charges.

Next Week witness the Doctor as he tackles his greatest foe yet, in the Doctor Do Post Office Conga Queue.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

W.C. Boggs & Son

I really wish I had taken a picture or at least read fully one of the most intriguing signs I have seen in a long time. Quite simply it was a product recall from a local DIY store, attached to a toilet was a warning informing customers of said toilet that it was dangerous. Now think about that, dangerous. It's a strong word for a toilet, I'd describe toilets as awkward, cold, even alarming if you have ever sat down quickly in the dark not realising the seat was up so dangerous intrigued me. Unfortunately I was in a hurry and it only registered what I had saw as I reached the car.

What on earth made it dangerous? It has a tendency to shatter if hit by a particularly heavy stool? Or maybe it has a weight limit, exceed it and find yourself on the floor surrounded by sewage nursing a backside impaled with shards of porcelain. What if it has a lavish flush that fires uncontrollably like a geyser to deposit it's contents regularly onto the roof? Or maybe the toilet seat has a tendency to snap back like a crocodile clip with hilarious results. The mind boggles but fantasy is never far from reality, a recent news story from the United States reported that millions of faulty flush mechanisms had been causing toilets to explode with many receiving laceration injuries. Ouch!

One of the funniest lavatorial humour I found on the net was a photo of graffiti that had been scrawled in a toilet cubicle, quite simply it said 'Rate Your Experience' then added 'Using A Movie Title'. I tittered, then smirked, then did a big belly laugh as I read some of the ratings. Black Beauty and The Departed were funny but I started to crack up at One Flew Out Of The Cuckoos Nest, The Blob and The Fast and Furious. By the time I had reached Grease, Max Payne and Magnum Force I was rolling about uncontrollably.

I'm sure you can think of many others but on that puerile note and as its Sunday I will leave you with one more, Tarka The Otter.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal

SAW IIIVV - The Key To That Chain Is In The Bathtub

The latest addition in which to maim myself arrived at the beginning of the week, a scroll saw, another tool to help with building the Impossimal sets I seem to be creating at the moment. No longer content with building the electrics like last week I'm now obsessed with set design too. Over the last few days I have built half a street, including drainpipes, manhole covers, iron railings and even a railway bridge to sit at the end. It may all seem a bit much going to such trouble but it does allow you more freedom when placing an Impossimal in a painting, allowing me to try out angles and situations without the need for redrawing on canvas.

The scroll saw for a start is normally a sign that you are over the hill and decided that cutting out wooden ducks or letters is a pleasant hobby and before long you are sat at a craft stall waiting your first buyers convinced you will make £££'s. For me though its more of a lethal sewing machine with a means to an end, no wooden ducks will be emanating from my saw I can tell you, well, maybe one just to see what all the fuss is about.

Cutting a bit of wood with the saw should be quite straight forward, you put the wood down and push it, simple. Not so simple, for a start all the books I have read tell you that the blades make the wood travel slightly causing you to compensate by pushing more to the right, add to this vibration, which even when fastened to the desk is enough to rattle your teeth, and the speed of the blade which makes one small slip one big trip to A&E.

So my first go was a bit of a roller coaster, it started off as Ooo, this is easy to Whoooah!!! that was close followed by a quick counting of my digits to make sure they were all there. The wood goes in easy enough but twisting and turning it as it travels through the saw is where all the excitement is, if the blade comes within a loose already cut side it decides to play with it a little by jarring it then bouncing it like a bucking bronco. Luckily I had already read about this potential problem so used a pencil with an eraser on the end to steady it. ZZZzzzzzip, the pencil took the brunt of the bucking and it was sliced neatly in half, lucky old me, that could have been my finger I chortled. Emboldened by my good luck I chose an unsuitable piece of thin wood and began to play, zip, zip, zip, slash. Oops.

Mopping up the blood from my new cut I put on the tough gardening gloves then noticed a small plastic box at the bottom of the cardboard one the saw came in. Silly old me, it was a safety guard to stop said fingers from sliding into the slicer. Now I had a shield I could try all sorts of things.

A pencil lay in four pieces, a dried up tube of paint revealed its innards, a tube of toothpaste made a mess, bacon cuts a treat and as a bonus greases the blades with a not too unpleasant bacony aroma which changes to cooked bacon when you crank up the speed and cut vegetables. Mesmerised by the up and down action I supposed I did get carried away and it's only when Jayne noticed the toothpaste was missing did I fess up and stop.

So in a corner of the studio it stands, lethal, fun and smelling strangely of peppermint bacon awaiting its first major project early next week when I will be building a boat, a table and cutting out wooden ducks to sell on eBay. Whatever next?

I know, a funky bacon shop where all the bacon is cut into groovy shapes, bacon baps with bacon cut like a dog, any bacon any shape, it shall be called Bangin' Bacon Ltd. Forget the slicer have your bacon professionally shaped by our team of skilled scroll saw operatives, impress friends and neighbours with individually cut slices in the shape of their name. Throwing a dinner party? No problem, our portable Baconette Van will visit and cut on site, imagine your guests as they are greeted to a full joint of ham deliciously cut to look like a wooden duck. Priceless.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Everything Impossimal