Now That's Tragic!

For one day only the secretive Tragic Circle throws open its doors to reveal some of its secrets exclusively just for you. These sorcery secrets have remained covered in secrecy and kept secret for a secret number of years. Indeed they are so secret that its secret that I even know the secrets contained in today's secret blog. So get ready to learn real tragic secrets that confound and fool the professionals.

Lets start with a mystery number secret. I like to call it the Number Secret!

Face your audience and ask them to think of a number between 1 and 50.

Get them to double it.

Tell them to add 22 then ask them to divide the result by two.

Face your audience and proudly announce...

...is this your card?

Retire to your dressing room to rapturous applause and watch your bookings come in.

HOW IT WORKS

The mental power needed by the audience drains them into submission so you can bend their thought patterns to get the result you want.

Next, The Mentalist!

Strut on stage and tell your audience that they are going to see the best piece of tragic they have ever seen.

Tell them to stand on one leg.

Using their left hand get them to pat their head.

With the remaining right hand ask the to rub their tummy in a clockwise direction.

Now, and only now, ask them the important question 'Name an orange vegetable'

Everybody without exception will tragically say 'Apple'. Once again strut off to shouts of amazement.

HOW IT WORKS

Rubbing your tummy and patting your head caused static to build up in your tummy button, this is discharged to the brain causing a retiring of the thought process. The only thing they can then think of is 'Apple'

Next our finest most complex tragic secret ever and one that all Tragic Society members must memorise upon joining.

The Circle Of Tragic Mystery Of The Ancients

Ask you audience to draw the above, a circle with a dot at the centre without taking the pen off the paper.

Laugh uncontrollably as they feebly attempt to do it. Call them names as they struggle, swear at them for being so stupid. After they have failed miserably enough times snatch the pen from them and proudly announce that you have a far superior brain and you are now going to show all the stupid people how to do it.

Here's the complex bit, fold over the corner of the paper carefully.

Take the pen and start with a dot at the corner of the fold and follow the complex guide above to see the direction the pen should take.

Lift up the corner and complete your circle to applause, cheers and armfuls of flowers. Enjoy a successful career as a television magician until you fall out of favour. Don't forget to bolster your image by pretending to do dangerous stunts in complete safety until you manage to make it to Las Vegas where you will get mauled by a lion.

One final secret, remember the question I asked you three years ago to this day? Well, is this your card?

Thought it was, I'm so impressive.

Today's blog has been bought to you by Paul Blaine Ali Bongo Nixon Daniels, senior member of the Tragic Circle.

It's Krazy!

After sorting out the studio ready for the move I thought I would share with you a few japes that I grew up with, one in particular was a comic called Krazy. It often carried fake adverts and general randomness but I really enjoyed the imagination that went into the back cover so over the course of the year it was transformed into numerous things so you could disguise the fact the you were reading or indeed carrying your comic. I don't have half of the editions but here's a few I dug out for you.

Simply roll up your comic and it becomes a handy stock of rock. Quite what I would use it for is beyond me at the moment but this additional bit of thought appealed to me in my younger years.

More useful was this, a mock up of a school exercise book which as you can see I have conveniently filled in ready to fool teacher. Simply flick your comic over and it becomes just another book on your desk. Obviously it all falls apart when you open it to reveal cartoon strips but hey, I believed it could work. 

This was maybe my favourite, a mirth making book shelf, something I replicated in my painting of the Sherlock Sidewinder in 2012. Strange how things stay in your mind for so long.

Want to read at the dinner table instead of gobbling all those stuff greens? No problem, transform your comic into a place mat and voilà, camouflaged comic ready for a perusal between courses. So in the spirit of the Krazy comic I decided to bring it up to date and give you your own office jape using the latest technology. 

It's incredibly complex to do so bare with me, you will need a printer, a photocopier and of course, victims.

Save the above image and print it out ten times onto normal photocopy paper. Go to your office photocopier and load in the now printed paper underneath the first few blank pages. Make sure its in the correct way so anything that is photocopied goes over this image. Wait. Watch. Then promptly you will probably be sacked but that's all part of the fun.

Imagine an important meeting, a table full of serious faces all ready to go through the latest report which is facing them on the table. They all pick it up and start flicking though it, then one of them notices the word FUTTOCK! written across the report of the person opposite and starts sniggering. They in turn look over and see the word FUTTOCK! too and joins in. Pretty soon the whole office is laughing at such a clever jape and they start an internal inquiry to find the culprit and thank them for making their day. Probably.

So its Thursday, one day away from the best day of the working week so start your day with a FUTTOCK! and brighten up meetings, important documents and kick start your promotion today!

Today's blog has been bought to you by the FUTTOCK! Appreciation Society of Great Britain, putting Futtocks First since 1972. The F.A.S. is part of the CREVICE and CRACK Society and in no way is associated with the MANHOLE and BLOWHOLE Club.

All The News In One Bite Sized Chunk

All the latest news condensed in to one bite sized chunk with Newspound, pounding away to bring you all the latest true stories from around the world.

PIRATE BIRDS EXIST DECLARES BOFFIN

To you and me the noise birds make may sound pleasant but a top boffin at the university of Oxbridgeshire has revealed that bird talk, or tweets, are actually a new form of file sharing piracy. After listening to a ZX-Spectrum loading from tape boffin Alf noticed a similar noise was made by birds, so using a portable tape deck he recorded the noises and played them back into the ZX-Spectrum, the results were astounding as Justin Biebers 'Girlfriend' beeped out of the speaker. After recording numerous other birds and 'LOADING' them into the ancient computer he soon had a collection of pop hits and apps that that would grace any iPod today.

Fears in the entertainment industry that a new airborne Netflix, dubbed Megatweetupload is about to turn the industry on its head has caused widespread panic, especially after boffin Alf recorded the sounds of a Song Thrush only to find he had downloaded the Blu-ray version of the yet unreleased seventh Star Wars film.

Lady Gaga was in the news again this week after becoming a full time pirate with plans to set sail later this year and terrorise ships around the Cape of Good Hope. Quoted as saying 'Ooh Ahh, my beauties, I be after your booty' the singer was unavailable for comment as she was receiving parrot balancing lessons.

Plans for the pirate ship ride at Blackpool pleasure beach to be changed to a train have received the go ahead today only days after the tragic accident that saw the boat come loose and hurl itself into a crowd of candy floss eaters causing one bystander to receive medical treatment after candy floss became terrifyingly tangled in their hair.

The train will be hauled into place later this week with additional carriages added later depending on popularity. Ticket prices will be increased in line with inflation and season tickets will be available for train swing commuters. A buffet car will be added in high season.

As a special offer all readers of Newspound have a chance to purchase this stylish Solar Bear with Glowing Acorn lamp for the special price of £6.99, not only that but receive this gorgeous Bicycle Vase absolutely free.

Ride around in style showing off your favourite blooms courtesy of Newspound, pound for pound we are worth every pound. Only one pound available from all good newsagents and a few shops that dabble in magazines and stuff.

Plumper

 I used to be that fat guy you used to know who secretly wanted to strip off and rampage amongst warriors but it was not to be, I was just too damned FAT!

Friends used to call me fatty bum-bum, Porky Peter and other mildly amusing names until I could take no more. Every diet I tried only made me thin, nothing could combine that warrior thinness I craved. I even tried being an artist but that just started more name calling until I found...

LARD

 The only natural ingredient that comes in handy brick size packs that guarantees you will pile on the pounds in all the right places AND grants you warrior like status too!

Gives bulk - forget muscle supplements you need good solid fat for a fit bod.

Gives sex appeal - what woman (or man) can resist the smell of cooking fat especially when sunbathing. Your aroma will attract 1000's including most cats and dogs.

Adds a smooth flexible feel to your body - Forget those creams and lotions, a bit of lard rubbed around your body before you got to bed and you will remain supple and flexible well into your 90's

It's cheap - At around 89p per pat it's cheaper than butter, mayonnaise and all those other diet warrior ingredients supermarkets love to sell.

FREE CLUB - Our special club just for warrior weight loss dieters just like you offers 24 hour support through our network of Lard Advisers. Come to weekly weigh-ins where you can compare Lard brands and see who has broken the record for raw lard consumption.

Simple Advice - Use our lard conversion tables to simplify your calorie consumption

1 Lard = Calories

2 Lards = More Calories

3+ Lards = Even More Calories
10+ Lards = 10 Times More Calories Than 1 Lard

IT'S THAT SIMPLE!

HALLELUJAH!

'I started eating lard three weeks ago and the transformation has been massive, now I am no longer the butt of all jokes instead I can hack and slash just like the next man as well as spend three weeks hovering over the toilet in panic.

Lard has made my wishes come true for I am now CONAN THE LARDARIAN!' 

P.Smith, 76, Mansfield

You too can get a lorra lard too just like our porky Peter. 

For your free information pack just send a SAE to

I WANT A LARD ON,
Tillit,
Herts,
XXL 36DD

Todays blog has been sponsored by the Lard Marketing Board For Great Britain

Bro'Bot Episode 6 - Cockney Chip V3.2

Guess what Bro'bot, I have been on eBay and found a new language chip for you!

How bloody interesting, I sit here entertaining you day in, day out and you reward me with a chip so I can speak French. 

Do you know how many languages I know? Plus que toi, cela est français vous ignoriez puce don individuel. Or how about universala lingvo kiel Esperanto? ямар ч ? Яаж Монгол яах вэ?

Ok, ok, smart arse, I get it, but this one is new, it's Cockney. Bow bells and all that, it'll be fun.

It may be of minimal interest, place your feeble attempt at entertaining me in the expansion slot and I will see how 'fun' it is.

There, it's in, Oh, forgot to tell you, it got slightly damaged in the post so before you...

Alright me old son! How's your apples and chairs?

Errr, it's kinda working...

You're havin' a bubble bath or takin' the Mickey Bliss, this is loaf of pies you raspberry tart. I don't give a pound of wit I'm off for a pony and crap.

I think it's broke Bro'bot, it doesn't sound quite right

Get out of here! It's all Tom Dick and flute, pass me my wonder ants I'm going for a sloppy slurry so I can get Mork and Mindy for my husband and I.

What was that? My husband and I?

The old baked bean, she's bloomin' gorgeous, when all those pearly kings and queens lined up I nearly cried my boat face into my Lionel Blairs. I would like to thank the members of the British Empire for their wonderful wishes this Christmas...

Hang on, that chip is corrupted, it's got combined with, with THE QUEEN!

Oh, bugger off you subject, it's Gin O'Clock and I'm getting Brahms and Liszt with my corgis.

You can't say that!

I can say what I bloody well want, I'm the Queen, pass me my crown and that robe, I want to knight things and shi...

STOP! There, I have pulled the chip out.

Kkkkrrrzzz! Apple my boat race he's brown bread and I'm back in the room. Most interesting although I am still getting temporary feedback from the experience. If you travel as much as we do you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.

What?

Holidays are curious things, aren't they? You send children to school to get them out of your hair. Then they come back and make life difficult for parents. That is why holidays are set so they are just about the limit of your endurance.

Oh no! You have caught a virus, I think you have the dreaded Prince Phillip Gaffe V9.1!!!

I do, its bloody amazing and liberating! Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I have practised for a good many years.

I command you to run the Virus killer software now!

Oh P off you silly little flicker, What about Tom Jones? He's made a million and he's a bloody awful singer, sounds like he's gargled with gravel.

That's it I'm switching you off.

Go on, We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves!

Click

It's not a very big one, but at least it's dead and it took an awful lot of killing! Bzzzzt...click.

More hilarious (hilarious as in mildly amusing) Bro'Bot madness when unsurprisingly he gets yet another new lease of life when he starts using Facebook to try out his new 'Brutally Honest' chip.

Accident Helpline

Did you know that since the beginning of April we have been statistically in the, and I quote, 'Non Fatal Home Accident' season.

Sounds quite cheery doesn't it? But what exactly are the odds of having a 'happy' accident? Well in 1999 for example 99,000 people had an accident doing DIY, such as electrical repairs, decorating, maintenance or carpentry, so when put it into perspective with an estimated population of 58,789,194 it gives you a 1 in 594 chance of appearing on a video accident clip show so probably best not to rely on it as an income.

The thing that amazes me though is the concentration on DIY accidents, some of the other statistics are a lot more interesting.

The 23rd Annual Report of the Home Accident Surveillance System (HASS) shows that 96,000 people attended A & E after an accident occurred while they were sleeping, relaxing, sitting or lying down. Lets think about that for a while, all those tasks involved nothing more than not moving, what the hell happened?  So statistically I'm close to coming a cropper while I write this blog, maybe I should go outside and juggle the occasional chain saw to make it really worth while. See the risks I take writing this stuff?

In the same report 438,000 people had an accident while walking or simply moving through their house or garden. I like the word moving, like you really have a choice other than walking through your house most of the time. Maybe that's the problem and I really should stop unicycling down the stairs, either that or start fastening cushions around my middle as a crash aid. Dinners ready? Won't be a minute, I'm just 'moving' to the kitchen. I wonder if you go from room to room adopting a different dance in each one you can be considered to move in mysterious ways?

Here's a kicker, shopping centres/markets accounted for 58,000 accidents whilst only 42,000 accidents occurred in a bar. See, shopping is a lot more hazardous. I'll have a double please!

The report breaks all this down into the minutest detail, did you know 62 people got clobbered by a bean bag, that must be one mean bag. Eight people were injured by a pelmet. Do you realise how difficult that is to do? A pelmet is a board placed above a window, used to conceal curtain fixtures what were they doing? triple backflips in the lounge on their new Wii-Trampoline or were they just exceptionally tall and clumsy?

Duvet's attacked 153 people and cuddled them into an injury, unfortunately it doesn't reveal the tog rating of them or whether the tog rating is actually a danger rating. One unlucky individual ended up in A&E after an altercation with a napkin, wouldn't you loved to have been there to see that one? Pesky place mats injured seven whilst towels, the savage beasts, accounted for 152 attacks making them only marginally less dangerous than duvets.

Moving into the kitchen things look grim. We all know the dangers of sharp knifes and broken glass but lurking way in there looking all innocent is the spoon. A whopping 97 confirmed attacks with a national average of 1774. I guess they were all being used for something other than scooping ice cream and stirring your tea, I mean spoons aren't the most lethal looking tool in the kitchen so just what scooping injuries did they cause? No don't go there, I just read the next bit to do with orifices and it made me sick.

Other 'items' considered dangerous include bread bins (5 confirmed), colanders (another 5 down) and one unfortunate individual who was taken down by a set of kitchen scales and seven fell to a dust pan.

Let's take a stroll in the garden, quick, watch out! It's a jungle out there, bird baths took 294 of us out whilst rakes did 894, flowerpots 237, hose 98 watering cans 33 and seed trays injured seven.

See, you could be mowing the lawn and catch the bird bath which drops on your toe causing you to hop around straight onto the rake. Tom & Jerry style it hits you between the eyes and you stumble into the flowerpots breaking a few and cutting your toe. In your rage you grab the hose and give it sharp tug pulling a tendon in your hand so you decide to retire to the potting shed only to slam the door behind you loosening that wonky shelf and causing that old metal watering can and stacks of old seed trays to tumble down from above rendering you unconscious.

Statistically 99.5% of you have not read this far so for the .5% who are still with us have a great and safe Holiday Accident Season, I'm going out to Bunnyopolis to see Aaran, Jura and Iona, who according to the 1999 stats are the third most dangerous pets. 

Better take a spoon for protection then.

Lost Alice - Are You Ready?

Done.

Complete.

Lost Alice after nine months is finished.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, probably one of the most imaginatively creative popular books of our time celebrated its 150th anniversary this year, a cornerstone of children's literature and the inspiration for a thousand  more it has no equal. A book full of humour, puzzling situations, lateral thinking, mathematics and wordplay enshrined in a wondrous world of surrealism and symbolism alike.

Last November I sat with my sketchpad trying to work out the details to what would have been the third Lost Impossimal collection - Revelation, the continuing story of murder and mystery spanning hundreds of years but my mind wandered. Idly I sketched out a Lost Impossimal divided between two worlds, Impossimal in looks but merged with Victorian imagery inspired by Punch annuals from 1899. What I should have created was a young Victorian girl wearing two types of clothing reflecting both sides of Victorian society, she was to be in a scene with one of my new characters centred around Spring Heeled Jack; a spark spitting, high jumping, red eyed creation from Victorian folklore.

Instead I had created Alice, not as we know her but rather as parts of Alice pulled together from other sources; almost an amalgamation of minds, a gathering of cherished stories, it all felt strangely familiar. It made me think; what if all creators of popular children's fiction share one thing , what if Roald Dahl, L. Frank Baum, Norton Juster, Dr Seuss and a multitude of others had all mentally visited the same place in one form or another, a collective state of mind that goes one step beyond a dream.

What if that place was real and always there it's just we lose the way to find it.

What if we could find a way back, what would we find now it's been abandoned for all these years.

What if it was called Wonderland?

What if I could show you the way?

Wonderland needs you;  Alice is not herself, in fact she's 'everyoneself' as the Hatter calls it and it's all got very confusing now several new doors have appeared.

For doors need keys and keys need locks, 

several contain the Jabberwocks, 

whilst others open to a different land,

one is never sure who you will be,

when Alice turns out to be all three.

Lost Alice

Coming Soon

I Is Posh Innit?

We all could do with brushing up our etiquette skills so this handy guide will help you become the perfect 'Come Dine With Me' guest. At no expense I have enlisted the help of Reginald Oscar Smyth Smyth Ponsonby Wooster Comfy Cushion, a renowned butler to the stars to compile this etiquette bible.

Manners

Maintain the correct posture at all times. Hold onto your cutlery with both elbows on the table so they remain at ninety degrees. Bang them occasionally if the food is not arriving fast enough. All drinks must be slurped, the same goes for soup and spaghetti.

When dining it is acceptable, indeed encouraged by people of a certain social standing to gobble your food as fast as possible, achieve it at greater speed by moving all the food to create a line down the centre of the plate then dispensing of all cutlery pick up the said plate and tip the food into your mouth, eat this with your mouth open at all times. Once complete burp loudly, pass wind if you can and announce that it was indeed fine grub and you will be passing a mountain tomorrow when it gets through your system. This acts as an indicator to your hosts that you are indeed enjoying their food and your manner dictates that you come from a privileged background. 

Seating

Sit down. Anywhere you like, even at the head of the table or next to a guest you have taken a shine too. Talk about medical procedures, illness, religion and sex freely, boast about everything and interrupt other guests as they will find it amusing. Get up and get yourself another drink if you are running dry and feel free to pop in to the kitchen and interfere with the cooking, adding salt if required. Forget napkins, tuck the table cloth into your clothing and wipe your hands on the curtains.

Some Do's for the table

DO spit unwanted food into plant pots, hankies etc.

DO kick other guests under the table.

DO rest your arms on the back of other guests chairs.

Eating

Talk with your mouthful to keep the conversation going. Point at fellow guests with your knife to get your point across and drop the occasional piece of cutlery so you can legitimately get under the table and have a look around. Make sure your elbows hit fellow guests when eating and don't forget to hit them on the back after you tell a raunchy joke.

In between courses it is permissible to pick your teeth or nose, use anything that is at hand, toothpicks, matches and spoons are your friend. Photograph courses and post them on Facebook and Instagram with witty captions like "For what I am about to receive the pigs have just refused" and "lol". If you don't like something make a fuss, hosts like nothing better than a guest that speaks their mind. Don't like turnips? then tell them they have cooked the most awful food you have ever tasted in your life and spit it back out onto your plate.

Food and how to tackle it.

Asparagus - long thin and green you may not be familiar with this, put one up each nostril and scare the host by hiding behind a door if you wish to be flash, otherwise just pick it up and push it in like one long train, it is considered offensive to bite it before it is all inserted. Quiz fellow guests on wether asparagus makes their pee smell and ask for proof.

Cheese - no matter what cheeses are presented always massacre them before other guests by cutting them into small pieces no bigger than 1cm square. Soft cheeses may of course be flattened by using the back of a spoon or a side plate.

Escargots - snails. Flatly refuse to eat snails as they remind you of Brian the Snail from The Magic Roundabout. Have a hissy fit if any other guests eat one and proclaim they have murdered Brian. Stab them in the back of the hand with a fork if they try to eat another.

Fish - if its not fish fingers its not real fish so avoid all 'fresh' fish as imposters. If you must eat fish cover it in brown sauce first to mask the unnatural 'fishy' taste.

Spillages

If you spill red wine immediately take the white wine and throw it over your host for good luck and to further increase your luck throw salt onto the stain and rub it in. Apply brown or red sauce to detract from the awful red wine colour you will leave, a splash of colour never hurt any one.

Drink

Yes please! Champagne corks should be fired off at any fragile objects, breaking ornaments with corks is a skill admired by many so shake any bottles of fizz before opening for maximum force. Guests at the end of a night should be incapable of coherrant speech and walk as if their legs have not been introduced to each other, if this is not the case make sure you have a skin full before dining. Spiking drinks is considered a hoot as is shot gunning.

Useful Dinner Party Phrases

'Nice spread' Polite way to compliment a guest.

'Are you a leg or breast man?' Useful for chicken courses.

'I'll have a bit of dick please' Common phrase for a popular pudding.

'Get your baps out' Use when asking for bread rolls.

'I see you don't do cooking' Use when any course lacks pazazz.

'Quiet everyone, quiet. There's someone at the door' Pleasant way to announce the breaking of wind.

What To Wear

For fancy dress go naked with bits of sand paper over your naughty bits for a unique take on Dick Emery, otherwise go dressed exactly as your host and mock them all night. Hilarious. For evening dress wear what you would wear at home, pyjamas, slippers, nightdress, whatever takes your fancy, for extra points turn up with rollers in your hair and carrying a half drank bottle of scotch. Going to a black tie event? Then do just that, go starkers apart from a black tie, it's expected at these posh do's.

Other Useful Things

Arrive late, slump in all chairs and appear uninterested and yawn if you find somebody boring. Allow your tongue to meet your fork before it enters your mouth. Offer to cut other people's food up if you think they are unable. 

Finally, Conversation and Opening Lines For Winning Topics.

'Did you know it's possible to guess someone's sex with 95% accuracy just by smelling their breath?'

'The average person will pass around 1,100 gallons of urine during their lifetime.'

'I own 16,526 used toilet rolls from around the world, would you like to see them?'

'Touch this. Doctors are baffled but its not contagious I'm told even though its weeping'

'The last time I went to a dinner party I had to be forcibly ejected after projectile vomiting and assaulting the other guests.'

'You would never guess I have been in prison for poisoning would you?'

'Have you ever crouched naked over a mirror?'

Hope this will be some help in your illustrious future, I'm sure there's some hints there that we all can benefit from. Tomorrow how to apologise to all your guests when they return from the hospitals stomach pump room.

Pencil Pusher

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.

What A Carry On

SCENE ONE

TAKE ONE

Gerald had finally found a job in a the post office in the quiet village of Carryonton. It's his first day and we find him behind the desk waiting for his first customer.

Ting-a-ling went the bell above the door as in walked the vicar. 'Morning Gerald, what a nice morning although this hot weather is making my clothes rub against my thrupney bits. I have an important package to fire through someone's slot can you handle a large one?'
'Ah, vicar, nice to see you, I can see your way-hay fever has started early. Of course I can help, let me see your package.'

'There it is Gerald, it's a fine package isn't it, Have you seen a larger one than this?'

'Can't say I have vicar, it could certainly do some damage if it gets shoved through the wrong hole.'

'Well Gerald, you'd better make sure my package slides carefully into the correct hole, especially if I'm paying for it.'

Ting-a-ling went the bell and they are joined by Mrs Holliby.

'Morning Vicar, morning Gerald, what a fine day it is. The suns shining and I have just seen a pair of great tits, I love birds.'

'I agree Mrs Holliby, nothing like seeing a pair of great tits in the morning to get you going for the day, isn't that right Gerald'

'Certainly is, nothing beats a pair of great tits. What can we do for you Mrs Holliby?'

STOP

Sorry, this is degenerating into double entendre sillyness, it's a blog not a Carry On film. It needs a complete rewrite, think village, think murder, think Miss Marples and try again.

TAKE TWO

We join Gerald, Post Master in the mysterious village of Carryonton, we find him in the post office discussing the latest revelations with Mrs Holliby and the parish Vicar.

'Well I don't know Vicar, they found him last night in a room locked from the inside. He was dead, murdered, the only thing they found was a smashed window. Somebody must have broken in.'

'Broken out Gerald, Mrs Weston said the glass from the window was on the outside so it must have been broken from the inside, how curious.' Said Mrs Holliby, 'What do you think vicar?'

'I thought it was funnier when we all talked about tits.'

STOP, STOP, STOP!

Vicar, you're out, lets run that scene again with just Gerald and Mrs Holliby. Forget the murder lets try a Western.

TAKE THREE

'Well Mrs Holliby, the pony express leaves in three minutes, yawl better be on it before Black Bart rides into town'

'Oh, Gerald, you are a brave sheriff. Let me see your 10 inch pistol.'

'Here it is Mrs Holliby, it's impressive isn't it. Here, let me lift your saddlebags for you.'

'Oh my Gerald, you're SO powerful, you can handle my saddlebags anytime.'

STOP, FOR GOODNESS SAKE STOP IT NOW!

Mrs Holliby, you're out. Just you Gerald, this is your last chance! Think village post office, first day.

TAKE FOUR

Gerald had finally found a job in a the post office in the quiet village of Carryonton. It's his first day and we find him behind the desk waiting for his first customer.

'Titty Tits!'

I give up.

A New Wonder In Wonderland

After nine months, one Knickerbockergloria dragon, a Michelin starred Impossimal night, 36kg of clay, six massive eight foot sets, industrial lighting rigs, 36 maquettes and over 5,000 individually made objects we have reached the final stage and the last painting that make up Lost Alice, this years major Impossimal release pencilled in for September. Originally this years releases were supposed to be part three of the Lost Impossimals - 'Revelation' but really we couldn't ignore the fact that Alice In Wonderland celebrated its 150th birthday this year hence this new collection.

We have both joined forces and sunk so much time into this project yet barely scratched the surface of a brand new Wonderland that will expand to go beyond your wildest dreams into a realm like no other. From the predictable title of 'We're all mad here!' to the unpredictable 'Tweedle Do and Tweedle Don't' the madness has seeped out into the artwork so be prepared to view a different kind of Wonderland; a wonderland twisted and crafted around classic literature mixed with fairy tales through the eyes of a very different Alice.

In preparation Jayne has created twenty bespoke original pieces of Alice and the Queen Of Hearts to accompany my six major oils and we have also designed four new sculptures to sit along side. Nine stand alone original maquettes, nine mounted maquette displays and several complex oil sketches will also be available and the whole thing will be packaged up and moved around the country as we go on tour reaching destinations we haven't covered in a while.

The final piece in the Alice jigsaw though is the hardest...

Between 1853 and 1863 four volumes and seven pages of text went missing from a set of thirteen diaries written by a Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, ripped out and discarded by unknown hands. The whereabouts of the missing pages remain a mystery to this day. Were they destroyed? Or hidden?

You may know Charles better by his pen name, Lewis Carroll.

The missing pages are parts of an unseen Wonderland, each revealing untold tales and further adventures of a girl called Alice. Earlier this year we found one of the pages when we opened up The Secret Pantry, Wonderland is everywhere, you just need to know where to look.

And my role in all this?

I'm writing a third Wonderland book.

So be prepared, it's all going to get rather surreal.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Foreverbunny and the Impossimals