Horse With Hands Riding A Bike

And here's my entrant for Hero of Switzerland's bizarre challenge to draw a horse with hands, riding a bicycle: the three most difficult things to draw (I'll vouch for that). Check out the site for more amusing interpretations.

A Monstrosity of a project

"Howl if you want to come in" says the sign by the doorbell of the new Hoxton Street Monster supplies everyone is talking about. The shop on the back streets of East London is now home to a vast collection of products such as tinned fears, fanged floss, Human not and zombie mints  - essential items for any monster.

But behind the bizarre facade lies an important and worthwhile project. The Ministry of Stories has been set up by Andrew Hinton, Lucy Macnab and Ben Payne along with the design skills of We Made This as part of the 826 literacy project, which now has eight centres around the world. The oraganisation aims to help young people from 6 - 18 unleash their creativity through writing and storytelling. At the back of the shop is a beautifully designed space where kids take part in short workshops, and are mentored by volunteers to create their own Monster inspired stories.

The project has so far been supported by the likes of Nick Hornby and Zadie smith, as well as numerous volunteers offering their time in many ways. I for one am hoping to jump on board and offer my monster claws.

I've bought Nothing

In these harsh times, and my female desire to continually purchase something for my own sense of self in the world, this was a particularly good purchase to make. Yes I bought Nothing. Nothing is a recent campaign by thegreenthing to highlight the fact that surplus consumption results in surplus production, and therefore results in a society of wasteful beings - we should "Stick with what we've got and be Happy". Playing along, I clicked on the amazon mock page and made my purchase, to be shortly followed by two amusing and well written emails:

Dear jodmd,
 
Your Nothing is now being hand-crafted by a dedicated team of Nobodies in our 
factory in Nada-nadaland.
 
ITEM DETAILS:
 
 - 1 x Nothing
 - Cost: £0.00
 - Delivery estimate: 08 November 2010 (Monday)
 - Dispatch estimate: 04 November 2010 (Thursday)
 - Sold by: Nothing Ventures, Nothing Gains Ltd.
 
Thank you for shopping with us. 

Dear jodmd,
 
I regret to inform you there has been a problem with your order (Reference: TH1NA1R-N4DA).
 
A disgruntled former employee of Nothing Ventures, Nothing Gains Ltd snuck into our Nada-nadaland
factory last week and tampered with the seals on all our Nothings.
 
We take non-product safety extremely seriously, and so have issued a worldwide product recall of
Nothing effective immediately.
 
We're afraid nobody will be getting Nothing for the immediate future.
 
Please bear with us at this difficult time - we will send Nothing to you as soon as possible.
 
Thank you for your understanding.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Jack Schitt
Junior Deputy Vice-manager-in-chief, Non-Product Safety Division, Nothing Ventures, Nothing Gains Ltd 
 

This was then followed up by my delivery of nothing ensuring me that "Nothing's gonna change your world".
I was relieved. 
 

Sexy Wordsmiths

I don't if it's just the silly hour again in our office or it has just become commonplace here, but all words seem related to sex and sexual innuendo. It came about when our resident Australian copywriter didn't know of the double meaning of 'having a Good Roast', then we realised - Are any words safe anymore? to the sexually minded thinking, it's a bit tricky. We then challenged each other to a 'word off' to think of words that aren't related ..
PUKE , ALUMINIUM , BLUTACK erm..TAPEWORM
There that'll put you off for a bit.

Fire Kills Children!

Discovered this box of matches at home and love the original shout-about-the-product packaging. It's re-created everywhere these days in spoofs so it's nice to find a real piece. I especially love the very direct warning & illustration on the back.

This smoking ban is really getting out of hand!

You couldn't make it up

This is an example of the many comments I try and take note of for use in something later - as real life is some times the most amusing. Something my mum said last week about watching the rugby:

" I thought, what are they worrying about - they're winning! Then I realised I wasn't looking at the score - it was the time!" (on tv screen)

Never mind mother dear, the twilight home is on the horizon..
.