day 69... " make a non obscene phonecall today"

Simple enough i thought, i should hope the majority of my phonecalls are none obscene. Maybe i could just call a mate, have the kind of chat we'd usually have revolving around footie, scran and what time we plan on meeting down the southie?.

Was that really all that was required of me? phone someone and avoid being offensive during said call? It seemed a tad easy.. However when i read further i saw that i was required to " call a stranger at random and whisper nice things about them down the line"

That sounded more like it, or at least more pervy and potentialy arrestable.. i know how the book loves to make me do unacceptable things, so at about 4 in the afternoon i picked a number at random with nothing in mind " nice thing" wise, I thought id just shoot the sauce and see what came naturally.

i dialed... being sure to enter the untacable number code first... and the phone rang and rang... noone picked up, so i picked another number and again it rang and again no pick up ... but this time there was an answering machine .. the book stipulated that should noone answer the correct thing to do was to leave them a message.. so i did.

It went something like this...

hi it's me
your really lovely.. you really suit red, wear it more often.
Your garden looks amazing this time of year,... well done with that.
better go.. speak to you soon (kiss sound)
bye.

NON obscene phone call made..

fin.

day 68... "Today talk to a plant for at least an hour"

Here i am sat withe vera in hand... talking, inspiring.. listening, like a botanical dr doolittle... i heard nothing.

i thought id try and get into vera's headspace by making myself look more plantlike... the hood went, up all green and shiny... surely now she would feel she could open up... make it a 2 way conversation. I prepared to communicate with plantlife as mankind never had before.

The focus of my atention was vera, she generally sits on the kitchen windowsill taking in the rare light at the back of the house. Today as instructed i talked to her for an hour. clearly not in one sitting  that would be nuts ,but i reckon in a few spells i managed 60 mins , i tried to provide her with encouragement to grow, and advice.. i even sang to her briefly, thats bound to prompt either a growth spurt or death for vera.. i will keep you posted.

I would love to tell you i felt some kind of spiritual connection with vera while i whispered words of encouragement  tenderly into her leaves , truth is i didnt.. To be fair tho, she did have her leaves clipped not long ago (to be used on a burn) and noones going to feel at their best with cliped limbs.

* ARE leaves the limbs or the hair in human terms?


plants talked at...done!

day 67... returning my junk mail

day 67... "Today return all of your junk mail"  this task is great, im not a big fan of junk mail.. it is in my view no different to being stopped by chuggers ( charity muggers) or being phoned by an indian telesales person claiming their name is david  every half an hour. So returning my junkmail to sender .. my pleasure, i generally leave my free passes to frankie vaugn sites, account detail requests from nigerian generals with millions to deposit in my bank to build up.

Today i had 19 junkmails in my inbox.. i didnt delete any the last few days knowing this task was on its way, so methodicaly and with a certain degree of excitement... injury claim companys, blatant holiday based scam places, weight loss pill distribution centres (some cockneys bedroom) among other places (though no nigerian generals mansions suprisingly) will all have been suprised and overjoyed i imagine to recieve back theyre propaganda.

So... i am 19 bits of junkmail lighter, that cant be a bad thing, and at very least all of the companys i replied to now have a slightly better apreciation of how annoying it is to recieve unsolicited junkmail.

junkmail returned -  mission completed.

day 66... homeless for a day!

day 66... and today i was homeless all day long, Benrik had guidelines as to what was acceptable to take on my trip.. this was based on how i had dealt with the homeless in the past, now although i ocasionally give to the homeless,  i havnt always been massively sympathetic. I used to tremble with glee at the question.. "alright mate can you spare 20p for a cup of tea?" without delay they would recieve said coin... along with a prolonged look and then a "well.. wheres my cup of tea?" This for me and the boys was hillarious, less funny for the poor homeless dude i imagine , But to be fair you dont really care about that in your mid teens.(maybe that was just us)

The guidlines as to what you may take were as follows:-
 If you regularly give to the homeless  - a sleeping bag, comfy walking shoes and a 5er.
If you occasionally give to the homeless  -  some woolen gloves,and a blanket
If you never give to the homeless -  a flea ridden sheet, a broken unbrella and foreign coins.

So on bitterly cold and moist morning, and still feeling particularly ill i headed for home for the day, the streets of seaton carew. Not being able to put myself in any of the categories comfortably i took no woolen gloves or bed equipment, but i did wrap up warm and put a fiver im me sky rocket (beggars always have at least that much) Today the streets were my home, and although i wouldnt be begging i did take a sign, just to let people know i was hungry... not hugely but i could certainly have done with a littke something.

So here you see me on the prom prom prom (there was no sign of any brass band  playing tidely om pom pom) I am sharing my sign with the general public, i spent time on the beach,chilling on benches.. drinking the odd hot drink while sitting outside shut down shops.

Here you see me, board on show, having a  rest on a bench, (check out the borrowed beastly body warmer, and homeless man hat) It was tough finding a bench that wasnt either full of chilling seagulls or their recycled diet. It was crazy cold out there after a couple of hours, and i started to feel a little sorry for myself being out in the cold while feeling so ruff, but to be fair homeless people probably dont feel tip top most of the time, you know with all that living and sleeping outside business. I was gaining a real understanding of the life of a hobo.

I carved a very intricate and atractive design into the sand highlighting the plight of the homeless , after making it for a good 20 mins i was devestated to discover that my batteries had died, and so no photograph was possible.

Here i am back at home later in the day, thawing out, and feeling happy that i could relax in the warm cozyness of my bed chamber . Did i truly gain a new respect for the homeless and the conditions they contend with? Yeah i think i probably did, does it make the 20p for a cup of tea joke any less funny? NO

I was indeed homeless for the day- bosh!

day 65... iconoclasm day

day 65... "iconoclasm day" So in essense today i am to alter an image. The book brought to my atention the importance we  as a world put on captured images, Including the fact that we dont like throwing away images of loved ones, perhaps convinced that what we do to the photo in some odd voodoo like manner we do to  the subject.

The importance of images in everyday life, from early man who believed having/ carying drawn images of the mamoth would aid him in catching one, to the powerfull imagery used by governments and movements of all descriptions in their propaganda, even down to present day and our obsesion with images of the rich and famous, we are a world entranced  by  images.

Some photos are  instantly recognisable, That photo of che guevara, john lennon with his round shades and peace fingers, britain's anti nazi posters of the war era (which i love), andy warhols self portrait.

So .. down to business  for my image today i avoided the absoloutley obvious, there will be no winston (though he is my idol), no che, no stalin... what we will have tho is another of my heroe's one that is so often demonised by my counrtymen. I feel it important to take an image of said individual, and show her in her true light. ( see the results below)

BEFORE

some would claim this is a pensive, premeditated pose , that excelently illustrates  her cunning yet agresive nature.

AFTER

However i think  this image is in similitude of the paintings catholicism likes to knock up of its saints.. its like maggie is asking the almighty for his help to guide our great nation from its current state in to stiller waters.

What a woman  as i sit here now gazing at her , her words cascading through my head.

" u-turn  if you want to,  the lady's is not for turning"

" we want our maney back"

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

"If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim."


"I'm extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end. "
I love maggie, FACT.

ok enuff maggie worship

So as required i altered an image, id love to think that when people google (or whatever they use then) images of margaret in 20 years this is the most popular one.

PHOTO altered.

day 64... Glorifying terrorism?

day 64... " Today glorify terrorism " Well as you can see, today i was required and requested to glorify terrorism, i wasnt happy about this...terrorism is something i  have no soft spot for (unsuprising i know). So i had a good think about 2 things 1. A way in which i can justifty doing this task to myself, and 2. doing it in a way that has some degree of finesse, and puts no lifes in danger.

This is me, looking all mysterious, like someone who could at any second declare a holy war against the east (I realised that i was viewing terrorism as a crime of those in the middle east)In reality terrorism takes place all over the world... surely there is gorilla warfare going on somewhere which stems from a cause i could support. I had a good look, and while there were groups i has sympathy with, there methods were always counterproductive.

  So I'd had my think  and decided the best way to deal with this task was to make cup cakes and decorate them apropriately ... extoling the virtues of terrorism through baking and the pipin of iceing.

The cake mixture was made, i boshed it into cup cake paper tray thingies, and put them in the oven, and as i did so riled myself up by thinking arnt these cakes in those savage conditions (in the baking heat of the oven) a perfect analogy of isreals plight in the middle east? encompassed all about by forces that intend to do it harm?

Here we see my cakes.. after i'd iced them with an apropriate message for the day, (possibly an inapropriate one for any other day) if you cant read my wonky icing words, the message is "yes 2 terrorism" (only after spelling my message out with the back end of a spoon did i see that we had icicng in a little squeezy tube) too late!

Taste my produce infadels!! No seriously tho ... this is me with my cakes, and as i posed i considered the quote "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" And thought, hmmm what a loads of balls.

Like every sneaky wannabe terrorist does  i hid my message within a seemingly safe and secure environment, notice how the message seems inoquous enough within the dennis the menace themed  cakes i made at the same time. Islamic extremists like to hide their hatred, and illegal practises from the general public, by teaching them within buildings that are not for people not of their persuasion, with this cake trick i atempted the same form of camouflage. evil within the guise of normality.. you like what i did there?.

In the end, there was only one fit and proper end for my terrorism cup cake, i took it, reant its skin from it and savagely bit through it, i considered keeping it stress positions or playing horific american rock to it in a loop on full blast. But at the end of the day.. im not a a terrorist or a torturer of baked goods.. so i bit it in half and chwewd till it was gone.

After doing away with the offending article, i realised there was an oppertunity here to use the framework that once promoted terrorism for good!

Here we see what i in my genious came up with. "YES TO GRAPES" wonderfull, not only healthy and delicious but a great deal less harmfull than jihad of any description.

So today i glorified terrorism through the making of baked goods, and although

it didnt sit well with me, (at the risk of sounding like a nazi soldier) i was just following orders.

TERRORISM GLORIFIED : DONE!

day 63... sending a non threatening letter.

day 63... And today i was invited to "  send a letter to someone at random with a photo of yourself, a £5 bill, no explanation and no sender address, see what comes of it"

There are many different types of letter one can send, but as you have just read this particular letter is intended for someone i dont know,  it is to be sent completely at random... i had an idea of what manner of letter i wanted it to be, but the first decision to made was paper colour, knowing i was going to make the letter itself look quite harsh, i thought it was important that i offset this with a neutralish tone   i asked  a friend to pick from the 4 options below..

I then set about cutting out the letters to form my message, by now your getting what manner of letter this is to be, im a massive fan of blackmail   lettering (i may just  have invented that term)  used  in a  totally innocent form.. i like to make christmas and birthday cards using the same technique.

So here we see the finished letter, turned out to be more of a card.. so thats nice eh? thanks to barb for the wise powder blue choice, i believe it adequatley defuses the possible menacing look to the letter.

So as we can see the message is intended to confuse the recipient, "what the hell is this about ?" is what were aiming for ... i thought id give it the look and feel of corespondence between two dangerous types  that had  accidentally been posted to the wrong address.. or better still that the recipient would rack their brains for anything it could relate to. Hopefully they dont know what it relates to, as i dont. what a sad  irony   that would be .

the letter with its contents, the bill for £5 with no explanation, and the photo of my good self ... how unlucky would it be to post it to a contract killer completely by accident? Im betting that wont happen.

Ive been wondering what the reaction of the recipient will be, and i guess all i can do is go off what i reckon my reaction would be... the conclusion i reached is i would definatley either laugh for an hour solid,  or be baffled and shiz myself... in which case. Aproved!

ready for enveloping and posting .

So i did what was required, sent a letter with the neccesary contents and no return address, now i intend to sit it out, i really hope whoever recieves it is amused.

If they are not amused, at least suitably baffled.

Either way they got some post that was not a bill, and at least interesting.. we all like to get unexpected post of the none printed kind right... right??

letter sent: mission a resounding success

day 62 ... final meal (prison style)

day 62... Today the book asked me to " choose your final meal on death row and make it".

So.. to get me in mind of the sort of thing i should be thinking of, the book informed me of final meals of famous criminals awaiting the final curtain in british and american prisons. Including the story of a man in america one Archie williams who was denied the final meal he requested..guess why.. go on , Because his requested final meal was his sell mate.. good stuff eh? Turns out the 2 had had some sort of odd death pact.

So picking the last meal i would have if incarserated, and shortly to be taken from this earth? Im not sure i like the idea of this.. however i did it, what i made and consumed as my pretend final meal in her majestys hotel was chicken encholadas in a mature cheddar and peri peri sauce, with salad. (baby spinach and cherry tomatoes). how was it i hear you ask? ... well it was just this side of decadence, and although we no longer bust out capital punishment here, if we did  i bet this would be a widely requested final meal.

Here we see how it looked, notice those rosey red plump cherry tomatoes, crisp dark green baby spinach leaves, along side some juicy chicken encholadas in the afore mentioned mature cheddar and peri peri sauce...(with a dollop of sour creme, and one of guacamole. Not the most healthy meal ever i know but to be fair if im imagining its my last what does it matter?

Hark at the empty plate, i do declare i polished off the mexican at record speed, though delicious as it was , i cant help thinking that i may have taken a little longer over it had it really been the last scran i was to consume while on this mortal coil. With my food i had a glass of schloer (red) not my preference but we had no white, and as i will in reality get to eat again i can deal with it.

O.k so pretendy final meal made and consumed, and delicious it was too.

Im not sure wether or not i was meant to be trying to think like the  condemned man , but i wasnt capable of it, and to be fair wouldnt want to try too

 hard to put myself in that frame of mind.

The thought that struck me is surely people in that position, if the authorities try their best to get hold of what they order, would think of something incredibly hard to find  maybe king crab in a dodo sauce, giant octopus in an indian elephant dew, or hell why not  mongolian dolphin in a gypsy tears glaze,  it would buy you a few more minutes at least.

anyway : mission complete

2 months of 365...thanks to all readers..

365... a year of daily tasking is 2 months old,  all of the blogs readership i say unto you , thankyou.. you clearly have impecable taste.. please continue in your commendable hunger for entertainment. may i encourage you at this time to make sure your friends know about the blog.. what do you do if you encounter something you enjoy? you tell people about it right? extol its virtues to those you asociate with.

again many thanks.. only 10 months to go!!!

day 61... positive discrimination

day 61... "positive discrimination day" Today benrik encouraged me to discriminate all day, now this would normally be seen negatively, but the book insisted, and i follow its way of thinking that if  one discriminates  in a totally arbitrary manner it cant really be deemed offensive.

I was given a list of ways to treat people for having certain atributes, or apearence based things that displeased me  .Now some sugestions wernt doable, as i didnt come across said targets  .. however this is what occured.

If a ginger person appeared on the tv today i was to change channel immidiately, i had to change channel several times, tho not always in situations that i wouldnt have flicked anyway, for example murder she wrote didnt even make it a couple of seconds into the credits, and needless to say though it wasnt on today.. had happy days featured in todays listings  that would have been a no go zone.

I was insttructed not to smile back at ponytailed checkout girls, i obeyed.. i have no particular dislike for ponytails or checkout birds, but rules is rules. Now this task was made easier by the fact that checkout girls in england very seldom smile, so "smiling back" (the books wording) wasnt really going tto be a problem, .I did however manage to avoid smiling back on one occasion today, and although i felt rude.. i consoled myself knowing few will smile back, so she in reality would hardly notice my rudeness. ( i know checkout girls are getting a raw deal in my tasks, but benrik insists)

I was invited to blame cardigan wearers for a political problem, i didnt see any in the flesh or in the wool today so i had to resport to leaving messages on political forums blaming cardigan sporters for all manner of situations.

i was aked Not to answer any questions from blondes, again i succeeded..when the girl in the pub asked if i wanted ice in my coke..  she got no answer, when the market research girl in the street asked if i had a second, i pretended i hadnt seen or heard her and marched straight past ( i may have done this on a regular day too)

I was told to avoid men with nostril hair, i did this to the best of my ability.. i was given no distances within which it was or wasnt acceptable to be to  a man with said nostril hair. But i certainly did no business and had no chat with males with visable nose hair.

Finally (for the offering i am laying out in the blog) i was bade to ignore people who mispronounced the word aluminium, i didnt know how i would find this out, its not exactly a word one throws into every sentence. And shamefully i had to bait people into saying it.. so i could know who to ignore. This i did at 2 seperate supermarkets with 3 women who worked there. asking them to point me in the direction or  show me where it was. and on one occasion when she kept refering to it as tin foil (which i do) i was foced to ask "what will it say on the box?"

I definately discriminated all day long, and at times i felt a little rude, but as we should all know treating all equally is a recipe for boredom, and i feel today at least in some small way i helped to keep things lively.. fresh if you will.

day 60... animal stalking

day 60 ... "Today stalk an animal" This i did, i took as my subject for the day the crocodile.. in this case colin... I headed to middlesbrough zoo, and checked out his morning routine, well at 11.am he downed a few hefty wedges of steak, i believe it was topside but cant be certain.

At 2pm dead on it was exercise time, this included a brisk walk around his holding area, headers and volleys, 500m worth of back stroke, 250m of doggy paddle and a play with steve irwin.

At 5pm he chased a chicken, this looks like it is going to have a gruesome end i know, but had i had a videocam youd have seen it was merely fun and frolicks, this was infact just colin and his cousin having a lark in the yard.

At 6.30 he snook up on  a man in a motor boat, as you can see the afore mentioned gent was shocked by colin, he was sharlpy repremanded, shouting HIYA!! (pictured) is simply not an apropriate greeting from croc to stranger.

at 8.. he gave a croggie to a young asian girl in a red jacket, he behaved well...at this point i had  to leave the zoo as it was passed closing time.. i waved colin a fond farewell, the daft grin on his face was a definate indication he was keen to stay in touch.

Seriously now i stalked moses (my cat) and in all honesty as i didnt follow him outside at any point, the footage really wasnt too compeling.

He hid under the desk

slept on the couch, next to the radiator

Watched my dad make a tuna sarnie

stood indecisively between two doorways with a blank expresion plastered all over his chevy chase.

Rolled around for a while in the hall way, pounced at nothing and generally acted the fool.

Animal stalked.

day 59... letters to the future

day 59... " Today send a letter to your future self " I crafted a letter to myself 5 years down the line, expresing my hope that wer'e in a good situation, and that my hopes and aspirations had come to pass or were at least closer to fruition than they are now.

I also expresed my hope that boro were back in the premier leagur in 5 years and that england had clinched the world cup in the summer of 2010...among other things.

evidence and letter below...

letter to future self composed, and stashed.

day 58... hunger strike!

day 58... And today i went on HUNGER  STRIKE!!

You dont need to be famous, or have any massive  political point to make to go on hunger strike.  I discovered last night that in fact hunger striking was started by the celts, and was used as a procedure to settle local disputes like debts, the idea was to inform the person you intend to strike against, and then sit infornt of their house, and strike until they grant you redress. If they left you to starve to death, they faced social disgrace and sort of compensation claims from the family of the dead.

Benrik points to the fact that a hunger strike is the easiest to organise, its non violent, can be done with small numbers (just yourself) and yet can be pyschologically intimidating. I was invited to pick the issue that was disturbing my peace at present  and hunger strike against it today.

At this stage i thought it may be good to have a gallery of famous hunger strikers.

Ghandi: hunger striking's david beckham

Bobby sands: tho i certainly do not aprove of his ethics, was undoubtedly a hugher striker

Me:  not famous right now..but certainly in the future.

This i did, You never really know how  much you enjoy some things until you cant enjoy them. Words can not describe how painfull it was to be sat while bacon  was cooking, catching its glorious aroma, seing the sarnies being made..being offrered one of said sarnies, and having to turn it down.

Nor can my somewhat limited vocabulary adequately convey the pangs of hunger i felt whilst walking past a kebab shop and picking up the sweet scent of garlic sauce.

In all honesty, though i didnt enjoy hunger striking, i dont struggle with it too much, not eating for  a day once a month growing up gives you a certain amount of imunity to the ravages of hunger that only lasts a day. Dont get me wrong tho i was flippin hank marvin the next morning when i woke up, and if such hunger lasts more than a day id be in trouble.

My reasons for hunger strike will remain unnamed here for now.

However hunger strike for the day i did.

mission complete

day 57... gypo living

day 57... " parasite day" Today benrik wanted me to live like a parasite, to do everything for as little money as possible, and where possible use no money all day.. but not let this effect my lifestyle.

This made me slightly uncomfortable as i hate people who have no shame, and no line they wont  cross with reguards to free stuff, but to be fair i didnt make the rules i just have to play by them.. so today i lived like a parasite, what did i do? read below.

On the bus i read the paper over the shoulder of the person in front,.. they didnt notice for a while, but i made a oh! sound as i read something that shocked me (in a good way for once) They were a little more guarded with the paper after that.

I sat next to somoene on the bus and spent a few minutes listening to their ipod, tapping my foot ...
listening really closely to guess what was on  when it wasnt loud enough.

Later at the supermarket, i gorged myself on free samples of cheeses, and chopped up bits of pork and wensleydale pie.

While in town in the supermarket i  watched some t.v... i didnt go over board, just about 10 mins  obviously i had to channel flick to find something that would interest me.. and adjust the volume to my preffered listening level.

I went into boots, and found a fragrance im a fan of and own.. but today i wasnt going to use my own, so i sprayed liberally on my neck, At this stage i realised my hair looked a little deshevled, so i helped myself to some gel from a pot too, and did it in the mirror.. casual like!

I downloaded music for nowt, read bits of books im considering buying on the internet (which i atempted to connect to someone elses network for the day, but sadly failed)

I finished someones drink in the pub. (i knew them, im too o.c.d to do that with no prior knowledge)

I considered taking a shower at a friends house but decided i really couldnt be bothered with the explanation that would be required.

I did more parasite like activities today, thatl do tho...

This brings to a close mikes day of  gypo living.