Wilf's World

Bye For Now

2009-01-30T18:59:00.002Z

I am very very busy building new inventions with Granpa Jack and dad is paying me actual money to catalogue his teeth. It is all go and that is even without George and his savage stick-insect-eating ways. So it is bye for now until I come back.

I Have No Mercy

2009-01-17T20:13:00.013Z

So, Mum is going out to the first Parent- teacher meeting in 2009. This is where she will shout at the new Parent-Governor, Dexter's Dad, Dave Dooley about eating too many sweets and keeping his bungalows out of school. I am glad I am not there because she has also begun a class in Karate. The election has definitely brought out a difficult side to her.
Anyway, she has left me in charge of my brother, George. Actually she left Dad in charge of George but he is Very Busy making important modifications to my Scalectrix track and Cannot Be Disturbed.
'Come on, George,' I say, 'let's go upstairs and play with my Dick Tracy set.' This is what Grandpa Jack gave me for Christmas. He says he had to stop using it because there were complaints from the other residents in his, Home for Retired Gentlefolk. So now I've got it.
After Dad's major explosion last week, I am not taking any chances with being seen. George starts off the first step okay but then gets stuck.
'Wait a minute,' I say and run up stairs. I find my cat, Serena lolling about on my bed and carry her like a baby. She sits at the top of the stairs watching him struggle and saying nothing. George begins scaling the stairs like a mini James Bond. He is also giggling and stops every so often to point at Serena. He is in love with her. She is never impressed with him.
Just before he can grab her, she gets up and says, 'My work here is done,' and heads for the spare room. As soon as she is out of sight, George forgets about her and starts examining the carpet for cat bits.
'Are you ready for some target practise, George?' I whisper. 'You're the Evil Henchman and I'm Dick Tracy.'
I stand at the end of the landing and take aim with my tag dart gun. The Evil Henchman dribbles. The doorbell rings and the dart hits the wall. I reload. The Evil Henchman has picked up some bits from the floor and is eating them. I cannot wait for blood poisoning to take him out so I try a head shot.
'WILFRED!' Dad calls. 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?'
'Nothing!'
The dart lands on the bathroom door. Evil Henchman is holding arms up in pathetic surrender but I have no mercy.
Reload. Aim. Fire.
'GRANDPA JACK IS HERE!'
'Coming.' Yes. The dart has brought down the enemy. Another case solved.

My Dad and Other Explosions

2009-01-09T10:30:00.006Z

My Dad says that, 'you're developing a bit of an attitude there, Wilfred. I don't like the way you keep telling your brother what to do.'
'How else is he going to learn?' I ask. 'I have only shot him twice with my dart-tag-super-gun (present from Granpa Jack, yay) and he actually LIKES it.'
'There you go again,' he says and now he is all twitchy, 'answering back!' He is jigging from one foot to the other. 'In my day children were told things and they nodded their heads to show they understood.'
'I do understand,' I say and I nod my head for good measure. 'You're just wrong.'
Dad puffs up, turns red and blows a fuse. 'Just think of all the starving orphans in this world, Wilfred!' I give this idea a good go but I am not sure how it is the same as me shooting George. 'Think how lucky you are! My goodness, if you were living in Victorian times you'd most likely be beaten or badly maimed for answering back. One day you'll be in my trousers, Wilfred,' I shudder. 'When I think of all ...' and he's off, thinking out loud of all the things I should be grateful for. I wander off for a quick play with my scalectrix.
Happy New Year.

My Christmas Present To You

2008-12-17T21:23:00.015Z

It's Christmas, nearly and Mum is absolutely empty of christmas cheer because Dave Dooley has won the parent governor fight. He has already given out free giant bags of sweets to us all which is brilliant. Except I will not be allowed to eat them at home so I have given them to Dexter for safekeeping. Hmmm. Everyone has had a threatening letter telling us that Mrs Trundle will be back after Christmas and Mr Bagnall has told us to enjoy the holiday.

Dexter's dad has bought the biggest christmas tree in the entire galaxy while my dad reycled one from last year and it is rubbish. For some reason, he has stuck some massive bird decorations on it. They are quite bad. Mum says that because George is bursting out of his baby suits and is walking (not my idea of walking unless you need at least two knee operations) we cannot 'take the risk with a big tree' because he might try and eat it or decorate himself with it. He needs to grow up.

Here is my Christmas present to you. It is an action movie for you to enjoy in case James Bond isn't on. Happy Christmas.

Local Parent Governor Politics Turned Nasty

2008-11-30T09:57:00.010Z

WOODCHESTER CHRONICLE

LOCAL SCHOOL PARENT PROTESTS AT SCARE TACTICS FROM 'THE GODFATHER'

Local parent governor politics turned nasty today as feisty Dorothy Marshall, 40 (pictured with her son, George) slammed fellow contender, 30 year old builder, Dave Dooley, as "worse than The Godfather in that Mafia film".
'He's using bagfuls of sweets to bribe his way onto the school board!' she said. 'Then I was sent a threatening letter, warning me to stay away from the election! These are underhand, criminal and pathetic tactics and I have already made the police aware of what is happening. That man is a political vegetable.'
Mr Dooley commented, 'she's mad.'
There were reports of fighting in the playground today as children caught up in election frenzy exchanged blows. There were no serious casualties but acting head teacher, Mr commented, 'Our OFSTED report gave us an, 'excellent' for relationships between children, I just don't understand it.'
When asked about playground rivalry, Dorothy Marshall said that, 'I will not tolerate violence in any form on or off the playground and that certainly is one of the platforms of my school governor campaign; along with the reintroduction of locally sourced giant vegetables for school meals, extra targetted homework and a total ban on sweets and builders.'
When asked to clarify this last statement, Mrs Marshall said that she was not being elitist and that builders had every right to live normal lives just like the rest of us.
Mr Dooley commented, 'she's mad.'
'Events pertaining to the parent governor election are a school issue,' a police spokesman said 'although Mrs Marshall's arrest for disorderley conduct is a matter of public record.' Mrs Marshall refused to respond to the police statement.
This newspaper has learnt of a surprise last minute entry to the school governor race. Mr Ranjit Patel will be spreading a message of joy and peace and hoping to win votes with his message of yoga, sandals and happy thoughts.
Mrs Marshall said, 'whilst I agree with Mr Patel's philosophy, I cannot see how happy thoughts will get the dinner cooked although sandals might be a good idea in the summer.'
Mr Dooley said, 'they're both mad.'

DON'T. That's All. Just DON'T.

2008-11-16T10:07:00.010Z

After we got home from the police station and a BIG WARNING that next time Mum would be slapped with an ASBO before she could say "Parent Governor", I find this on the hall floor.

Dear Mrs Marshall

My people have heard that you intend to stand for Parent Governor at Nupton Valance Primary. DON'T. That's all. Just DON'T.

Yours Sincerely

A Well Wisher

'"DON'T"!' Mum is screeching and her hair is flying about. 'That Dave Dooley can't stop me standing for School Governor!'
'I don't think it is Mr Dooley,' I say.
Recently, I have been watching elderly programmes on freeview. One of them is called 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' and it is absolutely the best detective stuff without cars, I have seen. Sherlock has a sidekick called Dr Watson and even though he is a doctor, he is a bit stupid. Sherlock solves everything, uses disguises, jumps about a lot and even has an arch enemy called Professor Moriaty.
'Why not? Why not?' shouts Mum.
'Elementary,' I say and stroke my chin for good measure. 'Look at the spelling, it's all correct - isn't it?' I am mostly guessing at this one but Mum nods. 'And see the paper,' I hold it up to the rubbish energy saving half watt bulb. 'It's the really good printing paper from Tesco and ...' I wave it about for effect, ' ... it does not smell of aftershave.'
'What's going on?' Dad comes up from the cellar, holding a set of false teeth. 'Why're you so late, Dorothy? You know Wilfred has school tomorrow.'
Mum turns to me and flares red like a warning light. I ignore her because she has to learn.
'Mum attacked Mr Dooley with a bin bag of sweets and got arrested.' I shrug. 'It was fun.'
'I see,' says Dad and he is mashing the gnashers together in his hand. 'Bed, Wilfred. I have to discuss something with your mother.'
Hmmm, I do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to guess what that is about.

The Zombie is Toast

2008-11-01T15:39:00.009Z

I am told I cannot go trick or treating because it's against, The Rules. We are eating spaghetti bolognese made almost entirely of giant marrow, apart from the spaghetti. It is horrible.
'You might upset some old people,' says Mum because she is very keen on old people.
'Granpa Jack is old and he's taking a group of old people out to get treats.'
'He is not!' shouts Dad.
'He is,' I say 'and he says they're all going to be demons and wear red pants and tights.' Mum gives a little scream. 'AND, Dexter is going with his dad, Mr Dooley and he's dressing up as a gut eating zombie,' I inform them as I suck up one piece of spaghetti at a time. Mum gives Dad a look across the table. 'It's true' I say. I can sense them wobbling now under the power of my fantastic arguing. 'Furthermore, (their eyes widen with wonderment at my cleverness, I am on a roll) Mr Dooley is going to collect as many sweets as he can so that he can donate them to the school tuck shop.' Wait for it.
'There isn't a school tuck shop,' says Dad. 'For the very good reason that all your teeth will drop out.'
I pause and savour the moment. Here we go. 'There will be when he becomes school governor.'

So, I am Count Wilfredo complete with excellent 75p fangs, black cloak from Tesco and a giant bucket for snatching all the sweets from under the nose of the Dooley zombie. Mum is a ghost. She found one of my old sheets and cut eyeholes out. She didn't notice the spiderman on the back and I haven't told her.
Outside, Mum strides down the High St. She is walking as though she is wearing a business suit.
'We'll just call on people we know,' she says, 'then we won't alarm the elderly. Tuck shop indeed!' she adds. She is a very brisk ghost, flapping her arms and twirling round all the time and is already surprising all the baby children out with their responsible adults. 'Sorry didn't see you there!' she tries to pick up one of the children she has knocked over.
'Monster!' says its parent which is not technically correct.
'Better keep an eye out for Mr Dooley,' Mum says, rushing away from the scene of the crime, ' - don't want him hogging all the sweets!' She is trying to sound jolly about sweets now which is a dead giveaway. She wants his blood.
I spot Dexter who is bandaged up to his eyeballs in loo roll.
'How many sweets have you got then?' I yell.
'Not quite enough for a school tuck shop,' shouts Dexter.
'Nearly there, though!' yells the impressive zombie next to him. 'Bet even your mad parents will vote for me when they hear about how much free stuff I've got for the school.'
He holds up a bulging bin bag.
'Er, maybe,' I say. Mum sidles up behind me.
'Bet your Mum will spit bricks when she hears about this, eh?' he yells.
'Er ...' I er.
'Better than her DISGUSTING organic veg crud she makes for all those poor old people ...'
'Um ...'
'They feed it to their cats! And even the cats won't eat it! Ha!'
'Well ...'
'Aghhhhhhhh!' The spiderman ghost flies past me.
The zombie is toast.

'

Anyway, I Knew This Would Happen

2008-10-26T08:49:00.008Z

Anyway, I knew it would happen. Mum told me to look out for a surprise at school. Before I could even speak to him, Dexter started fighting me. No surprise there - but he then tried to stuff a piece of paper down my throat while shouting out words we normally only whisper. When I had wiped all the spit of the paper, I found this ...

DOROTHY MARSHALL - Governor in Waiting!

Hello there. As a mother of one son in Year 5, I would love to be a governor at Napton Valance Primary School. I obviously have a very keen interest in the education of my child and would like to further his career by being involved in running the school.

I am involved in a great deal of charity work for the old folk and often cook up huge quantities of my special organic vegetable medley (thanks to Oliver-James' parents for their regular giant veg donations!), so that the old folk can eat something healthy every so often. The old folk I visit often have cats which they LOVE - in fact I often find the old folk feed my organic vegetable medley to their cats because they love them so much. Touched by this display of feline affection, I not only doubled the quantity of medley I gave out, I also established, 'The League of Cats' charity shop in town. You must visit!

So, I still have a little spare time - even after helping my husband sort out his Rare and Unusual Teeth Collection - to assist the head teacher in sorting things out. I'm good at that. Just ask Wilfred!

Warmest Wishes
Dorothy (me in fancy dress!)

P.S. Alot of the old folk live in bungalows built by Mr Dooley. They often have bad chests and damp related illnesses.

We Must Unite!

2008-10-19T14:28:00.008+01:00

Mrs Trundle is not at school for a few days. According to us she has gone off to assassinate the second son of a Lithuanian duke. Mr Bagnall says she's not feeling herself. Ha.

Anyway, Mr Bagnall has seized power. His first act is to tell everyone that parents can become governors at the school - Mrs Trundle never allowed this. I think this is a stupid idea:

a. because when she comes back she will be thirsting for blood and parent-governors will be top of her hitlist.
b. because there will be actual fighting between parents about who is going to be a governor
c. parents will make sure we are all working

I get together with a load of others in the playground for an important meeting:

'My parents will be at school tomorrow, demanding to be school governors when they hear about this,' says Itisham. 'They really, really like to interfere.' This is a BIG worry. Iti's parents are both doctors. 'They will be looking out for diseases every two minutes and giving us jabs all over the place.' Iti shakes his head. 'We'll have to wash a lot.'
I shudder. 'Well, mine cannot get enough committees and groups to be head of in this tiny town. It is not enough for Mum that she bothers all the old people with her chatting and organic vegetable medley. Oh no, she'll be here forcing her organic vegetable medley on us and making us talk to girls about feelings.'
'D'you think she'll ban rugby?' asks Tyler and he fiddles with his illegal mini rugby ball. 'That would be bad.'
'My father was mayor in Poland!' shouts Polish Jacob, he likes to shout in english - he says everyone shouts at him in english. 'He will insist on being President of the governors!'
'There are only going to be two governors, Jake,' I say.
'That is enough for my father!' says Jake and he smacks one fist into his palm. 'He will bring in cabbage and beetroot soup and break dancing lessons!' Jake loves break dancing and he throws himelf onto his back and waggles his legs in the air. 'It is better than rugby!'
Tyler narrows his eyes. Dexter runs up, so something must be up.
'You'll never guess!' he says, then is distracted by Polish Jacob. 'You look like a beetle, Jake, is that what you are? A beetle?'
'Dexter!' I push him a bit until he falls over.
'I am break dancing!' shouts Jake.
'What?' I ask Dexter.
'What?' he replies, picking himself up. 'Oh yeah,' he pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket. 'My dad's going to head governor - here have a leaflet.'

Dave Dooley I am 37 with one son, married for too long! Ha ha!!! Joking aside, I am a Director of the county's leading specialist bungalow building provider: DAVE DOOLEY - SPECIALIST IN BUGALOW BUILDING I am excellent at building bungalows and being in charge, so I believe I will be perfect as chief governor. My hobbies include bunglalow building, shouting and spending time with my family.

VOTE FOR ME!

'This is full of spelling errors,' points out Iti.
Dexter shrugs. 'Who cares, my dad'll ban spelling when he's chief governor.'
Everyone starts looking at everyone else.
'We must unite,' I say, 'not fight!' Then, 'for a change,' I add. Some hope.

Victory is Ours

2008-10-13T18:41:00.006+01:00

So, a bunch of us run into the dining hall.
'Harvest festival display!' I shout, 'follow me!' Dexter and me leap over the neat rows of tins-of-food-that-you-never-eat-unless-you-are-absolutely-starving.
'Get behind the giant vegetables!' I yell. We are quite lucky because, Oliver-James's mum and dad are very keen on growing big veg. They brought in the biggest potato in the world on their roof rack. It took 10 juniors to lift it down.
I peep round the side of a monster cabbage.
Mr Bagnall strolls in. I think he is smiling but the moustache makes it difficult to tell. 'Well children, I have locked the outside door - you're safe.
Somewhere inside the school, some baby children scream.
'I don't think a locked door will stop Mrs Trundle,' I point out. 'She keeps a laser cutter in the caretaker's shed.'
'She's in!' shouts Tyler. Mrs Trundle charges into the hall. He arms himself with an oversized carrot.
'This is brilliant,' says Dexter, picking up a tin. 'It's like all those battles in Lord of the Rings or world war 1 or something.'
Mrs Trundle does some impressive Stick of Doom manouvres as she thunders towards us.
'Come out!' she screams. 'Those giant vegetables won't save you now!'
Mr Bagnall and his moustache leaps in front of her and we cheer. 'Remember your training! The children are your friends!!'
'HA!' she cries, then 'HA!' again.
'Don't make me say it,' says Mr Bagnall, 'just give me the stick and I won't say it...'
I look at Dexter and he looks at me.
'HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!'
'PUT THE STICK DOWN ... PRUNELLA!' shouts Mr Bagnall.
It is like the pause button has gone on until Dexter stands up.
'Prunella!' he says, 'is that her name?'
Everybody starts mouthing the word, 'Prunella.' I think it must be like when you know the real name of a demon or a wicked fairy and just by saying it, it takes away their power.
'PRUNELLA!!!' we all shout at her. 'PRUNELLA! PRUNELLA!'
She drops the stick and runs from the hall. Victory is ours.

Fascinating Invention No. 15 - The Parachute

2008-10-05T16:10:00.018+01:00

Fascinating Invention No. 13 - The Parachute

The first parachute was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in about 1500 but he never got round to making one. That was left to Faust Vrancic, who in 1617 actually jumped from a Venice tower holding onto a parachute. At least he did not use a dog for his experiment as this is what Jean Pierre Blanchard did in 1785.

He took his dog up in the air for a balloon ride, probably jollying him along with lots of talk about the view and whatever and then…’LOOK FIFI – A CAT! FETCH!’ and he chucks him over the side attached to a not very good parachute. Maybe the dog did not die because Blanchard did use a parachute again to escape from his balloon when it suddenly exploded (I think Fifi was getting her own back).

Anyway parachutes got better because of dogs and mad Frenchmen and soon it stopped looking like a rigid pyramid and became a silky umbrella. Lots of people starting jumping from towers and then aeroplanes, just for fun. The big problem was the wobbling canopy.

Lots of people tried to stop the wobble, including Sir George Cayley, who thought that a cone-shaped parachute would do the trick; until Robert Cocking became the first person to die in a cone-shaped parachute accident in 1837.

Of course, it was someone in the army, Captain Thomas Baldwin in 1887, who said they should cut a hole in the top to stop the wobble and this worked. Parachutes became VERY BIG in the wars and now you get loads of different types and loads of different types of people use them – but not dogs.

wheeeeee

Run For Your Lives

2008-09-27T12:41:00.014+01:00

Itisham has a gerbil called, Lewis. He likes to put him in a green plastic ball and watch him charging all over the kitchen floor. He runs like mad in a straight line until he hits the broom/wall/cooker etc and then tumbles backwards to go the other way until he hits the broom/wall/cooker etc. Lewis reminds me of Dexter playing British Bulldog. He goes in a straight line until he hits a person/wall/the ground and then changes direction until he hits a person/wall/the ground. He is quite rubbish at playing this game because he gets over excited.

- he forgets where his home is
- he forgets who is on his team
- he forgets he is in school with teachers and dinner ladies all over the place

So, there he is forgetting everything. He has knocked over 5 baby children, got a whole load of girls to be on his team - most of them run round screaming, except for Alice Taylor who tries to be a nurse - and caught NOBODY, even though it is his turn to be bulldog.
THEN
Alice Taylor has me in an armlock. 'Just pretend you have a broken leg,' she orders, 'I'll mend you.'
'I've got you!' cries Dexter and he wraps his arms around me.
'Get off me, you idiot! It doesn't count when you're injured!'
'Yes it does!' yells Dexter, 'and you're my first catch! British bulldog, 1,2,3!'
'Shut up! It's stripey jumpers!'
'Oh, what a delightful game!' trills Mrs Trundle. She has appeared out of nowhere, her good eye twitches. 'Stripey Jumpers! I've never heard of that!'
Dexter jumps away from me and knocks into Polish Jacob.
'Yes,' says Polish Jacob, who knows nothing about British Bulldog and is even worse at it than Dexter, 'and you get to use the stick of power - here,' he says and thrusts a ginormous tree branch into her hands. I manage to stop myself slapping my hands to my head in utter despair. We are pushing her too far.
She trembles and I know she is trying not to use the stick of power on the nearest child.
'Back away slowly,' I hiss at Alice. 'She's going to lose it.'
'I can't stand it!' she roars. She runs at me with the stick. I scream a tiny bit and head for base.
'Don' do it! Mrs Trundle, resist - you know you can!' It is Mr Bagnall. His big moustache is wobbling as he shouts and runs to come between me and the Trundle. 'Don't give in to your violent urges!'
Too late. She is laughing and wielding the stick like a Gandalf.
Mr Bagnall blows his whistle. 'Get in,' he screams, 'run for your lives!'

British Bulldog

2008-09-15T11:03:00.007+01:00

I cannot begin to talk about George and his stick-eating ways just at the moment - it is too painful.

So, here is what is happening at school. Mrs Trundle has come back from her course, 'A Way In - really communicating with your class' and is bothering everybody with excessive smiling and 'how are yous?' She seems to have given up the idea of a. being a part time assassin b. using school money to go on educating foreign trips c. being generally horrible.
It's all pretty disturbing.

I decide it is time to test this new niceness.
'Let's play British Bulldog,' I say to Dexter. We are mooching about in the playground, kicking the tiny stones we can scuff up from the tarmac.
'It's banned,' says Dexter.
I shrug.
'I see your point - maybe if we just have a couple of boys each,' says Dexter.
'Well, just don't tell everybody,' I say, 'you know what happened last time.'
He looks blank for a moment and then the light goes on. 'We got banned. I'll be Captain.'
'Me too,' I say, 'I did think of it.' I run off to find players, I want to get all the good ones before Dexter does.
I find Tyler and Itisham and Polish Jacob. Tyler does rugby and knows about charging about. We choose our home. It is the brown bit of grass underneath the office window. Dexter has the netball semi circle. Ha. We all come together in the middle. Polish Jacob, who is Polish and has no idea what is going on, agrees to be the bulldog.
'Just remember,' I whisper, 'no shouting, no really big hitting and don't say British Bulldog out loud.'
'But we still have to say "British Bulldog 1, 2, 3!" when we catch someone,' says Dexter.
'Call it 'Stripey Jumpers', says Tyler, who knows a thing or two about stripey jumpers.
'Agreed!' I say, 'Let's play!'
And that's when it starts going slightly wrong.

George's Black Hole

2008-09-12T13:29:00.015+01:00

By Wednesday teatime we were all still alive and not sucked into a black hole where we are crushed into nothingness or forced to play parallel universe football. It is all a bit on the disappointing side really.
In actual fact our house is a bit like being in a parallel universe right now because my baby brother, George is on the move. He is like a black hole. He sucks us all into his horrible baby world and now we cannot escape and soon he will crush us into nothingness.

First off. He goes everywhere and we all have to follow him because of the terrible, terrible danger lurking at the edge of every cupboard door, table corner and under every cushion.

Look out! Run from the fluffy cushions!Aaaaaghhh!

Second off. It is The Rule that George is not allowed to put small things into his mouth because:
a. he will swallow it, be poisoned and die
b. he will try and swallow it, choke and die
c. he will not swallow it, stick it up his nose and die.
But nobody has told George The Rule because a very bad thing happened.

Mum plopped George into my room, without asking me. I know this because when I go into my room he is there, wobbling a bit as he stands up, hanging onto the stick insect table.
'Oi!' I say, 'what you doing?'
He does not answer and my insides go into a kind of freefall and I know something bad has occurred. Crunch. The it comes to me and suddenly my room is a million miles wide as I race across to save him.
Too late.
Sticky, my best stick insect is prodding out of George. His front legs are waving a bit like he is saying goodbye before he disappears into the black hole that is George's mouth.

Sticky, before the bad end.

This Is Not The Right Experiment For World Domination

2008-09-07T10:32:00.008+01:00

Dexter called round and said we have to go and play football NOW because the end of the world is on Wednesday.

'You're talking gibberish rubbish again, Dexter,' I tell him.
I have decided to be extra clear about what I mean with Dexter - he is a bit thick at times. He kicks at his football and knocks over a pot plant.
'Well if you're not going to play then I'll have to ask Tyler because this is pretty much the last chance before we all get sucked into a black hole. Would've thought you'd heard about it, he says. 'My dad says they should close the school but I bet Mrs Trundle keeps it open and we'll all be doing a spelling test as we die.' He pulls an imaginary cord round his neck and lolls his tongue out.
'Yeah I know that,' I say, even though I did not because nobody can even hear the radio or TV withmy baby brother, George bellowing all the time; so I am spending more and more time with my earmuffs on talking to the sticks in my room. Even now, George is cranking himself up for a big yell upstairs. 'Yeah, should be good.'
'I wish we did science like that,' says Dexter, pushing the pieces of broken pot onto the gravel. 'A giant colliding thing would be ace.'
'A what?'
Dad pops his head up from the cellar stairs. He is polishing Lord Baden Powell's molar which he got for a present from Grandpa Jack.
'Large Hadron Collider,' he says to me, 'Thought you'd know about that.'
'I did,' I lie suavely or at least I soon will ...

So here it is:

THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

is not small even though it is dealing with the most tiny piece of the universe - a part of an atom called a hadron. The LHC is 26 miles of underground between France and Switzerland and has taken 10 years to build by 20 different countries.
It looks like a world domination experiment done by someone called, Dr Mad. When one of Dr Mad's evil assistants presses the big red button all the hadrons will hurl themselves from both ends of the tunnel, colliding. This will make the teeniest explosion ever in the tiniest amount of time. Dr Mad thinks he will have unleashed human eating monsters from a parallel universe which only he can stop - for a price.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!

BUT in actual fact when he has stopped laughing he will find out what happened a trillionth of a second after the universe was created 13.7 billion years ago OR

We will all be sucked into a black hole. It could go either way.

The main things to know will be:

a. about new and interesting particles in the universe
b. dark matter - what it is and why it matters
c. this is not the right experiment for world dominationI better go and play football, to be on the safe side.

I Suggest You Try Tesco

2008-08-31T10:13:00.009+01:00

I am definitely back from Stroud because we are in town and Dad makes me try on 4 million pairs of black school shoes - all the same. Finally he chooses the perfect pair and it turns out you get a free school bag as well.
'Excellent,' says Dad, 'now we don't have to buy you a school bag.'
I poke at the bag. 'Think again Father of Mine,' I say. 'I would rather use Mum's handbag.'
'Nothing wrong with it!' snaps Dad. 'Now, what's next on the list...ah, new PE kit.'
Most of my friends get their stuff from Tesco but Dad says that if we do that then local shops will go out of business. So I am forced to be seen dead in Mr Elliott's School Emporium.
'Ah, this takes me back,' says Dad as he pushes open the tinkly door. 'Good old Eggy, I used to come here to buy my school uniform!'
I shake my head at this horrifying news. 'I'm sorry, Dad - I didn't know.'
Mr Egghead appears from behind a rack of grey shirts. He has bottlebottom lenses in his face sized glasses and not one single hair on his head. It gleams in the spotlight.
'School? Size? Sex?' he asks.
'Nupton Valance Primary. Nine year old boy,' snaps back Dad.
Mr Egghead laughs a low sniggery laugh. 'I see.' Hahahahahahaha.
I look up at Dad in a questioning sort of way.
Dad coughs. 'We just need a PE kit.'
Mr Egghead stops laughing. He bends low and whips out a tape measure. He flings it around like one of those ribbon gymnasts in the Olympics. Then straightens up.
'We're all out of PE kit in his particular size,' he says. 'In any size,' he adds with a sneer.
'But I can see them over there,' I say, pointing to the shelf marked, PE KIT.
'He's sharp,' says Mr Egghead, 'too sharp - now excuse me I have trousers to rearrange!'
'But,' says Dad. 'But...'
'I suggest you try Tesco. Good day!' And he laughs again. Hahahahahahahahahaha
'I don't remember him laughing quite so much when I was young,' says Dad as we are chucked out of the door.
'I don't think anybody normal laughs quite that much, Dad,' I reply. I am struck with a brilliant idea. 'I left my school bag in his shop - shall we go back and get it?'
'NO!' says Dad, 'you can choose your own - from Tesco.'
The Voltaic backpack uses photo cells to charge itself up and then you can keep going with your mobile, I-pod and night vision goggles as long as you like. You cannot get it from Tesco.

Going to Stroud

2008-08-03T14:34:00.003+01:00

We are travelling to Stroud for our holiday and will not be seen for about two weeks. See below.
Bye.

Fantastic Invention No. 15 - The Lawnmower

2008-07-27T22:09:00.014+01:00

It turns out that Weird Bloke was not actually dead which was lucky for him. He had to go to hospital with a traumatic head injury and would most likely never be the same again which was also lucky. Peter the Viking turned out to be the Museum child handler and not a Viking at all. He went out of his tree about the centurion wig mix up and threatened us from ever going back to his museum again. We all cheered. So, things were not a total failure AND we did not have to finish the worksheets.

To soothe myself I am showing you one of the greatest unknown inventors, Edwin Beard Budding and his fantastic invention, the lawnmower. Be amazed.

Edwin Beard Budding (1745 – 1846) lived in Stroud in Gloucestershire. He was an engineer and got the idea for a lawnmower from seeing a cloth trimming machine in the local mill. Maybe he had a terrible grass cutting trauma when he was a child; perhaps he was forced into grass-cutting labour at a very young age. Whatever the reason he looked at some blades set in a cylinder in a factory and it made him somehow ponder about their grass-cutting possibilities and then the lawnmower was born. He said, "country gentlemen may find in using my machine themselves an amusing, useful and healthy exercise." Dad does not find the lawnmower amusing at all and actually has alot of arguments with it. I tell him he does not appreciate what it was like before.

In 1830, Edwin Beard Budding invented the lawnmower. It is almost impossible to understand how long it took to cut the grass before that date. If you had a big house, you had an army of gardeners with scythes to keep your lawns trim; that or you brought in a flock of hungry sheep to do the job. The sheep could be a problem if you wanted to sunbath or go out for a romantic stroll or play a game of lawn tennis – they and their poo just got in the way. If you lived in a small house then you might not even bother with grass; being outside for fun was only for the people in big houses. If you did not want to starve, you would probably fill your garden with vegetables because grass was not going to fill you up.

Lawnmower world will tell you all you want to know about other sorts of lawnmowers. In the meantime here is a picture of a man with a beard using an actual Budding lawnmower. Look how happy he is. We are going on holiday to Stroud very soon and Grandpa Jack will be left in charge of the house and the stick insects. Hmmm.

Who Has Been Interfering With The Roman Centurion?

2008-07-19T14:31:00.004+01:00

Saint Benedict was the saint of nettle rash. Not the sort of saint I want to be.

We are in the blue bit of The Museum and this is the Vikings. Weird Bloke is rushing which is weird because we cannot fill out our delightful worksheets properly. So, for example, one of the questions is:

If you were a Viking what name would you call yourself?
Draw a picture of you as a Viking plus your house and a diary for the past 5 years (include your favourite food and pastimes!)

Miranda is all set to spend the rest of the day on thinking about her name alone. When Weird Bloke shouts at her, she comes up with, Jade. Dexter and Me call ourselves, 'Peter' and Isambard puts down Sven because that is his brother's name.
'Excellent!' screeches WB and tangles up his legs as he scrabbles to his feet.
We LOOK at each other.
'I'll just put this worksheet in the bin...' says Isambard and he sidles over to a Viking cauldron.
'Yes! Yes! Very good!' says WB and now he is getting his big hanky out and mopping actually underneath his wig. 'Bit hot in here.'
Then Dexter spots something interesting. 'Battle axes! Clubs! Look at this!' He touches the pointy end of a sword which is completely forbidden by law and WB screams.
'My head!' he cries. 'It's on fire!'
It is defintely scarlet and it is now covered in bumps.
'Poison ivy,' says Isambard.
'Course not!' says Miranda. 'That is not a native species!' Her Dad is a world famous insect man and she thinks she is an expert on anything to do with nature and everything else in the world.
'Could be nettles,' I say. 'You need to spit on some dandelion leaves and rub it over you.'
'Get it off me!' he cries.
He is wrestling with the shoelace round his head. The wig is now half round his face like a mad beard. He runs and wrestles his way through the red bit which is the victorians. This is a shame because of all the fantastic inventions but now we are absolutely flying through history.

By the time we run into the Romans (yellow), Mr Trundle's head is scarlet all over.
'I love the Romans!' says Miranda. She smooths out her worksheet.
'HELP!' squeaks WB.
This calls for action. I grab at a Roman centurion, find the short dagger and charge at WB's shoelace. 'Hold him down!'
'You've got a gladius,' says Miranda, lying across WB's legs and ticking a little box on the worksheet. The others then jump on top of Mr Trundle and I saw through the shoelace and rip off the wig. The underneath is plastered with nettles. '
'Just as I thought - see!' I thrust the wig at Miranda.
'Humph!' She throws it away. It lands on the centurion' s helmet. 'A galea,' she murmurs. Tick.
'He's not moving,' says Dexter, climbing off his head. 'He's not breathing much either.'
'Just sleeping, I expect,' I say. 'He has been quite busy.'
'Could be dead,' suggests Isambard. He prods him quite hard with a nearby roman sandal. ('Caligae.' Tick.) 'He is dead.'
'Get his wig back on, then no-one will know anything,' says Dexter in a mysterious kind of way. He jumps up and pulls at the centurion's helmet. The helmet comes off together with WB's wig and another blonde wig belonging to the centurion. Dexter places the blonde wig on WB's head. 'There, much better.'
'You killed him,' says Miranda, pointing at me. 'I'm telling.'
'Then we'll have to kill you as well!' I jump up, dagger at the ready.
She glances at the information board next to the centurion. 'I'll just take that scutum and your pilum!' she says, grabbing a shield and a spear.
Dexter and Isambard crouch down. 'Wilf! Wilf! Wilf!' they yell.
Mirnanda and me circle the dead body of Mr Trundle. I snarl. Then Peter the viking appears.
'Oops,' I say.
'Wasn't me,' says Miranda.
Dexter has legged it. Isambard is studying the insides of a roman kitchen.
Peter strides over to WB stretched out on the roman pavement. He bends down and stares at him. 'Who?' he roars. 'Who has been interfering with the Roman Centurion??!!'
And he plucks the wig from WB's dead head.

Miranda has no chance against ME (see pic)

Greetings Time Travellers!

2008-07-12T11:31:00.014+01:00

So, we are late getting to The Museum because Mr Trundle made the coach stop while he hunted down his wig. When he put it back on his head EVERYONE stared because it looked as though the top of his head had exploded. Mr Trundle just carried on. By the time the coach breaks down half a mile from where we should stop, Mr Trundle has used his shoelace to strap his wig down. He is a mad genius.

Inside the museum, a tall man called Peter dressed in Viking uniform, says,
'Greetings, time travellers! You're late. We need to catch up with our schedule, so gather ye round!'
He makes a list of instructions which mostly involve not touching anything and not eating near the exhibits or eating the exhibits and not straying from our group leaders.
'Here are your worksheets. Enjoy!' he says to finish.
I look at Dexter and he sticks a finger in his mouth and gags. Unfortunately, Mr Trundle hears him.
'You're not going to be sick as well are you?!?' he asks in a voice which races towards the end of the sentence. 'Sick? Sick? I'll open a window!' I think he is traumatised.
'NO!' shouts Dexter. He rolls his eyes at me. 'I hope we don't get him as our group leader.'
'He is our group leader already,' I tell Dexter. 'That is why he started talking about fishing to you.'
Dexter's eyes go big with horror. 'Now I AM going to be sick.'

Isambard, Dexter, Miranda and Me trundle round after Mr Trundle. He has colour coded our way round the Romans, Vikings and Victorians but in the wrong order. I cannot hardly think about what happened next because it is not nice. I will write it down for next week. I can tell you that Roman centurians and bad wigs do not mix. In the meantime here is a bit about a possible way of time travelling using black holes. I do not think Peter will have done this.

Time Travelling with Black Holes can be Dodgy

When stars are so absolutely massive they run out of puff and collapse. This implosion creates black holes. They have really strong gravitational fields. It is so strong that nothing can escape. Not even Mr Trundle's wig. Around the black hole is an event horizon. If you even touch it you will be sucked in never to escape. Aghhhhhhhhhhhh!

Here is an ice-cream cone. The top bit is the top of the black hole and the cone goes down to a singularity. Here, everything goes mad. If you travel down this ice cream cone, bad luck, you will be crushed beyond recognition. He-he-he. BUT if you get sucked into a rotating black hole, you can start shouting for joy because you might just come out of the other side in a different time and space. This is what a scientist called, Kerr said. Some people do not believe him but I do. It is fantastic.

Weird Bloke

2008-07-05T21:18:00.011+01:00

The nightmare that is the school trip is here. I sit on the back seat next to Dexter, Miranda and a new boy called Isambard. I like Isambard, mainly because he has a worse name than me but also because he is quite keen on Buzz Aldrin and wants to be an astronaut.

Here are the good bit about the bus. Weird Bloke is a helper.
Mrs Trundle, headteacher and part-time assassin is on a course about being nice to children so Weird Bloke is with us instead. He is short and has no lips (quite weird). He speaks in a high pitched rush, like he is trying to get all his words in before being crushed by a giant foot (really weird) and he is married to Mrs Trundle (SHIVER). He is always trying to make you interested in boring stuff like fishing and poems about daffodils. Anyway, he is not often seen outside, because of his head. The fact is, his head is not really attached to his hair nowadays. He thinks that nobody knows this fact but he is wrong.

We are on the motorway. Weird Bloke has turned round to us. He is opening his mouth to talk about fishing to Dexter. Dexter is going all shifty eyes. If he was not sitting on a coach he would be running away. Isambard and Miranda stare out of the windows at the interesting motorway metal barriers. Only I can help. There is one chance.

'I feel sick, Mr Trundle,' I say.
'Sick?' he says, 'sick? Sick?'
I nod. 'Too hot,' I bend over. 'Ugh. Need air.'
'Air?' says Mr Trundle, 'air? Air?' He looks round, maybe for some air.
'Up there, the window in the roof!' I say.
'The roof, of course, the roof, the roof!' He reaches up and pushes at the glass.

It opens in a rush. His wig flies upwards and is sucked outside. It dances about outside the window for a bit and then escapes into the woods.
Weird.

The Austrian-born wigmaker established the House of Louis Feder, Inc., in 1914, created his famous "Tashay" (he did not like the word, "toupee") and advertised it as "a hurricane-resisting hairpiece that can be combed and brushed, kept on in high winds and when swimming, and worn for weeks without removal."

A Few Non Lethal Weapons

2008-06-29T14:34:00.008+01:00

Aunt Harpy is staying in a secret location somewhere nearby. She will not tell Mum where it is, just in case MI5 come and find her for interrogating purposes. This is mad and also slightly annoying as we do not know when she will turn up and cannot prepare ourselves for a visit by being out.

Anyway, Dexter came round to show me his tennis racquet. His Dad bought it off e-bay and it used to belong to five times Wimbledon champion, Bjorn Borg. So it is a bit worn out. We go into the back garden and I get out Mum's old bat from her shed but we cannot find a ball. This is a problem, so we look for other things to hit. We find cat poo, a mouldy apple and a dead baby bird. The cat poo shatters into cat poo rain and the mouldy apple does not even make it to the racquet. The dead bird bounces the best but soon falls apart. So we then have to fight each other with fallen branches until Dexter gashes his arm on the end of my stick and breaks it. We stop and ponder our rubbish weapons and think about ones that do not produce so much blood.

Here are a few:

1. Fast setting glue. This could be like the stuff Spiderman uses and shoots out of his hands.

2. Instant banana peel. This is where you make the road so slippery nothing can stay upright. There might be a few problems trying to get people off the super-slippery roads though. They would probably be all over the place trying to escape. You might have to use something like...

3. Instant stiffening powder to cut down on flailing. Then you could use a giant shovel pusher and shove them into custody. Once everyone had stopped laughing.

4. Knock out gas or dart. Trials of these were carried out at Porton Down. They used a drug called 'apomorphine'. Something must have gone a bit wrong because they stopped the trials saying there was, 'an unacceptably high risk of death'. This is not good if you are just trying to stop a bingo night getting out of hand or somesuch.

5. Capture nets. These could explode into the air in thin coils of wire covered in glue. Then they land on people and hold them down.

All of these are actual ideas from actual scientists being paid money. I think you could use modified stick insects to crowd control people. You load their legs with glue and shoot them at people. They scream and flail but the stick insects stick to their heads or wherever. And if this is not enough then the stick could inject a dose of knockout gloop from its mouth parts.

I do not expect anyone will ask me but if the PM telephones me again at least I will have something good to tell him.

Geroge And Me Have Things To Talk About

2008-06-21T21:59:00.013+01:00

Anyway, we are having a visit from Grandpa Jack' s sister called Hatty. She is even more Irish than Grandpa Jack because she actually lives in Ireland all the time. We have never met her but Grandpa Jack says she speaks english and likes to boss people around and tell them what is going wrong in their lives and how much better her life is. She does not travel very often because she does not like to fly but Grandpa Jack says all witches like flying (ha ha). Grandpa Jack calls her a harridan and a harpy and he is going on holiday while she is in the country. He is afraid of her.

Dad is hiding in the cellar with his teeth collection when the front door bells rings and rings and does not stop ringing until I open the door. I stop a gasp. An old woman is there. She is like a human stick insect, all thin and long and sticky but with strange hairy clothes on, the colour of sick. She has grey hair barging out of her head like it is having a noisy dance party. She looks down at me through really thick glasses.
'To be sure, you are taller on the telephone, Dr Marshall,' she says and her thin lips snap together like a purse. 'I would not be putting my teeth in your hands, I think.'
'That's my Dad,' I explain. 'He is bigger than me and actually older and he has a beard as well.'
She stalks past me and hands me her hairy jacket. It is so furry, I am worried it is going to bite me. I throw it in the cupboard under the stairs - just in case.
'I will be taking five sugars in my tea and not one granule more. Where is your dear mother George?'
'Mum's name is Daphne,' I tell her, 'not George.'
She laughs like I have made a big joke.
'I must say I expected you to be a little more...' she pauses and adjusts her glasses. '...more like a baby.'
'George is the baby,' I say, 'I am Wilf and I am 9.'
'Your mother did not inform me of another child in the house!' she screeches. 'Anyway, you are too small to be nine years of age. My Derek was a good five foot ten at your age and strong as great big giant.'
'I am not small,' I say, 'I am the 4th tallest in my class and I am very strong.'
'Oh, Aunt Hatty!' says Mum. 'How are you?' George is squirming in her arms going red. I KNOW what he is doing.
'This must be George at last,' says Aunt Harpy. 'I will take him now and look him over.' She grabs him and George smiles. 'See, he loves me, all babies and small children love me - it's a gift I have. I am like a goddess to my grandson.'
'How is Peter?' asks Mum.
'Six foot four and still growing,' says Great Aunt Harpy, looking at me. 'Unlike some people.'
At that moment, George lets out a massive stinky poo. It goes on and on and he goes purple in he face. I am sure he winks at me.
'I think I'll take that tea now,' says Aunt Harpy, sniffing madly. 'You may have the baby back.'
'I will take him,' I say. 'George and me have things to talk about.'
Baby poo has an up side.

Fascinating Inventor No.4 - Edward Harrison, Inventor of the Small Box Respirator 1869 - 1918

2008-06-14T12:38:00.018+01:00

My best friend Dexter comes round. He stands on the doorstep and sniffs.
'Hello,' I say for starters, and, 'come in.'
He shakes his head and carries on standing and sniffing like a complete gerbil.
'Your house smells,' he announces. He leans forward. 'You smell as well.'
'What of?' I ask. And, 'so what?'
'Baby poo, you whiff of baby poo.' He pulls a face.
'CLOSE THE FRONT DOOR!' Dad yells from the kitchen, 'ALL THE AIR IS ESCAPING!'
I picture Dad on the floor, flapping his legs and gasping for air, like a goldfish accidentally tipped out of the tank. I am about to amuse Dexter with this exciting image when he pipes up.
'Can't stay.' And he runs off.
I close the front door and sniff the imprisoned air. I shake my head sadly. Dexter is right - the waft of poo is everywhere. And it took my best friend to tell me.
It makes me think of the little known inventor hero, Edward Harrison.

" To save our armies from poison gas he have his last full measure of devotion."

These are words on a war memorial to him. I think they mean that he worked himself to death. And although Mum and Dad are always saying that they work far too hard and also, what did my last slave die of and I will be the death of them; I do not think they really understand what working yourself To Death is like. Edward Harrison did it and it is fatal as well as being absolutely heroic. Because Mum and
Dad definitely did not die striving to design and get into mass production the first gas masks or small box respirators.

Apparently, he and other chemistry heroes went into sealed rooms full of gas, to test the mask. This is mad but VERY brave and of course absolutely fatal.

And, although the Prime Minister of Great Britain, did use the telephone to tell me to go to bed, he did not speak to The Parents and offer his admiration, condolences and the revelation that he had decided to promote them to Brigadier-general in charge of all chemical warfare. Which is a big relief actually. By the time Winston Churchill wrote to Edward Harrison, to say, bother and he was going to give him all of those things - he was dead. By the time the French got round to giving him a medal called the Legion d'honeur, he was dead. By the time the war ended, Edward Harrison was dead but lots and lots of men (and dogs, see pic) who might have died, did not.

Fascinating Inventors No. 3 - Lord Baden Powell

2008-06-07T14:36:00.011+01:00

Fascinating Inventors No. 3 – Lord Baden Powell, Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (1857 – 1941)

Baden-Powell invented the boy-scout movement but before that he was a grown-up tracker- scout in the Boer War in South Africa. He learnt how to follow men and animals without being seen which is quite something. People there were always giving him nicknames – maybe because his own name was a bit of a mouthful. He was known by the Zulus as "M'hlala Panzi"-‘The man who lies down to shoot’. This does not mean that he was a bit lazy or his gun was too big for him; no, apparently it means, the man who takes careful aim and thinks before he acts. Another nickname was, "Impeesa"- ‘Wolf who never sleeps’ which is impressive but, "Kantankye"- ‘He of the big hat’ is not quite so good.

In 1899, Baden-Powell and his men were cut off by enemies, in a small town called Mafeking. He won the siege through daring determination, using dummies and pretend bombs and biscuit tin searchlights. After that he became the youngest Major-General in the British army. When he arrived home he found he had a lot of fans. They had read his book, ‘Aid to Scouting’ and they wanted to be just like him. So he set up the Boy Scouts. He knew that boys liked making gangs and whittling sticks with penknives, and he knew that they did not like being marched about and given orders so he invented a movement for doing woodwork in gangs and mucking about with fires and tents – and no marching. He made up lots of laws for the scouting movement, like always smiling and whistling and being friendly to animals but the main things were to ‘do good’ and ‘be prepared’.

'What do you think about politics?'

2008-06-01T09:43:00.012+01:00

Dad is so excited that he is NOT going into the cellar to sort out his teeth collection every spare second. No, Dad is sitting by the telephone in the hall.
'Why are you sitting here all the time?' I ask him.
'I'm not here ALL the time,' he says. I take a step forwards. 'You can't use the phone!' he says, snapping.
'I do not want to use the phone,' I explain. 'Mum has told me to collect your plate and says, do you want pudding out here as well?'
It turns out that the Prime Minister is using the telephone alot as well. Dad has been waiting for one whole day and night and now another part of a day, so he can tell the PM how to run the country better. He has a long list of things to say marked, 'urgent' 'quite important' and 'if time'. I look at the top of the words and almost fall asleep instantly with absolute boredom and think he would actually be a good hypnotist on the television.
Anyway, I leave him to read all about how to make a simple electro magnet which is packed full of interest.

I am in bed and I hear the telephone ring. Mum is trying to sing a soothing song to George upstairs. It is horrible, just like Serena the cat would sound if she started to sing. And George does not like it either. He is screaming. I run downstairs and trip up on Dad who is asleep on the floor. I hit him quite hard but he just mumbles.
'Your turn to change George's nappy...'
I pick up the receiver.
'Hello,' I say for starters. 'Wilf speaking.'
'Hello,' says a deep Scottish voice. 'Is that the Marshall household?'
'Not all of us,' I point out. 'Just me. Dad's asleep on the floor and Mum is upstairs wailing at my brother. I can tell you - he is absolutely screaming.'
Cough, cough. Throat grumblings.
'I quite understand, Wolf,' rumbles the voice, 'I share in the pain of the hard working people of Britain.' Pause.
'Me too,' I say. 'Who are you?'
Throat grumblings..
'The Prime Minister,' says, The Prime Minister. 'And tell me, Wolf, 'what do you think about politics?'
This is a good question. I ponder and think deeply but I can only remember my electro magnet.
'Have you read, 'The Dangerous Book for Boys?' I ask him.
Rumble, rumble. 'I will do so, you can be assured of that,' he says.
'Right, there's a really good bit about making a periscope which I have already done and then there is a simple electro magnet which is next on my list and...'
He leaps in. 'Let me point out my ten point action plan.'
'I do not think I can stay awake for that long,' I say, yawning. There is a big silence. 'I am supposed to be in bed,' I explain. 'And there is just one more thing. As well as having all the fantastic things that a boy needs to know in just one book, there is totally nothing about politics in it which is brilliant - apart from the rules of cricket, I suppose.'
'Hmph,' says the PM and he snorts as well. 'Perhaps you should go to bed.' The phone goes dead.
Not only do The Parents tell me to go to bed, all the time but the Prime Minister of Great Britain phones me up specially to do it as well. This is The End.
If I had a 'bed module' like this, I would be in bed all the time.

The Shouting Handbag

2008-05-25T16:36:00.011+01:00

It is a true fact that, The Parents are meandering their weary way into the 21st century. I have actual proof of this. I will explain. Because of my baby brother George, I am now used to being shouted at. I was shouted at over the fantastic numbers of stick insects being born in George's bedroom. I was shouted at because I blunted the bread knife when I used it for whittling and I was shouted at completely by accident when Dad tripped over me doing jumping training on the stairs. Times are tense in this house. So, you can see I am quite used to being shouted at when The Handbag happened.

I am in the kitchen making some interesting biscuits. I have an Apollo 11 biscuit cutter, some left over vegetables for healthiness, some stuff from the fridge and half a bag of flour. I whizz them all up in the new machine bought for squishing up George's food into something that looks like sick (he likes it). It is when I am giving some of the interesting mixture to Serena the cat for testing that I hear the shouting. It is tiny shouting, like a pixie trapped in a hole or what a stick insect might sound like if it got angry. I look around. Mum's hemp and bamboo handbag is wedged inside the bread bin. At least it is not in the fridge like last week. Anyway, I can hear a voice shouting from the inside of the handbag. I listen.
"Hello! Hello!" the voice is saying. For a mad moment I wonder if Mum has shrunk to an incredibly small size and got stuck inside her own handbag. Or more likely she has captured someone very, very little and maybe even now is demanding a ransom for them. Grim. I decide to help.
'Who are you?' I shout at the handbag. 'Tell me what you want.'
'Answer me!' squeaks the tiny person inside the handbag.
'I'm going to free you,' I say, 'just keep quiet!'
I take the handbag and keeping an eye out for snapping traps, I rootle around its mysterious innards. And there it is.
A MOBILE PHONE.
I pick it up. Mum has got a mobile phone. I never thought of that. I am open-mouthed as I listen to it weebling at me in a familiar sort of way. I put it to my ear.
'Is that you, Grandpa Jack?' I ask.
'Who else would it be!' yells Grandpa Jack. 'Tell your mother to keep her phone under control will you now? She keeps phoning me every two seconds and then giving me the silent treatment!'
'I think she just forgot to lock the phone, Grandpa,' I explain.
'Lock the phone! Lock the phone! Give me the strength of ten men! Does she not trust you, my lad? That is typical...'
And he is off on a rant about the evils of locking telephones and all related topics. I hold the phone away from my ear and boggle at its meaning.

Here is Mum's pre-George idea of a mobile phone

Here is Mum's actual mobile phone.

I Should Be An Astronaut Before Too Long

2008-05-11T09:02:00.011+01:00

It turns out that the European Space Agency need more astronauts. I think I will have a go because frankly, George is starting to get on my nerves. You do not need any actual space experience (phew) but you do need:

to be ready for anything (goes without saying)
you must like surprises (absolutely anytime)
be healthy (no chance of anything else with Mum)
you must like science (I'm in, except for, 'the body' because that is quite boring)

The bad thing is you also have to be ancient so I think I will use my Dad's name and see how it goes.

There is one good thing about having George around. To make me feel better about having to put up an annoying baby in the house, The Parents have been round to my friend, Miranda. Her Dad is a show-off wild insect explorer and she has got masses of stick insects which are my favourite pet. Miranda gave The Parents some of the tiny baby ones (about 12 - it is tricky to count them). I say, any number of stick insects are alot less bother than one baby brother but I might just be wrong on this because it turns out they can be quite a lot of bother in actual fact.

Sometime back, my best friend Dexter was trying to help me sort out stick insect poo from stick insect eggs and this is very interesting but quite tricky. We did this delicate work in the spare room but then it went a bit wrong and Dexter had to vacuum up everything - poo and eggs. That was about 6 months ago. The next thing is this:

Mum and George are upstairs in his bedroom (the old spare room), de-smelling him (again). I am minding my own business whittling an arrow out of some old wood, when I hear George start yelling (again) and Mum scream. I drop the breadknife and Dad throws down his copy of 'Smile! You're a Dentist!'
He runs up the stairs, shouting, 'For goodness' sake - what now!?' Like he is the one always being disturbed.
Then Dad starts screaming.
Then they both stop screaming to bellow, 'WILFRED!'
It is then that the awful feeling comes upon me. A feeling that whatever is happening in the ex-spare bedroom might, not altogether not be my fault. Crazy but true. My brain whirrs at superhuman speed. I put the spare room, Dexter's sloppy vacuuming and a six month incubation period for stick insect eggs all together in a fantastic micro milli-second. Based on the available evidence, I come to a conclusion and it is not pretty. On the plus side, I have dealt with the surprise of The Parents finding hoardes of ravenous stick insects in the baby's bedroom in a scientific way and therefore I should be an astronaut before too long.
'WILFRED!! UP HERE NOW!'
Just as well. I go to face my doom.

Playing Tag with a Nearby Book

2008-05-04T16:32:00.009+01:00

Anita has tagged me. I have to find a nearby book. The book I have found is in the downstairs loo. It is one of Dad's favourites. He is a big fan of talking about the weather and so takes any opportunity to read about it so that he can pretend to have a vast knowledge. The book is, The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney and it is an entire book about clouds. Dad has even joined the sad cloudspotter's society and this week was blah-blahing about Stratocumulus in a vastly knowledgeable sort of way. Turns out he is half way through Chapter 4 which is all about those particular clouds. Hmm. Anita has asked me to pick three sentences from page 123. I do not know why.

"Perhaps they'll see, 'a centaur, or a leopard, or a wolf, or a bull', like the Socrates character in Aristophanes play, Clouds. Perhaps they'll divine, 'giants' countenances...great mountains and rocks...after them some monster pulling and dragging other clouds', like Lucretius, the Roman poet, in his philosophical epic De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). The Greeks and the Romans appear to have been keen enthusiasts of this pastime."
The picture shows some Greeks or Romans probably - "Do not bother me now - I am having a think" is most likely what they are saying to one another and actually this is exactly what Dad says when you knock on the loo door.

I have no idea what all that is about but just copying it out has made my brain ache. I quite like being in the weather and I am a big fan of Barometer World, where we went on holiday but I do not like books where I have to have a dictionary and an encyclopaedia in the same room.

He Is Called George

2008-05-01T10:30:00.008+01:00

My baby brother is now five months and one week old which is old enough as far as I am concerned. The quite bad thing is that I am jealous of his name. He is called George. This is clearly a terrible name to lumber anyone with but it is three times better than Alan and three million times better than Wilfred.
One of George's problems (apart from being called George) is that he looks like a potato. You could feel sorry for his lumpy head with its piggy eyes but then you look closer and realise that he is a Sontaran and in actual fact one of Dr Who's greatest enemies and very very evil. All you have to do is stick a baby-gro on a Sontaran and you have George, the baby Sontaran.

George likes to sleep for a few minutes before waking up and shouting. George likes to have clean nappies for a few minutes before making them smell very bad. George likes to sit quietly on your lap for a few minutes before throwing up on your best party trousers. Mum and Dad tell me that I was like him once, all shouty and smelly and nauseating.
But I know this is a lie - they must be thinking of Grandpa Jack.

Slightly Droopy News

2008-04-07T10:56:00.004+01:00

The slightly droopy news is that, The Friday Project has stopped being a publisher because it ran out of money. Even droopier news is that the money ran out before, 'Wilf's World' was made into a book.
Here is a drooping plant. It is on my window sill and it still needs watering to make it perk up. It is a big shame that I cannot add water to the stick insects to make them perk up. Mum put them on the window sill, so they could see outside and now they are all dead with sunburn. That is the droopiest news of all.

So, What With One Thing and Another

2008-01-13T10:31:00.000Z

So, what with one thing and another, I am stopping writing Wilf's World until May 1st. I will then start writing it again. In between I will sometimes write up some of my favourite inventions.
I also hope that everyone will buy the Wilf's World book when it comes out this year with The Friday Project.

Bye for now.

Happy Christmas

2007-12-21T20:07:00.000Z

Martin Luther was someone who believed in religion alot. He lived in Germany in the 16th century and liked to have lights on a tree. I do not know if this was at christmas time or just anytime he fancied but I do know that he died on the toilet.

Anyway, people seemed to like the twinkly effect of the candles and lighting up trees became the only way to look at a tree at Christmas time. This led to some fantastic tree fires which people were not so keen on, especially at Christmas. When electricity was discovered, fairy lights were invented. By 1923 the White House in America had its first outdoor tree with electric lights. All the poor people carried on having flaming trees for some time to come.
In America after one tragic christmas tree fire too many, somebody called Albert Sadacca got the bright idea of making safety lights for christmas trees. These did not catch fire but interestingly took afew years to catch on.

This year we are having our own real life baby-child in a manger bed. I have not seen any shepherds bringing mangy sheep to our door or three kings bearing gifts or even bright angels descending upon us but Mum and Dad have gone to the hospital, Grandpa Jack has lit up his stinky pipe and Mrs Next-Door has still not discovered the new and exciting underground door into her hall. All is well.

Happy Christmas.

'WHAT ARE YOU BOYS DOING DOWN THERE?'

2007-12-14T15:40:00.000Z

So, the mega-legus eating monsters pile through the hole. Dexter and me tumble backwards and I think that the creatures will fall on us and eat us right away. Somewhere, Mrs Next-Door is screeching like mad and will soon be another victim.

'It's drooling on me!' cries Dexter from beneath brown and matted fur.

'Try not to swallow! It is most likely poisonous!' I advise, helpfully.

Already the hot air down here is reeking of old meat and nasty wet stuff. I can hardly breath underneath it all. Four thousand claws scratch at my face.

'Sorry, Dexter!' I shout. 'At least we will not have to put up with the new baby-child!'

'It's licking me!' cries Dexter. 'Aghhhhhhhh!'

'WHAT ARE YOU BOYS DOING DOWN THERE???!!!' Mrs Next-Door bellows into the understairs void. She must have opened the door. Bad move.

There is a fantastic clawing and growling and scrabbling and the beasts fling themselves out of the under-the-stairs-cupboard and onto her throat. Probably. The door slams shut. There is silence whilst they devour their prey and then quite a lot of barking.

'Come along, boys!' chirrups Mrs Next-Door, who must still be alive. 'I don't know how you got into this house but now it's time for a bath!'

We crawl up to the hall and peek the door open. There are muddy paw-prints all over the hall floor, lots of jackhammer scratches on the parquet, a small hill of rubble by the front door and a mountain of mud that Dexter was supposed to be dealing with. I hear the car door slam outside.

'Right,' says Dexter, 'I think I'll be off now, you can keep the jack-hammer for a bit.'

And he runs out of the back door.

The Mega-Legus

2007-12-09T13:18:00.000Z

So, we are busy under the stairs jack-hammering out the new bedroom. The hole is now impessively deep and Dexter and I are waist deep when we find the dinosaur bone.
'I think we are on to something here,' I say. I rub the dirt off- what is most likely- a bit of its leg.
'Here's another one,' says Dexter, hauling the other leg bit out of the soil.
We study the two legs.
'Do you think there's any more of it?' I whisper. 'I mean maybe we can get it named after us, like Wilfasaurus Dex.'
'Dextersaurus Wilf,' says Dexter.
'No, because that does not sound right and it is my house,' I point out. So we have a bit of a scuffle and I fall back onto yet another bone. 'It must be an arm,' I say, even though it looks like the other legs.
And Dexter gets quite excited and starts jammering the jack all over the place and the hole gets deeper much quicker. 'There's more!' he shouts and pulls out loads of bones. 'This dinosaur has alot of legs!' he says. 'The Mega-Legus!'
I crawl along into the massive tunnel to look for more dinosaur evidence and that is when I hear the noise; a sort of shuffling and growling, getting closer.
'There's something else down here,' I whisper. Dexter crawls into the tunnel. 'Listen.'
We put our ears to the wall of mud.
A hideous claw reaches through the tumbling dirt. There is some screaming, mostly from Dexter. We scrabble back too late. A pair of open jaws with long fangs clamped down over a Mega-Legus bone, shoves its way through the hole.
'There's masses of them!' screeches Dexter, 'it's an invasion!'
'WILFRED?!' calls a voice from above. 'WILFRED!' It's Mrs Next-Door.
'Get out of here!' I shout. 'Save yourself!'

'Why Do You Have a Jack-hammer In My Hallway?'

2007-12-02T12:20:00.000Z

The problem was that I just happened to mention, in passing, that I was mining myself a nice new bedroom and suddenly EVERYONE wants to do it. I tried to pretend that I was only talking about a film I had seen but Dexter was not having any of it. He said, 'my Dad, Dave, is a builder and has loads of useful tools up his sleeve and I can borrow some without him knowing.' You might think this would be useful.

That Saturday, Dad is helping Mum into a coat-tent so they can go and for a hospital appointment.
'Mrs Next-door is keeping an eye on you, Wilfred,' says Dad. 'And she will be round soon, so get any ideas.'
'What sort of ideas?' I ask, casually.
Dad glares at me but before he can begin on a long and boring list of banned activities, the doorbell boings.
'Hello, Dexter,' says Mum. 'What have you got there?'
Dexter heaves a giant scraper-thing into the hallway.
'It's a jack-hammer,' he says out loud.
Dad's eyebrows are working overtime. 'Why do you have a jack-hammer in my hallway?' he asks. I try and give Dexter the shut up secret signal. 'Stop fidgetting, Wilfred!'
'Because I am helping Wilf dig out a new bedroom.'
Mum laughs and then after a pause Dad joins in.
'Oh, that's alright then!' She laughs some more and it is starting to get a bit disturbing, so Dad heaves her out of the door and looks back with an eyebrow glare.
'Remember! No ideas!'

When I have punched Dexter and we have eaten some biscuits, we get to work. A jack-hammer is an ace tool. It jumps up and down really hard on any surface and goes actually deeper than you think. We had to sort of start it in the hall and it bounced around on the parquet for a while before we could catch it. Then we took it under the stairs and really got to work.
And it would have been fine, had Mrs Next-Door and her small dogs not turned up. It really would.

This Is How To Mine Your Own New Bedroom

2007-11-25T19:58:00.000Z

Back to below stairs and now I have to work fast to make a new room because the baby-child is bearly here. I do not know what Harry Potter was whingeing on about because apart from the vacuum cleaner (which I have re-invented as the 'Radivac' so that it is tuned into Radio 4) there is quite enough room to sit down and have a think, without even the bother of having to talk out loud. Still, there is not quite enough space for my sticks or my life size poster of Buzz Aldrin or actually a bed. So the plan is to go downwards. For this fantastic endeavour I have borrowed:

- a toasting fork
- two serving spoons
- Mum's trowell
- one of Dad's dental drills (he has a sad collection of them and will never notice)

I already have my underpants/mining lamp torch which still fits my head. I did think about inviting Dexter to help me but then he was ill with a sick bug. It is probably just as well.
This is how to mine your own new bedroom in three steps.

1. Rip up the existing floorboards using available tools. This is a tough job but the woody evidence can be hastily burnt on the fire in the sitting room.
2. Sift through layer of rubble for interesting artefacts and store for a later understairs world museum (you never know what you will find). Place uninteresting rubble in fire in the sitting room.
3. Dig out bare earth to required depth. This may take some time. For disposal, see above.

By the time Dad calls me for tea, I have disposed of the wood and 42 trowell loads of rubble. Time for a well deserved break.

Do Not Let Dexter Anywhere Near

2007-11-12T11:01:00.000Z

So, here is how you sort out stick insect poo from stick insect eggs.

1. Remove your sticks from their house (they will be quite unhappy about this and will show it if you look closely)

2. Tip out assorted eggs/poo onto some plain paper (newspaper gets really confusing).

3. Get bowl of water and drop some in. The eggs will sink and the poo will float. Remove eggs and leave to dry (do not use a hairdryer, like Dexter did).

4. Or, make a shape sorter. The poo is smaller than the eggs and will drop though a household sieve and leave the eggs (wash it afterwards but not with the eggy/poo water, like Dexter did)

5. Do not let Dexter anywhere near either of these processes.

6. Do not let Dexter do either of these processes in your guest bedroom.

7. Do not let Dexter do either of these processes in your guest bedroom and then get the vacuum cleaner out.

Job Done Then

2007-11-04T08:50:00.000Z

Two disasters have ocurred and they are nothing to do with me. I left Dexter in charge of the sticks while I was in New York.The Parents had given Dexter's parents a key so they could come in and make the house look busy while we were away. Turns out Dexter's parents left that job to Dexter as well.
So the first disaster was that the house seemed to have exploded.
'It's a well known burglary prevention method,' he explains. We are perching on the hall welcome mat which is the one tidy space in the house. Mum is waddling around, trying to put things back in cupboards and drawers.
'That was very kind of you, Dexter,' she says and if teeth can really be gritted, then hers were all ready for severe winter weather. 'But did you have to make everywhere quite so messy?'
'The thing is,' says Dexter, 'our house has been burgled twice and it's always really tidy not like your house.'
'Thankyou, Dexter and there was me tidying up before we left,' says Mum and she gives a hysterical little laugh.
'So, I thought I would make completely sure that any burglars would not even bother with your house because they would not want to sort through all the piles and stuff.'
Mum is rubbing her enormous stomach. 'Very thoughtful of you but you shouldn't have gone to so much trouble - I think I have to lie down now.'
'But were you burgled?' he asked.
Mum sighs and shakes her head.
'Job done then,' says Dexter.
I pull him up the stairs to my room. Inside, I point out the stick insect tank. 'I quite like the new non tidy arrangement,' I say to him lulling him into a false sense of me being happy to see him.
He shrugs his shoulders in a modest sort of way.
'But I do not like the fact that you were so busy untidyting the house that you forgot to feed the sticks.'
'Ah,' he says. 'Are they all right?'
We both peer in through the glass. The sticks are plastered to the side in a desperate sort of way. They have nibbled all the greenery I left for them.
'Look there,' I say pointing at the bottom of the tank.
'What?'
'It's covered.'
'What?'
'Covered in poo and EGGS!'
What?'
I sigh and lift the lid of the tank. 'The sticks were so stressed they all had babies and now YOU are going to sort out the babies from the poo.'
He pulls a face but does not run away. 'Poo eh? And babies? Hmmm.'
And I am not sure wether it is the poo or the eggs that interests him most. All I know is that there are four million of them and they all look nearly but not actually, the same.
Get that job done then.
P.S. The camera containing photos was almost instantly lost when we walked in through the door but hopefully not forever.

Daniel Radcliffe is Pretty Ancient Now

2007-10-24T19:48:00.000+01:00

Before I show you my photos from my enforced holiday, I have to tell you my latest plan. The Parents are having a new baby-child before Christmas and this, according to Dexter, is just like Jesus. I am not keen on having a baby, let alone a beardy-baby like Jesus but there we are. I am quite keen on building an underground room for myself so that I do not have to endure all the wailing and crying. It is unfortunate that I do not have a room on the ground floor because if I start digging now I will have to drop down through the sitting room and I think someone would notice. So, I am going to begin under the stairs. No one will see me there because it is already full of useless stuff that might come in handy one day AND if I am caught, I can just inform The Parents that I am rehearsing for the part of Harry Potter (they will love that) because Daniel Radcliffe is pretty ancient now and will probably want to retire before long.
Ig

Unfortunately I Have To Go To New York

2007-10-17T16:21:00.000+01:00

Yes, it is true. Before Mum gets too large and the airlines refuse to have her on a plane, The Parents have decided to take me to New York. Not the Florida Space Centre but New York where there is no Space Centre. But there we are. I will take some photographs of some interesting stuff and tell you about it. Here is a photograph I did not take but it looks quite good, so maybe it will be fun even without the Space Centre.

It Is A Hazard With This Experiment

2007-10-14T09:58:00.000+01:00

'FIRE! FIRE!' Jaspar screams out of the window, as though the black smoke pouring out of the house is not a big clue.
I ignore Jaspar's girl shrieks, take off my t-shirt and tie it round my nose and mouth. I can still hear the fire engine rumbling next door, putting out the bacon butty fire with real firefighters and professional water. I wonder for a second if I am doing the sensible thing. But HA! Is James Bond sensible? Is Superman sensible? Is Captain Underpants sensible? I THINK NOT. You would not catch one of them saying, "Hang on a mo, I had better leave this to someone who fights fires for an actual job."
Wilf the Wonderboy finds the back door and boldly knocks it down (it is open really). He strides like a complete non-sensible hero into a swirling fog of black smoke. He fights with a terrified wild animal and throws it into the wilderness (Blessed, the supremely fluffy white cat is a bit upset). He is about to hurl himself up the raging fiery stairway when he realises that there is no fire.
'PUT IT OUT!!' scream Jaspar from his bedroom retreat. 'I DIDN'T MEAN IT!'
I am utterly and absolutely amazed at what I see but first things first. I run up the stairs and just about drag Jaspar into the hall. 'I know what you were doing.'
Now it is Jaspar's turn to look utterly and totally amazed. 'You do??' He grabs my arm, 'you know about the first smoke-jack invented in 1770 by Peter Clare?'
I nod. 'I have made one of those but never that big and always in the back garden.'
'All that smoke, I thought I'd set fire to the whole house!'
'It is a hazard with this experiment,' I say, wisely.
There is the scrape of car tyres on gravel and the slamming of doors, followed by wailing. We both look at one another.
'My child! Where is my child?' MAC is on her way round the back.
'What about my child?' I can hear Mum saying.
Jaspar's eyes are big and round. 'You won't mention it then?' he says, 'Mum will FREAK!' I would quite like to see that but I can see he is close to pleading.
'Not for now,' I say. 'Not for as long as I can eat things without fear of bogies being added or go to sleep in beds free from toads and...'
'OK, I understand,' says Jaspar. 'It's a deal,' and he actually puts out his hand and we shake on it.
Jaspar and me reach the back door just as MAC and Mum turn up with a firefighter in tow.
'You alright, son?' he asks Jaspar. 'The smoke from these bacon butty fires can be quite nasty.'
'Yeah, I think it scared Blessed,' says Jaspar shuffling his feet around.
'What about you, Wilfred?' asks Mum.
'I was not scared at all, Mum,' I say, 'No we just fine, aren' t we, Jaspar?'
And I believe he smiles at me.

"to rescue or not to rescue?'

2007-10-06T10:34:00.000+01:00

So, here I am, with the bacon butty fire on the rage next door and my evil cousin, Jaspar raging in doors and I am thinking quite carefully about the question of,

"to rescue or not to rescue?"

I sit down and ponder the benefits of actually rescuing the evil one:

1. I will be a hero but I will not brag about it, just let it seep out so that one day at school, Dexter will point at a copy of the Stroud News and Journal I have left lying accidentally around and cry, 'Wilf, did you rescue that boy?'
And I will probably blush a bit and do a down-turned grin and say 'yes, it was nothing' in an offhand sort of way, 'let us continue playing conkers and not think about my utter bravery'.
But Dexter will throw down his champion golden nugget conker at my feet and say, 'you are fantastic and everyone in the school will know it!' And he will hurtle round the playground informing the gobsmacked multitudes of my heroism in the face of evil.
Or something like that.

2. Jaspar will be forever and a day grateful and will no longer play tricks on me. I will not have to endure toads in the bed or bogie toast or 'my name is Wilf and I need a home' stickers stuck to my back. In fact, Jaspar will be so grateful he will defend me against my aunt's sniffiness and take me on fossil hunting/apple scrumping/dog teasing trips in illegal back gardens and we will become actual friends and he will let me stay with him when the new baby-child gets a bit on top of me and he will even get to love the lawnmower.

3. MAC will fall upon me and never go near my aura again. MAC is a great one for showing her emotions and so will probably want to instantly make me her new son and change her will and give me a new bike.

Jaspar is still yelling and spluttering but I need to think this through, so I start to ponder the non-benefits of rescuing him:
1. Dexter will not care less.
2. Jaspar will not care less.
3. MAC will care a great deal and not in a good giving-lots-of-things-to-me kind of way

This is quite a knotty problem. However, I sigh and get to my feet. 'KEEP YOUR PANTS ON!' I yell, 'I'M COMING TO RESCUE YOU!'
'WELL, GET A MOVE ON YOU £%^&&&**!' the ungrateful one shouts back.
He is a trial.

Jaspar Expresses Himself

2007-09-28T15:43:00.000+01:00

You may or may not be interested in what happened to my evil cousin, Jaspar. I will tell you anyway.
He had been allowed to stay behind and not go to the stupid fairy exhibition at the Stroud museum. He was allowed to do this because he said he was doing something Expressive of Himself. And since Mad Aunt Caroline is mad keen on children expressing their natural tendencies she thought Jaspar could stay at home and express his.
So here is what happened.
When I ran away from having my aura cleaned, I had no other place to go than back to my cousin's house (before my evil cousins moved in, it was very popular). It is a big old house at the top of a very steep hill and by the time I got back I had stopped running and started sweating. So, there I was sweating along the narrow lane leading to the house when I see smoke whirling its way into the sky. I am always keen on fires so I speed up a bit. I can see smoke pouring out of Mr Pyman's kitchen window. Mr Pyman runs the parish council and does not eat meat for a living. MAC says he is her spiritual twin. I run into somebody large and reflective.
'Look out, son!' says the firefighter. 'Someone's set their bacon butty on fire. You need to clear the area!'
Now I know that those are the type of words you normally only hear on the TV, along with stuff like, "he needs fluids - stat!" or "you've got 24 hours before we throw the book at you!"
So I know it is serious. I clear the area by jumping into the next door neighbour's garden. From here, I can get into MAC's garden, no problemo. I am working my way up through the area of reflection which is the scrubby bit at the bottom of the garden, when I hear a voice. The voice says, 'HELP!' in capital letters but you can only just hear it because of the noise from the bacon butty fire. It is then that I hit the fog. It is thick and grey and makes me cough. Not fog then. More like smoke.
'HELP!!' screeches the voice from above me.
'Who is it?' I shout. And, 'where are you?' Although I have my suspicions.
'It's me, your cousin, Jaspar, you **!"£$&**.' I peer up through the smoke. 'I'm stuck in my @&&**$£@ bedroom! Get me down!'
Jaspar is obviously very good at expressing himself. Question is, should I bother actually rescuing him?

Dame Honoria Glossop has Given me Some Homework

2007-09-22T20:20:00.000+01:00

Dame Honoria Glossop has given me some homework and since I do not want to do my actual spellings homework, I am doing this.

How many books do I have?
The Parents have at least 4 million books and most of those are stacked up on the stairs leaving only a tiny weeny gap to walk through. And, Mum goes mad if you dislodge her piles.
I actually have nearly 50 books and they are all on actual book shelves.

What was the last book you bought?
My quite nasty cousins, Skye and Jaspar, bought me a very bad baby-child book of inventions for my birthday (just gone). They did it on purpose and I even had to say thankyou which was evil. My proper present came fromGrandpa Jack and is about proper inventions made in the Victorian times.

Last book I read
I was force-read, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' by The Parents but maybe that does not count. Neither does, 'Maths - Excercises for Book 4' or 'Look Around! Geography Goes Wild' or 'What the Romans Really Did for Us' because these are all school books. The last book I actually chose to read was, 'Biggles Learns to Fly' and this was utterly fantastic.

Special Books

The Parents read 'Mog' to me when I was a deadly annoying baby-child. I had to listen to Mog again and again and again until The Parents got so fed up they bought me an actual cat. We still have her and her name is, Serena which is a bit different to Mog.

'Moonfleet' has it all; smuggling, adventure, evil ghosts and action. I really liked it but Dad did not because he had to do at least 5 different funny voices in an old-fashioned english language.
It took a record six weeks for him to read. Actually I know Dad really likes it because he told me Grandpa Jack read it to him when he was a boy. So there we are.

Buzz Aldrin is very special for too many reasons to actually mention but here are a few. I will also go into space when I am a bit older.

I now have to let some other people have a go. So, Nicky and Horton and Alan might want to try.

How Many Sticks Can You See?

2007-09-20T21:21:00.001+01:00

How many sticks can you see?

Here are some more stick pics. They are sitting in the fishtank lid while I muck them out. They did not try to escape or even attack. And they have all their legs which is good.

A Shy Stick

2007-09-15T10:29:00.000+01:00

I have managed to photograph my sticks. On the whole they do not seem to mind having their pictures taken; in fact they do not seem to mind anything very much. The first picture shows the back end of a stick and actually he is being quite shy.

ALL of them poo at an amazing rate and if I did not change the paper every week they would probably begin to mind that.

They also grow quickly. I will have to change the fishtank they are in very soon because it is actually meant for one small goldfish and not five 6cm long sticks. If I do not give them climbing room they will become stressed and their legs start dropping off like nobodys business.

I Expect His Aura is Having a Crisis

2007-09-04T10:02:00.000+01:00

My smallest evil cousin, Skye insisted on only going round the fairytale art exhibition at the Sroud Museum. This was a tragedy, since it meant I did not get to see Edward Beard Budding and his lawnmower for any great length of time. I could not sneak off and gawp at what I wanted to gawp at because Mad Aunt Caroline insisited that we all fill out a museum worksheet (they were called funsheets but they were not fun) and discuss our findings with her and Mum. I do not know how my oldest evil cousin, Jaspar, managed to escape but he did. More of him, later.

Anyway, so we are at the Museum and I only catch little glimpses of the great EBB but there is ice-cream on offer at the end of the Museum ordeal. To speed things up a bit, I write down, 'I do not care' to questions like,
'How is red cloth dyed red?'
'What is your favourite fairy?'
and 'no' to commands like,
'Draw yourself as a servant in the eighteenth century'
'Dress yourself as an elf and then find a fellow elf to play with.'

MAC and Mum purse their lips like cats' bottoms when they examine my worksheet.
'You weren't really trying were you?' says Mum, sitting down in the tiny cafe and rubbing her now biggish stomach.
'Nope,' I say. 'I am on my holiday.'
Mum looks at MAC in a, 'see what I have to deal with' sort of way.
MAC plasters a smile on her face and says, 'I expect his aura is having a crisis.'
I notice that, Evil Cousin Skye has drawn stupid lines all over her paper. 'What about her aura?' I ask, pointing an accusing finger at Skye's worksheet. 'She's just scribbled all over hers!'
MAC looks as though she is about to faint and Skye actually gasps and says, 'these are my lines of wonderment!' she says it as though it is totally and utterly obvious to anyone what they are.
'Eh?' I ask in a reasonable way.
MAC fans herself with a paper napkin and Skye tuts. 'I take my pencil and I trace where my inner baby guides me.'
Even Mum looks boggled.
I laugh, long and loud. 'That is the funniest thing I have heard since we got into the Museum,' I sputter in a witty way.
MAC sweeps her orange sari around her. She pats Mum on the knee and looks at me. 'We may have to try some rebirthing for your son. It could be the only way to restore his balance.'
'I do not think I will bother with the ice-cream,' I say, 'see you back at the house.'
And I run.

A Holiday in Stroud

2007-08-20T18:07:00.001+01:00

Tomorrow, I am going to Stroud for a 'holiday' with Mad Aunt Caroline and my evil cousins. The photo shows what people in Stroud look like for most of the time. It will be a sad day and I think there will be a lot of shouting and sulking and I will not be too happy either. I am back just in time for school. Hooray!!! (I do not think). The one good thing about Stroud is Edward Beard Budding. I will expect to go to the local museum to take a look at his fantastic invention and his brilliant sideburns.

Dead Sheep 2

2007-08-19T11:16:00.001+01:00

I have decided to re-rename Scotland. I have actually called it, The Land of the Midge but now it must be called the Land of the Sheep. They are everywhere, roads, gardens, bridges, nuzzling their way into shops and front doors. And they are not very fluffy and white. All the sheep I saw looked as though they had been fighting with a bad-tempered shearer and also their bottoms were always green or brown or both. The picture shows you the correct end of a sheep to look at.
Anyway, that is not to mention the ones that were dead. These were probably the ones who thought:
a. they did not want a bad hair cut
b. or to end up as something unspeakable at the local pub (The Jac-o-Bite) and so trotted off.
We found a drowned one, a half eaten one and one on a beach. All dead. I have done a little photo montage of the beach dead sheep and if you do not want to look at that you can always look at the views of Skye also inside each photo.

Dead Sheep

2007-08-19T11:07:00.000+01:00

A Trick or Two

2007-07-31T19:58:00.000+01:00

I have a good trick for you before I go on holiday. I call it, Knock Yourself Out. Dexter showed me this.
Let us say you have a back door and let us also say that the top half of your back door is see-through. This bit is necessary so that the person you are playing the trick on can actually see the trick. You hear someone at the see-through back door. Is it someone you want to speak to? No. It is old Mr Thompson who is not overly fond of you because of your youthful lack of backbone and dreadful manners. So, you approach the see-through back door with a charming smile and just as you go to open the door you kick it with your foot whilst also appearing to knock your head on the glass. Brilliant! You reel back and collapse on the floor and therefore do not have to speak to old Mr Thompson! After a while he will shuffle off muttering about feeble youth and manners or somesuch.

Warning: Some people might want to ring for an ambulance. If you hear screaming or shouting - jump up, brush yourself down and laugh. It all depends. I am very happy to hear about more great tricks like this one. I think I will put them all together in an informative pamphlet.

Meanwhile I am off to the land of the midge and horrible food for a so-called holiday.

Playing Tag

2007-07-31T09:35:00.001+01:00

I have been tagged by two people which is quite tricky because I now have to go off and tag 13 others and I do not know that many people. Tag is usually a game that I leave to the baby-children in the infants but since this does not involve me running around and hitting and shouting (actually it sounds like fun now), I suppose I will do it.

A.This 1st one is a Moaning Meme
I have been tagged by Scarlett at Wanderlustscarlett. Here goes:
5 people who will be really annoyed you tagged them.
- Angry Graham will be be really annoyed
- Jude at will be mildly irritated as will
- Anita who is on holiday
- My godmother, Claire may not speak to me again (hee hee)
- Alan who will probably ignore it

4 things to go into Room 101 and be removed from the face of the earth
- organic vegetables (I feel sick just thinking about them)
- the school bus (ingrained vomit and windows rusted shut)
- my unspeakable cousins, Jaspar and Skye
- Mrs Trundle's high powered laser whistle (with Mrs Trundle attached if possible)

3 things that people do that make you want to shake them violently
- baby-children clinging onto your legs (it's the only way to get rid of them)
-Dexter walking so close behind me, he trips up if I actually stop
- people calling themselves Alan

2 things that you find yourself moaning about
- stick insects not eating properly
- not having enough money to buy sweets- ever

1 thing the above answers tell you about yourself
- I am a saint
There are rules to follow:
-Link to the original meme at freelance cynic
-Be honest
-No insults
-Post rules

B. The 2nd tag is from Dame Honoria Glossop and it is 8 random facts about myself. Here goes:
- I actually like brussels sprouts as long as they are not organic
- I do not have a beard but they seem to run in the family
- I believe stick insects are the greatest pets in the universe
- My actual real name is Wilfred Henry Augustine Marshall but I prefer Buzz
- I have three lawnmowers in my collection now, including a Hayter 19"
- For the first three years of my underpant wearing life, I refused to wear them
- My hair is unnaturally curly
- I am an alien (not really)

There are rules:
-link to the tagger
-write 8 random facts about yourself
-taggee to post rules and 8 facts
-tag 8 other people

I tag:
Angry Graham - he is going to explode
Joe at Undead Flowers
Horton
Sue
Saleeha
Jack
Colleen
Meloney

I am Force-Read Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows

2007-07-22T16:35:00.000+01:00

I must interrupt my exciting time at the medical museum because of two things. The first is the force-reading of the new Harry Potter book and the second is a game of tag.

The Parents have read to me since I was a broad bean but I do not remember any of those books because, no matter what anyone tells you, you cannot understand a great many words when you are a broad bean. I think this fact was a little disappointing to The Parents and so they tried to make up for it by forcing as many words as possible into my ears whenever they could. There was never a time when I could not remember Mum or Dad without a book in their hands next to my bed. So far, so good. BUT, when I was three, it was not always, 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' or 'We're Going on a Bearhunt', oh no, this was when they started on Harry Potter; for example, 'The Philosopher's Stone' took six months for my father to read to me and I still do not really know what happened in it but I do know HP won. Mum read 'The Chamber of Secrets' and because I was a little older, she also bought three little educational games that she and Dad would demonstrate, alot. By the time we got to 'The Goblet of Fire' I was expected to perform a full bodied patronus and sum up the plot. After the reading of 'The Order of the Phoenix', the Parents secretly joined Mugglenet on my behalf so that I could 'keep up with the action'. I did try reading, 'The Half-Blood Prince ' by myself ( I can read) but The Parents insisted we all read it together because, 'the death of Dumbledore might be too much for us, I mean you to bear.' I coped.
The action figures and lego model of Hogwarts were completed for me when I was seven and are now sitting in The Parents' bedroom- for safekeeping. The Hogwarts Express, which Dad keeps in the cellar with his teeth collection, now has a really good station and real water pond (with merpeople) which Dad says he is building for when I am old enough. Mum's matchstick Hogwarts castle is nearly complete. Whenever anybody asks them what I would like for my birthday or christmas, they nearly always say in an offhand sort of way, 'oh anything to do with inventing or space or if you're really stuck maybe a wand, 12 and a half inches, dragonheartstring and blackthorn, slightly whippy.'
Anyway, I am not far off 10 and they are expecting another broad bean and in a desperate bid to make themselves popular with me again; they have just ended a weekend of force-reading of HP7, with voices and home-made costumes and everything. It has been a long battle but now it is over.
Good-bye Harry Potter, I will miss you but I think The Parents will miss you more - the things they do for love.

On the Way to the School Trip

2007-07-12T08:01:00.000+01:00

This time we are going to a medical museum. This is quite handy because at least three people are sick on the school bus. Oliver-James is the first to go (of course) followed by The Weed (Joshua Harcourt) and then because she is sandwiched in front of the weed and behind OJ - Miranda!!! Ha-ha-ha (cold laughter, she is still unforgiven after the Looking After The Sticks episode). It is all terrible really because the bus STINKS of the new sick combined with the left over sick from all the other school trips and I cannot bring myself to finish off Dexter's pack-up like I want to.

He has :
3 x packets of crisps all salt and vineagar
2 x slabs of chocolate cake
2 x packets of lunchables
3 x packets of polos (to stop sickness)
2 x bottles of lemonade
1 x manky apple

I have:
1 x wholemeal roll with cheese and grated carrot spilling out of it
1 x homemade carrot cake
1 x carrot
water with added carrot (joke)

Anyway, the really good thing about this School Trip is NO TRUNDLE. After last year when she was snubbed by Helen Sharman at the Science Museum, she went into a massive sulk and said that she would be too busy doing other things to go anywhere where children were involved or the school bus was involved (see picture) and definitely not both together.
So this year it is Mr Bagnall. Mr Bagnall believes that all children have an inner core of wonderfulness and that sometimes you have to dig quite deep to find the inner core but it is always there. His first name is Earnest which is worse than Alan but quite a lot better than Wilfred. As it turns out, my actual name at the museum is James Wilson and I am a servant and I catch diptheria - so quite a good day. More later.

A Badly Drawn Broad Bean

2007-07-06T23:02:00.000+01:00

There are now five stick insects and two of them are sickly yellow in colour and bigger than the other black ones who have legs like feeble spiders. They are all 5cm in length. None of them do much - not when I observe them anyway. I have a sneaking suspicion that the moment my back is turned they turn on the disco lights and leap about to unsuitable music. Also, they do not eat. I keep putting in ivy leaves and bramble leaves but they just stare at the food and do not lift even one leg towards them. If I only start to get the tin opener out of the drawer, Serena my cat, savages my body. But not the sticks. I must take a photo so I have actual evidence of them eating.
Mum and Dad brought home a photo the other day. They went to the hospital to have it taken. It was black and white and looked like a badly drawn broad bean. They have put it in a frame and have informed me that it is a baby. Ugh. Then they gave me a copy for my bedroom. My bedroom is welcome to it, I say. If they are trying to get me to like it they are going about it in a funny way.

Mad Aunt Caroline has been phoning me for little 'chats' which is v v disturbing.
'You know your dear parents are unhappy that you are unhappy, Wilfred,' she says and her voice drips with Concern.
I stay quiet. I do not want to talk to her but I know The Parents are hiding behind the kitchen door, waiting. I wonder if the sticks are even now having a party and nibbling snacks.
'You must try and be kinder to them, Wilfred. Stress is not good for the baby, you know.'
I grunt a bit. I have to make some sort of noise. Stress is not good for the sticks either, I think. Maybe that is why they are spurning my leaves.
'Talk to me, Wilfred - tell me what troubles you,' she coos.
I must go and look after the sticks. It turns out that their legs drop off in times of stress. 'Can you tell me how babies are made?' I ask her. It is like a dam bursting.
'Of course! Darling! Just listen and I'll tell you everything...' and she is off.
And so am I.

Fascinating Invention no.14 - The Indoor Flushing Toilet

2007-06-29T07:52:00.000+01:00

At school we call them the 'toilets' (see left). Grandpa jack has a 'lavvie'; at home we have a 'loo' and the metal space capsule with the automatic swishing door, in the middle of our market square is a 'W.C.' There are lots of different names for it but they are all the same thing - the indoor flushing toilet.
The boys' toilets at school are always flooding. This is because certain people do not stick to putting the normal stuff into them but like to experiment with stuff like, smuggled out school dinner or Oliver-James' P.E. socks (they are massive) or four million paper towels. Of course, the flush cannot cope and the water floods out causing the caretaker to break out the lifeboats and Mrs Trundle to break out her high-powered assassin's rifle. I think the caretaker should be happy he does not have to deal with clearing out 248 chamber pots or the stinking tanks from outhouses but for some reason he does not seem to appreciate the history lesson.In about 1596 Sir John Harington may have invented the first flushing toilet for Queen Elizabeth 1. He was her godson and while everybody else thought it was a stupid smelly idea, the Queen was supposed to have had a go on one. Nobody can be certain because he did not leave a toilet to put in a museum and they did not catch on; maybe the queen just got annoyed because when it went wrong there were no plumbers around to unblock blockages because Sir John had failed to invent plumbers at the same time. Whatever happened it was not until 1775 that Alexander Cummings got an English patent for putting a water trap under a bowl (see diagram). GENIUS! But this 'wash out' toilet stayed outside the house until the Victorian times when everything changed. The new 'wash down' toilet came with a jet flush. Woo -hoo. There were lots of companies making toilets then and they were all decorated like flowerpots to make you think that going to the toilet was actually quite a fragrant and royal thing to do. In fact this was the time when ordinary people who had been having a poo for centuries, realised that the Queen actually went to the toilet as well. Queen Victoria asked Thomas Crapper's company to install actual toilets in her palace which as well as shocking a great many ordinary people also made Crapper a household name. The toilet has never looked back. My cousin, Jaspar still likes to pee in the back garden which does not please Mum but is one of the things about him that actually does not bother me.

A Distraction from the Big Thing

2007-06-21T14:50:00.000+01:00

To distract myself from the Big Thing I am working on the invention of the flushing toilet.
In the meantime here is a picture of The Parents who are now alien creatures to me and live on the distant Planet Parent. From now on I will only answer to the name of Buzz as in Buzz Aldrin - let us see how much they like that.
I now have three hatched stick insects. They are 2cm in length and surprisingly chirpy. Babies are nothing to them.

It Is All My Cousins' Fault

2007-06-13T18:08:00.000+01:00

So Ok, I will tell you but first I have to let you know that it is all my cousins' fault. See the trouble was, they came round, which was quite weird as well as being a complete disaster because I am told to entertain Skye and Jaspar while the adults go and discuss Something Important. This is a terrible thing because:

a. The adults go and drink coffee and eat very expensive biscuits
b. Skye and Jaspar are fiends in human form
c. I need to look after my stick insects
I am not at all keen to combine b and c. but I would much rather put a and b together and see how they like it.

I cannot do that, so I decide to do the next best thing and that is to take the fiends in human form to be entertained in The Parents bedroom. I show them the wardrobe and the ensweet bathroom but they are not particularly entertained. I then very politely offer them the use of The Parents' bed for bouncing purposes and Jaspar starts to snigger.

'Bet they made it here!' he says and he starts making stupid 'ooh' and 'aah' noises.
'It takes a fraction of a second to do it,' says Skye.
She has adopted the lotus position and her brother begins bouncing and she is flying up whenever her brother comes down.
'What?' I ask.
'He-bounce-doesn't-bounce-know,' says Jaspar.
'bounce-we've-bounce-known-bounce-for two-bounce-whole months,' says Skye.
'Shut up,' I say, a bit disturbed. 'You do not know anything!'
'Au contraire,' says Skye, and she flies off the bed, completing a complicated double turnover in the air. Sadly, she lands on her tiny pink princess feet. 'WE KNOW EVERYTHING.'
'Up to and including how babies are made,' says Jaspar, beating the feathers out of the pillow.
I am relieved. I have known how babies are made since before I was born. The Parents made sure of that.
'I know that,' I say and allow a smug smile to pass my lips.
'Then you'll know how your Mum and Dad made a baby,' says Skye. 'A new one. Newer than you.'
I think I might have screamed and wiped the smug smile off my own face but I cannot remember much apart from feathers flying.

Nobody Asked Me

2007-06-12T18:37:00.000+01:00

So this BIG thing is just about as big an explosion as you can imagine happening to me. And it really is not fair because nobody asked me.

Something BIG has Occurred

2007-06-11T18:14:00.000+01:00

Something BIG has occurred. Eek.

Fascinating Invention No.13 - Bakelite, The Fantastic Plastic!

2007-05-26T21:21:00.001+01:00

The Science Museum (where else?) has a fantastic plastic exhibition . Bakelite is the first plastic and was invented by Leo Baekeland in 1907, so, 100 years ago.

There was a time before plastic and it was a time made of wood and stone and glass. Of couse, The Parents still disapprove of plastic but you cannot have a phone made out of stone (too heavy) or electricity cables covered in wood (too burny) or glass Spiderman lunch boxes (too smashy).
Leo Baekeland made masses of money with some other fantastic invention and moved to a place called, Snug Rock where he spent years thinking about insulators. You may think this sounds very boring and it probably was but somebody needed to think about it because the beetles were getting tired.
For centuries, Laccifer lacca beetles beetled away making a varnish called Shellac - course, they were just the insect slaves of some people who ordered them about and made the money and probably did not give the beetles anything. But by 1904 it got worse; the beetles had to work overtime because everyone needed a coating for the all new and exciting electrity cables. The beetles just could not keep up and would probably have started a union or organised a strike or gone off work with stress if the first manufactured plastic had not been invented.

To do this, Baekeland used a machine called a 'bakeliser'. This was like a giant pressure cooker which could muck about with chemical gunk and make it into a mouldable substance. So plastic was invented and no more Shellac was needed.
The beetles could retire.

Fascinating Invention No.12 - The Super-powered exo-skeleton

2007-05-17T15:55:00.000+01:00

If you cannot get hold of a jet pack, then get an exoskeleton because they are pretty good as well. Let me explain. If you take a close squint at the picture of the forklift-truck/fire-extinguisher outfit, you will realise that this is not an actual robot but a person with machinery attached to him or in this case a her because this is a picture of Sigourney Weaver from the film 'Aliens', when Dad says she is, 'not looking her best'. OBVIOUSLY I have not seen this fantastic looking film and have stored it up as one of the forbidden films to be watched round Dexter's house; but I can only think that if I was a girl (shudder) and I was fighting an alien monster (cool) I would not be very worried about if I had the right lipstick on. The point is that the exoskeleton she is wearing means she is able to lift a small car like a bag of sugar and that must be quite handy when it comes to destroying something bigger than you.

The Americans have been working on real exoskeletons (ES). They also want to use them to destroy things, probably aliens if they can find them. The first proper one was developed in 1965 by General Electric and was called 'Goliath'. This one was not very good because they could only get one arm to move at all. So if you wanted to be able to wave, for example a flag, for days on end, then Goliath would have been up for it. If both legs started moving at once, though it lead to "violent and uncontrollable motion" - bit like Dad when he is trying to dance (shudder). They also made the 'Millenium Jet' which is like a one person air-car and you can wear jeans to have a go in this.

Good things about ES: Enough power to lift a small elephant.
Can run as fast as a cheetah on an off day.
Bad things about ES: Enough power to squish the person strapped inside the ES
Not enough power to go for longer than one minute in the air-car. This means NO trips to Tesco and definitely NO room for shopping bags anyway.

Looks cool though.

They Can Only Mean Trouble

2007-05-08T21:40:00.000+01:00

Aunt Caroline-call-me-Caz is a strain. I wish she looked like a proper aunt, like Queen Victoria but she does not. She is the little sister of my mum and completely the opposite to her. Mum is medium sized and has brown hair she likes to keep out of her face; Call-me-Caz is HUGE and has yellow hair with pink ends and it flies around her face in wispy waves. Mum says she has a big personality- whatever that means - I think she is just really annoying. For example, everything changes in the house when she comes to visit:
a. the smell - her perfume is called 'Mountain Air' and whiffs like toilet cleaner mixed with pepper
b. the noise - she is always giving advice all over the place in a voice set permanently at unearthly screech
c. the horror -my cousins, Skye and Jaspar are most likely in the near area destroying something
But the really worrying thing is that she only comes for a reason. Really, the only good thing about her is her van (see above).

'It's my aunt and cousins,' I explain to Dexter. 'They can only mean trouble.'
Dexter pulls a face. 'What, more trouble than ruining the Christmas market or discovering aliens or pressing the button at the Science Museum. That was a lot of trouble.'
'Yes,' I nod. 'More trouble than even that.'
He throws his bike to the ground and it tips over a large flower pot full of pansies made specially for Mum and Dad by Mrs Next-Door.
'What sort of trouble then?' He bends down and sort of brushes the pansies into a neat pile.
'Dunno.'
Skye's white-blond hair pokes out of the front door. Her blue eyes widen. 'You've murdered all those Viola x wittrockiana!'
Dexter brushes his hands. 'Eh? Wasn't me...'
She starts to wail. 'Mummmmmeeeee, Wilfred has killed the beautiful fleurs!'
She runs back into the house and her screams of anguish start off Mrs Next-Doors yap-dog. His little yappy head bobs up and down over the fence between our two gardens. Any moment now and Mrs Next-Door will be out with her big nose, clapping eyes on the pansies and there will be even more trouble - I have to stop the yapping.
So, I run to the fence and grab the yap-dog mid leap and it is so surprised that it stops yapping and starts wriggling like a big hairy sausage under my armpit. I had not really thought what I would do with the yap-dog once I had caught it.
I turn to Dexter. 'You see!'
There is no sign of him or his bike. Yes well. But my cousin, Jaspar is standing there watching me and laughing.
'What have you got that for?' he asks, pointing at my doggy armpit decoration.
I can hardly hear him above the crying and thundering footsteps coming from inside the house. Even as I hesitate, I also catch a glimpse of Mrs-Next-Door's curtain twitching.
The yap-dog starts again.
'In 'ere, quick!' says Jaspar holding the upturned flowerpot.
I do not stop to think but bundle the yappy hairy animal beneath the pot and sit on it.
'Is this what you are teaching my nephew, John? Is it? is it really?' Call-me-Caz has a bangled arm held up to her mouth in horror at my criminal dog-sitting. My parents are struggling to see round her sail sized dress. Skye is weeping over the wilting pansies and Mrs Next-Door is pointing a withered finger in my direction. I need hardly add that Jaspar is still laughing.
This is going to be a long day.

Fascinating Invention No. 11 - The Jet Pack

2007-04-30T15:35:00.000+01:00

I am fantastically excited by the jet-pack! The idea started in the 1920s with a comic strip hero called Buck Rogers but his jet pack was more of a jet belt so he could jump about a bit and wave in an exciting way. By the time you get to James Bond and 'Thunderball' jet packs were worn on the back and involved a suit and tie. They used jets of gas to make the hero swoosh about.

Real jet packs were also really thought about during the second world war. The Germans eveloped the Himmelsturmer (Skystormer) This was so German soldiers could cross minefields, barbed wire and raging rivers. It was probably a great deal more interesting than going round things or using a bridge.
The American army got very excited about the whole thing and in 1969 Bell Aerosystems developed the actual jump belt. A pilot called Robert Courter flew about 100 metres in a circle as high as 7 metres at 45 miles per hour which is excellent but also a bit useless. The jet pack was a good idea but too mad and too difficult to spend a load of money on.

Problems with the jet pack:
-flight time is very short
-it is quite dangerous to actually strap jet propellant near to your body
-if the jet propellant did something nasty like explode the hero pilot would not be high enough to use a parachute and would land on the ground very fast, resulting in strawberry jam
-very difficult to fly anywhere other than up, maybe firefighters could use them for high tech cat rescuing.

So, apart from rescuing cats, you can use the jet pack like they do at Rocket Man, where you can hire somebody to leap in the air to make people buy stuff. The other place to really use it is in space. In space less thrust is needed because there is no gravity. NASA has emergency rocket packs which mean that if an astronaut falls out of his module or some evil space villain throws him out or maybe he has to carefully manouvre himself about in space in order to foil a plot to blow up the earth, then he can use his rocket pack or Manned Maneuvering Unit.

This is all very well but of course, the only true rocket man is Buzz Aldrin

The Ground Will Make Your Pancreas Ache

2007-04-21T10:12:00.000+01:00

The pancreas was discovered by Herophilus (335-280 BC), a Greek surgeon but he did not bother to call it anything. A few hundred years later, Ruphos, another Greek anatomist, gave the pancreas its name. 'Pancreas' comes from the Greek pan, "all", and kreas, "flesh" which sounds as disgusting as it looks, like something bad from Dr Who.

Because I think it is Dexter bashing at the front door, I open it. Aunt Caroline (102) is sort of floating on the doorstep and The Unspeakable Cousins are pulling up Mum's daffodils. I think I scream but I cannot be sure because I am suddenly enveloped in purple dress and perfume and bosom.
I can just about hear my cousin Jaspar (9) say, 'I'm hungry!' and then everything starts to go black.
When I come round, I am lying in the garden and my other cousin Skye (4) is looking down on me. She has her bad fairy outfit on and a sparkly tiara jammed into her fluffy white hair. She pokes me with a silver wand.
'Get up,' she orders, 'the ground will make your pancreas ache.'
I cannot think of anything to say to this, apart from, "what is a pancreas?" but I do not say this because she is just a baby-child and should not know what a pancreas is before me and anyway she has gone into the house. I think very carefully about running away but I think for too long. Dad appears in the doorway and hisses. 'What are you doing lying about? Your cousins are here!' As though I was just dozing on the pancreas-ache-making ground and must have missed them. He hauls me to my feet and looks about him as though more aunts and cousins are going to spring out of bushes at any second. He is nervous - he'll start blaming me for stuff any moment. I can see Dexter weaving down the road on his new new bike. I want to warn him about the danger but all my trainee spymaker training is lost in the pain of Dad's Vulcan death grip.
His beard bristles. 'Why didn't you warn me they were coming? I'm in the middle of some teeth sorting and I've still got to mount Baden-Powell's molar...she'll want me to look at their teeth again...'
'I did not know they were coming until they were here,' I explain but it is no good.
He is ranting now about children and teeth and I just hope that Dexter has the sense to run away. At the doorway to hell, I hear the thumps and screeches that tell me Jaspar has found our cat, Serbena; daffodils lie strewn along the hallway; Aunt Caroline's laugh is billowing through the house.
Dad's grip tightens. 'Why did you pick all those daffodils, Wilfred?'
'We'll stay until the moon rises high in the sky, darling!' I hear Aunt Caroline say in her sing-song mystical sort of voice.
Dad's face is purple.
'Hello - what's up?' Dexter appears with his Bad Boyz cycle helmet on. It makes him look like a fat alien.
'And why is he here as well?' Dad shrieks. He points his finger at me. 'I blame you for this, Wilfred.' He stomps off into the kitchen.
Dexter shrugs. 'Problem?' he asks.
'You could say that,' I reply.
I think I can feel my pancreas beginning to ache.

Here is my Holiday Report

2007-04-11T18:11:00.000+01:00

Here is my holiday report:
We went to London, mostly to get away from my Aunt Caroline and The Unspeakable Cousins. My Aunt is madder than a wet cat and that is pretty mad. We are still traumatised from the last visit (more later). For now here is the best bit.

We went to the wondrous Science Museum and I am now stuffed full of important spying knowledge. I still have my plastic security card and it has a magnetic strip and everything. So, now it is true that I am officially a trainee Spymaker agent; even though it says I only have temporary security clearance and my supercomputer rating is untested (not true, I actually scored 82% on my data retrieval from the supercomputer which is a lot better than Dad who scored a rubbish 23% and Mum who was having a coffee in the cafe, so gets -0%). My official spy number is 007, no not really, that was a joke, it is 2237. I am therefore only 2230 plastic security cards away from having a licence to kill people.
Cool.
My trainee Spymaker agent card says "Carry this Agent ID with you at all times. Never let it out of your sight". This is all very well but I do not have a pocket in my pyjamas and even if I did, I'm not sure I would be able to use it because then my ID card would be out of my sight and who knows what might happen.

Anyway, this is how becoming a spy works:
a. recruitment - practice getting embarrassing information about people at home and school e.g. go through the drawers in Mrs Trundle's office to find exotic hodliday brochures which she will try and pass off as 'edcuational exchange visits'. Then pass this info on to anybody willing to pay for it, e.g Mrs Trundle. That is a good start OR you can check out the MI5 and MI6 websites (which is a bit more boring)
b.training -are you cunning and resourceful? Can you spot a liar? Can you rumage around in rubbish and find non-smelly important stuff. If so, you are either dead right for a spy or you are my cat, Serena (that's not right, she likes smelly).
c.technology - this makes a spy's life easier. Frankly it makes anyone's life easier. Who needs school when you can absorb information through a chip under your skin designed to let you suck up important but boring lessons like, 'The Romans at Homes' or 'The Water Cycle - let's learn!'. Or you could use a micro air vehicle, an insect spy (I knew that one) or leave intelligent water just lying around ready to absorb your enemy's fingerprints or get your face scanned in a facial recognition system so that no door (except ordinary ones with locks and keys) is closed to you. My favourite is the super-powered spy leg and I have to tell you about this in more detail later, so do not run away (ha ha).
d. mission - it's up to you really but here are mine. e.g. find out what Mrs Next-Door is up to with all that concrete; find a way of keeping Aunt Caroline from ever visiting again; solve forever the mysteries of alien crop circles (wait, I think I have done that).

Anyway, the holiday was too short and now it is back to the prison of school and it is vegetable medley tonight.

Fascinating Eggy Facts for Easter

2007-04-04T18:08:00.000+01:00

The largest egg in the world is an ostrich egg and this can measure up to 20cm in length and 15cm round. It probably has the strongest shell in the world and if 4 of me and 2 of Dexter could stand on it (bit tricky) it would not even crack. Also, the ostrich egg would take the longest to boil at about 40 minutes to make it a dippy soldier egg (soft-boiled)and not one of those disappointing bouncy-yolk eggs (hard-boiled).

On the subject of eating eggs, the most bouncy-yolk eggs eaten in one go is 14 in 58 seconds and the most dippy soldier eggs eaten in one go is 32 in 78 seconds.

The most eggs laid by one bird is 361 in 364 days. The was a Black Orpington called Princess Te Kawan. Crazy name, crazy chicken.

Fascinating Eggy Tradition

Grandpa Jack is a great one for 'jarping' and he taught me. This is a bit like playing conkers but using eggs. So you get your dippy-soldier eggs on Easter morning and you say to your neighbour at the breakfast table,
'I say, Happy Easter and all that and how about a bit of jarping?'
And hopefully your neighbour is a bit none the wiser and says,
'Of course, you go first,' because he does not know how to do it. So you can have first bash at his egg which is important because the winner is the one who pulverises the other egg into tiny eggy pieces. My record is 5 eggs in 10 seconds. Eggtastic.

Jarping can get pretty messy.

Funny Eggy Jokes

Q. What kind of egg lives by the sea?
A. An egg shell.
(Dexter told me that one, it is not brilliant but it does involve an egg)

Q. What did the eggs do when the traffic lights turned green?
A. Egg-celerate.

Q. How do monsters like their eggs?
A. Terri-fried.

Q. How did the egg get up the mountain?
A. It scrambled up.

Q. Who wrote Great Eggspectations?
A. Charles Chickens.

And last but not least my Fascinating Eggy Invention

Simon Rhymes, thought up the idea for the Bulb Egg Maker while studying project design at Bournemouth University. He experimented with more than 600 eggs and now says he can now produce a perfect boiled egg in six minutes.

He uses high-powered halogen bulbs to cook the egg before slicing the top off and dipping his toast soldiers in.

Maybe you could just stick an egg under a light bulb for half an hour and it will cook but then it would not look like it was going to be transported across time and space in that fantastic glowing egg chamber.

I want one.

HAPPY EASTER!

Fascinating Inventions No.10 - The Remote Control

2007-03-28T14:36:00.000+01:00

Wallace and Gromit and the Patent Office are doing an invention competition for primary schools. I will be taking all the information into Mrs Trundle, the head-teacher and part-time assassin, tomorrow. Apparantly someone has already thought of a tiny ladder to let spiders climb out of the bath. Hmm, I say the drain is good enough for them. Grandpa Jack invented the horse-flap which is a bit like the cat-flap but bigger. He is mad on horses. The winning invention will be turned into a model for Aardman studios - Cool!

Talking of brilliant inventions, here's one - the TV remote control. Robert Adler was the fantastic inventor of the TV remote control. The Parents would probably say that this invention was one of the crimes against humanity because:
a. it makes watching the TV easier and so you watch even more of it than is good for you; in fact you watch it until you develope strange shaped eyes and all your brains are sucked out
b. it makes you lazier and fatter and unfit until one day you cannot move from the sofa to do anything, even when you lose the remote control through no fault of your own and have to endure hours of watching stuff you are not keen on, like The News and Gardening is Really Interesting or Schools Programme - Granny TimeTraveller reports from the Battle of Hastings

Anyway, Robert Adler would have said a and b were just silly because,
"It seems reasonable and rational to control the TV from where you normally sit and watch television."
Precisely. IF you have a choice of more than 4 channels that is - guess how many we have in our house. Imagine the huge strain involved in forever getting up and down to change the channels when (if you live in Dexter's house) you have 4 million channels to choose from. Nightmare.

In 1950 Zenith came up with the first TV remote called 'Lazy Bones'. It managed to change channels OK but was still attached to the TV by a cord. This was a bit mad because people kept tripping over it and breaking bits of themselves and their sitting rooms. So in 1955, Adler came up with the 'Flashmatic'. This had nothing attached to it and used photocells to flash at the TV. The problem was that when the sun came out it sort of stopped the light commands working. People complained that you could not watch TV in the daytime without having to get up with their legs and switch over by bending their bodies. So daytime TV did not really take off until a bit later after Robert Adler came up with the 'Space Command' remote, 'nothing between You and the Set but space!!!'
That is not to say that he spent his whole actual life inventing just the one gadget. Oh no. He worked for an American company called Zenith and actually made 180 new patents, mostly to do with TV, even though he did not even like the TV. He would have got on well with The Parents.
"I hardly ever turn the TV on," he said. His wife said he was "more of a reader."
I think that this could be because he just kept losing the remote control in the s p a c e between himself and the TV set. So it is left to me to invent the next greatest gadget -
'The Remote Control Detectormatic'

Phase 3 of The Grand Plan for Dreadful Revenge

2007-03-21T19:19:00.000Z

A duel would be one way of sorting out me and Miranda but actually I think she might be quite fast and I do not want to risk losing any more bits than I have to.

So, we have cunningly lured Miranda back into her own mega-rainforest jungle bedroom. She stands, feet apart, hands on hips and narrows her eyes. I keep my worry that she has seen through my Grand Plan for Dreadful Revenge under control with some on-the-spot-running.
'My bedroom is the biggest in the house,' boasts Miranda and I can see she wants us to go, 'ooo' and 'aaah'.
I decide to play along. 'Not bad,' I say, doing an extra- athletic jump.
Dexter looks at me.
'You see, I have my Princess Bed,' she points to a giant pink blancmange thing beneath the window smothered with matching pink blancmange curtains. 'Everybody wants one.'
'Quite good,' I am lavishing praise now and practically leaping.
'It is DISGUSTING,' Dexter points out. 'Can we just see the sticks before I'm sick.'
Luckily, she is too carried away to listen. I budge Dexter and give him the secret sign about our mission but I am leaping too much and we both fall down next to the mini-fridge.
'And then of course there are all my photos that I took going round the world.'
Then she waits. Dexter and me get up and look at one another all shifty eyes. Finally Dexter asks.
'What photos?'
She sighs and points to the wall and we suddenly see that what I thought was dingy, blurry random wall paper is actually a wall of truely awful photos.
'Very...very,' one wrong word and I sense we will have to leave before our mission is complete.
'Nice,' supplies Dexter. 'Very nice.'
'Yes, I have been everywhere and I did take all of them.' She smirks.
Here is our chance. I wink and say. 'Take a closer look, Dexter - maybe you can find your Dad's semi-detached villa in Spain...' I try and sidle to the stick cages.
'Oh right,' says Dexter. 'I really want a fizzy orange from your mini-fridge, Miranda - then you can tell me all about your photos.'
She is so desperate to show off she cannot see the totally blatant bribery involved here. He takes the can and pulls the ring. SQUOOOOSH! Shot!
'It's all over my Princess Bed!' she squeals and runs out.
'Brilliant, Dexter!' I tell him.
He shrugs. 'It was an accident.'
'No, I mean it really is brilliant!'
I run to the cage of sticks in the shady corner of the room and peer in at the sticks clambering very slowly up the branches. I carefully carefully take out my old ice-cream carton and reach in and yank the sticks off the branches. That's the great thing about sticks, they do not complain at all and for all I know they quite like being sticknapped.
I glance at Dexter. 'Give me the supplies!' I snap.
He fumbles around inside his coat and pulls out the family pack of twiglets. I place the twiglets carefully on the branches.
'There!' I say.
'What?' asks Miranda, returning with a dripping cloth the size of our tablecloth.
'Miranda,' I say, 'we've had enough of your stick insect jokes! So watch this!
'What are you doing?' she says and there is panic in her voice as I raise the lid. 'Ciao, sticks, nice knowing ya!' And I sweep a load of twiglet sticks out of the cage and into my mouth.
She drops the cloth and screams - alot.
'Your turn, Dexter.'
'Yum yum,' says Dexter and he rummages around and picks up some more and crunches down hard.
'YOU MURDERERS!!!' she screeches, and tears out of the door, 'CHAS! CHAS! THEY'RE EATING THE STICKS!!!!'
'I think I actually ate one,' says Dexter pulling a face.
We put the sticks Dexter has not actually eaten back in the cage and decide it is time to find the back door.
Mission accomplished, I think. HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-Ha and HA

Phase 2 - The Grand Plan for Dreadful Revenge

2007-03-07T15:03:00.001Z

Some sensible people might know that it is National Science and Engineering week, all week. They are doing quite interesting experiments and asking us to vote for their favourite. Mine is of course - 'THIS IS ROCKET SCIENCE!'

So, I have to go home first and collect the necessaries for the completion of Phase 2 of the Grand Plan for Dreadful Revenge - evil cackle. Dexter trails behind as we go into the kitchen.
'Is your Mum around?' he asks, looking around as though she might spring out from behind the fridge and force him to eat some of her vegetable medley.
I shrug. 'Somewhere. Why?'
'Nothing,' he says. 'Just wondered.'
I concentrate on emptying the cupboard in order to get at the top secret revenge stash. Serena, the cat, meanders over and miaows like this, "meeeoooow!"
'That means she wants something to eat,' I tell Dexter, 'you had better feed her before she turns nasty.' I point at the catfood cupboard. 'There is cat food somewhere about.'
Dexter rootles around while I put the secret stash into my two zippy inside coat pockets. By the time we have both finished there is a fair amount of stuff we do not need spread about the floor and Serena is tucking into a plate of baked beans and organic plum tomatos.
'Let's go!' I say.
Dexter's eyes are huge and he is gibbering.
'WHAT IS ALL THIS MESS?' Mum is standing in the doorway, looking like a scary creature form the crypt. 'I JUST CAN'T STAND IT!'
Then she bursts into tears.
Very, VERY odd. I look sideways at Dexter to confirm the oddness of Mum but of course, he has scarpered.

'So, did you like your stick babies, Wilf?' asks Miranda over the fishfingers. She is smirking. 'Did they behave themselves?'
I glance at Dexter. This has been a tough assignment so far. Getting the target to take the bait in the playground; avoiding torture by The Trundle and then dealing with the Oddness of Mum. I am going to play her like Bond plays blackjack -coolly.
'I did not realise they would be so small, like cress seeds,' I say, flicking my food in a suave sort of way. I lean forward and stab a fishfinger. 'You know,' I say, 'The Parents nearly ate them.' Miranda pulls a face. 'Tiny baby sticks gone in one mouthful.' She frowns. I can see she is disturbed.'You could have made my parents kill them - like this.' I swallow the fishfinger whole which is quite impressive. Then I choke and sick some of it back up. Chas, Miranda's Dad comes in with his stupid beard, just at that moment.
After Chas has told me that being sick is actually the way some animals feed and actually he is thinking of writing a paper on it and maybe he could start with me (ha-ha, not funny), and then finally goes; I give Dexter the secret sign (I can't tell you what it is obviously).
He ignores me until I smoothly get up and jog his elbow, giving him a LOOK at the same time.
'Oh right,' says Dexter. 'Can I see your sticks? Looking at Wilf's cress seeds is a bit boring. They don't do much.'
So we go upstairs to Mirnanda's mini-Amazon-rainforest-bedroom and this is where Phase 3 kicks in and things start to get a little bit interesting.

HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA and HA.

Fascinating Inventions No. 9 – Night vision goggles

2007-03-07T11:03:00.000Z

If soldiers had to fight in the nightime, things got difficult because they could not see much. So, maybe someone would light a fire or switch on a torch and OOOPS! Bit of a giveaway. Night-vision goggles developed out of second world war technology and became the brilliantly useful bits of kit they are today
- Look! I can see my yacht!
- Look! There's an owl!
- Look! Watch out for that wild cat!

Course, somewhere in Dexter's bedroom is a pair of night-vision goggles. The trouble is, he cannot find them because of all the other high-tech toys he has lying around. If he could find them, he would have no trouble getting to the loo at night or spying on his tankful of exotic fish in the dark or even reading a book without the light on because night vision goggles take all the hassle out of darkness. The way they work is like this:
They boost up the light already around and collect it to focus on an image intensifier. This is amazing because then inside this intensifier the light particles get over-excited and bump into a sort of green TV screen and then give you an image.
BUT I hear you shout. What happens when I go caving or need to have a quick spy round a derelict warehouse where there is no light at all? The answer is get an infra-red illuminator as this will generate enough light to give you an image. During world war two when infrared sight was a baby, the army made an infrared sniper scope BUT it needed an infrared searchlight that was so big it had to be carried on a flatbed truck. Luckily things have got a lot smaller since then.

I have my doubts about using night-vision goggles during the day (see picture) because

a. It makes you look a bit mad e.g. like you might just have run away from having your eyes tested/you could just have had major brain surgery and should still actually be in hospital/ somebody is testing the latest scaffolding technique on your face. None of the above looks cool.
AND then there is
b. if you are doing a bit of spying it sort of gives the game away

On the plus side you do get to look like a human-robot-cyborg, so maybe it is not all bad.

Anyway, the greatest place in the universe is having a science of spying exhibtion until September. I am definitely off to get some tips.

The Grand Plan for Dreadful Revenge

2007-03-02T11:16:00.000Z

During the second world war there was a lot of worry about Britain being invaded by German spies. Someone came up with a grand plan to identify the German secret agents. This was to make them believe that British secret agents always painted one foot blue (which of course they did not). So all anyone had to do to trap a German spy was to casually try and get their socks off. It did not catch on.

My plan is much simpler than the blue-foot plan which would have taken alot of time and effort and paint.
Here is phase one of my Grand Plan for Dreadful Revenge.
TARGET: Miranda.
OBJECTIVE: With the application of cool cunning get her to agree to a meeting.

'Have you seen James Bond?' I ask Dexter as we step out of the jet-black Aston Martin going undercover as a bus.
'Where?' asks Dexter, looking around the playground.
'No! I mean the film, James Bond! The spy one.'
He shrugs. 'Yeah. Got it at home; it's all right - not enough action.'
I goggle for a bit and then turn my eagle-eyed attention to the target. Miranda. Double crosser, double agent. She is mooching around near Mrs Trundle's office. I can see Mrs Trundle is even now on the phone, probably agreeing to more work in her role as part-time government assassin. The Bug Club girls gaggle round Miranda. They make me uncomfortable with their talk of wasp spiders and pink stuff.
'You know what to do then,' I tell Dexter. I put one hand in my dinner jacket (school coat) pocket and we stroll in a casual sort of way in their direction. 'Just play it cool.'
I smile to myself. She will not suspect a thing.
'Oi!' shouts Dexter at Miranda and he waves his arms about as though he is drowning. 'I WANT TO SEE YOUR STICK INSECTS!'
Oh smooth.
I slip out of Bond mode and punch him. 'Phase one!'
He punches me back, quite hard.
I notice Miranda and the Bug Club sniggering at us. I push him. He pushes me back.
'STOP FIGHTING!' Mrs Trundle, the headteacher and part-time assassin, has spotted our delinquent behaviour. She has somehow apparated out of her office and clean into the playground and is bearing down on us like a guided missile.
'That was your fault! How are we supposed to get her to agree to a meeting now!' I tell Dexter. 'You've blown Phase One!'
'Do you want to come over after school then?' bellows Miranda. 'You can see some BIG stick insects!' They are outright laughing now.
At a distance of one metre, The Trundle has her killer whistle up to her thin lips. This could be the end.
Dexter nudges me. 'Phase one complete.'
I want to reply but I am thrown off my feet by the force of The Trundle's explosive whistling.

On the Whole I Think That Went Rather Well

2007-02-21T20:36:00.000Z

There may be an infinite number of parallel universes, and we just happen to live in one of them. These other universes contain space, time and some of them may even contain me, in a slightly different form. What is fantastic is that these parallel universes may exist less than one millimetre away from us, milling about like loads of bubbles.
In the parallel universe where The Parents live, stick insects do not exist and every family eats organic vegetables and bedrooms are always a joy to walk into. Children wash everyday, have nice tidy converstaions with their chums and do homework, just for fun; the trouble with bubbles is the high danger of popping.

Right, so we come to the ruction I was talking about. When The Parents find out about the cress seeds actually being stick insect babies they are VERY DISAPPOINTED. This is because:
a. they were ultra-keen to help me with some actual homework and now there is none
b. they are not ultra-keen on stick insects and now there are some
c. I lied to them
Out of all of these disappointing things, c is the worst, the absolute horror and the total work of the devil. It makes them put on their Very Droopy faces and loll about over mugs of tea in the kitchen, wondering where they have gone wrong with me. I try and make them feel better by pointing out that I never lied to them, I just did not tell them the whole truth. This only makes them sigh more.
'We must make sure this doesn't happen again,' says Dad.
'No, it definitely will not,' I assure them, 'Miranda is not giving me anymore stick insects, I know that.'
'Your father means - no more lying , Wilfred.'
I do not think I can agree to this, since that could be another big fat lie.
I try distraction. 'Can I keep them, then?'
Mum puts her head in her hands. 'Never mind that now, we have something important to tell you, Wilfred.'
What - more important than stick insects? More important than being Very Disappointed with me?
'I can keep them?' I venture.
Dad starts puffing up like a gorilla about to attack. 'Yes! You can keep the stick insects as long as they stay in your room and inside a cage...COME BACK!'
I am half way out of the room, ready to find a cosy spot for the tiny babies. 'Oh, yes,' I remember, 'thankyou. Bye.' I run.
'WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A BABY, WILFRED!' bellows Dad.
It is at this point that I think I went to some parallel universe where ancient disappointed people shout at you about babies. Very weird. Anyway, I ignore this impossible happening and take my little sticky children up to my bedroom.
On the whole I think that went rather well.

'DON'T! YOU'LL DROWN THEM!'

2007-02-14T12:05:00.000Z

Homework is something that should be avoided. It is tedious and makes me feel rather peculiar. The Parents are very keen on homework (they are welcome to it) and would like me to be like an eager bookworm, racing home to get my hands on even more work and really enjoy it. They are mad. I say, how come teachers get paid to do work and we do not?

After tea at Miranda's house (double chips, meatballs and peas) I take my precious stick insect babies back home. As instructed by Miranda, the stick queen, I have not opened the lid of the shoebox; this is to make sure they do not leap out in a frenzy and attack. I have to say, I had not quite realised how vicious they could be until Miranda informed me of the unfortunate cat-mauling incident; I will have to keep my cat, Serena, out of their way. In front of the house, I check for curtain twitching from Mrs Next-Door. Nothing. She must be busy with her new dog. He is minute, noisy and she carries around under her arm. He is an armpit yap-dog and his name is Smoochy - urgh and shudder. The Parents are in. I know this because I can hear them arguing with Tony Blair in the kitchen (on the radio). So, this is a lucky break because it means I can sneak up the stairs...
'Wilfred, is that you?!' shouts Dad. 'Come and see my new tooth!'
He sounds a bit thrilled and this could mean an excting addition to his Big Teeth collection but I resist.
'Got some homework!' I yell.
Quick as a blink, Mum's head pops round the door. Too late, I realise my fatal error of judgement.
'Super!' she says. 'Do you want some help?'
'No, it's fine...'
Dad's head appears on top of hers. 'Homework eh? Come on, let's see it! Is that it?'
He points to my shoebox and they almost fall over each other trying to reach me. It is actually quite horrible, they are like some form of homework zombie types, feeding on the horror that is homework. Their clutching hands reach me and grasp...the shoebox!!!
'Not that!' I say, reaching for it. 'Don't open that!'
I can see the disgruntled sticks flying for them, stamping their little sticky feet in their hair and clothes; biting them...too late.
'Oh lovely, 'says Mum, 'you're growing cress!'
'What?' I ask and my mouth drops open as I stare at the matchbox wedged inside the shoebox.
'Look, you've already got the seeds on some cotton wool - we just add water and watch it grow!'
Tiny little dark brown dots lie in the box - these are eggs not babies! Some dribble plops out of my mouth.
'We'll water them,' says Dad and they dash back to the kitchen with the stick insect eggs.
Oops.
'D'ONT!' I cry, 'YOU'LL DROWN THEM!'
I can almost hear Miranda laughing her fluffy pink socks off at her little joke. Oh ha. I think about Miranda and pitcure her covered in stick insects and all of them biting her very hard indeed.

Fascinating Invention No. 8 - The Bee Plane

2007-02-07T18:59:00.000Z

with a length under 9.5 ft (2.9 m) and a wingspan of just 6.5 ft (2 m) the Guinness Book of World Records considered the Bumble Bee to be the smallest plane in the world following its first successful flight on 28 January 1984 but STOP PRESS that is nothing. Just read what the excited Professor Gursal, a mechanical engineer at the University of Bath, has just said-

"Our work will make the goal of tiny aircraft, perhaps eventually the size of bees, a step closer."

Everyone would like a plane the size of a bee, that is what he is saying and I can absolutely see why. I think this is completely brilliant and I really really want one of these little planes. Apparantly the big important difference which makes it all possible is, NOT having fixed wings, like on ordinary aeroplanes. The smaller you go, the better it is to copy nature and make the wings flap up and down; so the team studied insects' wings as part of a programme to develop tidgy aircraft with cameras and sensors built in.
What can you do with these teeny tiny aircraft? You have to ask???

-spyplane. It could whizz into secret meetings and find stuff out although the danger of swatting is high
-scout. I am not talking about Baden-Powell's boy scouts because he did not send his scouts ahead into battles to find out military information for the army commanders. That sort of scout would be killed on a regular basis, unlike the boy scouts, hopefully. Actually Baden-Powell was a scout in the Boer war as well as being chief scout of the world and he survived until he was 90.
-fire and rescue operations. Apart from Hollywood film stars or mad delinquents, if you ask for volunteers to go into places which are on fire or falling down, not many hands will go up. The bee plane would go in, no problem.
-transport for really tiny insects; air ambulance for injured or elderly insects, luxury aircraft for rich insects or just plain transport for lazy insects.
Beeline - let the plane take the strain.

It makes me ponder, that maybe stick insects could be adapted to make excellent spies. Not only can they climb like James Bond but they would be invisible; attach a motor to them and they would be perfect. Hmmm...

The Brilliant Blog Panel Interview

2007-01-31T17:00:00.000Z

The SCBWI Webgoddess, Candy asked the Writers Day Blog Panel some interesting questions...

Why blog fiction?
Hmm. I suppose some cynical folk would say that most blogs are a work of fiction and they may be correct but a 9 year old boy called Wilf, who is into inventions, stick insects and Buzz Aldrin, I am not.
But there are reasons for it - honest.
Firstly, in the olden days when I lived in storyland, I believed the following: all editors took long lunch hours and to relieve the boredom they trawled through the internet, searching, actually searching for new work because obviously their slush piles just weren't painful enough. As they meandered across the net one day, they would stumble upon my fiction blog and just stop right there, floored by its brilliance. Then there would be a big fight for it etc. I understand now that editors do not do that.
Secondly, I wanted the freedom of not having said editor telling me to cross my i's and dot my t's. I can write as I wish, in the way I like and not according to any market dictat. Annoyingly, I now have a sort of bossy internal editor who is quite strict about the i's and t's thing.
Thirdly (there's always a third thing), I wanted to be part of a community and by putting Wilf out there and through making links and forming the fictional bloggers group, I have found a bunch of similar minded folk I might never have known (ah).

What is your readership?
I average 20 hits a day which is a bit rubbish actually. I have a solidly interested group of 6 (return when I blog once a week), mildly amused, 3 (pop back every so often) and a,' what the heck is this about?' contingent of maybe 12 or so. The latter are usually as a result of google seaches like these I found:
"how do you draw a dead sheep?" or "interesting places in Bracknell" or even "my friends are aliens".
Oh dear. Not quite the thousands I was after and certainly not the 8-12 age range the book of Wilf will be targetted at. I knew that I would never have the young readership on the blog but I am inspired by Candy's talk and aim to explore ways and means of doing that.

How did you find a publisher?
I heard about a publisher called, 'The Friday Project' who publish blogs as books. They are medium sized and independent (bit like me) and importantly, their sales, marketting and distribution is handled by Macmillan. I submitted my blog to the commercial director, Scott Pack. He liked it and made suggestions for how it could be formatted which I liked. Basically, there is a 15 000 word story seamlessly blended with facts and inventions. After a year of slog I signed the contract and 'Wilf and the Big Cat' comes out in August 2008! Why don't you give it a go?

What will happen to your blog after publication?
Assuming I retain my sanity, Wilf's Blog will continue. It is not a huge slog to do because I only blog once a week and it is fun to write! The idea is to develop the readership through the books (I hope to write a series) . I would like to make the blog more exciting with maybe games and forums and I want to learn to muck about with the format and create a more interesting look (thanks, Candy). And maybe take over the world.

Here's to my fellow panelists!
Anita
writes education books as well as fiction and is a fanatsic and generous children's writing informant.
Sue
is an artist, an actor and soon to be pulished author with her first picture book, 'The Quiet Woman and the Noisy Dog' coming out with Andersen Press.
Sarah
is a wonderful artist with a brilliantly orange jacket

Check out what they have to say!

Rules for Keeping Stick Insects

2007-01-20T11:57:00.000Z

Here are my Newish Year Resolutions:
-to be more helpful around the kitchen and try out some recipes
-to be more vegetarian, except for bacon
-to be more interested in Dad's teeth collection
Mum does not approve of resolutions because she says they are never kept. Dad says he will shave off his beard for charity which is a funny kind of resolution but then he is a funny kind of person. Grandpa Jack has threatened to get married to someone unsuitable and I really have no idea what THAT means.

Anyway, it is time I made a move on the stick insects. We are well into the New Year now and Miranda says that Stinky's babies are no longer babies and more like teenagers and that I had better collect them soon before they all start getting really angry for no apparent reason (I think that was a joke).
Miranda has given me all sorts of warnings about the do's and don't of looking after sticks (as we in the know call them). Here they are:
-Thorny stick insects are happy at normal room temperature but keep windows shut as they are unhappy in a draught
-Sticks need tall cages with mesh sides as they like to climb. If you put little pics of other sticks on the walls it will encourage your sticks to climb and be sociable
-Sticks are generally clean but give off Phasmid Exusions which can be fatal to furniture
-Sticks do not like cats, so make sure your feline is kept well away from them - the sticks will attack.
-Sticks are not keen on telephones and it is wise to either muffle your phone or make tiny earnuffs for your sticks
-Clean your sticks by placing them in the dishwasher on a low temp setting. Follow up with a polish
-Don't answer them back - the sticks will attack

Hmmm. I am not sure about some of these rules. And I still have to think of 10 good names for them. Sticky, Stocky or maybe they respond to the more classic , Hazel, Rowan. I just don't know. I am abit afraid, if I get it wrong - the sticks will attack.

Facinating Invention - No. 8 The Game of Rugby

2007-01-12T13:12:00.000Z

In the books I got for Christmas, one of the games you MUST play is rugby. Emily, at my school, is rugby-mad and she is the smallest year 5 I know; the ball is almost as big as she is. My godmother is also rugby-mad or probably just mad but she likes rugby ALOT. On the other hand, Dad, who is a dentist and big on teeth, gets mad at rugby because he reckons they do not look after their gnashers. Mum says she doen not understand rugby but quite likes the look of it.

Above is a picture of William Webb Ellis. He was supposed to have invented the game of rugby when he was a schoolboy at a school called Rugby (that is quite a co-incidence!) In 1823 he is said to have been so cheesed off with playing with just his feet that he picked up the ball and ran with it. Hmmm. What do we know about William Webb Ellis? Not much. What we do know is that the boys (definitley no girls then) used to play football at Rugby and they liked to make up their own rules as they went along which sounds excellent.

-Let's have 100 players on Team A and 4 players on Team B and see who wins!
-Let's have a pitch with no boundaries!
-Let's NOT have a referee!

So, I do not think that someone picking up the ball would have been a. unusual or b. against the rules -since there weren't any.
William Webb Ellis's name was probably picked out of a top hat. Anyway, what is true is that rugby was invented by boys (yeh!) and soon loads of schools and even adults started playing it.

This stone says that William Webb Ellis, "...with a fine disregard for the rules...
first took the ball in his arms and ran with it thus originating the distinctive
feature of the rugby game"

Thing is, nobody asked William about it.