A Few Non Lethal Weapons

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

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

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

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?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?'

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.