Sleeping Bags

If I were a sleeping bag, I think I would be a really good one. For starters I'd be waterproof, but with a semi-permeable membrane so I didn't make you sweaty. I would probably make a bit of an effort to build up a cushioned backside, to protect the ribs and vital organs from bear attacks, and maybe even work on developing some kind of "predator repelling smell", although I'm not sure what that would be. Predators fear other larger predators, so maybe the smell of a T-Rex would be the best possible deterrent unless they genuinely have discovered a larger carnivorous dinosaur in which case I could just switch. Developing the scent from the DNA of long extinct creatures would probably take time and money though, so perhaps I could launch with the promise of adding the predator repellent as a bonus extra in Mark II.

One of the other main disadvantages to conventional sleeping bags is their well-known "guff sealing quality", so I think some kind of battery driven irrigation system might be in order, perhaps with an extractor hood and a timer to ensure fast and discrete uptake.

Seagulls are notorious for targeting sleeping bags and tearing them open to reveal the tender pink meat inside, so I think I would consider a foil-based outer wrapping as seagulls are violently allergic to foil. B.T.I. or Blue Tit Infestation may of course prove to be a side-effect of the foil-wrapping, but frankly I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Blue tits are purportedly nearing extinction anyway and, unless Dairy Crest experience a massive upsurge in the desire for doorstep deliveries of full-fat milk, I can't see the situation improving any time soon.

Uncles

I had an uncle once. His name was Andrew. He had thick skin that was surprisingly soft and tiny eyes that sometimes seemed almost human. He liked peanuts and mangoes, but rather surprisingly detested currant buns. I was never sure if it was the currants he particularly objected to, or the yeasty surroundings, but if I'd been at all curious I suppose I could have done some kind of controlled experiment with a plain, non-fruited bun and found out that way. This didn't occur to me at the time however, and now the opportunity has passed.

In the height of summer my uncle would often take himself to a nearby river and wade majestically into the water, throwing great arcs of weeds and spray over his shoulder and groaning with delight. Sometimes he let me sit on his head as he slowly submerged himself, and then - as I started to swim - re-emerge beneath me with a snort and a rueful smile. If my friends were quiet and well-behaved sorts, Andrew would carry heavy objects for them:- such as Italian handmade sandals, rich tea biscuits or their stamp collections. If the friend was less than magnanimous though, woe betide him as he would surely know my uncle's disapproval and any longstanding invitation to our legendary bird barbecues or the family's annual nutmeg hunt would quietly be withdrawn.

Tragically Andrew died in the summer of 1978 when I was 16 years old. He was buried at Arlington Cemetery in Washington DC with full military honours. He is survived by my aunt Patricia and his two sons Chester and Flumbo.

Zionist Juice

I spent some time in Israel in the 90s. Not a lot of time you understand, but long enough to experience Israeli Juice. As a general rule I'd say it's very nice. The fresh kind that come from the grapefruits that grow on the slopes of Mount Gilboa was my favourite. We used to drink it with a stack of these tiny baked sugar-biscuits that were just the right level of sweetness to counteract the squinge-inducing sourness of the very fresh, newly picked grapefruit. In retrospect I think I preferred the biscuits to the juice, but maybe one was nothing without the other.

Later on, after leaving Israel, I would often come across Israeli Juice in stores and would drink it without question, until one day an acquaintance asked me how it felt to "collude in the Zionist Illuminati Conspiracy" and I had to put my glass down and then find a coaster because I was at someone else's house and I didn't want to leave a ring.

I don't consider myself a supporter of shadowy quasi-Kabbalic forces or even an advocate of sustained and regimented citrus farming. I do however consider myself to be a human who enjoys the running the gamut of her entire range of taste buds. Juice is just juice. There's bad juice, and good juice, there's even anti-Zionist Juice which tastes complex and saline and delightfully of rue. I think the key is to just take the Juice as it comes and make up your mind through experience.

And get some of the those little biscuits. They were amazing.

Sticks

I have no idea who invented sticks, but whoever it is should probably get some kind of award. They have so many uses, pretty much always smell good, and - if you catch them at just the right stage of desiccation - they make an almost savoury snapping sound that gives you the kind of satisfaction you feel in both your brain and gametes.

The technical term for someone who collects sticks is a "Virgalatilist". The largest stick collection in the world is owned by Mrs. Phyllis VonBeulau of Tyson, Massachusetts and comprises almost 43,000 sticks, twigs and sub-branches from almost every country on Earth (excluding the Phillipines and Papua New Guinea where stick-collection is still a criminal offense punishable by a moist slap). The prize of the collection is a fragment of the stick purportedly used by Charlton Heston in his role as Moses of the Christian Bible and used to part the Red Sea in the 1958 movie "Hannah and Her Sisters". Also housed within the collection of several small poles owned by Bobby Darin, and King George the First's favourite staff poking staff.

Stick collection is a wonderful hobby to encourage children to consider, as long as they have been properly immunised against diseases of the hand and fingertip, and are largely resistance to ridicule.

Hot Soup

Last Friday whilst taking sustenance at a local café, I witnessed an elderly man blowing repeatedly across the surface of his soup, no doubt  attempting to lower the temperature in order to comfortably imbibe the tasty and low cost meal.

The average depth of a bowl of soup is approximately 1.64" (41.65mm) whilst the temperature generally stands at 95ºC (203ºF). The average temperature of human breath as it leave the oesophagus is approximately 37ºC (98.6ºF), therefore the likelihood of a deep, super-heated quantity of tomato puree being sufficiently cooled by the act of passing one over the other is extremely low. Far wiser to plunge a hand or foot in the liquid, as the extremities of the human body are normally of a lower temperature than the body as a whole, or place the bowl on a convenient exterior windowsill and read a short article about the rising popularity of kite ski-ing.

Soup is supposed to be hot. To force it to change its nature is a perversion of the natural order of things.

Phillip's Screwdriver

My Uncle Phillip invented the Phillip's Screwdriver. He told me that the idea had come to him in Burma, while he was imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp and forced to whittle bamboo in order to fashion rudimentary cutlery.

After spending almost three months working on a set of finely engraved soup spoons, it occurred to him that what the world really needed was another kind of screwdriver, one that was slightly more complex that the classic straight variety and which would lead to entire generations of men (and later emancipated women) working themselves into a blind fury over being presented with one type of screwhead instead of another, whilst their mother-in-laws stood on and made that particular kind of tutting, hissing noise that they make when they're being proved right.

My Uncle Phillip was a divorced man and a perhaps the world's tallest simpleton.

Panda Thoughts

Pandas. What's not to like?

Well I'll tell you. Pandas love human flesh. It's not a well known fact, but if you're someone who really wants to know the truth you'll have to hack the Beijing Central Records Bureau's server and search under the term "man-eating pandas"(remembering to put the term in quotes thus in order to instruct the search engine to consider the exact words, as well as translating them to Modern Mandarin). This search will return roughly 35,000 entries, detailing over 27,500 separate panda attacks that ended in human fatalities. In most cases bamboo wasn't even a factor.

Another fact you may not be aware of is that the panda's distinctive colouring is by no means an evolutionary accident. 2132  of the fatal panda attacks (Code 50Ps) that occurred in China in the last decade took place on or in the close vicinity of a pedestrian crossing.

Think about this the next time you're crossing a road in downtown Siam, and consider wearing kevlar smothered with olbas oil. Pandas hate that.