Me versus towels and throwing

Throw in the towel

It's been quite the few months for throwing. Back in July plenty of people were throwing their hat in the ring, but this weekend there was talk of some throwing in the towel.

Now on the surface this sounds easy but then you soon have a couple of questions to answer:

1) Which size of towel? Face? Hand? Bath? Beach? Tea?

2) And where to throw it?

The two are clearly related. A tea towel into a parked-up convertible is definitely on the easy side while even the best thrower would struggle to get a beach towel into a kettle.

In a rare move for this series I was going to have to do a bit of research. Turns out this is from boxing. A towel is thrown into a boxing ring. (Throwing into rings again! Who'd have thought it?)

I know of a boxing gym that's not too much of a bus ride away so I made my towel selection (hand) and headed to the bus stop.

I arrived at the gym, paid my admission money and went on in. Once through the doors I realised that a small but noisy crowd was in attendance and a boxing match was under way. This complicated matters.

Throwing my towel into an empty ring would have looked odd but not inconvenienced anyone. Now there was a risk of hitting a boxer or the referee with the towel or possibly causing a trip hazard. Still, I'd  spent my bus money to get here so I'd have to take my chances.

I moved a bit closer and lobbed the towel into the ring, making sure it was away from the action. Immediately the referee pointed at someone and a bell was rung. Had I won a prize or something? 

There was suddenly a lot of confusion. The referee was trying to establish which of the boxer's representatives had thrown the towel in. It turns out this is quite important and indicates a concession of the match. I should have done a bit more research.

Someone in the crowd pointed me out as the person who threw the towel. I was asked which boxer I represented. When I said: "Neither. I only threw the towel in to get some content for a blog about clichés with an extremely low readership," there was a brief moment of silence. Then I heard someone shout: "Get him!"

Now I'm not much of a runner but I'm much less of a fighter, and those appeared to be my choices at that moment. 

Reader, I legged it.

Conclusion: If you're going to throw a towel then perhaps stick to doing it in the privacy of your own home. Stay away from boxing rings with your towel. Very important that.

Me versus sausage and sizzle

You don't sell the sausage, you sell the sizzle

I've never been a salesman, I don't have the personality for it, but I was going to have to learn fast to test this one out. I'd booked a pitch at a local 'sausage and ale trail' (SausAle22!) so needed to be sales fit.

I did buy a couple of sales books but they were pretty boring and there was cricket on tv so I might have been a little bit undercooked patter-wise when the big day arrived.

I found my SausAle22! pitch (I'm sure they stick all the first-timers a bit around the corner near the portaloos) and when the event was formally opened by the mayor at noon my grill was set up and ready to go.

It didn't take long before the sausages were making a great noise and my first customers were gathering. I thought I'd open the conversation (a tip from chapter one of 'Put Wind in Your Sales' by Conway Tench) which went as follows...

Me: Welcome to Sizzleys. What can I get you?

Customer: Two sausages please.

Me: Sorry, I'm not selling sausages.

Customer: What?

Me: No, I'm not selling sausages. I'm selling sizzle.

Customer: What the hell's 'sizzle'?

Me: That sound they're making while I'm cooking them.

Customer: Excuse me?

Me: The sound. I'm selling that. £2 please.

Customer: £2! What for?

Me: Well, you're listening to the sizzle aren't you? £2. Per sausage. Or £1.50 if you're partially deaf.

There was a bit of confusion and a discussion in the crowd before the customer said something I couldn't quite catch and walked off. About three minutes later they came back with someone who turned out to be the organiser of the event. It soon became clear they didn't want to buy sizzle either. 

I was asked for my food safety certificate. I replied that I didn't have one because I wasn't selling food. I was selling sound. I offered to show them my noise risk assessment certificate.

This obviously touched a nerve because after a brief discussion they turned my gas off and asked me to leave. And not come back. Ever.

Conclusion One: There's a chance I'm really bad at selling sizzle.

Conclusion Two: I'd like to think that it wasn't about me and more about people's negative attitudes toward purchasing sizzle. Was it a pricing thing?

Conclusion Three: What am I going to do with all these sausages? It's like that time with the bacon. What is it with clichés and pork products?

Me versus sledgehammers and nuts

Take a sledgehammer to crack a nut

I was going to need a couple of items to get this one done. A sledgehammer and some, nuts.

I started with the sledgehammer. Only one place to go for this - Peter Gabriel. I sent him a tweet asking if I could borrow one but didn't hear back. Next I wrote to his record label, three times, and finally got a reply asking me to stop contacting them otherwise they'd get the law involved.

'Don't give up' I told myself. So, after a bit of research it turns out there are companies that hire out tools meaning that was the sledgehammer sorted.

As for the nuts, we have a twisted hazel bush/mini-tree in the garden which produces its own nuts so I knew I could take a couple of swings at it for free. It didn't really work. The nuts just went flying off and hit the fence and we now have less of a twisted hazel bush/mini-tree in the garden. The nuts remained resolutely un-cracked.

A quick trip to the supermarket and I was ready with a nut assortment for phase two. I started with placing a walnut on one of the paving slabs and walloped it. The result was some sort of nut powder where it was hard to tell what was nut and what was shell, and a cracked paving slab.

I moved to the lawn with a brazil nut. Another disappointment. The sledgehammer simply drove the nut several inches into the lawn which will make mowing it difficult for a few weeks.

Last try, coconut. This was surely going to work. Well, yes and no. The sledgehammer did crack it but I then spent four hours in accident and emergency waiting to have stitches in my shins after the sharp coconut shell shards flew into them at high speed. That also meant I couldn't get the sledgehammer back to the hire shop on time and I lost my deposit. Not a great day, all things considered.

Conclusion One - don't do this, it's silly.

Conclusion Two - if you must hit a coconut with a sledgehammer, wear shin pads.

Conclusion Three - I don't even like fresh coconut.

Me versus Hats and Rings

Throw your hat into the ring

A lot of people seem to be talking about throwing their hat into the ring at the moment. But you never see them do it. I wonder why not. Seems like a job for Man versus Clichés.

There must be something about hats because a few years ago I investigated knocking things into a hat. A cocked one at that.

But being the other way round this poses two problems. What sort of hat? And what sort of ring?

It seemed sensible to start with the ring. One that would fit on a finger would require a tiny hat to hit the target. Only one from the head of a Lego character model might fit the bill. I can't imagine people are throwing those.

Large hooped earrings don't seem big enough for a standard-sized hat and then at the other end of the scale there is the Birmingham Bull Ring or an actual bullring. I didn't fancy travelling so had to apply a bit of lateral thinking. Mrs Cliches has some sort of fitness hoop in the cupboard. Hoop, ring. Same difference.

I had several hats that I could try; an assortment of baseball caps, a wide-brimmed cricket hat or a cyclists casquette. The hard peak of the baseball cap meant throw control was more difficult with regards to spin. The wide brim nature of the cricket hat meant more uplift than ideal. The softer, compressed casquette worked perfectly.

I placed the ring on the floor and tossed the hat gently towards it. Bam! In the ring first time! And then nothing. I don't see what all the fuss is about. This was easy.

Hat - in a ring

Conclusion One - You don't see people throwing their hat in a ring because it wouldn't make great tv. Olympic Hat in a Ring throwing is unlikely any time soon.

Conclusion Two - People talking about throwing their hat into a ring should really be getting on with more important stuff.

Me versus breaking and fixing

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

Weird one this isn't it? Is there a catch I'm missing? 

Does it need rewording slightly? If it isn't in a state of disrepair then don't mend it. If it isn't damaged then don't remedy it. Still doesn't make sense.

Is it some kind of thought experiment I wonder. A 'Schrödinger's cat' of cliches perhaps. Where something is broken and not broken at the same time.

But the fact it isn't broken doesn't mean that we can't do something else to it. Clean it, polish it, attach something to it - I suppose there's nothing to say that we couldn't break it in order to fix it and restore it to a state of not being broken or need fixing again.

And that's before we even get onto what 'it' might be.

All in all, very confusing. 

Conclusion: Look, either tell me what 'it' is and what needs doing to it or just keep quiet about it.

Me versus Ducks and Rows

Get your ducks in a row

Some years ago there was a senior manager at work who would often tell us that we needed to get our ducks in a row.

I think he said it because he had little idea of the actual work that was happening and would use this phrase instead of giving us the strategy and direction that might have been expected of him. Excuse the pun but he might have been winging it.

I had no idea what he was on about at the time, I never saw a duck in a row, column or any other configuration for that matter. Herding ducks didn't seem the best use of my time considering I worked in a financial institution rather than a poultry farm or petting zoo.

So I was left to wonder what would happen if the ducks ever got in a row. As I have since 'flown the coop', to coin another phrase, I thought I'd never find out.

Recently I was over at the old office and stopped by the small lake (or large pond - depends on your point of view I guess) out at the front of the building.

To my enormous surprise, at the edge of the lake, there were some ducks in a row (see poor photo below). I didn't even have to put them there myself! I sat at a table and waited for the big reveal - what was going to happen?

Poor photograph of ducks in a row

Forty-five minutes later and one of the ducks had jumped into the water and swum around a bit, one waddled over to a bin and pecked about and the rest seemed to be quacking at each other for reasons I couldn't fathom.

It was underwhelming to say the least. All that energy he wanted us to expend getting ducks in a row and for what? Nothing as far as I can see.

Conclusion: If anyone's telling you to get your ducks in a row, don't bother. Show them this and get on with some real work.

Me versus thinking and boxes

Think outside the box

I've found this one strange for a long time so I was pleased to finally tackle it.

I do most, if not all, of my thinking outside boxes so I'm not sure why this phrase gets such a regular outing. I think in houses, offices and cars which can be described at being a bit boxy but aren't actual boxes. The only way I could get to the bottom of this would be to think in a box.

I needed a box. A box to think in. A box big enough that I could actually get in.

I popped over to my parents' house. They still have the box their television came in. My young nieces sometimes play in it. It's a boat or more often a spaceship to them. To me it was just a box.

My parents have been used to odd behaviour down the years but I don't think they were expecting me to get into a large cardboard box and sit quietly. They first enquired into what I was doing ("thinking") and then to the state of my health ("I'm alright, leave me alone for a minute").

They were relieved when I finally got out of the box and carried on helping them with the crossword and enjoying a cup of tea as if nothing had happened.

And thinking in a box? Much the same as the thinking outside of a box. Only more cramped and darker.

Conclusion: Inside a box, outside a box. It all seems to be the same. Do your thinking wherever you see fit. But see fit to do some thinking.