Me versus Hooks and Slinging

Sling your hook

Some of these don't take a lot of thinking about to put together - see throwing hats into a ring for instance.

Others very definitely do, especially the one about getting a monkey off my back.

But this has been years in the making.

When I came to consider the slinging a hook problem I could only really think of Captain Hook out of Peter Pan. To be able to be Captain Hook out of Peter Pan I needed to:

• Join an amateur dramatics group
• Become a semi-competent performer
• Join the committee
• Persuade the group to perform Peter Pan
• Audition for, and get the part of, Captain Hook

Not straightforward as you can see but over a period of several years I managed to achieve this - which is how I found myself on stage at the Saturday matinee performance of the village pantomime.

We'd come to this bit of business where Peter Pan gets some of the children out of the audience to sing a song as part of his Lost Boys (and girls, it's 2025 for Heaven's sake) gang. Captain Hook lurks around behind some of the scenery so the remainder of the audience can give it the old 'he's behind you' routine. This was my chance.

As I prowled up behind the singers I loosened my grip on the hook (I was wearing a long sleeved shirt and holding the hook, there was no budget for a fancy solution) and sent it arcing into the audience.

I was careful not to hit anyone but still wasn't expecting the reaction I got. I thought the kids might find it funny but it was like I'd chucked a grenade out there. The audience scattered, there was screaming, people scooped up some of the smallest children and fled for the exit.

They had to send the crocodile with the clock in it to eat me 15 minutes early to repair some of the damage for the few people who'd stayed. I gather there were a few refunds requested but as I was fired from the society straight after that I don't know the full ins and outs.

But if you went to the [name of village omitted for legal reasons] Peter Pan panto on the Saturday evening and there was a man playing Captain Hook in a costume that didn't quite fit him and reading his lines from a script then you have my apologies.

Conclusion: Let me know if there was another sort of hook I should have been slinging because I feel I've got this horribly wrong.

Me versus Teaching and Not Doing

Those who can do, those that can't teach

Pretty good one to test this. If only I could think of something I can't do... only joking. That's a pretty long list.

Train driving, bomb disposal, technical drawing, hairdressing, cheese making, non-invasive surgery, invasive surgery, tree surgery, animal husbandry - I could go on. There's a lot I can't do. 

Some of the things I can't do are quite dangerous so that's not a path I should be going down. Endangering students and myself would surely have quite expensive insurance implications.

In the end I settled on teaching a musical instrument. Can't play one. Tried once or twice, got so far (not very far) and then gave up when I found it got difficult. I can't read music either so that must make twice what I can't do in one teaching.

As I'd never even tried learning the piano that seemed a good one to teach. I had a look at some adverts for piano teachers in my area, copied them and knocked a couple of quid off the fee before posting.

I didn't have long to wait before someone contacted me. They asked if I taught grade five. I didn't know what they were talking about so said yes. We booked a lesson for the following day.

Nice people. Lady and her two children. Obviously a bit disappointed that I don't have a piano and that they'd driven 25 minutes across town for a piano lesson but they only shouted a bit, cried a bit and refused to pay. It didn't get violent or anything. 

The lady did go on social media to tell people that I was a time-waster and a charlatan (I have never been in The Charlatans so she got that wrong) and warning everybody off signing up with me for a lesson.

And that meant my not doing and teaching career was over pretty much before it started. Shame.

Conclusion: Either I picked the wrong thing that I couldn't do to teach or maybe the world's just not ready for a teacher that can't do what they're teaching.

Me versus Trying and Succeeding

If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again

I fancied a bit of a change so I will relate my experiences in tackling this cliche in the form of a poem.

I thought my giant onion

Would win 'Biggest Vegetable' prize

But some of the other entries

Were four, five or six times the size.

And then at the Marmalade Festival

The judges tried to be kind

But I knew as well as they did

Something was wrong with the rind.

I entered the Japanese Cheese Contest

And was thrilled to finish third

I might have done even better

If I'd been gentler with the curd.

It was at the open mic night

When my poem won the cup!

(Can we keep it our little secret

That nobody else turned up?)

Conclusion: Confusion. Am I supposed to try the same thing another three times after the initial failure? What if I succeed before I've used up my additional tries. Can I try a series of different things? What if the fourth time doesn't guarantee a positive outcome? Do I stop altogether or continue until I do succeed? 

Best just do things and make your own decisions about whether to persevere or not I reckon.

Me versus Thoughts and Pennies

A penny for your thoughts

I had a quiet moment at the place where I volunteer recently so I took myself off to the 'snug' area and sat down. I must have had a contemplative look on my face as a visitor looked over to me and said: 'Penny for your thoughts."

"Well," my reply began, "over the last ten years or so I've been writing a series of blog posts where I take clichés literally but I'm worried that I'm starting to run out of ideas."

"On top of that, next to nobody reads these and there's even less feedback. I'm wondering if it's worth carrying on."

The visitor looked at me briefly before saying: "Okaaaaaaaaayy" in that really sarcastic way that people do now with that extended 'ay' sound and then started to walk off.

"Hold on," I said. "Where's my penny?" The visitor looked confused so I repeated my question adding that my recently relayed thoughts were part of a verbally agreed commercial transaction.

After a second or two they replied: "Sorry mate, don't carry cash these days" and headed for the exit. This was very disappointing behaviour on their account so they're banned now.

Conclusion: Be very careful who you give your thoughts to if they make this offer. In fact, you might want to get the penny up front first to be on the safe side.

Next time: I say boo to a goose.

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.