International Relative Exchange Vol. 20

Special thanks to AppsTech Server Solutions, who spent the weekend laminating our new server units. We remain assured that no foreign bodies (i.e. crisps and Slush Puppies) will be able to find their way into THESE £20000 uninsurable business commodities.

International Relative Exchange Vol. 19

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Royalty Free Idea: Machine Greetings

Nothing torpedoed a birthday like an automated greetings card from Bradford and Bingley. Maybe I was being ungrateful, but even at the age of 4 or 5, I was pretty sure that whatever they had written in that card, they didn't mean it. Probably through some ancient survival instinct kicking in, you could feel that either Bradford or Bingley (probably Bingley, Bradford being too busy schmoozing with high level investors to be thinking about birthdays or children) had really just interjected into your celebrations for any new cash on the go.

If they had been more blatant, fine. A simple letter observing the likelihood of an individual's date of birth coinciding with a sudden influx of capital which would then go on to explain the mutual benefits of my temporarily lending said capital to their organisation would have appealed to me (being, as I was, a terrifying emotionless robot from the future, even back then). They sent instead a note from that gurning yellow cartoon cat from the 80's, doing the same cartwheels he had done for every other 5 year old while avoiding ever mentioning why his employers had saw fit to deploy him in my direction (he also saw fit to continually remind me that I was 'in his club', the benefits of which were the birthday card, and a terrible rate of interest. I'm pretty sure I also had to pay to be in that club).

So it's nice that they've stopped - being insincerely reminded of financial responsibility via lab-generated whimsy on your only special yearly day could've had an entirely different effect on me as an adult. But it could so easily be so much worse than just that. It's perfectly conceivable that, with all the personal information that's floating around at the moment (Broken Britain etc.), you could receive targeted greetings for things like going-on-holiday, buying a new fridge (bigger fridge, implied bigger family, is Grandad moving in? Congratulations!?!), a new job, even what your Amazon purchases imply (and the subsequent apology letters for drawing the wrong conclusions from your Amazon purchases). Letters from Interflora when they think that you're in love, letters from Ben and Jerry's when it wasn't reciprocal.

Yes, I know - this already exists, to an extent, but it's all done via email, and therefore easy to mentally filter. If it were done physically, and personally (i.e. a man employed by every company to write greetings cards all day), it would have greater resonance. Primarily, it would create a whole swathe of new jobs (and in the greetings card writing sector, itself suffering retractions as a result of the boom in online personalisation) which could easily be state funded, to an extent. Better than that, on receiving such a card, you would know that it had been penned by someone equally, if not more, disenchanted with the sending company as you are, forming a bond between distant men like no other. Which, in a kind of self defeating way, would only humanise said sending conglomerate even more. Still, at least there would be a genuinely human element in the process, drastically increasing the chances of there being a memorably sweary "f*ck your job!" mass birthday card send out from a disgruntled employee to a generation of 7 year olds, who would subsequently never quite believe that it didn't in fact come from the pilot of Thunderbird 2 on behalf of the Woolwich. THAT would be a birthday.

International Relative Exchange Vol.18

All swaps come with their own clothes, documentation, a 7 day survival kit, and now a £15 gift voucher redeemable at Amazon.co.uk. Shop online with Amazon.co.uk for books, CDs, DVDs, games and more, and with a variety of delivary options available, there's something to suit everyone. Log on to Amazon.co.uk now for a free 15 day trial with Amazon Prime, the new way to recieve your Amazon.co.uk orders. Amazon.co.uk.

Normal Post: The Right Thoughts

We all have our weaknesses. We won't go into yours, but mine include the last 15 minutes of Bargain Hunt ( 'Pure Hunt', or 'Hunt Prime' to aficionados), passport-sized sketchbooks and romanticising public information services in drawing form. My biggest weakness, though, would have to be Not Thinking the Right Thoughts at the Right Time. That maybe seems like a frightening imposition on a rightly treasured liberty, but it's reasonable to assume that, at certain times, only certain thoughts are helpful, and as such your mind can be relied upon to only produce thoughts directly relative to that situation.

Not so. The other day, for example. I should've been considering possible alternatives to grouping and sending jpg worksheets via email, as a third of them failed to initiate properly upon receipt. Instead, I was considering a mildly irritating children's television show from when I was young(6 billion years ago).

You probobly remember "The Queen's Nose", the story of a young girl who was given (ugh) a magic 50 pence piece (I hate typing that)that could grant her wishes. Like most things, I didn't enjoy it, though largely because, like the majority of children's fiction in the young-people-randomly-gifted-with-deus-ex-machina artefacts-of-extraordinary-power genre, it didn't involve said young person having fun with the miraculous object of their amazing good fortune. Rather, they spent 90% of their time fretting over the ramifications of being so carefree and wishing for pleasant frivolities like 'as many sweets as you could eat' or 'magic horse'. If they DID have the temerity to foolishly enjoy themselves, said folly would be cicumstantionally demonstrated to them, usually via some traumatic family event caused by the wish which they would have to subsequently un-wish (with another wish).

I'm not one for enjoying myself without the appropriate checks being made and criteria fullfilled beforehand. But I wouldn't go on children's television and start lecturing kids on how their thoughtless idealistic whimsies might one day kill us all. That doesn't seem fair. Perhaps the aforementioned genre of fiction could be explained away as the renements of the 70's Cold War paranoia entertainment craze, where every piece of fiction had to include the human population decimated by something, and the survivors living in the country, crying and being chased by either monster plants or one another.

But if they wanted to be all down on the idea of a magic penny, why didn't they just go all out and impose (I'm getting excited!) proper real world conditions on the story? For instance, a girl running round Kensington with an omnipotent 50p can't possibly go unnoticed for long. In steps the government. The government could use the wishes for unimaginable gain, but it needs the girl to make those wishes for them. Luckily, the girl herself would only have wished for things like an ice cream factory, or her sister being turned into a pigeon - wishes which the state can more than provide her with (well, they'd just lock her sister up and catch a pigeon from somewhere, but it's definately do-able), and in abundance. Hence, the girl gets unlimited wishes (up from 10 or however many), while Great Britain gains an unimaginable superweapon.

Let's be realistic, though. It's not like the government would be happy just 'making 10 powerful wishes' and leaving it at that. They'd want to research the coin, discover the root of its power, harness or even duplicate it - all the better to guard against other child-activated super-relics (Bernard's Watch and Magic Grandad spring to mind). Inevitably, things in the research facility testing the coin would go wrong, it'd all end up like a cross between Jim'll Fix It and System Shock 2. But that's only if things happened realistically.

My other big weakness is not knowing when and how to end something properly, so I'll leave you to ponder the above while I try and send those jpgs. Again.

Royalty Free Idea: Christian Bale Shouts the Shapes

The problem with uploading big batches of sketch and slowly drip feeding it into a blog is that it can often feel quite dated by the time it comes to post. Case in point; the above post-it, drawn shortly after Christian Bale's now largely immemorable outburst on the set of Terminator 3.

So I won't linger. That said, there's nothing like listening to radio comedy from the 40's, for instance, and not having the first idea why some jokes are funnier than others, purely because the references haven't stood the test of time. Sometimes seemingly innocuos observations get spontanious cheers or staggered laughter or something equally uninclusive. But you can still laugh, mainly because it honestly just seems like a crowd revelling in the joy of language and it's deployment. And that's always something to celebrate.

Normal Post: Holiday Character Opportunity

As a big fan of holidays (of both the forced and unforced variety), a subject of personal interest is how they come about in the first place. Not the novelty-free ones - celebrating a bank holiday is a recognised medical signal that you're depressed, and the long summer holidays you have in school were only ever designed to prop up the now booming nostalga markets (the kind that sell imported foam cereals and untransformble Transfomer statues to ronrey men) by creating vast continents of terminally boring time that could only ever be filled by actively just-buying-stuff. No, not those holidays.

I'm specifically interested in holidays that have some kind of character associated with them, Santa Claus being the obvious example. It's how these characters come into being that's the fun bit. Perhaps they're a bit like latter day memes, ideas that gradually take hold of the collective imagination through a sub-concious desire for that kind of thing to exist (like we all want a giant rabbit with an unlimited supply of chocolate whimsically circumanvigating our home security systems every year).

It could also be a guilt thing. If you're christian, for example, you believe that Jesus died for our sins on the cross on Easter. While I suppose it's a good thing that that particular act was never given the novelty airbrush, it'd probobly be equally galling to find that the day of your sacrafice (and the subsequent holiday weekend you bestowed on generations to come) was permanantly subject to a takeover bid from the aforementioned chocolate ninja hare, and that the large swathes of the public were fine with that. I'm not saying that everyone has to be into Jesus or NOTHING AT ALL. It's just that it feels a bit like the equivelant of, say, a national holiday for an important religious figure like Mohammed, or even a respected contemporary leader like Gahdi or Mandela, being hijacked by the public desire to believe in a magic wise-cracking penny who can grant wishes.

To be fair, though, I think Jesus is comfortably winning the fight for Easter. No one seems massively bothered about investing in the Easter Bunny, he's the least represented holiday mascot going. There are no real definiatve images of him, because no companies or corporations see any profit in defining him. So it's left to comman conscensus to flesh him out, which means he ends up with sometimes a basket, sometimes a bow, and zero to say for himself. No backstory, no cool explanation for how he breaks into your house. Why is he even giving out chocolate? Nobody cares. Like the trope 'unpopular lonely rich kid', he tries to buy your interest, which lasts precisely as long as his money does. And it's funny how the Easter Bunny melts away after the big Santa reveal. Nobody 'finds out' about the Easter Bunny, because nobody is that stupid.to properly believe in him in the first place (I'm beginning to think I might have some terrible, repressed beef with the Easter Bunny, actually, so I might just move on).

We believe more in the Tooth Fairy than the Easter Bunny because the story provides an irrational explanation to something even more irrational i.e. giving children money for their old teeth. Giving children money for their teeth. Chocolate at Easter is sort-of plausible in that, even at a young age, you can figure out that it's all about money and jobs and needing a break and indulging and cheering up for a while. Giving children money for their old teeth is just stupid, even if your subsequent explanatory trip to Wikipedia tells you otherwise, because most folk giving their kids money for their old teeth don't know why they do it in the first place, and have to pass it off as 'fun' and 'part of the magic of childhood'. Why not make understanding how the NHS works 'part of the magic of childhood'? I'm going to be a terrible parent. It'll be fun to explain to whoever ends up as my child that I'm reaching under their pillow because I want to buy their teeth off of them, in the middle of the night.

I'm probobly typing at length about this, though, because it's what happened to Santa Claus that worries me. From my limited knowledge of the myth (being interested in novelty holidays doesn't actually involve any reading or research or learning of any sort), it stems from the story of some old chap who went around his village giving the children carved wooden toys/ the god Odin raining down presents on those who left their nosh-filled boots out for his steed / St Nicholas leaving gold for three penniless single women (nice!) so that they could afford to marry. It's probobly all of those, and none of them at the same time.

But the gradual morphing of the stories into what we know today is quite unsettling, in that the same thing could very well happen to me. If this period in time were ever to be looked back upon as one of, say, deluded hubris, who better to be morphed into its terrifying anti-mascot? I'd presumabley be used to scare children into choosing a career with prospects, or at least a mindset of productivity, diligence, and calm, resourceful action. My biggest worry is that, to illustrate the importance of developing into a well-rounded individual, I wouldn't end up being some cool-evil sarcastic robot or anti-hero with awesome hair. My 'character' would probobly turn out like one of those animatronic cobbler puppets, fated to fruitlessly hammer away at nothing, all the while with a big gurn on my face (it always annoys me when you see one of those idiots mugging away while not actually hammering any shoe).

But I'll probobly be dead before that character comes into being, so that's all right.

International Relative Exchange Vol.17

Sign up for our free e-newsletter! Get the news on upcoming swaps and swap events, and read real-life swap stories! Amazing! Vouchers, quizzes, horoscopes. You don't want to miss out on this! Read about the couple who can't stop swoppin'! No, really?! "My children swapped me, so I swapped me right back into their lives!" It's all here! A free newsletter. Swaps gone wrong! "We swapped each other twice, and then realised that it was love?" Incredible texts. Keep these emails forever!

Normal Post: All Too Easy

In the past, folk would wile away their leisure time by patrolling their communities and challenging negative behaviours, reading, or staying on late in an occupation they really cared about. These days, we all enjoy relating well worn anecdotes and dredging our memories for forgotten trivia from our own bygone eras (i.e. a couple of years ago).

I only mention because it would be easy for me to retroactively apply some sort of subtext to the post-it posted above - something like "it's easy for the big corporate lizard kings like Google to seem omnipotent now, and end up buried and fossilised if they aren't able to comprehend how to deal with the massive rocks (i.e. technological advancements/fate)coming from space. Just look at Freeserve/Bebo/The HMV downloadable music service thing".

In reality, I really just drew up a robot dinosaur (a robotosaur) and dug up some common tech lingo from the mental backrooms. It's almost frightening how much of that there is lurking back there - standardised advertising and instructional terminology that sits in the back of your head that you understand and respond to on an instinctual level. I know, I know - it's designed to work like that, it's been researched and tested and etc. But trying to then conciously find an example, catch it, pull it out into the daylight and make it work for you, that's something else entirely.

In fact, this dredge really feels a bit like attempting to make repairs to your car after watching a 2-minute Youtube video (I have done this) or deleting seemingly unimportant fat files from the programme directorary on your PC (I have also done this) - no matter how assured or confident you are, you can't shake the feeling that you're just sticking your hand in the Flash Gordon tree and hoping for the best. Using the power of your subconcious slogan-bank might get you out of word jam once in a while, but perhaps it's best left alone in the long term.

International Relative Exchange 16

Please note, due to a high number of complaints, the individual-for-trade "Simon Swann" will no longer be available. While terms and conditions still apply in all instances in which Swann was distributed, we would like to express our regret at having made him available on our databases for quite so long. We would like to assure our members that Swann and his inflatable trousers will never willingly be deployed in a social context again.

Royalty Free Idea: The Real Dreams Centre

In essence, a centre where children are informed (perhaps in an informal manner) which of their dreams constitute viable future prospects, and which of them are impractical and/or unachievable.

What?! In fairness, I'm not entirely in favour of this idea...


An alternative would maybe be a database where you input what you want to achieve (say a qualification or occupation), along with what skills you have and what measures you've taken to achieve your goal so far (work experience, not murdering people etc), along with other relevent miscellania (age, agility, whatever). Said database would subsequently calculate the viability of your future plans.

Of course, you shouldn't let a terrifying career website bully you into believing what you can and can't do with your life, and you can only quantify skill through qualifications so far. Another drawback would be how succeptible the system would be to glory-scroungers (i.e. the kind of folk who think hooting about their current tally of Facebook friends constitutes vital stuff, or that a comparatively low cost talk-plan is a war worth winning) who permeate pretty much all walks of life. But I suppose everyone's entitled to their dreams, and if being able to do more sit ups underwater than me is your dream...

International Relative Exchange Vol.15

Please note that, under current E.U. guidelines, it is no longer possible to exchange yourself through our system. This helps cut down on the number of so called 'revenge swaps', where disgruntled family members secretly exchange themselves out of their family units, replacing themselves with clearly incompatible (and sometimes downright unpleasent) swaps. Exchange requests are required to be conducted by a third party, while exchange subjects must be at least moderately suprised at the prospect of a like-for- like transfer in which they compromise 50%.

Royalty Free Idea: National Apology Day

While I do feel I ought to apologise for not having updated this blog for almost a month (having been on holiday, working on a few drawings and excelling in the most manly laziness), I'm also aware that I haven't even told anyone it exists yet, so apologising to no-one in particular would be delusional, and the boring, garden-variety delusional at that (as opposed to the special "if we plug him into a machine he's bound to start making money at some point" variety of delusional).

But, the idea; days dedicated to the celebration of something obscure, like Good Grammer or Flavours of Bread are nothing new - the 11th of July is World Population Day (hitting all the bases, there), while my birthday falls smack in the middle of National Breastfeeding week, rendering it instantly immemorable (National Breastfeeding week, I mean). These festivals generally go unnoticed on the whole, and even if your attention is somehow drawn to their existence, they usually invoke the simple response of "No, it isn't."

This is probably largely to do with not only the scale of the celebrations (I'm not really sure what I can do about the global population problem in the timescale of a day other than fret a little) but also their relevance - often, the purpose of a day or week's theme is simply to raise awareness, and once you've been raised aware...
So here comes National Apology Day, raising awareness about the benefits of apologising for whatever, to whoever you need to apologise to, either immediately after aggravating them, or later on, when the danger has subsided. It'll also be the perfect time to apologise, in the spirit of the day, for anything you feel like you apologising for. Society will knit back together, and other good things will happen as a result.

Now, I'm a realist - I understand that the day will probably kick off, at least initially, with a lot of 'ironic' apologies (the mailman apologising as he gives you your mail, for hilarious example), while others see the day as an excuse to just go about kicking things in or knocking things over, knocking on people's doors and running away, just because they can mockingly apologise for it afterwards. There could be further apology problems outwith National Apology Day, as those who are due to apologise to others will be able to retort "What do you think this is? National Apology Day?", albeit unfairly.

I think that these trubs would only constitute teething problems, though. Irony can only hold out for so long, and the relentless presence of National Apology Day will surely engender at least a degree of subconscious soul searching in even the hardest of hearts. Plus, it's a fantastic opportunity to sell greetings cards and other useless consumables, so it's a fair bet that the Occasions conglomerates will get on board. Laugh if you want, but when we're all happily apologising to one another just because we feel that we should in a few years time, I'll be expecting an apology from every single one of you. Despite no-one being aware of this blog.

International Relative Exchange Vol.14

Your exchange comes shrink wrapped within 9 working days of your order. Alternatively, let us know if it's for a special occasion, and we'll gift wrap your exchange to your specification! A variety of shipping options are available, including overseas, cushion trebuchet and Best Approximate. While we cannot refund any exchanges once your initial 'payment' has been 'redeployed', we can offer an alternative selection, pending additional psychological profiling and warrenty invalidation checks.

Normal Post: Authentic People

I'm always wary of the regular magazine features (usually found in glossy weekend supplements) that purport to represent real overheard converstaions between real overheard people. I'm not sure so much unassuming zany irony/ironic unassuming zaniness/etc. can actually physically exist in the material realm. This kind of feature, although far rarer than their more popular sibling, the stoicly-authoured "here's a slice of my family life, as if you'd want it" middle-class guffaw fest, are debatably much more irritating. While the latter tends to involve the authour highlighting the same shortcomings of the same family members, relentlessly, on a weekly basis, for a mild chuckle and some silver, the Overheard Conversations genre takes it to whole new level, by randomly targeting unassuming members of the public and pointing and laughing at their muddled up, inane ramblings - the same kind of ramblings that make up the majority of converstaions everyone has with everyone else most of the time anyway. It's nice to believe in a place where all conversations are perfectly formed, incisive, witty, relevent to all parties and aren't relient on forced smiles and good-luck-with-thats. It wouldn't last long - someone, inevitably, would end up just wanting a tyre flume and a McFlurry, and that would be that.

But, lets face it, Overheard Conversations don't exist. No they don't. No they don't. The fact that one of these seemingly chance encounters happens with the alarming regularity of at least once a week is unusual enough. The fact that the 'witness' is able to overhear the key details and mine the 'funny' from those details in what are usually busy public environments is, also, unusual. And despite these works of chance/fate being the seminal stuff that they are, they're not exactly top-ticket material, and presumably don't generate the income required for the authour to be able to swan around on public transport (or wherever it is that that the inherently irony-gaffe prone find themselves by virtue of their own stupidity) overhearing conversations and writing them down and shit, without crushing money-worry in tow. If you stuck to the once a week deadlines and the implied responsibilities of the other, actual primary occupation, the Overheard Conversations genre becomes almost impossible.

Unless you just really, really enjoy sneaking around in coffee shops and charity shops, hiding between the racks, tittering at the awful things the awful people say. Let's be honest, who doesn't?

Royalty Free Ideas: Age Licenses

I'm not really an advocate of this idea, so feel free to use it - as ever, I'm not really able to charge you anyway, given my fairly universal lack of competence. It's a fairly simple concept; mandatory examinations to 'unlock' the advantages of later life; i.e. drinking, the bingo, car usage, reproduction, as opposed to a simple age limit. The examinations would test competence, social responsibility, etc. Not exactly a new idea, either, and fascistic. In fact, my desire to even vaguely extrapolate upon the notion is ebbing pretty rapidly, given how mental it actually is. Also, watch out for the "Still, in these troubled times..." counter argument. Sorry, feel free to unsee the above. I know it worries me because I'd most likely stay stuck in juvenile/accidentally pass the senior citizens test. Accidentally.

International Relative Exchange Vol.13

Often when considering relatives that you'd like to exchange, it helps to consider what specific personality traits or motifs that you'd like to gift/receive from another swapee, in relative form. For instance, it's a given that elderly mothers will probobly chastise you on your choice of partner, at some point. But would you rather they were dismissive of your girlfriend/boyfriend on intellectual grounds, or would unfair accusations of low standards of personal hygiene be more to your tastes? The "You don't have any money" for "You won't have any money" trade is always popular, but a suprise resurgence in the Physical Violence for Emotional Blackmail trade is worth noting. Bear in mind, I'd never trade my mum. That would be disrespectful, and I love my mum.

Royalty Free Idea: Text-Chest Rating System

Lo, dear reader - once more into the realm of personal, real-world stattage. The above is an idea that wouldn't work for a plethora, a smorgasbord of still rather pleasing reasons, though I'm sure it doesn't take me to tell you that a system where other people rate you by text message before an average of these ratings is displayed on an LCD panel on the chest is a system open to abuse. For every concerned parent spamming their son with "he's perfectly normal, ladies" messages, there's a "he's into (insert choice 'interest')", fictitious or otherwise, from a former confident/made up partner of the same gender. And for every "diligent and industrious, A+" that you'd rather not have splayed across your front, the real trouble begins when rogue call-centres start using you as free advertising space - all it takes is a couple hundred slightly unfortunate "Cheap Weekend Rates" messages, and it's all over.

So probably no takers on this idea, then.

Normal Post: Nothing Major

I never know whether to celebrate minor accomplishments, or casually dismiss them (albiet in a way that other people can hear me casually dismiss them, just in case my accomplishments were, in fact, 'all that'). Please bear in mind that, by minor accomplishments, i don't mean 'remembering my car needs more water' or 'not pretending to be ill at some point this year'. I mean things that matter, like 'inventing a way in which my car would never need water ever again', or 'winning an award for not pretending to be ill at some point this year' (which I did once, as it happens).

Minor accomplishments are exactly that - at best, the little things that add up to a proper accomplishment. If you get excited about the little things, then upon accomplishing the proper accomplishments, one may implode, or spasm a bit too much. The proper accomplishments may never come into being at all; if minor accomplishments, in the wild, are confused as their more esteemed siblings, why try achieving a 'Proper' if you feel you've already achieved a 'Proper'? You wouldn't even be aware that you hadn't achieved a P Grade, not until it's too late. Confusion abound.

Inevitably, I suggest a grading system for accomplishments - certificates, logos, and points to spend on things like poorly made apparel based on the identity of grading system itself. If we come up with a mascot (say, some sort of cat in a t-shirt giving a thumbs up), then we can put it on a baseball cap and leave it at that. To be fair, we've been here before.

International Relative Exchange Vol.12

We were recently sent a particularly effective essay from Jack, a nine-year-old boy from Birmingham, who, despite his lack of years, put forward a compelling and well-rounded argument that definitions of family shouldn't simply be limited to blood-relations, as one's family can often be the people one comes to trust, respect and rely upon, irregardless of background or upbringing. He stressed that, as far as he was concerned, a real family has as its roots love and respect, and as such could include friends, colleagues, members of the wider community. He felt that the sooner we all came to understand that our world isn't one of opposing ideologies and territory, but one of shared interests and common goals, the sooner we could all start moving forward in life, together, as a family.

With those principles in mind, he also wished to put his older brother Ted, Robert Mugabe, and the temporary postman who crumples his Beano up for trade. Jack, consider it done.

Royalty Free Idea: Drop the Smugness

Here's an idea - a kind of randomised daily memento mori for teenagers/young adults, but replacing the notion that "we'll all ultimately end up dead" with "you're not inherently cool, there's just an awful lot of money to be made out of you". It sounds like I'm bitter, and perhaps I am - 26 years old is the age that Eurostar defines as the start of adulthood, which means that the scions of young teenagerhood - T4, Bargain Hunt and Topman - no longer represent me, are no longer for me. I predict that this will be a difficult time, and that many other things (Frijj milkshake, sarcasm, current generation gaming) will either lose their appeal or be forcibly removed from my inclinations. But I will prevail. If only because sheltered housing looks awesome, the only place for me now that I've totally given up white shoes and 'ironic' hats.

Incidently, I read a newspaper article recently about a chap from round my way (my bit), now living in London. When the interviewer first met him, she noted that 'he was sporting an ironic moustache'. An ironic moustache.

International Relative Exchange Vol.12

We would strongly suggest that certain individuals desist in attempting to trade their supposed pet chihuahua, Banjo, for whoever it is they'd like to trade him/her for this time. This website takes a strong line on responsibility for animals, in that we believe that the owner has an obligation and duty of care to any animal they take as their own. We know it can be difficult sometimes, but walking away from an animal who needs you and relies on you because the circumstances no longer suit you is irresponsible, shallow and selfish. Wise up.

Incidently,2 for 1 on OAPS till thursday.

Normal Idea: Do It Yourself Too

Here's a niggle. Seeing a tv programme advertised that's clearly the result of fusing two or three random words together and hoping they stick long enough to make sense(celebrities doing a quiz on a rollercoaster might be one). A popular example of the formula used to be (personal tick)+(detective)=detective show. Modern equivelants would be Dexter, Monk, etc. As we all know, however, the real daddy of the genre would be Murder, She Wrote, in which Angela Lansbury would turn up at a dinner party or a reunion or whatever, before someone would murder someone else for something. Angela would then figure out who it was, why it was, when it was, and then go home.

I could never tell, though, if what we were watching was just one of Lansbury's stories (involving herself as herself, in a terrifying murder filled autobiographical fan-fiction), or whether she just wrote off screen, using the legions of murders she witnessed as creative fuel. In which case, did she deliberately seek out murders to write about? Was she so good at it that she could sense when a murder would take place (eschewing many a social engagement on the basis that nothing was popping up on her blood-lust radar)? Or had she simply learned to live with her horrible ability to generate murder in otherwise pleasant social situations by turning it into a revenue stream (life giving you lemons and all that)?

Obviously, Lansbury herself, after 'witnessing' so many murders, would be the prime suspect, so maybe what we're getting in each episode is her jovial, happy-go-lucky alibi. Who knows? You're welcome to watch all 11,716 episodes of MSW to see if I'm right. To be honest, I'm aware all of the above has been said before, but I really just needed to get my head together. So many questions, so many questions...

International Relative Exchange Vol. 12

Please be aware that this isn't a dating service, rather a simple trade-your-relatives-for-strangers getup. I've gathered that the IRE (and similar online trading operations like getoutofmyhouse.com and notanymore.com) are having problems with mormon men in particular, who have been known to suggest trades of entire branches of their families in exchange for excessive wifeage. God love you all. Stop it.

Royalty Free Idea: Everybody Respects Brian

To be honest, people would only watch "Everybody Respects Brian" to see Brian finally lose it and go mental after receiving literally nothing from anyone, despite being so relentlessly, needlessly constructive-chipper 24/7. Of course, gain isn't what being nice to others is about, but, to be fair, that's exactly what it IS all about.

I'm not sure having a cat head would be such a bad thing, really, with the right attitude. I'm sure you could get sponsorship from somewhere. And I'm sure there'd be other cat-headed folk stoating about somewhere. In which case, you could probobly form some kind of gang. You'd always get to make the first move in a rumble, at least if the cat-head community move in the way that football mascots do - large, deliberate movements that are still somehow inscrutable and unknowable, terrifying...

Royalty Free Idea: Last Gasp Generic Whiner Gamble

If you're anything like me, then I apologise. Also, if you're anything like me, you'll doubtless have a folder of drawings from late childhood/early adolescence. On the one hand, it's nice having an actual tangible link to my carefree pencil-toting past. On the other hand, well, it transpires that I was a bit of a whiner. Or rather, I found whiny self-indulgence to be a positive, desirable trait. As such, a great deal of the characters of my creative yore were almost preordained aloof and sarcastic. Either that, or stoic and weathered, silent and "let's just get on with this". My characters were very often robots. Whiny, sarcastic robots with big swords or guns or gun-swords. I was doing my standard grades at the time.

But they were important formative years, and it's not fair on my younger self to cash in the chips of his whiny, stoic progress for cheap irony. Double fairness - whiny whinyness was a bit of a character staple in manga and anime at the time, in which I had a fledgling interest. Thankfully, I've since been able to differentiate between being a fan of manga/anime and being interested in particular, individual titles. I'm very much in the latter camp. At the moment, general anime character staples of note are: being young (and more often than not, female-young), and either being full of cleavage or full of sacharine adorable tweeness. These are, to be fair, almost desperately unfair generalisations, but they typify the most popular titles of the moment, or at least the ones that get the most anime-media attention. Dig deep and there's definately content out there that's worth the time and effort, but it's certainly a dig.

My folder of characters would either be very sarcastic about the whole thing, or just resolved to getting through it, however getting through it may be accomplished. Good for them.

Normal Post: Victory!

Aha! A while back, I apologised to anyone I may have misled over the origins of the Walls Twister ice cream, explaining that I had always maintained that it had been devised by a girl on a Jim'll Fix It jolly. Guess what? I was right! I'm not mental! It was devised by some girl! While I'm obviously happy that my state of mind has been temporarily shored up once again, I can't help but feel sorry for the Twister's (presumably fully grown) creator, who probobly isn't receiving anything for handing Walls the delicious profit laden coding her brain so cruely generated. That she provided an incredible iced-service for mankind can only be of cold (ho!) comfort.

I aware that none of this constitutes having achieved something, by the way.

International Relative Exchange Vol.11

To be fair, we can't entirely validate the authenticity of the 'images' of the relatives for exchange on here, but we pack them off with crayons, so you can do a little modding if you're not completely satisfied.

Royalty Free Idea: Gamble Options on Everything

I've never really been attracted to competitive gambling, like Happy Families and Poker, partly because there's too much ego involved, partly because it's not particularly interesting visually (indoor sunglasses), and thirdly because no-one ever seems to get particularly excited about winning at it. Also, there's not much novelty in the win - you get money, probably ultimately spent on hamburgers or sunglasses or a car. It doesn't even really appear in an interesting way - it doesn't appear from a big metal chute or pouring from a hole in a huge electronic face (what?), it's already packaged up in a case, meekly attempting to channel some rubbish gangster 'transaction'. Woo.

Where are the building sized slot machines and roulette wheels I was promised by the video games of my youth? If everyone were forced to spend a few days a year living almost entirely by decisions made by a roulette wheel (dictating the outcomes of such quandraries as "What will we talk about?" "How much is that?" and "How DOES my wife look?"), it'd not only throw open any number of alternative routes through life not usually considered, but also highlight just how lucky we are to be able to decide things for ourselves. Yes, yes. I know - deeeeeep.

International Relative Exchange Vol.10

Spring is here (or was here, depending on your access to the world outside), and now might be the time to streamline your core social cognative groupings. You could also trade a few relatives. Some may protest, in truth, but that's only likely to make any new experiences they experience all the more mind blowing. So loosely pack a case for them, ignore the short-sighted sobbing, and warmly give them their two-tone megabus printout. They'll look back on it all and smile.

Normal Post: Tim

I, too, suffer in the above respect. I basically need people to signpost their intentions clearly, with pictures, or at least provide a silver foil scratch-and-reveal thing with the correct interpretation underneath, just in case. Subtlty can be difficult, especially if you're worried that it'll just come out as lazy sarcasm instead.

International Relative Exchange Vol.9

Although in reality the above relative is most certainly NOT up for trade, being a minor and all. Not even if you send a stamped, self addressed envelope to the usual address. I'm not a monster.

Royalty Free Idea: Civility Bureaucracy

Imagine my surprise at finally spelling at word like that one that begins with a B in the title of this post correctly. This english thing isn't too bad after all. Anyways, as per the current spirit of the age (i.e. demanding apologies from anyone not adhering to the strict moral code everyone else has always adhered to; shouting over those apologies with incredulous calls for clarification and better apologies) it's only a matter of time before someone goes absolutely mental and commits to absolute, crushing, invincible transparency. Everything on the table, all the time, 24-7, and everything appealing to everyone, all of the time, forever. In that way, I feel for the BBC. Essentially, they have to avoid dumbing down, be entirely accessible and appeal to everyone, reach out to the demographics that aren't catered for by the private sector etc etc. It all sounds like the same thing but it's entirely at odds with itself - you can't fall out of bed without coming up with a reactionary argument against the corperation. The BBC feels like someone else's too-reasonable and eternally patient friend/relative who you can see, little by little, being prodded and minutely goaded into oblivion, or militant blandness.

Also, it could go the other way, where the prodded give up trying to explain things to us, and turn into living phD information cannons, blasting anyone showing any kind of interest with raw uncontextualised data. I really don't want someone reminding me that the reason I don't understand complicated things is because I don't understand complicated things. Don't get me wrong, I do believe I have the right to be able to understand the nature and purpose of things I pay for/vote for, but I guess I'm big enough to realise that my input into how the IMF should work would be largely useless, and not really worth considering. I'd love to see an arena battle between two shouty self-important people on a random topic, like the pros and cons of fiscal intervention from the Euro zone (I just lifted that from somewhere). No-one in any of those battles would EVER say "sorry, I don't actually know what that is".

Normal Post: Way of the Pear

I usually have the 'creative satisfaction' feeling, far, far, FAR too early i.e. when I haven't actually created anything yet. Specifically, I'm quite bad for sketching something out, and then, subconsciously or otherwise, convincing myself that that constitutes the end of the process and a justifiably satisfactory conclusion, as opposed to something 1/4 finished. That's not necessarily a bad thing - as much as anything else, it keeps bad ideas out of ciculation without the terrible anguish of admitting to myself that they were bad ideas in the first place.

But, as to the pear, planning something out prior only seems to worsen the aforementioned problem, in that the planning stage itself often becomes the source of satisfaction and subsequent conclusion. Planning to draw something/go somewhere is just as good as doing it, according to my inner drives. Myriad benefits, though a terrible, boring, boring fate awaits.

International Relative Exchange Vol.8

It's always interesting to see how people change when they're placed in different social contexts, and how the shy and retiring in some groups can be the movers and shakers in others. Why not mix things up for a lifeless, reticent blood-tie, then? You can convince yourself you're doing them a favour. Not crushing their fledgling spirit for good. Good for you.

Normal Post: Too Talented

There should be an amnesty day for these kind of thoughts, similar to the hand-in-your-knives-and-we-won't-prosectue-you days the police sometimes have. Trubs is, it's difficult to really know which thoughts are on the crazy end of things and which ones are part of the human coding that helps us maintain our basic mental stability. How to coax the bad ones out? I'm thinking either a secure area (like a voting booth) where you just say out loud all the Big Thoughts you've ever had (should take about 15 minutes, I guess) and they're independently assessed by independent assessors. That, or some sort of Ghostbuster-esque chap who pulls them out with a kind of photon ray. Photon ray. Yeeeah.

International Relative Exchange Vol.7

Have you tried thinking of things to say? Have you tried remembering the news from earlier? Have you tried dredging your childhood for lost annecdotes? Have you tried shared interests? Have you tried inventing new interests? Have you tried annoying them? Have you tried a new haircut? Have you tried bettering yourself? Have you tried going on holiday? Have you? Have you?! Trade 'em.

Royalty Free Ideas: Grudge Aides

One of the advantages of typing things out, as opposed to saying said things out loud, is that there's the opportunity for reflection before submission. Obviously, but case in point - in trying to explain the above RFI, what was supposed to be a few paragraphs of "isn't it embarassing when people 'hate' tv celebrities/distant co-workers/as a result of the void created by the inherent ambiguity present in almost all human relationships" turned out, on further reading, to be more like "I dislike hating people who are different from me, because that's not really cool anymore, is it?". Yep, not exactly the same thing being said there. After a few minutes of stony mortification, I deleted the offending paragraph, before reflecting on my almost-career as an accidental racist-revisionist. Good afternoon.

Normal Post: Slow People

Bear in mind that this isn't some sort of manifesto (with, by implication, an allusion to the underpinning reason for it's inevitable success), but just something that I thought was funny. It made ME laugh, though not in a sinister or portentious way. I'd also hasten to add to that the above also almost went under the Royalty Free Idea tag, but that would ony have served to preclude a spell of enforced excile. Now move along.

International Relative Exchange Vol.6

Why don't you want to trade your relatives? It's simple, and there's no exchange rate or like for like policy - you can trade anyone for anyone. If you don't have any relatives for trade but would like to receive, we always have surplus family friend uncle/aunts. You know the kind. Literally, loads of them.

Normal Post: Drive By Gentrification

Within which lies the kernal of an idea, a tasty sliver of bubbly hope. Though, to be perfectly honest, I can't really remember how I was going to expand on that, and all I can really recall is something to do with a personal 24-hour active stat readout that responded to your choices in culture (I very rarely make actual legible sense anymore, evidently), food, companionship and whatnot. I think it was all set to thumping videogame-remix bass (the likes of which you'd probobly find here http://www.rofltrax.com/library/dmdokuro/mp3/DAMMIT,%20STOP%20TAKING%20THAT%20SHORTCUT.mp3) and most likely quite exhausting. So, sorry about the hope thing. That wasn't fair.

Royalty Free Idea: Ironise Your Potential

A bit like reversing polarity, except not a convenient psuedo-science solution but actually, in the long term, rather counterproductive. I suppose there's a virtue in being able to laugh at yourself, but in a time when validation comes via self-submission to a public forum (hot topic!), it's all getting a bit desperate. I have no idea what I'm talking about.

This is also an opportunity to 'fess up with regards to my drawing practices. The post-its/ideas I've uploaded are pretty old (about a year and a half or so?), so the art is relatively weak - note the massive hand of the interviewer, and the fact that the chap on the right seems to be missing most of his head - but I've been at them all this time, all this time, and now I'm paying someone to draw them for me. It's the ideas themselves which are difficult, though, so I should probobly pay someone to 'do' them too. I think this is what they call business.

International Relative Exchange Vol. 5

The most difficult thing about trading a relative is that, once you've made your decision and committed to it, a strange thing happens. The fear of the unknown creeps in, making your former loved one's irksome ways some cosy and charming (if it's a former partner, add snoogly woogly or something to that list). How ironic. Ultimately, it's up to you, but remember - taking them back won't erase the memory of you at least thinking about swapping them. Holding onto them doesn't guarantee them holding onto you...

p.s. hope you had a good easter!

Normal Post: Interactive Television

"If you don't like it, then don't watch." Which is fine, apart from when it isn't. Case in point, some folk (a lot of folk) like watching things that they don't like watching, because they like the feeling of not liking watching something. But what if you stop liking not liking watching something and start not liking not liking watching something? Self indulgent scenario convolusion aside, there should probobly be some way of registering the latter feeling. The logical answer is a red button service (taking for granted that anyone who reads this is too cool to write a letter or go to Ofcom or whatever), but I'd prefer a ship's command wheel, the kind that you have to pull left or right to highlight orders like "Full speed ahead" or "aft". Of course, the ship's commands would be replaced with phrases like "Hmm. Alright, keep going." and "I'm not really too sure about this, to be fair." You'd also need to hook it up to the tv somehow. Never mind, it's too much effort.

Normal Post: The Final Countdown

I think when all the of ideas run out, I'll start being responsible and take the reigns and all of that. By ideas, I mean all of the ideas out there, not just my own. I don't think I've ever really had a proper idea, come to think.

NO WAIT I'VE HAD ONE. There's certainly a growing problem, especially among men, regarding who the funny one is. I think we're all beginning to confuse 'being funny' (especially being contextually funny) with 'being the funny one'. You might think this is nonsense, go ahead and laugh (thank you) but I honestly think that, in even as little as a decade's time, there may be a need for suppourt groups and phonelines and such for men who are finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that they aren't the funny one, and are maybe just funny from time to time. There won't be one for women, you can't tell them anything.

International Relative Exchange Vol.4

Trading in a relative can be a bit like how the world slipped into the Great War, what with family peace often being one big convulted mess of strained nicities and devestating-secrets-as-mutually-assured-destruction. You might not like uncle Phil/Phillie, but what about that Great Aunt you never knew you insulted? Her Philbert was as good as Dial-a-Bus, and she knows that, if she trades your mum for the Pot Luck option (coming soon!), there'll be no-one to save you from that 'other' uncle. It's up to you. I love MY family.

Royalty Free Ideas: Ian Beale Bakes with his Face

This one's royalty free, so knock yourself out. I would charge, but I think there's a big chance that Adam Woodyat (who channels Beale for televisual purposes) could drown in cake batter, were he really to attempt baking with his face. And given that the idea is almost implicity 'for charity', there's very little chance that the Adam/Ian symbiote would be able to pass up the request, once made. I'm not sure where I'm going with this.

I remember watching Adam Woodyat trying to break free of the Beale yoke on some consumer affairs programme on BBC1, where he acted as a kind of roving reporter, grudgingly testing out hoovers and lawnmowers with the Great British Public in tow. 'Grudgingly' being the watchword - for someone who wanted to branch out, he very quickly resorted to just being Ian Beale again, and in such a way that it seemed like he was a normal reporter into Ian Beale cosplaying which no one else was allowed to mention for diversity reasons.

Normal Post: International Federation of Shapes

Long, long ago, I worked in a small museum that sort of bled a lot of money (just by virtue of it's very existence, not as a result of anything I ever did, because I don't think I ever did anything). Happily, it's still up and running, but that's not the point. One afternoon, I received a letter from a group calling themselves the Ice Cream Alliance, effectively trying to sell the museum iced goods cabinets and such like. I would've felt threatened if their logo hadn't had so much primary coloured jaunt to it.

I still wonder what prompted such an alliance in the first place. 'Alliance' suggests that they were trying to fend off some greater, darker foe. The internet? the transient nature of things? Huddled together in the dark, those ice cream conglomorates, what did they see when they looked beyond the vale of tasty temporary gratifaction and into the dark abyss of the future? New flavours? No flavour at all?

Incidently, I often tell people that the Walls Twister ice cream was made by someone on Jim'll Fix It and, after it proved popular with consumers, was rolled out nationwide, to be consumed en masse even to this day. I looked it up on wikipedia just there and there isn't any basis in fact for that story. To everyone I ever lied to about Walls Twister, I am so sorry. Now all I have to do is figure out where that story I was telling even came from...

Normal Post: Futureproof

I actually feel this way about the Nintendo DSi, but talking about being duped by a videogame console isn't manly (grr!) so I'll leave it be. Motion sensitive gaming...

The hand picture serves to illustrate the size of the post-its I draw on when I draw on the post-its I draw on. In response, mainly, to the stark upscaling (or bigging, if you like) of the images when they're posted. Essentially, it's not my fault. None of it is, nor will it ever be. Get OUT OF MY HOUSE! I don't have fat hands, neither.