1. May you open your nappy bag at a time of great need to find only one nappy, used, several days old, and an empty packet of wipes.
2. May your baby open a portal to the vomit dimension and channel a milky spew larger than their own head through it.
3. May the next sleep regression begin tonight.
4. May there be no one food that everyone will eat.
5. May your toddler sequentially vomit on every clean duvet cover in the house.
6. May all your attempts to concentrate be interrupted by ‘I need a wee!’
7. May the toddler toddle your phone and keys off to a mysterious, inaudible and probably damp destination shortly before you are due to go out for an important appointment.
8. May the important toy go missing in the airport.
9. May they eat library books, draw on the walls, post letters into the bath; may their curiosity be channelled into finding out whether technology bounces.
10. May your child catch some picturesque illness that no childminder will come within ten miles of just as you approach a work deadline.
11. May their shoes be wrong in some subtle way that they lack the language to explain.
12. May the baby learn to climb up slides.
13. May you be so tired that you can no longer count.
1. Flying ant day. Normally falling towards the end of July or start of August, flying ant day is the day when winged ants leave their colonies to start new ones elsewhere. This is by far the best-known insect fiesta and has become significantly commercialised in recent years, with cards, comestibles and souvenir nick-nacks hitting the shops several months in advance. If you want to celebrate flying ant day along with your little insect friends, why not have a picnic with foods ants like? Jam, sugar and sticky sweets are all firm favourites. Interestingly, non-flying ants have been getting in on the airborne action this year by inflating hollowed-out bumblebees with digestive gases and using them as makeshift dirigibles. Keep a look out for bees with a suspicious buzz!
2. Walking fly day. Part of the emerging slow food movement amongst flies, walking fly day is a day when flies take to the ground. Participants pledge to take the scenic walking route to food items, only flying if in active danger. Consequently, the day before walking fly day is usually a time of frenetic activity amongst flies, as participants attempt to secure and memorise known food locations. Check whether walking fly day is celebrated in your location - presently it is only widely practiced in ares with a significant hipster fly population.
3. Diving wasp day. Usually occurring shortly after flying ant day, diving wasp day is the day wasps compete in diving into sweet, fizzy liquids around the globe. You can help by providing cola, beer or orange juice. Want to know if it’s diving wasp day or not? Check whether there are other wasps hanging around, ready to rate the diving of their audacious comrades!
4. Fucking laser-shooting tarantula day. Interestingly, tarantulas can develop biological lasers in their legs in response to stressful stimuli, or sometimes just when they feel like it. Fortunately, tarantulas are terrible organisers and are habitually late, so no-one has ever managed to successfully co-ordinate fucking laser-shooting tarantula day.
5. Rising up and destroying all vertebrates cockroach day. Don’t worry, they’ll wait until we’ve been largely incapacitated by some other event, such as an asteroid strike or nuclear war, first.
Those who navigate by the stars, who shit glitter, who look beyond the horizon and practice absurdity in the dead of night; those who come in from a thunderstorm with amazing hair; people who have reflections but the reflection always seems to be doing something a little bit differently; people who make up songs, those who are in love with ideas, those who stalk ideas, those who sleep with ideas and regret it the next morning; people who dance in the rain; those who do small kindnesses to trapped animals, having an airship powered by glamour and starlight, those who were born on Mars and are having a hard time keeping it secret; those who search for hidden rivers and lost basements, those who are able to ride unicorns because of the other reason people can ride unicorns that you don’t know about; those who are powered by the sea, word architects, lovers of elephants, with inky fingers; people who are calm in a crisis; those who have map tattoos across their bodies, who have inhaled the ghosts of ancient Hollywood, who smell of sticky strawberries, who deal with sorrow by singing; those who spin numbers together, who dress that way for ral and do not care; who sleep in a cradle of books; those who have no idea that they are fabulous; and all the others.
1. To take in hand the Fabled Sword of Truth and gird your loins with the Ancient Armour of Smriti the Dragonslayer; thus armed, to boldly step aboard the number 3 bus and take them to the local antique dealers; to get them evaluated for a quick sale in the hope of being able to pay this month’s rent.
2. To place the Ring of Power in the electricity meter, thus reaping a near-infinite but possibly evil supply of household energy.
3. To boldly venture into the cleft down the middle of a split infinitive, find a dilemma and cut off its horns.
4. To climb the rocky ridges of the Northern Mountains, find the golden dragon and slay it; take its hoard of nine thousand fabulous rubies; explain to the golden dragon’s children that it was a necessary act, as they weep acid tears and rend their scales; and represent your fraternity of adventurers in the international dragon court on charges of murder and theft.
5. To retrieve the fabled blade Sandwich-Cleaver from the ruins of the Great Picnic in That Field With The Bull In It.
6. To find somewhere to pee unobtrusively in the Kingdom of the Fairies.
7. To travel forwards through time at the rate of one second per second for the rest of your life.
8. To set sail on your reinforced steamship on a mission to the shopping malls of the seven seas, in search of the fabled Dress With Pockets That Can Be Machine-Washed.
9. To struggle across the Marshes of Despair, fight off eagles in the Red Mountains and stumble half-blindly over the Desert of Bones to get to the oasis wherein lies the Reliquary of the Elbow of Saint Constantine, only to find that there is a road to it from the other direction.
I used to have an elephant,
Her toes were cherry red.
I went out picking cherries but
I picked her out instead.
I said her hiding place was bad
And now she had been busted;
She said it was a better place than
Fridges, cars and custard.
She brought a mighty eletrunk
In which she stuffed her stuff.
My children asked me ‘Are you sure
Our sofa’s big enough?
And tell us, why is she so grey,
So wrinkly beside?
Should she be washed and ironed?’
'Forget it’, I replied.
Then next I thought Her Elephance
Could prove a lesson for
A group of seven blind men
who were waiting at the door.
'I’ve something here for you to feel,
Pray tell me what each finds!’
'That’s nice,’ they said, 'Now, if you please,
Where should we put these blinds?’
One day she went a-wandering
In search of some lost shore.
Two whales in a mini picked
Her up on the M4.
They called me on the Elephone
From somewhere North of Gower.
What was she doing there?’ I asked.
'About 5 miles an hour.’
At last I found the perfect home
For elephants at large;
Some friends of mine became her hosts
(She promised not to charge).
They kept her in their living-room
Behind the sofa-bed.
'Why, thank you!’ said my thoughtful friends.
'Don’t mention it’, I said.
1. The shopping trolley. The shopping trolley was one of the first inventions to spring from the fertile mind of Mr. Benjamin Trolley, a little-known farmhand in rural Australia. Interestingly, the first designs for the shopping trolley were not intended to hold groceries at all; rather, they began as a device for trapping and transporting wombats. This is why modern-day trolleys often still feature what is known as a ‘wombat flap’ - a hinged opening at the back through which animals can enter. A visiting American entrepreneur, Mr. Gregory Cart, recognised the potential in Trolley’s designs and stole a set of early blueprints, bringing what he termed the 'Shopping Cart’ to the market in the United States in 1905. Although Mr. Trolley won a subsequent lawsuit to be recognised as the original inventor, the damage was done. To this day, his invention is referred to by the name of his rival across much of the world.
2. The badge. The history of the badge is tied up with that of the 1835 Cruelty to Animals Act in the UK. During the run-up to this Act, there was some debate both in parliament and amongst the general public as to whether badger-baiting should be included in the list of prohibited acts. A popular movement in support of the badger arose, based around the London area of Holborn. Participants frequently greeted each other with the 'Holborn Snort’, a sound intended to mimic the call of an angry badger, and wore makeshift brooches depicting the black and white insignia of their alliance. Over time, these became known as 'badges’. Following the passing of the Act (successfully including a ban on badger-baiting), the badge was co-opted by other popular movements, eventually achieving its present ubiquity.
3. The sock. Interestingly, the sock was commonly known as the foot-glove until at least 1885. Thus one finds, for example, Shakespeare’s famous quote from Romeo and Juliet, 'O, that I were a glove upon that foot.’ (perhaps one of the earliest occurrences of foot fetishism in English Literature?) The sock owes its change of name to a quartet in the original version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida, in which a group of frightened maidens prepare for battle by competing to remove each other’s socks, eventually culminating in an energetic punch-up, or 'sock-em-up’ in the terminology of the time. The brief, wild popularity of this scene led to the adoption of the word 'sock’ for the foot-glove among London thespians, and subsequently the wider population. The scene itself was presented to Queen Victoria in 1895, who let it be known that she disapproved. It was subsequently cut from later versions of the operetta.
4. The doormat. Doormats were seldom seen in common use until 1770; before this time, people just tracked mud everywhere (a detail often omitted in historical dramas). The original idea for the doormat is believed to have come from one John Frederickson, an English inventor in the service of the King of France at Versailles in 1763. At this time, the fashion for highly-polished mirrored or gold-plated doors was beginning to wane in favour of a more subtle look. Frederickson invented what he termed his 'door-mattifying device’, a scratchy mat which could be rubbed over a polished surface to reduce its shine. The door-mattifying devices, once left beside their respective doors, soon acquired the secondary use we know today. Interestingly, the proper term for a doormat in French is still le chose pour porte-frottement.
5. The mug. Most people believe that the origins of the mug must lie far back in history. Interestingly, this is not the case. The mug as we know it was invented in 1835 by American philanthropist Theodora Mug, as part of her drive to improve global hydration levels. Its rapid adoption the world over is testament to the classic simplicity of the design. Before this date, drinking vessels were commonly known as flagons and were typically of larger size and more complicated construction. Indeed, in the 17th century it was common for women to drink only from their cupped hands, due to the extreme weight of the flagons of the day, which were used as status symbols.
2022 Overlords
-2022.1 Evil ones
–2022.11 Those ruling a kingdom, empire, planet or intergalactic civilization
—2022.111 Those who do little but stalk, glower, dispense arbitrary violence and die
—-2022.1111 Those who additionally do a bit of decadence
—-2022.1112 Those who additionally do soliloquizing and/or plot exposition
—2022.112 Those possessed of mysterious powers
—2022.113 Those who mainly ended up at the helm of a massive, bloodthirsty empire by dumb luck, and are not really sure what to do about it
–2022.12 Those ruling a small archipelago, city or cave system
–2022.13 Those having only a base and an unspecified number of henchbeings
—2022.131 Having a base on an island
—-2022.1311 Island is also a volcano
—-2022.1312 Island is shaped like a skull
—–2022.13121 Island is a world heritage site due to its amazing natural skull-shaped rock formations, gets a lot of adventure tourists
—2022.132 Having a base underwater
—-2022.1321 Widely known in shark conservation circles for extensive private collection, donations to shark welfare and advocacy organisations
—2022.133 Having a base in space
—-2022.1331 Those who make use of an universal docking system and are unusually careless with passwords, allowing any old space traveller to get on board
—-2022.1332 Those who do not
–2022.14 Those possessed merely of an evil overlord sort of mentality
-2022.2 Misunderstood ones
–2022.21 Those who have immeasurably improved the lives of millions of orcs, lifting orc-kind out of lives of brutality and extreme poverty and giving them a sense of self-belief and purpose again, not like you care
–2022.22 Those who have subtle and nuanced reasons for wanting to take over the world
–2022.23 Those who were never really evil overlords at all, but whose story was written by their enemies
-2022.3 Good ones
–2022.31 Those that are materially no different from the evil ones, other than that they have been able to write the history books
–2022.32 Those who overlord only to keep the declining secret base construction industry in business, safeguarding thousands of jobs
-2022.4 Those whose status is uncertain
–2022.41 Those of a capricious or insane nature
–2022.42 Those who may in fact exist only as children’s stories
–2022.43 Those who were possibly eaten five years ago by their own piranhas, but had arranged the direct debits of their empire such that nobody has actually noticed
1. You come home to find a single drop of gravy leaking through your letterbox and your key will not fit
2. Cats come up to you with sorrow in their big green eyes
3.
You have had more than one wrong-number phone call from the Vatican
basement, from those payphones near the statues, and there is some kind
of grinding noise in the background but it is hard to hear over the
Spanish-accented clarifications of the woman on the other end
4. You begin to receive vague but apologetic letters with postmarks from the near future
5.
The pipes knock at night in something that is almost Morse Code, save
for the addition of a mid-length, rattly noise like the coughing of a
rat
6. You notice a door that you have never seen before and that is curiously hard to forget
7.
A senior librarian comes to your door to absolve you, without asking,
of a number of library fines relating to highly unusual books that you
have never, to your knowledge, checked out
8. Whenever you turn round there is a blackbird flying away
9.
There is a ringing phone in the gutter down the road, and a large man
in sunglasses who is trying to pretend that it is not there
10. You cannot remember if you have ever been in a hailstorm, and neither can anyone you ask
11.
There was a will from a relative you never really knew about, in a part
of the world you’d never heard of, and it bequeathed you a box that
cannot be opened and, once opened, cannot be closed
1. Introductory Subaquatic Methodologies. Diving suits and systems; types of octopus, their strengths and weaknesses and propulsive power; how to enter and leave a submarine; the thousand most common passwords; underwater navigation; secret base architecture, underwater version; practical cave diving; elementary shark fighting; psychology of evil; identification and valuation of gold, silver and major jewel families; the bends, identification and treatment; strategies for survival on the open sea; common signs and signals used by maritime rescue agencies.
2. Introduction to Maritime Studies. Identification and architecture of typical pirate vessels; practical rowboat operation; grappling hooks, theory and practice; history, ethics and practice of stowing away; criminal psychology; introductory knife fighting; free diving; endurance swimming; lighthouse systems, operation and disablement; physics and geology of sea caves; celestial navigation; money laundering for beginners.
3. Practical Espionage 101. High-speed driving techniques (car); high-speed driving techniques (motorbike); acrobatics (elementary); introductory marksmanship; helicopters, operation and escape; abseiling; security patrol methodologies, evasion and disablement; introductory seduction; resistance to torture; knots; acrobatics (advanced); psychology of evil; rocket operation, major types; bomb disposal; acrobatics (bedroom); introductory wordplay.
4. Introduction to Conspiracy Theory. Introductory codebreaking; history of the Knights Templar; theory and critical evaluation of ancient mysteries; pyramid architecture; introductory archaeology; modern cultists, identification and hazard evaluation; ancient Greek; alternative cosmologies; history of art; corridor sprinting.
5. Unorthodox Arts for Beginners. Introduction to alternative hairdressing; the fourth wall: when to break, when not; introductory wordplay; mysterious doors, identification and use; lock picking and introductory burglary; deals with fairies: legal basis, enforcement and technicalities; the hundred most popular riddles; communication with non-verbal intelligences; introductory solution of mazes; theory and practice of the power of wishes and belief in magical worlds; hot-air balloon piloting for beginners; biology and psychology of mystical beings; introductory wistfulness.
1. Problem: Your laptop won’t boot. Your phone won’t boot. Your shoes won’t boot. You ask the people around you, none of them has ever heard the word ‘boot’. You look in a dictionary. It is not there.
Solution: You have entered a parallel timeline. You will need to go back to 1900 and re-install your grandparents*.
2. Problem: Your computer will only turn on when your cat is nearby.
Solution: Interestingly, this is not a virus. Rather, it is a security feature from the future. This problem indicates that your computer will still be around in 2185, probably in a museum of obsolete technology. At this point, the option to retrospectively apply advanced biometric security controls throughout the machine’s lifetime will become available. As a result of some future curator’s caution, your computer has become equipped with a security system which appears to have misidentified your cat’s microchip as the implanted security data it expects from its primary operator. There is no technical fix for this issue at present, but one will become available in 2053. Until then, you will need to ask nicely to borrow your cat’s computer.
3. Problem: It is raining laptops, and you are trapped under a tree in the middle of nowhere, fearful for your life.
Solution: The physical improbability of this situation suggests that you are in fact a computer-generated intelligence living in a simulated world. Your best bet is to get someone on the next level of simulation up to turn you off and on again. Communication methods vary between simulations, but you could try shouting really loudly, prayer or a makeshift tattoo.
*Note that installing grandparents not originally present in 1900 may invalidate your timeline’s warranty.