Category Archives: challenge

Sep 25 2012
Leave a comment
art, challenge

DAY 46 – A picture containing all the best things in the world

Image

Looking precisely as shattered as I was here. Oh good.

A pal of mine from school, Claire, was getting married and, since we hadn’t seen each other since we were 17, I had no idea what to get her. In the end I settled on the usual bubbly, but also decided to draw her a picture with All The Best Things In The World in it. This is what I did. I gave them the picture along with their card and other pressie. I haven’t heard back from them, so I assume they’re just overwhelmed with the magnificence of this artwork. Well, either that or they’re enjoying their honeymoon, but let’s assume the former. Here is a list, in no particular order, of what is in the picture. Poor Ryan Gosling, turns out I have some kind of grudge against him…

Zombies, prog rock, Neil Peart, guns, mushrooms, tea, Will’s face, skeleton army and seraphim army killing Ryan Gosling, bats, a warlock, vampires eating Ryan Gosling, pirates, explosions, booze, tigers eating Ryan Gosling, owls, a cool hat, lasers, teapots, a giant ant army, anthropomorphic furniture, burps, zombies eating Ryan Gosling, taxidermy, life, the concept of a geocentric universe, Santa, a kraken ascendant, boobs, a pantheon of gods and goddesses, fannies, bacon, eggs, bananas, the complete works of Shakespeare condensed into a sentence and Ancient Egypt.

Job done, I reckon!

Tagged ,
Aug 15 2012
Leave a comment
challenge, cultural, nature

DAY 28 – Learning to say my name in sign language

Does what it says on the tin! I wasn’t completely sure what to do for my new things at Bloodstock, and then a smashing lady called Gemma came along and taught me my name in sign language! Here it is, I hope it’s vaguely intelligible, but it was very dark, we were next to a fairground bungee ride and AC/DC was on in the background!

Tagged , , , , , ,
Aug 08 2012
Leave a comment
challenge, other, weird

DAY 24 – Learning to whistle with my fingers

We’ve all seen it – that guy at the concert who can stick two fingers in his mouth and execute a perfect, piercing whistle. Maybe you are that guy, in which case, you, sir, are an arse. Please be aware that the whole Non-Whistling Fraternity hates you with a passion. It just looks so effortlessly cool, and as we all know, being effortlessly cool is the mark of a tool.

However, Operation Try Anything has now given me the perfect excuse to seriously apply myself to learning this valuable life skill. Quick, Robin! To the internet!

I found several website which gave tutorials on how to whistle with your fingers, the best of these being the explanation from the marvellously Victorian-looking Art of Manliness. The basic steps are as follows:

  1. Draw your lips back over your teeth.
  2. Curl your tongue back on itself.
  3. Insert two fingers (or the index finger/middle finger combo on both hands), using them to hold your tongue back and your lips in place.
  4. Blow. A lot.
  5. Get a really dry mouth and throat.
  6. Make a cup of tea.
  7. Try again.
  8. Make another cup of tea.
  9. Get some sort of vague sound out that encourages you to keep on trying.
  10. More tea.

And so on. I ended up having to take the video at a point where I’d not quite got it but was producing a short, low whistle after about 20 tries. I honestly couldn’t have tried any longer as my mouth was starting to feel like sandpaper. I’m going to keep on trying though as I think I am getting better! Here’s the video:

Incidentally, if you are in a serious relationship or marriage and fancy trying this out, I recommend doing so in the potting shed. I would imagine that the learning process is about about as much fun to listen to as a small child learning to play the oboe. I’m going to carry on trying with this, as I was encouraged by the progress I made, but I’m not yet at the stage where I can wolf-whistle back at white van men. One can but dream…

Tagged , , , , , ,
Aug 06 2012
2 Comments
challenge, cultural, literature

DAY 23 – Summarising 5 great works of literature as Haikus

This was one I’d noted down on my rainy day list for when I couldn’t get out to do something more energetic. A nice, gentle, easy challenge. Well, the day after the Olympic volleyball I was tired and a bit hungover, so I needed something gentle and easy. So, this was perfect, right?

Well, believe it or not this actually took more brainwork than I’d thought! Summarising giant thick books in the form of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables is pretty challenging, especially if you haven’t had a lot of sleep. In traditional Japanese haikus there is also a cut-off point at the end of one of the lines – a syllable or punctuation mark which separates two of the lines for the other one. I think I managed to get this right in only one of the haikus – the Moby Dick one. Oh well! I had my best shot, and here are the results. See what you think.

‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ by Robert Louis Stevenson

Doctor splits himself.

Good aims create evil, so

must destroy them both.

‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen

Lizzie looks for love.

Darcy is rude but perks up

and has a big house.

‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker

Toothy bloke drinks blood.

Immortal? Beaten by a

solicitor. Crap!

‘Moby Dick’ by Herman Melville

Peg-leg obsessive

scours the oceans for white whale.

Kills all but Ishmael.

‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy

Tess is raped. Angel

blames her. Poverty, murder,

misery for all!

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Aug 03 2012
Leave a comment
music, weird, cultural, challenge

DAY 21 – Learning to play John Williams film music on Renaissance instruments

My brother, like most teenage boys, went through a phase of collecting, playing and making Renaissance instruments. It’s pretty standard for most teenagers. My family generally is very big on classical music – my mum’s a piano teacher, my dad used to run an amateur orchestra in his spare time, and both my brother and sister-in-law are professional French horn players – so of course my mum and dad kept the instruments my brother made, along with a shedload of others. I decided that it might be nice to use this opportunity to learn to play some John Williams classics on Renaissance instruments.

The great thing about learning to play Renaissance instruments from scratch is that they all sound a bit crap. There is a lot of leeway for getting stuff wrong and – let’s face it – I was unlikely to get this very right.

The first one I attempted was the bass cornamuse, a capped-reed instrument a bit like an oboe that you can brain someone with. I felt that this morning star of an instrument was perfect for playing the poignant, dramatic theme from Jurassic Park:

Quite, quite beautiful.

The second instrument I graced with my attempts was the cornett, or cornetto, which is played through a small mouthpiece (somewhat smaller than that of a horn or trumpet). It was absolute murder to play as the mouthpiece is so small, but I think you’ll agree I did full justice to the menacing Imperial March from the Star Wars trilogy:

I do hope you all enjoyed that. I know, I probably took you to levels of musicality you never knew existed before. You’re welcome.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Aug 01 2012
2 Comments
challenge, cultural, other

DAY 18 – Learning to say ‘Hello’ in as many different languages as possible

It was pretty hard to fit in a task for this day as I was moving – with all my goods, chattels and cat – from Barcelona to Birmingham, and would be spending a large chunk of the day at the airport. What could I possibly do at the airport? Plane spotting? Possible. Looking knackered? Probable, but nothing new.

Then I had a thought. Airports are a little hub of people from all different cultures and nationalities, speaking a huge variety of different languages. Perhaps I could harness this formidable linguistic opportunity and use it to teach myself something new? I resolved to accost a lot of people and annoy them until they relented and told me how to say ‘Hello’ in another language. No cheating and looking up stuff on the internet later, that’s way too easy. I had to speak to people and get them to teach me.

I learnt several important things from this day:

  1. Most people are very up for getting involved with a daft idea. Almost everyone I spoke to was super helpful and racked their brains to try and think of languages they knew. A couple of people didn’t want to be filmed, but nobody reacted with suspicion or annoyance – everyone was just great!
  2. My vocabulary needs a great deal of work. I may have been a bit shattered but seriously, there is no excuse for the number of times I introduce someone on the video as a ‘lovely lady/chap/couple’.
  3. Silly ideas are a great way of breaking the ice. I ended up getting red wine poured down my throat and having a good old chat with my mum and dad’s smashing new neighbours because I knocked on their door and asked them to teach me how to say ‘Hello’ in Gujarati!
  4. My dad’s nerdiness and obsession with learning bits of Eastern European languages really comes in handy when you have a daft scheme on hand.

Without further ado, here is the video record of my learning experience! The languages I learnt to say hello in were: English, French, Dutch, German, Chinese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian, Finnish, Portuguese, Hawaiian, Japanese, Finnish, Swedish, Russian, Gujarati, Latvian, Lithuanian, Czech, Maltese, Hungarian and Polish.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.