Donald Trump stole my sandwich

Donald Trump stole my sandwich

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Or

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Ten fun things to do with a severed finger

Loyal minions... I mean fans... You will have noticed that I have been quiet of late. The world according to Arun, once voted World's Most Hilarious Blog*, has been a desolate place, and don’t think I haven’t felt the pain. No new Urban Legends post at Hallowe'en? No more letters to or from Santa Claus? No random articles on... I don't know... how to charge your phone, using only a child's wish and the heat from a latté? This is not how the world was supposed to be. This is not the world I want, dammit!

Long story short, the words weren’t flowing from my (moderately unusual) mind as easily as they once did.

So I’ve been quiet for a while. Biding my time, until something came along that made me almost physically need to write about it, as I knew something eventually would. And then, finally, after the longest creative dry spell that a person (who has never worked for Fox Reality) has ever had, something did. Not that, though. Not The Other Thing, which, appropriately enough,  rhymes with ‘dump’, and the absurdity of which I could not hope to cover in a dozen lifetimes, let alone a single blog post. No, the thing I needed to say something about was a little closer to home. Rather more personal. A part of my person, in fact. Recently, I cut my finger. Hope you were sitting down when you read that.

Not wanting to labour the point or anything, while cutting a crusty roll -  Tough on the outside, sammich-ey awesomeness on the inside - I was sawing away at the exterior with my breadknife, which should probably require some kind of license to operate (seriously, one sharp brute of a thing), when I felt the crust suddenly give. Thanks to my legendary cat-like reflexes, I was able to pull the punch, as t'were, and ended up with only a tiny cut that barely broke the skin. But it was right over the joint cavity, and, well, long story short, I’ve been there before and could do without having to have a general anaesthetic while something small necessitates surgery to put right. I had to think; what if I’d just cut the finger right off?

Well, I'd probably do what most people who sever their fingers do, and take it to hospital in a cup of ice or something, then wait to be seen, and hopefully get the finger reattached, trusting that it eventually becomes almost as useful as it once was. But let’s face it; I'd get bored at some point. Most people do, in those waiting rooms, and I'm led to believe that most people have at least some degree of patience.  And if you can’t hold your phone like you normally do, mobile games lose some of their appeal. So what do you do, with only your own finger in some ice, to while away the hours? Allow me to offer a few suggestions.

Ten suggestions.

 Here, my friends, beginneth the TwatA list of ten fun things to do with a severed finger...

1. Stick it up your nose. Talk to a stranger, maybe ask them the time or something; anything that gets them looking at you, while you pretend not to notice that there’s a severed finger in your nostril. Award yourself points based on how long the conversation lasts, how horrified or close to vomiting they look, etc... Bonus points available if the finger drips blood on your leg while you’re talking.

2. As above, but with the finger tucked behind one ear, like a cigarette.

3. Use it to shush someone. Without breaking eye contact, place the fingertip across their lips. They will shut up. Guaranteed.

4. Fishing line cat toy. This one shouldn’t need much explaining. Got a cat? Good. A length of fishing line? Good. A severed finger? G... Uh... Um... that’s the spirit? Whatever. You get the idea.

5. Reserve a sun lounger. Can be applied to any situation where you’re trying to get to something first, but have people in front of you. Simply throw your severed finger, aiming for it to land in or on the target area. Pro tip: give it a little squeeze before you throw, so that when it lands, you get that extra little blood spatter. Extra dis-encouragement. No one else will want that sun lounger, now. All yours. Enjoy.

6. Door wedge. Fairly self explanatory.

7. Fix a wonky table. Also, fairly self explanatory.

8. If you’ve cut off your middle finger: can you think of a more epic way to flip someone off than silently handing them your finger and walking away?

9. Pike bait. Those delicious bastards will literally eat anything. If nothing else, it’ll be the coolest fishing story ever.

10. Book mark. *squish*

*By me, one night in my living room. The cat concurred, but as a member of another species, she was ineligible to vote. Still, 100% of the electorate voted for TwatA...

Psychedelic Math Rock

I love learning about the sort of things most people don't want to know about, because their perception of, say, rocket science, is that it must be far too complicated for the average person to begin to comprehend. But I am the sort of person who needs to know how things work, which is probably what led to me buying a book on quantum physics a couple of years ago. However, even I have to admit that calculus takes some figuring out. Take this as an example;

Squeezing Theorem.

If f, g and h are functions such that

f(rhubarb) <= g(rhubarb) <= h(rhubarb)

for all values of rhubarb in some open interval containing custard and if lim_{rhubarb→custard} f(rhubarb) = lim_{rhubarb→custard} h(rhubarb) = L then

lim_{rhubarb→custard} g(rhubarb) = L

How to use the squeezing theorem?
Example 1: Find the limit
lim_rhubarb→0 rhubarb ² cos(1/rhubarb)
Solution to Example 1:

As rhubarb approaches 0, 1 / rhubarb becomes very large in absolute value and cos(1 / rhubarb) becomes highly oscillatory. However cos(1 / rhubarb) takes values within the interval [-1,1] which is the range of cos rhubarb, hence

-1 ≤ cos (1/rhubarb) ≤ 1

Multiply all terms of the above inequality by rhubarb ² (rhubarb not equal to 0)

- rhubarb ² ≤ rhubarb ² cos (1/rhubarb) ≤ rhubarb ²

The above inequality holds for any value of rhubarb except 0 where rhubarb ² cos (1/rhubarb) in undefined. As rhubarb approaches 0 both - rhubarb ² and rhubarb ² approach 0 and according to the squeezing theorem we obtain

lim_rhubarb→0 rhubarb ² cos(1/rhubarb) = 0
Example 2: Find the limit lim_rhubarb→0 sin rhubarb / rhubarb
Solution to Example 2:

Assume that 0 < rhubarb < Pi/2 and let us us consider the unit circle, shown below, and a sector ChickenFriedRice with central angle rhubarb where rhubarb is in standard position. Fried is a point on the unit circle and ChickenSoup is tangent to the circle at Chicken.

Point Rice is a point on the unit circle (radius = 1)and has coordinates (cos rhubarb, sin rhubarb). Let us find the areas of triangle ChickenFriedRice, sector ChickenFriedRice and triangle

area of triangle ChickenFriedRice = (1/2)*(base)*(height)

= (1/2)*(1)*(y coordinate of point C) = (1/2)(sin rhubarb)

Note: we have used base = radius = 1

area of sector ChickenFriedRice = (1/2)*(rhubarb)*(radius) ²

= (1/2) (1) ² rhubarb = (1/2) rhubarb

area of triangle ChickenFriedSoup = (1/2)*(base)*(height)

= (1/2)*(1)*(tan rhubarb) = (1/2) tan rhubarb Comparing the three areas, we can write the inequality

area of triangle ChickenFriedRice < area of sector ChickenFriedRice < area of triangle ChickenFriedSoup Substitute the areas in the above inequality by their expressions obtained above.

(1/2)(sin rhubarb) < (1/2) rhubarb < (1/2) tan rhubarb Multiply all terms by 2 / sin rhubarb gives

1 < rhubarb / sin rhubarb < 1 / cos rhubarb Take the reciprocal and reverse the two inequality symbols in the double inequality

1 > sin rhubarb / rhubarb > cos rhubarb Which the same as

cos rhubarb < sin rhubarb / rhubarb < 1 It can be shown that the above inequality hols for -Pi/ 2 < rhubarb < 0 so the the above inequality hold for all rhubarb except rhubarb = 0 where sin rhubarb / rhubarb is undefined. Since

lim_rhubarb→0 cos rhubarb = 1 and

lim_rhubarb→0 1 = 1 , we can apply the squeezing theorem to obtain

lim_rhubarb→0 sin rhubarb / rhubarb = 1 This result is very important and will be used to find other limits of trigonometric functions and derivatives

See what I mean? That makes no sense, whatsoever! ChickenFriedSoup? What the hell is that?

PCP for the soul

If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Or something like that. It's a nice thought; if you love your job, you probably won't actually dread going to work, won't be ever so slightly miserable while you're there, and won't spend the rest of your waking hours trying to cheer yourself up. Unfortunately, for most people, there is a certain element of 'aw, do I have to?' involved, but hey; it gives us something to bitch about, between weekends.

Of course, there are worse things than going to work on a Monday morning. Like watching The Jeremy Kyle Show on a Monday morning. Or any morning. Or afternoon. For those of you outside the UK, it's a bit like Springer, but with uglier guests and a self-righteous host. It mostly goes like this; an unmitigated waste of skin sits down and tells the host, Jeremy Kyle, a man with the cold, dead eyes of a killer and 12-gauge nostrils, what an unmitigated waste of skin they are, he shouts at them, the audience cheers and applauds like a bunch of trained seals, and I wonder what wrong turn I took in life to bring me to the point where I'm sitting in front of that TV in the first place. At some point in the show's one hour run time, there will inevitably be a DNA test to establish the parentage of some unfortunate child. There's also bound to be a lie detector in there, somewhere. As much as I hate the show itself, I must admit I like when the lie detector says someone is lying and they continue to protest their innocence, because then, Kyle points out that polygraphs are generally accepted to be about 96% accurate. As if this means the test can't possibly be wrong. If it's spot on 96% of the time, that means it has to be wrong in 4% of cases, and if that doesn't sound like much, bear in mind it means a 25 to 1 chance that the lie detector is indeed wrong. I don't know about you, but I've backed horses with worse odds than that.

While there was a time when I would endure this crap, probably because the batteries in the remote were dead, I now avoid it at all costs. To give you an idea, here are ten things I would rather do than watch The Jeremy Kyle Show;

1. Stare at a crack in the ceiling for an hour. Actually, two hours.
2. Run through the lion enclosure at the zoo, wearing a suit made of raw bacon and loudly suggesting that all male lions have homosexual tendencies.
3. Memorise pi to 100 decimal places.
4. Stand on top of the Eiffel tower during a thunderstorm, dressed head to toe in wet aluminium foil, using a powerful, and very well earthed, PA system to tell French jokes to the people below.
5. Walk up to the biggest, toughest guy in a really rough bar and say; “Damn right, I was looking at your woman. Turns out you really can put lipstick on a pig”.
6. Attempt to rollerblade down an oiled fire escape, while carrying two large glasses of Rioja.
7. Board a plane, then, as it takes off, sniff the air and ask; “Does anyone else smell burning?”
8. Sit nice and close to a camp fire, wearing a waistcoat made from firecrackers.
9. Go to the final of the next rugby world cup, and spend the entire match facing the wrong way.
10. Jump out of a plane at 5000 feet, strapped to an anvil, with a wet paper parachute, over a glass recycling plant, while singing auld lang syne backwards and trying to put the pin back in a grenade. While drunk. And wearing oven gloves.

I have a couple of ideas that I think would really improve the show, but they've rejected them all on health and safety grounds. I don't get it; surely if you were to get the guests to sign waivers, you could install all the hidden trapdoors you wanted. Cowards.

Family captured by ninjas

Regular readers (or irregular readers. Or anyone who's looked at 'Blog Archive') will have noticed that The world according to Arun has been somewhat irregular of late. When I started this blog, I intended to post once a month and was determined not to miss a month, no matter what. So what happened? ISP knocked out by a meteorite striking the server farm, thereby preventing me from accessing blogspot? Alien abduction keeping me away from home for two months? No, much more incredible than that; I got a girlfriend. There were other factors, of course, but most aren't that interesting and I can't legally disclose details of any of the rest, and the fact remains that being in a relationship does mean that I spend less time than before in front of the computer, wondering if the blinking cursor is somehow mocking me.

Being in a relationship also means that I find myself thinking of things Girlfriend and I can do, places we can go, etc... and, well, I have to either stop thinking, or make more money somehow. The second one it is, then. My first thought, unsurprisingly, was a new job. Nothing in particular, just something that pays more than my current job. This is not without its problems; not least the fact that the economy is still on its knees (as I type, the UK has just gone back into recession) and jobs are a little thinner on the ground than they used to be. Besides, the whole business of applying for a job, tweaking my CV to make myself appear to be a relatively employable human being, then being interviewed for a job I may or may not get is, at best, time consuming. If someone gave me a thesaurus and at least an hour to come up with one word to describe myself, that one word would not be 'patient', so what I need is a significantly quicker way to make money. Ideally, something I can start straight away. Something I don't even have to leave the house for. Looking down the back of the sofa for loose change might be a worn-out joke nowadays and certainly not a guaranteed way to make big money, but I decided to have a go, just in case.

Fair enough, it was a waste of time. Found nothing but biscuit crumbs (chocolate Hob Nobs, in case you were wondering), a pen and, somehow, a small allen key. No matter, that wasn't my only hope, just a low-hanging fruit to be picked first. Other things require me to actually leave the house.

I decided that my new occupation should not involve;

1. Any real effort. Unless it's absolutely guaranteed to give me abs that make an actual washboard look a bit soft and the cardiovascular fitness of a racehorse.
2. People skills. I am not a naturally obsequious person. Also, I prefer brutal honesty to innocuous diplomacy. It would therefore be preferable if my new occupation does not require making strangers like me. Especially before about 11 am.
3. Any sort of criminal element. Partly because I'd just really rather not, partly because there's a good chance that the guilt would cause a stomach ulcer so severe, it would end up being classified as a whole new sort and then named after me, and partly because I would almost certainly forget some small but important detail and spend the next couple of years getting amateur prostate exams from a large man called Moose.

For example, bank robbery is not for me. I could spend months researching a particular bank's layout and security systems, planning my escape and establishing an airtight alibi, but, as I said, I would almost certainly forget something. And I'm not just being hard on myself, either; you'd be amazed how many people try to rob banks and fail miserably. The FBI say most bank robberies are 'unsophisticated and unprofessional' crimes, which, if anything, is being kind. An estimated 76% of bank robbers don't bother with a disguise, despite the fact that your average bank has more cameras in it than a Sony Centre. Even those who do try to conceal their identity occasionally make a right hash of it. One man tried smearing mercury ointment on his face, presumably believing this would make his face appear on cameras as a featureless white blur. It did not. The ointment actually gave authorities a much clearer picture than would otherwise have been possible.

Mind you, I like to think I'm not completely clueless. I like to think, for example, that I would do better than the criminal mastermind from Grand Forks, North Dakota, who went to a bank in Fargo, North Dakota, handed the teller a demand note and ran out the door with his money. Police searched the surrounding area and found nothing. Then they discovered the demand note was written on the back of the robber's personal bank deposit note. They went to his house and arrested him.

I like to think I would do better, but I know I am as prone to occasionally throwing a teabag in the sink and teaspoon in the bin as anyone else, so probably better to forget about it.

Professional poker player looks good on paper; you hardly have to move at all, if you're too nice everyone will think you're cheating and its perfectly legal (in most places). Spend a bit more time playing Texas Hold 'em, familiarising myself with the rules and what beats what, and I might eventually be good enough to play at a professional level. Like most forms of gambling, poker is all about odds. It's easy enough to work out the odds of your opponent having a hand you can beat, based on the strength of your own, for example, and if you make the decision to check/call/raise, etc... based on those odds, then most of the time (in theory) you should win. Sounds simple. Unfortunately, there's a little more to it. Professional players devote their lives to the game, spending all day for days on end constantly trying to out-bluff opponents, knocking them out one by one. It's hard work. It's mentally draining. And because the prize money comes from the players, for one to win big, another has to lose his shirt. This isn't an issue for some people; they seem to thrive on crushing lesser mortals. Others tolerate it for a while, before eventually succumbing to the guilt, quitting poker for good and forever after regarding card games as somewhere between divine and infernal. Maybe poker isn't for me, either.

Obviously, I had to consider at some point the idea of selling something, but what? There might be some money in buying cheap paracetamol pills, painting them blue and selling them online as 'The little blue pill', or something similarly trite, but it is a little unethical. The same could be said for breeding Roborovski hamsters and selling them as pedigree racing hamsters, although, to be fair, those things can shift when they want to.

In the end, though, I thought of something which requires almost no effort at all, doesn't depend on any kind of people skills and is completely legal. Deciding there just aren't enough social networking sites on the internet, I'm creating my own. My new social network will be called Fakebook (copyright law permitting), and is founded on one very simple premise; everyone lies. I don't mean that in any conspiratorial, trust no-one sort of way, I just mean that everyone on the site lies about everything. Create an account with the username Hugh Jazz, upload a photograph you found on the internet of some UFC fighter whose name you can't even remember, and so on. Finish creating your profile by filling in some basic details which in no way represent your likes/dislikes, your real opinion on anything, or any other aspect of your life, and you're ready to connect with other Fakebook users and tell them all how brilliant your imaginary life is. Think of it as a fantasy version of Facebook and I think it makes sense. You know all those horror stories about meeting online contacts who turned out to be murderers, rapists or paedophiles? Not an issue when you know for a fact that an online friend is being deliberately deceptive about who they are and what they do.

The aim of Fakebook is not to provide a new way for old friends to stay in touch, but to let people tell everyone how great they are. It might all be based on lies, but if you spend enough time telling people you're amazing, you'll start to believe it yourself. Every time you sign in, you get an ego boost, partly from talking yourself up and partly from the sycophantic friends you've acquired (because if you have no idea who anyone really is, there's no reason to continue to be friends with someone who's less than flattering) telling you that they think you're amazing, too. This boost will make you want to keep using Fakebook, to keep getting that nice warm fuzzy feeling, until you eventually become addicted, and that's where I make my money. Everyone on the site will see ads for various things, but these will initially be unobtrusive banners. If a user has been a member for less than a month, they probably aren't hooked yet, so they see ads for beauty products and pet food. However, once they've been active members for six months or so, they are addicted to the nice warm fuzzy feeling and more likely to just put up with a homepage that's 70% advertisements, mostly for the sort of crap they get emailed to them anyway. Basically, once the site has been up and running for a year or so, I'll hopefully be making enough money to quit my job and pay some assorted IT guys to run Fakebook for me, while I spend my time writing The world according to Arun, doing coupley things with Girlfriend and keeping Mike Hunt's Fakebook page up to date.

Anyone know where I can buy some cheap servers?

It's not the end of the world (as we know it)

Congratulations; you're alive. The fact that you just read that first sentence means that a; you're alive, and b; the world hasn't ended. Not yet, at least. I point out this plainer than plain fact because, as many of you are no doubt aware, the world is due to end this year. Come in, number three, your time is up. Do not pass go, do not collect £200. You are the weakest planet. Goodnight, Irene. Et cetera...

How do we know the world is nearing its expiration date? Step forward the Maya, a Mesoamerican civilisation finally subdued by the Spanish in 1697. They had some interesting ideas; notably the belief that blood-letting almost to the point of death allowed them to communicate with their gods (severe blood loss triggers large amounts of endorphins, the body's own natural painkillers, to be released into whatever blood is left, which could conceivably lead you to believe that you are playing pool with the Stay-Puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters) and a game rather like soccer, but set in a sort of large basketball court and played with severed human heads instead of a ball, but most important for those of us trying to decide what we're doing for Christmas dinner 2012 is the long count calendar. The current cycle (or 'Baktun') will end on the 21^st of December this year. The end of this, the 13^th Baktun, is considered to have been thought of by the Maya as very important and this is what has lead people acquainted with the long count calendar to conclude that at the end of this cycle, the world as we know it will end. Look on the bright side; if they're right, you won't have to bother with Christmas shopping this year.

The (almost certainly not mental) people who study the Mayan calendar of doom claim that it was created to count down to some great astronomical event, prompting speculation that something not of this world will be what brings about its sudden demise. And yes, some say that could involve <sigh> aliens.

Ever heard of Planet X? After Neptune was discovered in 1846, there was speculation that there may be another planet out there, somewhere beyond Neptune's orbit. In the early 20^th century, the Planet X hypothesis was put forward in an attempt to explain apparent discrepancies in the orbits of Uranus (stop it; I can hear you giggling) and Neptune. The theory was that if there was a large (and thus far unseen) planet orbiting the sun outside the edge of the known solar system, its gravity could influence the orbits of the above mentioned planets as it passed them, a bit like how the gravity of the moon influences Earth's oceans and gives us tides. The discovery of Pluto in 1930 caused some excitement, partly because it appeared to validate the Planet X idea. Until it was discovered to be nowhere near big enough to have that powerful a gravitational field in 1978, prompting the search for a larger tenth planet. Some bright sparks, combining the study of the Mayan calendar with a basic knowledge of astronomy and our solar system in particular have suggested that Planet X, or Nibiru, as it was called by the Sumerians and Babylonians, may be due to enter the solar system this year. They have therefore conclusively proved that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. For a start, there is the implication that Nibiru, apparently well documented by the Sumerians, is the Planet X we started looking for only relatively recently. It can't be. Nibiru is meant to pass between the orbits of Mars (the fourth planet) and Jupiter (the fifth planet), causing Jupiter to move closer than normal to the sun, making it hotter than normal, basically igniting the gases it is made up of and turning it into a sort of secondary sun. This would be bad news for Earth, but would require that Nibiru somehow passes through our solar system, without technically being part of it.

Still, I suppose it is possible that the Sumerians were right and there is a planet whose orbit of something other than our sun brings it into our system every 3600 years or so and that it is inhabited by sentient beings who created us to mine Earth's gold for them, in order to preserve their own environment. Oh, and in the billions of years the sun and its planets have been here, Nibiru has been regularly popping in and out without catapulting any other planets closer to the sun. Personally, I find that one a little hard to swallow.

Yet more doom-mongers say that a 'very rare' planetary alignment, due during the winter solstice (21^st December) will cause planet-wide mayhem, as it triggers a reversal of Earth's magnetic poles; basically our magnetic north and south poles swap places. Such a reversal could indeed mean that life on Earth is what physicists describe as being wrapped helically around a cylindrical object*, since Earth's magnetic field, which protects us from the solar wind (a stream of charged particles ejected from the sun) may greatly reduce in intensity or vanish altogether during a geomagnetic reversal. Sounds serious, doesn't it? Well, it certainly would be, but read on.

First, I'd like to clarify the term 'planetary alignment'. Imagine the solar system as having the sun at the centre and the planets in concentric orbits, all in the same horizontal plane, sort of like balls on a pool table, in that no one of them can be higher or lower than any other. Now stop imagining it like that. While the first three or four orbits are within a few degrees of each other, the rest are within 96 degrees, meaning that the planets, while they do sometimes align, can never line up quite as neatly as the people who wish they were real astronomers would have us believe. Planetary alignment isn't that rare, either; the planets were actually in alignment in 1982. A lot of things happened in 1982. The Falklands conflict, the pound coin was introduced, the first IVF baby was born, but (and please feel free to correct me on this) the world did not end.

I will admit, however, that some real scientists say that the solar flares released from the sun are set to hit the peak of an eleven-year cycle in 2012. Excuse me for not hiding under the table. While it is true that a large solar flare could disrupt satellites, mobile phones, the internet et al..., think back to 2001, when solar flares did absolutely nothing like that. I fondly remember the day in 2001 when my phone didn't leap out of my hand and run down the street screaming the scream of a thousand hell-scorched souls, kicking puppies and praising satan as it went.

But can it really be a coincidence that solar flares are set to peak, the planets are set to align and Nibiru is predicted to enter our system in the same year as the long count calendar counts down to zero?

Yes. Yes, it can.

Just in case, I'm not going to do any Christmas shopping until at least the 22^nd of December. As if I was going to anyway...

*I was going for 'screwed', without having to actually say it. Damn; I just did.

A logistical nightmare

Dear Santa,

I have been a very good boy this year. Mostly. Well, I haven't done anything that bad. Okay, I haven't broken any laws. Okay, no-one died. That I know of. Anyway, as it's that time of year again, I have a few requests.

1. A roadster with a Ferrari V8 and the sequential gearbox from a BMW M3.
2. Friendlier voices in my head.
3. A pet tiger.
4. Potassium nitrate.
5. Charcoal.
6. Sulphur.
7. Audrey Tautou covered in honey.

You'll have noticed that the list is considerably shorter than it was last year. Trying to be a bit less materialistic. Well, that's it for this year. Have a safe trip and, as ever, thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Arun.

Dear Arun,

Before I get started, the legal department have asked me to inform everyone asking for presents that there are now certain conditions to be met, after far too many delays and near-misses last year, and that failure to meet these conditions will result in non-delivery of presents.

• Your roof must be no steeper than 37 degrees.
• Your chimney pot must protrude no more than 1200 millimetres from the roof and must not be less than 200 millimetres in diameter.
• The roof must be free of decorations.
• All reasonable effort must be made to keep the roof free of ice.
• The roof must not have broken or missing tiles.
• Santa reserves the right not to deliver if it is dangerous to do so.

Moving on to your list, I'm afraid I can't deliver any of it. I'm aware of the roadster you're referring to, but it is a concept car, there's only one in existence and I'm fairly confident they'd notice it missing. Friendlier voices in your head are surely a matter for your doctor. A pet tiger would be much too dangerous, as well as ridiculous. Even if I could deliver a french actress to your home, I really don't know if Ms Tautou would be willing to allow herself to be covered in honey. And as for items 4,5 and 6, if you're planning to make your own gunpowder, I want nothing to do with it. Let's be honest, you don't have the best track record; you're not allowed to own fish any more and that microwave explosion brought the kitchen ceiling down. Sorry about your presents, and best wishes for the future.

Yours sincerely,

Santa Claus

P.S: You're 29. Stop writing to Santa.

Dear Santa,

You make some good points, but in my defence, that explosion was an accident. To this day, I have no idea what was in that bowl at the back of the fridge, but apparently it was very unstable. Regarding my list, what if I were to cut it down to one item? The item I have in mind wasn't on the original list. A PS3; surely you can deliver those?

Yours sincerely,

Arun

Dear Arun,

No. Like I said, you're 29.

Yours sincerely,

Santa Claus

Dear Santa,

I didn't want to have to play it this way, but need I remind you of what happened in Kyoto in 2005? Get back to me.

Yours sincerely,

Arun

Dear Arun,

Please accept my sincerest apologies for my earlier letters. I don't know what came over me. A PS3 and some games will be under your tree on Christmas morning. I'll even throw in a Blu-ray. Thank you for your support over the years and for your help in dealing with the Kyoto incident, which you were instrumental in keeping out of the papers.

Yours sincerely,

Santa Claus

More Power

If you're not already sitting down, I suggest you do so immediately, because the following may shock you. So, are you sitting comfortably? No laptops, tablets or smartphones in danger of being dropped? Okay, here goes: women do more housework than men. I know, staggering, isn't it? I almost dropped the remote when I read that. According to the Office for National Statistics, people spent less time on housework in 2005 than in 2000, but women still do more, spending an average of 2 hours 31 minutes per day on housework, compared with men, who spend 1 hour 53 minutes per day trying to earn enough brownie points to get away with a couple of hours of FIFA later on. Doesn't that seem a little odd? Stay-at-home dads have become socially acceptable, when a mere thirty years ago, the idea would have been laughable, at best. There is now no job (with the odd exception, such as male model) that a woman cannot do. The sexes are now more evenly matched, in more ways, than they have ever been, and yet women still do a full 25% more housework per average day. Most people have their own idea why this is, and their own idea is almost invariably due to their own gender, but consider this; your average household appliance isn't what you'd call masculine, is it? I'll elaborate.

A while ago, I noticed that some vacuum cleaners have a dial that allows the user to choose just how much suction they want, anything from 'Min' to 'Max'. There's your first clue that this machine wasn't designed with a man in mind; no numbers. Men like to quantify things. There's no point in knowing that 'Max' gives more suction that 'Min', when you have no idea how much more. You need numbers, preferably percentages, so that the minimum is expressed as a pitifully small percentage of the motor's available power and the maximum is, obviously, 100%. In fact, the range should not be anything so effete as from 'Min' to 'Max', it should start at 'Max' and go up to 'Are you sure about this?'.

What I'm suggesting, here, is not simply that manufacturers label appliances in such a way as to make them appear more powerful, but that they make appliances which are more powerful. With this mindset, and invaluable input from friend, colleague and fellow visionary Malcolm* (who introduced me to the engineering mantra 'if you can't fix it with a hammer, it's an electrical issue'), I set about creating a whole new range of man-friendly household appliances.

First to be reinvented was the vacuum cleaner. As mentioned above, it should be substantially more powerful than anything currently on sale. Most vacuum cleaners tend to have 1000-2000 watt motors. Pitiful, isn't it? 11 kilowatts (equivalent to about 15 horsepower), now that's more like it. That's the sort of power that gets your attention. It should be, because that's the sort of power that will be capable of sucking the pile off a carpet, never mind any dust. The machine should be bagless, partly because changing bags is the sort of dirty job that I for one will avoid unless it absolutely must be done, and partly because this beast will be able to double as a garden vac. Bypass the dust chamber, attach a large nylon bag to the exhaust and you'll be able to rid the garden of leaves, having just rid the living room of crisp fragments. A butane-fuelled afterburner in the exhaust (deactivated in outdoor mode, so as not to set the bag on fire) will incinerate any pet hair, etc... that makes it out the other side, thus our cleaning behemoth will have a hypo-allergenic sticker on it, to assure prospective buyers that it is safe for people with hay fever, asthma, etc... Finally, it needs a clunkily industrial-sounding name. 'Suction Multi-Tool' should suffice.

Next, the kitchen; a room which should already be fairly appealing, as it is full of things which require power. But aside from the fridge and kettle, what is there to attract a man's attention? First thing to be upgraded is the cooker. I'm thinking an oven capable of melting copper, a grill that can turn sausages into charcoal in a few minutes and one big burner for a hob. You'll lose the odd saucepan handle now and then, but it can be used as a barbecue; every man's preferred method of cooking. This cooker will come with a set of ceramic heat-resistant tiles, to be fixed to the ceiling directly above the monster hob, to make sure nothing structural catches fire. And prevent bits of burnt plaster landing in your food.

Moving on, and sticking with the gas burner idea, consider the toaster. Nothing wrong with toasters as they are, you might think. And you'd be right; there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the basic design. Put bread in, wait a few minutes, toast comes out. Job done. But what if, instead of using the heat radiating from a hot wire, toasters had several small burners? Put bread in, wait up to four seconds, toast comes out. Job done. Faster. And all that's required is a way of getting gas to the toaster. I'm thinking something along the lines of those little camping gas cylinders. Maybe the toaster should come with heat-resistant tiles, too, to allow it to be used underneath cupboards, without all your plates falling out.

There's nothing terribly wrong with the blender as it is, either, but more power can only improve it. I understand some companies can sell you a blender with one third of a horsepower, which is obviously nowhere near powerful enough. And so I have found one redeeming feature in the Toyota Prius: its twin electric motors, which produce a combined 80 horsepower. Putting just one of these in our improved blender will endow it with 40 HP. Take that, Moulinex. Seriously, never mind blending fruit for a smoothie, that'll blend gravel.

And then we have the washing machine. Loathsome things, washing machines. I've never figured out how to use any particular machine without help. I can see how to make any other household appliance do my bidding, but a washing machine I haven't encountered before? Someone has to show me. I find that infuriating, and I blame the dial on most washing machines which, using randomly arranged hieroglyphics and no small amount of idiosyncrasy, allows the shaman using the damn thing to choose from dozens of subtly different programmes. So that needs to go. The man-friendly washing machine will have just three (fairly vigorous) programmes; light colours, dark colours and whites. That's it. If you're wondering why there's no delicate wash, that's because men don't have delicates. At least none that aren't permanently attached. As you'd expect, it has a little more power than the one currently in your kitchen. Picture a horizontal water pipe. Now picture a chamber like an upturned bottle connected to the pipe, sticking straight up. This is what will allow the washing machine to deliver the white wash to end all white washes. The chamber will be, say, three quarters full of water, with air at the top. As the machine heats the water, steam will form above the water. As steam builds, this pressurises the water, preventing it from boiling further, allowing the water to remain liquid far above 100 degrees. Think a boil wash is good at getting stains out? Try the same thing at 300 degrees or so. That'll get the black out of onyx. It'll need a pressure release valve, of course, in case of emergency, and it probably wouldn't be safe to blow superheated steam into your drains, but look at it this way; you can have your own geyser in the back garden.

Well, that's it for now. I had a couple of other ideas, but they're just not feasible. My idea for a super powerful microwave can't happen, due to some silly little law about background radiation. And the less said about the deep fat fryer, the better.


*Surname withheld, to protect the guilty.