Feb 09 2012
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Food

66. Bake a cake

“Learning to bake perfectly,” Marguerite Pattern, the author of the 1962 book 500 Recipes For Families tells us, “is something anyone can learn with a little care and patience.”

500 Recipes for Families

“Even if you have had no experience in baking,” she continues, confidence oozing from her words, “if you follow my tips for easy baking to the letter, you should have no difficulty in making any one of the delicious cakes in this chapter – where it is a simple sponge or one of the more elaborate gâteaux.”

I knew I was in safe hands,  Ms Pattern, the famed author of such titles as 500 Recipies for Slimmers, 500 Recipes for Fish Dishes and 500 Main Meals was guiding me step by step through the baking of anything from a simple sponge to one of the more elaborate gâteaux!1. I simply could not fail! I could almost taste the cake already.  I believe they call it synaesthesia, I’m trying not to worry about it.

Grabbing my coat and a hastily scrawled shopping list and scurried off to the local supermarket to collect my ingredients.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the English supermarket at three thirty on a Sunday afternoon, but if you never had, then please consider the next paragraph a friendly warning. As I arrived I could almost taste the frustrated urgency of the shoppers as it got closer and closer to closing time. Those of you who are not aware from Britain will probably not realise that Britain has a very Christian view on shopping.  In recent years things have improved and the shops have been able to open briefly on Sundays, but not for long! Even 24 hour supermarkets have to close at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon. It’s something to do with the moral fibre of the country or that shops open at 6pm on a Sunday makes Jesus cry, or something. Honestly I’m not entirely sure, but suffice to say as I walked through the revolving doors to the local supermarket, shoppers strode around me with barely repressed anger, fixed expressions of annoyance fixed on their faces, daring the supermarket staff to even consider closing the shop whilst rushed to get an urgent can of kitty-chow whilst glancing at their fellow consumers as if  they were specifically there to try and stop them from achieving their goas.

Mildly concerned at the state of society and beginning to think I needed to update my zombie survival bag, I quickly collected the munitions I needed, following Ms. Pattern’s instructions to the letter.

It was then I noticed a problem.

“Wait a minute” I loudly announced, causing irate shoppers to twitch and stare at me menacingly “this recipe is in ounces and all these ingredients are in grams.”

Soon I would make a mess

I admit it, I panicked. I didn’t have time to go home for the phone that I thought I’d left somewhere in the kitchen (but was unbeknownst to me, sitting in my jacket pocket) so that I could Google the weight conversions. So I did the only thing I could considering the circumstances.

I guessed.

I think I may have bought enough for about six chocolate cakes and as I left the shop, I ruminated that with luck at least one of the cakes I make would turn out presentable and tasty.

The recipe itself was pretty simple. All I needed to do was mix together the butter and sugar, fold in raw egg. Make a mess of the kitchen with melted chocolate, accidentally eat half the chocolate I melted, make some more, pour the two together, fold like I’ve never folded before and stick in the oven. Simple! A child could do it! Sadly there we not children available so I had to do it myself2.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think I followed the recipe to the letter. It was such a simple recipe that I might have got a little too cocky and I’ll admit somewhat sheepishly that I double guessed Ms. Pattern and reasoned that  more chocolate was a vast improvement on less chocolate.

Thankfully the whole thing was captured on film.

Sir Mixalot

Here's one I prepared earlier

Brown goodness

The finished product!

Doesn’t that look lovely? You can almost taste the delicious moistness. Sadly I couldn’t. This, and I say this to pander to the interweb folks out there who get excited by the hilarity of memes, Cake is a lie. Although it is definitely a cake and I did definitely bake it. Don’t get me wrong;  if challenge 66. was “Do not bake a crap cake”, I would certainly be in trouble but  as the challenge said nothing of the quality of the cake I was supposed to make, I think I’ll be okay. The cake itself was all right.  It was a bit stodgy, a little bit too firm and I’m glad I put too much chocolate in it to at least make it taste nice.  It did by the way, it tasted lovely and I had two pieces.

I did not however have three pieces and the pigeons around our neck of the woods walked everywhere for a week.

So there we go, I have baked a cake.

1 – Not that I wanted to make elaborate gâteaux or anything else that could potentially be a character from Asterix for that matter.
2 – Joke courtesy of the estate of Groucho Marx

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Feb 09 2012
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General Ruination, mystery, Religion

61. Collect as many souls as you can

When I was at college I was a bit of a whimsical chap, my jinks were frequent and invariably high and I spent a goodly amount of effort on procrastination and pointlessness. It was not time wasted as it has made me the man I am today. Okay, okay, it was arguably not time wasted, but to paraphrase the philosopher, Wolverine “I’m the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn’t very… productive” - procrastination was a calling, it was an art form to us and we did it well and with flare and style.

It was during this time and in one of our plethora of countless and pointless discussions that I (and my like minded wastrels) fell upon the concept of the nature and value of the immortal soul.  Essentially, we decided as we ruminated over theology 101, depending on your viewpoint the soul is either worthless or priceless; two words what are often synonymous but had very different connotations. We felt pretty clever about that as I recall. What can I say? I wore a lot of black and had a predilection for Vampires.  I was an idiot, worst yet – I was an idiot with intellectual pretensions. If the improbably occurs and I do actually turn out to be a Timelord, the first thing I’m planning to do is go back in time and slap that kid.

But I digress, where was I? Oh yes, either the soul is an immortal record of your moral fibre that will either tip you into either eternal glorification or eternal damnation.

Or it isn’t.

Naturally I wondered if people would actually sell me their souls. I mean, you just do and frankly, if the soul was priceless it would be good to have a spare; just in case. I’m not the religious type, but I suspect that an arrangement could be made by slipping the heavenly bouncers a bit of gratitude. I certainly suspect that’s how it works.

It was essentially an intellectual exercise. I was curious to know how much value people attributed to the soul and if I could convince people to part with it for worldly and mortal gain. I didn’t expect to get interest as any rational person should keep hold of their soul, just on the off chance that it turns out to be worth something. Even if they think the soul is a meaningless and fanciful concept, there is no way of proving what happens after death, so why take the risk?  I was sure therefore that both the religious and the scientific alike would keep hold of their soul and treat it like a retirement fund.  It might come in handy later on, you just don’t know.

By the end of the first week, I’d managed to acquire 13 of them. I was as shocked as you are. Even more shocking was the price. Payment for souls was varied, but the most I paid for a single soul was a two litre bottle of cola. It wasn’t even good cola! Students eh?

I decided that I was going to stop at 13 as it had a bit of a ominous ring to it and made the story sound better.  I envisaged that they’d make a movie out of this tale of wheeler dealing and the script (I imagined) would really need a really solid number to aim for to sell it to be big executives.  Sadly, in what I can only describe as a tragedy, I rarely go to the pub with Hollywood movie executives and the movie was never made.

Time passed and a few years later, I feeling guilty that I owned so many people’s souls, so I contacted the owners of the souls I owned and rescinded arrangement. It felt good. Despite being sure that the pieces of paper I had were worthless, it still felt wrong hanging on to them. About five years after that, one of the people I’d bought a soul from, sadly passed away. I cannot deny that I wasn’t somewhat relieved that I’d nullified the contract.

Anyway, these means I currently I have no souls apart from the one I started with. So if you’d like to sell me your soul, please place a comment below with your demands.  I of course, will consider them fanciful and am unlikely to concede to them, but all offers are considered.

G’wan, I dare you. I would appreciate you explained what you wanted and what condition you considered your soul to be in, so I can consider your offer.

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Jan 26 2012
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anonymous, eBay, Gifts

41. Buy somebody something nice and have it sent to him or her via e-bay. Make sure that somebody doesn’t know who sent it.

My problem with this challenge is that if I do a full write up on here, then it becomes increasingly likely that the somebody I bought the something nice for will know who sent it; ruining the challenge. Therefore, I have no choice but to resort to the cunning use of pseudonyms, double-speak and vagaries to protect my identity. I don’t necessarily need to give myself a code name, but for the purposes of this challenge, if you could hum the James Bond theme whilst reading this, I’d be grateful. Actually to hell with it, code names are cool, I think I need a rugged pseudonym that suggests I would fit easily into a Tom Clancy novel, I would therefore appreciate it if you would call me Mike Ruin; rugged huh?

I obviously can’t confirm too much informationhere, who knows who’s listening, but I’ll try to explain as best as I can. What I divulge is that some time in the past at an inspecific location I bought something nice for somebody from eBay. To throw off electronic tracing devices, I watched Goldeneye before using eBay and bought the item in question on an eBay application on my mobile whilst standing next to a working washing machine. Whilst this may not have helped, I figured that it would not harm.

The item in question went directly to person in question’s address and was deemed to be a well thought out present specifically chosen with the receiver in mind. It cost a reasonable but unspecific amount but I can confirm it cost less than £20 but more than £10. I might believe I got a bargain, but I cannot verify that.

My network of informants tell me that the item arrived recently as I had contact from the recipient accusing me of sending it. Naturally I avowed all knowledge of the parcel, however I’m not sure how much I was believed; which is a shame as I’m sure that I was particularly convincing. I briefly considered that my cover was blown but could not find cyanide tablets on eBay, so had limited options.

I am told that the recipient was very pleased with the gift and whilst I am suspected of sending it, the recipient has no proof that it came from me and I believe I’ve got away with it.

The mission was a success!

I can report a warm feeling from achieving this challenge and whilst I cannot confirm that it is better to give that to receive, it is rather nice to give.

Mike Ruin Out!

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Jan 23 2012
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Charity, Sport

232. Do the Manchester Run

Way back in 2006 I went to watch the lovely Gemma, the one person on the planet who is lumbered with the title of “my best friend”, perform in a play in Wales. As a friend of the cast, I found myself at the theatre a good three hours before the curtain with nothing to do other than drink coffee in the commissary whilst those around me beavered away in furious Thespian activity.

It was in the commissary that I met Les. Les was the grandfather of one of the players, and like me, had been shoved out of the way in a coffee themed corner whilst the cast and crew got on with the real business of having dreadful realisations about what vital piece of costume or equipment they had forgotten to bring with them. As we were the only people in the eatery we ended up chatting and for a few hours sat together drinking coffee, eating cake and talking about everything and nothing.

I was utterly enthralled by Les. Sharp as a tack, funny and engaging; he has a well thought out and interesting opinion on any topic you could name. We talked about life, politics, history, religion, sport and everything in between swapping tales of tragedy and woe, excitement and glory as the play was formed around us.

I have to admit, despite enjoying the play, the highlight of the evening for me was sitting chatting to Les and discussing all of the finer things that life had to offer. It was in those few hours Les convinced me to do the Manchester Run as Les had done it the previous year and finishing in an amazing 47 minutes. Positive that I had found a friend, I agreed to join him in the 2006 run and vowed to let him know my running number so that we could start the race together. I had no illusions that Les would finish before me, but I promised him that I would do my best to make it around the course in as close to 47 minutes as I couple possibly make it.

Les passed away three days after I met him and despite only meeting him less than a week before, I attended the funeral of this quite remarkable man and was truly saddened by his passing.

I did the Manchester Run on the 21st of May 2006, finishing in 58 minutes (just in front of a guy dressed in a Scooby-Doo costume), despite pushing myself to my limits, I simply could not make it round in a time that Les would be proud of and therefore vowed to try again. Sadly I moved away from Manchester a few months later but was back in Manchester by 2010 and fillt intended to make it round the course  in less than 50 minutes.  I had no illusion that I would not be able to beat Les, but 50 minutes seemed achievable. It was not. I managed the course in 53 minutes 19 second. I tried again in 2011 I managed to finish the course in 55 minutes 42 seconds, worse that I managed in 2010.  I had booked to run the 2012 race and was once again aiming to finish the run in less than 47 minutes. However this year the 2012 race is on the same weekend as the second Victoriana Event.  So I’m looking for another 10km race I can do,  hopefully with a guy running who’s dressed like Scooby-Doo.

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Jan 22 2012
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For Science!, General Ruination

82. Enter the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Roll. Get treated for the subsequent broken ankle

Number 82 is a bit of a difficult one. It pretty much lies in the hands of fate. What if I don’t manage to break my ankle? I decided the only thing to do was to hope for the best and if I didn’t actually break my ankle, at least I could give it a good try.

Originally I decided to do this in 2010, and had every intention of climbing the hills the beautiful Gloucestershire with the aim of throwing myself off of one.

Sadly that was not to be, despite cheese Rolling having a history in Gloucestershire dating back to at least the 1800s, health and safety concerns saw the 2010 and then the 2011 events cancelled, creating local and even international uproar from fans of the local tradition. It’s back on for 2012, so if any of you feel brave enough to quite possibly do something stupid, drop me a line. I should probably let you know what you’re in for though, apparently 1 in 3 people need medical attention when taking part. Here’s a video of the 2009 event:

I’m really going to hurt myself aren’t I?

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Jan 21 2012
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Culture, Naked, Photography

92. Be a nude model

In the past few years, I have been significantly more publicly naked than I usually am. In June 2010 I participated in the Naked Bike Ride around Manchester and in November that same year I organised the 2011 Tasteful Charity Calendar Shoot. I really enjoyed both events and would heartily recommend group nakedness as a cure all for the blues this winter. In fact, we enjoyed it so much we did it again for the 2012 Tasteful Charity Calendar shoot.
The Ruin Mikey's Life Calendar 2011

Challenge 245. The Tasteful Calendar

I’ve already been a nude model as part of the Calendar Shoot effectively and happily killing two birds with one stone. The chaps on Facebook agree (so it must be true) so please buy a calendar and do a bit for charity at the same time as laughing at us dressed in naught but a smile and hiding our dignity behind ludicrous props.

I am of course always happy to do more nudity if people want to use me as a model, just drop a comment below. However, until then:
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Jan 21 2012
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Alcohol, Food, For Science!

65. See how many packets of popping candy you can eat at once

I was a little worried about this one, if you search on the google for “Mikey Popping Candy Death” you get over a half a million hits, the first page of which details the tale of “Little Mikey” who ingested six packets of Pop-rocks and washed it down with Pepsi, causing a swelling of his stomach, causing it to rupture and for “Little Mikey” to die.  Despite this being a completely false urban legend, it’s still concerning. Despite this dire warning, I went to Mr Simm’s Olde Sweet Shoppe and picked up 20 packets of Popping Candy. 10 Cherry and 10 Cola.  Sadly before I managed to film the challenge, I bumped into an old friend and lost a packet of Cherry popping candy to her.  What can I say, I’m a sucker for a pretty face and we all know the girls love novelty sugar.  Anyway, this left me with 19 packets, which was fine, as Little Mikey apparently died after only eating six. I’d probably have enough. So I travelled round to my friend Nikki’s house to undertake the challenge.  Nikki’s was an excellent choice for an assistant as she’s medically trained enough to laugh at me when I made silly noises, yet grown up enough to ring my mother if I exploded in her living room. I was in good hands.

As any good house guest, I took with me a bottle of wine and this was for two reasons, firstly – a gentleman should always bring a gift when he visits and secondly – maybe a glass of wine would numb my throat for the antics to come.  Once the wine had been drunk, we filled the below video,  enjoy:

That was horrid. Absolutely horrid. The popping candy quickly turns into a sludgy chemical reaction in your mouth, kind of like electric custard, but not as appetising. It actually caused a bit of pain, mostly unpleasantness, but definably some pain as the popping candy reacted madly with the moisture in my mouth. I think we did pretty well, certainly passing urban legend Little Mikey’s total of six.  I wisely did not try and drink any fizzy drinks for the remainder of the day as fate loves irony and felt remarkably bloated for the next two days.  For some reason.

Anyway, that’s how much popping candy I can eat at once.  Impressive huh? Don’t try that at home kids, really. It’s horrid

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Jan 17 2012
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Alcohol, Relaxation, Travel

85. On one pub night, drink at least one of every beer produced by Ringwood Brewery

Not the easiest post to make as I initially considered it whilst trying to complete challenge 87 where I attempted to give up booze for a month. Despite not being a big drinker, the fact that no alcohol could pass my lips for the entire month could very likely put the idea of a crisp, cool, refreshing pint into the fore-front of my subconscious

For those of you who don’t know, the Ringwood Brewery has been a producer of most delightful ales since 1978. The Hampshire based company currently brews seven beers: Best Bitter, Forty-niner and Old Thumper , Bold Forester Spring Ale, Huffkin Autumn Ale, Boondoggle Summer Ale and XXXX Porter Winter Ale. Of the seven ales available, the first three are available all year round where as the last four are seasonal and available in the corresponding season.

Now then, seeing as four of the seven are seasonal, by my reckoning I need to drink only four ales as only four are being produced at any one time. I wish it was different, but that was what the challenge says. Who am I to take liberties with the wording of challenges? Who am I indeed? I’m sure I can manage it. All I needed do is find myself a pub that stocks Ringwood and I was sorted. The easiest way to do this is to contact the brewery themselves.

“Hello, (I wrote)

I am currently engaged in a quest! This New Years Eve, I left my new years resolutions up to the people at the party I was enjoying. With some amusement, they came up with 44 New Years resolutions for me to attempt. As oft happens, this turned into a Facebook group and quickly expanded to a massive 221 challenges (and counting).

If you wish you can see my hastily created website with all my challenges on at http://ruinmikeyslife.wordpress.com/ (one of the challenges was to give up Facebook for Lent and posted roughly an hour before Ash Wednesday so I had little time to up-sticks and move – I assure anybody who cares to listen that it will get better – but I digress).
Some of these challenges are very silly as you might imagine, however some of them sound quite enjoyable and one such challenge is to sample at least one of every beer you produce.

Now, I see from your website that you have an on-line shop, however my CAMRA enthusiastic friend insisted on the caveat that it should be in a pub.

Therefore, as I am based in the North West of England, I am writing to query if any more northerly pubs serve your ales? I see on your website that you have several pubs around Bournemouth, sadly none further north.

Best Wishes

Mikey Smith”

Fully expected my email disappear into Ringwood Breweries Spam filter and was especially surprised to receive a phone call from a man from Marston’s who suggests a load of pubs that do Ringwood’s as a Guest Ale. Sadly only a few pubs in the United Kingdom actually have Ringwood’s ales on tap and most of those are in our around the Bournemouth area, so my only other course of action is to find a Marston’s pub that’s having a beer festival and hope they’ve got all the Ringwood Ales available.

No mean feat, I’m keeping my eyes peeled for likely pubs and will let you know the progress.

Then it struck me, I didn’t actually need to drink the ales purchased from a pub! All I need to do is drink them all on a pub night; essentially all I needed to do is enjoy the Ringwood Ales whilst in a pub on an evening. With a little bit of slight of hand we could do this.

Of course this is not ideal. I still intended to drink the ales on tap, but in the meantime; I started collecting bottles with the intention of keeping them in the fridge.

Here’s how I’m doing:

  • Best Bitter – Found
  • Fortyniner - Found
  • Old Thumper - Found
  • Bold Forester Spring Ale
  • Huffkin Autumn Ale
  • Boondoggle Summer Ale
  • XXXX Porter Winter
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Jan 17 2012
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Charity, Naked, Photography

252. Tasteful Calendar 2012

Once again before we start, challenge 252 is a little bit too long to fit on the title, so I’m adding it here:

252. Before the start of 2012, produce a calendar for 2012. You may get whatever help you need from other’s, the calendar will be tastefully nude and themed around larp/fantasy/scifi/Steampunk and other geekery. The calendar must be on free sale to any who wish to buy it, and after costs are deducted proceeds can go to the charity of your choice.

This challenge was set only a few days after the 2011 calendar was released, sent in from a friend who had decided to get into shape in 2011 and thought that the challenge might motivate him into joining us in the photo-shoots later that year. As it happened that friend did not get involved in the 2012 calendar, but happily that did not stop us from taking the idea and running with it.

The concept for this year was geekery, which left us spoilt for choice for options. We had been given specific concepts that we had to use (larp, fantasy, scifi and Steampunk) and fully intended to have shots that included these concepts, however the addition of other geekery allowed us to take from a wide range of seemingly unrelated themes without too much worry about going outside the boundaries of the challenge. Definition time:

Geek (noun) A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest. This definition is very broad but because many of these interests have mainstream endorsement and acceptance, the inclusion of some genres as “geeky” is heavily debated. Persons have been labeled as or chosen to identify as physics geeks, mathematics geeks, engineering geeks, sci-fi geeks, computer geeks, various science geeks, movie and film geeks (cinephile), comic book geeks, theater geeks, history geeks, music geeks, sport geeks, art geeks, philosophy geeks, literature geeks, historical reenactment geeks, video game geeks, and roleplay geeks. (Definition from our old friend Wikipedia)

Essentially we had a licence to take pictures with whatever theme we fancied and we’d undoubtedly be able to call it “other geekery.”

Our First Photo-shoot - Dungeons and Dragons

Unsurprisingly our first photoshoot was filled with people that had been in the previous calendar; our only new model pulled out at the last minute. Despite this a great time was had by all as we spend at relaxing day snapping pictures of us in various geek poses.  Unlike the previous calender where we had specific months to fill, I’d asked my models to bring along things that they though geeky and therefore we had a selection of roleplaying books, comics, dice, larp weapons and toys from various science fiction shows to play with. With the help of Rosie our photographer, we had snapped out half a dozen excellent shots by the end of the day.

Our models were the beautiful Vikki (who’s house we took the shots in), the muscular Craig, the devilishly charming Marcus and the rakishly handsome Andy.

Oh and me.

The day was wonderful, putting the photography aside,  it was lovely to catch up with people some of whom who I had not seen in a months and by the end of the day, it was clear that our calendar was looking like it would be finished in plenty of time for distribution.

The second set of photographs was taken in London at the home of Tequila Mockingbird.  You might have guessed that “Tequila Mockingbird” is not her real name, but when a person has such excellent on-line moniker you’d be a fool not to use it. Now I had never been to her house before; in fact whilst I had I’d met her a few years previously and we had got on famously, she lived over 200 miles away making the likelihood for popping round for a cup of sugar slim at best.

The Tequila Photo-shoot, minus our Model. You should buy a calendar

We took some fantastic shots of Tequila on a bed of comics and I promised to take some more shots for her for the 2013 calendar in 2012.

Our third shoot was with Mel. Now Mel I had been trying to convince to join us in a calendar shoot ever since the I was first challenged.  Every bit as beautiful as any of the models that had appeared in the calendar, Mel had helped with a number of challenges for the website to date and used my house on numerous occasions as a staging ground for assaults on the commercial district of Manchester.  The pictures we took of Mel were fantastic;  we took them against green screen, which meant a sizeable amount of photoshopping ahead of me, but the parts of the picture that weren’t green showed excellent promise and we were well on our way to finishing the calendar.

Gemma, preparing for her shoot.

Gemma and Nikki were my forth shoot and we explored the Steampunk side of the challenge. I was really rather happy with the photos taken that day but learnt a valuable lesson about pacing.  Our photoshoot lasted no more than 20 minutes and I was eager to get the photos done to ensure my models were not inconvenienced for an extended period of time. Chatting with Gemma later, we agreed that we should have taken our time and given her time to feel less self conscious at the prospect of having pictures taken whilst dis-robed. It was a valuable lesson and one I used in the next photoshoot for Rachel,

Sadly we didn’t get to use the Rachel shoot. That’s not to say that they were bad pictures; quite the contrary, the photographs were crisp and clear and the subject was beautiful and held an air of confidence.  Tragically despite being crisp and clear, none of the photographs really worked as calender shots and I was forced to confine them to the unusable folder.

A gaggle of geeks holding vintage tech,

It was then I came upon a problem. I went reviewed my photographs and checked the number of usable pictures we had.  We were still shy several months and it date was getting precariously close to 2012. In hope that we could turn things around I asked my Facebook friends for help. Thankfully they did not disappoint and by the end of the week we managed another photo-shoot, this time in the upstairs room of the locale geek shop. Brian the owner was an absolute gent, making us brews whilst Steve and Rebecca (who joined us in the 2011 calendar) took their clothes off with newcomers Gina, Si and Max. The shop made an excellent back drop and we managed get a number of rather good shots with vintage computers, nerf guns, lightsabres and (for some reason) a tiger themed onesy.

The next day found me at the abode of the newly married Adam and Lou camera in hand. Despite the vast scope of the “other geekery” I was getting to the point that I was running out of concepts to photograph. Fortunately Adam and Lou all manner of ideas and with an application of Rockband guitars, nerf guns and various objects of geekery we managed a couple of excellent pictures.

With enough months now under our figurative belts our final shoot of the year took is back to Mel’s house, where remarkably few photographs of her wearing nothing but a laptop and a pair of worrying sexy Argyll socks gave use our beautiful December picture.

With that photos were done and all that remained was the photoshopping.  Our finished article can be found below. All profits from the calendars go to charity. In this case  Guide Dogs from the Blind and  Doctor’s Without Borders.

Click the cover! Buy it now!

1 – as I say, cheery delusions.

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Jan 16 2012
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For Science!, Travel

187. Undertake research to discover whether the following statement is true “Time flies by when you’re the driver of a train, and you ride on the foot plate there and back again.”

A very good question, but how to undertake research into it?  How exactly do you find out if there’s any truth to the assertion that the driving of a train somehow has wibbly wobbly timey wimey connotations?

So naturally I emailed British Rail, explaining my problem and asking them if there is any truth to the rumour. If anybody has done any research into time travel and train use it will be them. It might even explain why fare keep increasing well above inflation. Maybe they’re doing top secret time travel research and hiding the costs in my monthly County Travel ticket. Even if not, there’s a chance I might be going over old scientific ground and if there’s one thing that a scientist really hates then it’s going over old research. Science is all about striving to set boundaries, to be exciting and the fresh. The goal of every scientist is to be on the cutting edge of their respective field and if British Rail have already done the research, then this could be a very easy challenge.

Apparently it takes 48 hours to respond to a customer’s email, so after the email was sent, I decided to do a bit of research myself.

For those of you who don’t know (and it’s before my time as well) the line “Time flies by when you’re the driver of a train, and you ride on the foot plate there and back again.” comes from the 1969 BBC children’s TV show “Chigley” which was the third and final instalment in Gordon Murray’s Trumptonshire trilogy. Rather like the Matrix, the third instalment was nowhere near as good as the first one and many people forget it was actually made. But it was made and for your pleasure and enjoyment I give you:

Amazing! No, not the song, although it is rather good. Amazingly it’s not been an hour and I’ve had a reply from the rail people. Sadly it’s not a good one.:

“Dear Mikey

Thank you for your email with regard your question.

National Rail Enquiries is an information based centre. I am afraid I would not be able to comment on your statement. I apologise if I may have disappointed you.

Thank you for contacting National Rail Enquiries. If you have any query regarding National Rail, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Regards

Customer Relations

National Rail Enquiries”

Now is it just me or do they seem a little bit like they’re hiding something? Replying back in an hour? On a weekend? Seems a little suspicious to me! The website tells us it takes 48 hours for them to get back to us. Now I don’t know about you, but I suspect my email caused a panic in the National Rail Headquarters. People said things like “God Damn, they’re on to us” in dramatic American accents and insisted that people were woke up and told of the breach in security.  Despite this not being America and it being the middle of the day.  If you don’t hear from me again, they’ve got to me.  You know the truth. We’re all in danger!

Anyway, until the discrete National Rail hit squad turn up to put a bullet in my brain, I best press on. No luck with the Rail people, best look at the Science. Does being the driver of a train change your perception of time? I seem to remember something about time slowing down the quicker you go, but I don’t think a 15 minute cartoon where the Animaniacs explain physics really makes me qualified to answer this question, so I turned to the scientist chaps I know, a good start is Doctor Marcus who is a teacher of teachers of Science and a very clever chap.

Doctor Marcus replied thusly:

“Indeed, the statement is true, but imperceptibly so unless the train is travelling at a significant fraction of the speed of light. “True” in the sense that time for the rest of the world will have advanced rather more than it has for you, so you’ll think your journey only lasted 2 hours, when according to the outside world it lasted for 2 hours and a tiny sliver of a second.

The unfortunate part of the truth, however, is that time dilation will be the same for the driver wherever he/she stands and, indeed, for everyone else on the train. In fact, if one of the passengers spends the journey sprinting up and down the carriages, time will go even faster for him/her.”

So there you go – Time DOES fly by when you’re the driver of a train, and you ride on the foot plate there and back again, however it travels no faster than all of the other people standing on the train and only the unfortunate chap with the very tiny bladder who keeps having to brave the train toilets is experiencing time quicker.

Even though, despite not being shot by British Rail goons, I’m pretty sure they are hiding something.

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