Blow up stuff with your mind :-)

Yes well........ we all need a break.

How To Signal Passing Aircraft For Help.

When trapped on a desert island every chap needs to be able to attract passing aircraft for help, but how do you tell the pilot of said plane exactly whats wrong? Well below is are some standard Emergency Ground Signals. This comes from a 1950s schoolboy handbook, and the request signal for "Send Firearms and Ammunition" was presumably to fight of attacking natives. You make the shapes in the ground, with twigs, clothes, animal bones or just footmarks.

Make A Rocket Out Of A Diet Coke Bottle

With a bottle of Diet Coke and a packet of Mentos you can make a quite spectacular rocket. A far better use for diet coke than drinking the stuff. Please note the rocket can be very powerful so protect your face when it goes off and remember its coke. Don't wear your best clothes.

1. Take one bottle of Diet Coke. The larger the better, we suggest 2 liters. For best results make sure its not chilled.

2. Take one packet of Mentos and remove the paper cover, but leave the foil.

3. Step outside to a big open area.

4. Remove the cap on the bottle and drop the Mentos inside. Replace cap.

5. Shake the bottle.

6. Open the cap just a little till you hear the fizz of air escaping.

7. Throw the bottle well away from you and watch.

8. Here's an example from youtube. Wait for the "Holy Cow".

How To Start A Fire With A Battery.

A fairly simple trick.

1. Take one battery a 9V works particularly well. But you can do it with smaller sizes.

2. Get a small handful of steel wool and bridge both contacts of the battery with the steel wool.

3. At this point sparks should be appearing.

4. Place some tinder (small dried grass or very small twigs) over the top of the wool.

5. Congratulations you've discovered fire!

How To Play Paper Golf

Ah Paper Golf, beloved by school boys everywhere....

Unlike real golf all you will need is a sheet of paper and a pen.

1. On a clean sheet of paper draw the hole. You can include what ever features you can imagine, water, sand traps, trees. Just make sure it includes the starting pin and the hole. The drawing below should give you a good example. N.B. The hole is drawn fairly large.

2. Place the tip of the pin on the starting pin and place your fore finger on the top of the pen.

3. Push down and diagonally flicking the pen in the direction you want the line to go.

4. Where the line stops on the paper draw an X. That's your first shot. The second shot starts from the X.

5. Carry on until you manage to get a line which stops in the hole.

6. If you stop in an obstacle eg water, sand, trees then you miss a shot.

7. Add up the number of shots for your score, then draw the next hole.

8. If your playing with 2 people make sure you use different colour pens.

Make A Lightsaber

This excellent video demonstrates how to make a very fine Star Wars Lightsaber, from fairly standard hardware store parts.

How To Make Ginger Beer.

Ginger Beer saw quite a decline in the 20th Century being replaced by Coke as the soft drink of choice. Now a days its hard to get and when available is often artificial or served with (shudder) ICE. Here's how to make the proper stuff.

1. Pour into a bowl one pint of water, boiled then cooled to 21 degrees C (70F).

2. Add 2 teaspoons of ground ginger, 2 of sugar and 2 of yeast.

3. Stir with wooden spoon and cover.

4. Store in a warm place room. No more 21 degrees C (70F) and no colder than 18 degrees C. (64F)

5. Every day add 1 teaspoon of ginger and 1 of sugar.

6. Continue for 8 days.

7. Then strain the liquid through a fine sieve in to anther bowl. Place the stuff in the sieve back in the first bowl. Cover both bowls.

8. Get hold of an 8 pint container. (Having trouble a new washing up bowl works well).

9. Into this place 2 pints of boiled water and dissolve 690g of sugar (1 1/2 lbs). Add the juice of 2 lemons and the liquid from the second bowl.

10. Cool liquid to 21 degrees C. Add 5 pints of water mix and bottle. In clean glass bottles with air tight seals. (Ie Screw Tops.) Leave for 8 days.

11. Drink. Enjoy. Don't add ICE.

12. You now have also have a Ginger Beer Plant, with which you can brew more.

Ginger Beer Plant.
1. Add 1 pint of boiled water cooled to 21 degrees C, over the first bowl with the stuff from the sieve. And repeat from step 4.

2. After 16 days halve the plant, add 1 pint of water 21 degrees C into 1st bowl and repeat step 4. The other half can be given away or reused.

Practical Joke: Stapler in Jelly

You may well have seen this in The Office by Ricky Gervais . When Tim puts Garth's stapler in the jelly.


1. Get your stapler.

2. Get a glass mixing bowl. (Important point this must be quite a bit bigger than the stapler.)

3. Place a pencil across the Jelly Bowl and with a bit of string dangle the stapler from that. This is very important as it means the stapler will sit in the middle of the jelly once its made.

4. Get a packet of jelly and following its instructions on the pack make it in the bowl. Its usually a case of adding hot water.

5. Leave to set in the fridge.

6. Cut the string and remove the pencil.

6. Stand back light your pipe and admire your handiwork.

How To Turn Up Your Trousers

Before you have a go at this, please remember sewing is for Girls (and sail makers). This is Tailoring.

1. Get your too long pair of trousers (the ones you brought in a rush and didn't try on.)

2. Put the trousers on and sit down in them. Measure the distance from the top of your ankle to the end of the trouser. That's the bit we have to turn up. For the purposes of this demo we'll say the distance is 8 cm.

3. Take trousers off. Turn the trousers inside out (unless you want outside turn ups,) and fold the bottom of one leg back by 8 cm. Pin the fold at both seams and at both creases to hold it in place.

4. Repeat with the other trouser.

5. Now put the trousers back on and check the fit.

6. Take them off again and turn them inside out.

7. Get a length of thread and a needle.

8. Stitch along the top of the turned up bit of the trouser.

9. When you've gone the whole way round tie off the thread.

10. Put your trousers on and admire.

Open A Bottle Of Beer With A Chainsaw

This fine gentleman demonstrates the fine art of opening beer in the simplest way he knows how.

Tie a Bowline Knot.

From Baden-Powell's Scouting For Boys, the handbook which started the scout movement here's how to tie a bowline knot.

How To Use Your Watch As A Compass

Vital for when you've taken the family on a hike and discovered your totally lost.

1. Get out your analogue clock ie a wristwatch. If you only have a digital clock then draw one on a piece of paper getting the current time from a digital cloak. Don't make the old mistake of drawing a clock face on the ground, its got to be movable.

2. Point the hour hand towards the sun.

3. Draw a (imaginary) line between the hour hand and 12.00 on the clock face. This line is now pointing South (Northern Hemisphere), North (Southern Hemisphere.)

N.B. If your currently in daylight savings time you must adjust to standard time to get this to work. If your clock has been put forward you must take off an hour to get standard time. So if its been "spring forward" then take an hour back.

Remember How To Spell Antidisestablishmentism

Its probably the longest word in the English Langange which actually means something and its a bugger to spell, but there is a way of remembering it.

Anti -> Against.
Dis -> Critising
establishment -> The current state.
ism-> Of all the isms.

It actually refers to being against the separation of the Church of England from the state.

How To Play King & Barons

King & Barons is a simple board game, particularly good for playing in the pub or in a train as it is simple to explain but complex to master.

Pieces.
The playing board. Which is 10 squares by 14 squares. You can print out the one below on paper. Fold it and keep it in your wallet.

4 counters of one type. (The barons) Again you can cut out the ones below. Or use coins.



1 counter of one type. (The King). Cut out from below or use a coin.


Setup and Rules.


1.Set the board up as picture below

2. One player takes the 4 barons the other the single king.

3. The object is to get the kings piece to the other side of the board. Each player takes it in turns to achieve (the kings player) or prevent this (the barons player).

4. The king can move forward backwards left and right 1 space at a time. (Not diagonally.)

5. The barons can only move forward.

6. You can't jump or capture a piece and you can't occupy the same square at the same time.

7. Players must move. But the king is allowed to pause 3 times in the game

Improve your snooker

Sydney Smith Snooker Player from yesterday instructs keen chaps in the art of snooker. Corking.

Making ASCII Art

What is ASCII art?

ASCII art is art work made up of standard computer text arranged to present a picture. It was very popular in the early days of the Internet to create amongst other things pictures of attractive lady's. Eventually jpegs and gifs came along to save everyone the trouble. Now a days ASCII art is a wonderful retro way to draw. Scroll down to see an example.

........,+Z$?,...........?OOZZO,.......
.....+Z$$ZZOZZZO~,.,..:ZOZOOOOOOZOI....
....,ZZZZOOOOOO8ZZZ..,$ZZ8OO88888OOZO..
..~Z8ZOOOOOOOOOO8OZZZOOOO88888888OOZO..
..7ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO$OZO888888888O8OZZ,.
.:$OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO88888OOOOOOOOZ8.
.?$OZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO8OOOOOOOOOOZ8.
.=$OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO$ZZZ.
..$OOOOOOOOOOOOOZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOO87OOO..
..$ZOOOOOOOOOZZZZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOZZ$O..
..:$OOOOOOOOZZZZZZZZZZZZOOOOOOOOZZ$8...
...IZZZOZOOOZZZZZZZZZZZZOOOOOOOZ$$Z,...
....Z$ZOZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZOOOOO$Z$O:....
...,..ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZOOOOZ$8Z......
.......8Z$ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZOOIZ7OI.......
........,$ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZOO77O8.........
..........Z$ZZZZZZZZZZZZO$?Z8..........
.............$$ZZZZZZZZOO7$$..... .....
.............ZZZZZZZZZOZZO...... ......
..............7$ZZZZZZ$ZZ....... ......
...............OZZZZZZ$Z........ ......
...............,Z$ZOO$$......... ......
.................Z$OZZ+......... ......
..................Z77~.......... ......
................................ .......



How to ASCII

1. First make sure your font is fixed width for example courier.

2.Then make the font as small as possible. The less white space between letters the better.

3. Use more dense letters to create darker edges eg. $$$$$$$ looks darker than OOOOOO.

4. Be creative if your drawing a bird use lots of 'wwwwwww' as its fairly bird shaped.

5. Try not to use spaces. Use ...... as spaces can have odd formats attached.


Suggestions for use
1. An eye catching poster.
2. A love email to a girl.
3. A way to eat into the boring hours at work

How To Make A Rubber Band Gun

Runner Band Guns (or peg rifles) are simple propulsion weapons which essential knowledge for any chap wishing to impress a young nephew. We're going to show you how to make the simple on here. You will need a length of wood about 30cm long, 5cm wide and 2 cm think. Although really any dimensions can be used. A collection of elastic bands of similar sizes and a nail.

Step 1.

Wrap the elastic band round one long end of the wood and pull it back as far as it will go. Mark that point with a pencil.

Step 2.

Take your peg and stick the nail through the hole in the spring.

Step 3.

With a hammer bang the nail (and with it the peg) into the length of wood where you made the pencil mark.

Step 4.

Wrap the elastic band round the length of wood again. Stretch it back and use the peg jaws to hold it in place.

Step 5.

To fire merely squeeze the handles of the peg to open the jaws and fire the rifle.

How To Make Money Online. Tip 1.

Join YouGov

YouGov is an online polling company which gives you a small amount of money for each questionnaire you fill out. Its simple to join and easy to fill out the questionnaires. However you will need to put in some time to answer each one.

http://www.yougov.com/

How To Race Snails

1. First catch your snails. (You need two at least.)

2. On a large piece of paper draw a circle. 5 cms in diameter.

3. Draw a larger circle 25cm in diameter round that.

4. Place 2 or more snails inside the middle circle.

5. Now wait the winner is the first snail to cross the outer circle. This may take some time..........

To find out more about snails try here