How To Use Chopsticks

Find out how to use chopsticks with this simple guide.

How To Fell A Tree

Cutting down (or felling) a tree is very simple to get right, but also very risky if you get it wrong. If

your going to try this, practice on a small tree first, and of cause always get its permission.

1. Make sure you have enough clear space for the tree to fall.

2. Get a good sharp axe. Chainsaws are for wimps and are far to easy, (they should only be used for opening beer)

3. First chop a chunk of wood out of the trunk near the bottom.

Labeled 1 in the picture.

This should be on the side to which you want the tree to fall.

4. Now chop on the other side of the tree a couple of inch's (10cm) higher than the first cut. Labeled 2 in the picture.

5. Keep chopping at this side until the tree falls over.

6. Remember to shout "TIMBER."

How To Track A Horse

Handy hints on how to track a horse. Very handy if your .... well..... tracking a horse.

How To Make A Paper Cup

Make a paper cup in five folds.

Drinking Game: Names

A very popular pub/bar favourite, particularly on a stag do.

Rules.

1. The first player states the name of a famous person. Can be historical, fictional or current. Eg. Homer Simpson.

2. The next player, sitting on his/her right must say a famous person beginning with the surname of the the previous famous person. Eg. Stevie Wonder. 

3. On to the next person and so on round and round the table.

4. If a player states a double barreled name. Eg Ronald Reagan, then you've bounced and the order changes direction. So if the order of play was going round to right it would now go to the left.

Drinking.

Like all drinking games you need rules when a player should drink. These are as follows.

1. Drink if you mention a famous person already used. You must come up with a new person before play can move on.

2. If you pause for more than 30 seconds while trying to think.

3. If you get the name wrong or mention someone who doesn't exist.

Advanced Play.

1. Queens. Queen Elizabeth's name can be used as often as you like, with any variation of her name. Eg. Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth Windsor,  Elizabeth the 2nd.  

When the queen is mentioned all players must stand up and drink, Shouting. "Gentleman The Queen". 

(If your not British and don't want to confuse the rest of the bar, then you could pick your own National Figure. )

2. Twos. Start one game going one way and one going the other way. 

Dowsing For Water

A mighty useful skill this for anyone who might get shot down in the desert or inherit  a struggling French farm with no stream. Dowsing is the practice of finding buried materials eg water, by use of a Dowsing Rod. 

1. Get outside.

2. Get your dowsing rod, this could be Hazel twig or Wire Coat Hanger in the shape of an upside down Y.

3. Grasp the two handles of the Y and hold the rod horizontally.

4. Now begin to walk in straight lines. Concentrating your thoughts on whatever your dowsing for. (Waters traditional, golds more interesting.)

5. Its common misunderstanding with dowsing that you let the Rod determine your direction. That's not true, the Rod doesn't signal which way to go but rather it vibrates when you are near your chosen desire. So as you walk concentrate on your desire and wait until the Rod is vibrating almost uncontrollably, that's where you dig. 

6. Does it work? 

How To Pretend To Be Busy

How to avoid ever being given any extra work....

Make A Wish With A Ginger Biscuit.

Its possible (if your bored enough) to make a wish with a ginger biscuit. 

1. Take your ginger biscuit and cup it in your hand.

2. Now smash your elbow down on top of the biscuit, and make a wish.

3. If the biscuit breaks into 3 parts only. Congratulations you wish will come true. (Not a Guarantee.)

N.B. You can ignore crumbs. 

Know Your Cycling Road Signals

Vital stuff for any cycling chap.

How To Play The Spoons

Playing the spoons is surprisingly easy but it does require the exact right method and that's why a lot of people have trouble with it. 

1. Get two spoons. 

2. Place the first spoon  between forefinger and thumb. Make sure its facing up.

3. Place the second spoon griped between remaining three fingers and your palm.  Make sure its facing down. 

4. The key is that the  bowl of one spoon is directly above the bowl of the other spoon.

5. Stand up, put your foot on a chair and flick your hand up and down banging the spoons against your thigh.

6. For added effect hold you free hand above the spoons so they hit it on the way up. This creates a faster deeper sound.  In the (rather poor :-) example below you can hear when this second hand is brought into play.

Magic Trick: Lasso a Candle Flame

Man's mastery of fire has always separated him from the beasts. Now you can discover how to lasso and control a candles flame. A simple trick which works best on young nieces and nephews.

1. Ask your audience for a strand of hair. (Blond and Long is unsurprisingly the most popular choice.

2. Form this into a loop.

3. Place the loop over the candle flame. Making sure that your hand is on the opposite side of the candle to you.

4. Now very slowly pull to the loop of hair away from you.

5. As you do so direct a very small amount of air from your lips in the direction of the flame. This is the tricky bit as you must try not to purse your lips but keep them relaxed and natural. (The image is a very bad example.)

6. The result will be the flame appears to move as a result of your pulling it with the hair. You need to match the effect on the flame with the pretend pulling of your hand.

Remember: Don't set fire to the hair.

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

Make A Carrot Flute

Living as a tramp and needing to busk for your supper?

Need to sooth a mad dog while gardening.

You need to be able to turn a humble carrot into a flute and heres how.

Click to:->Make a Carrot Flute

How to remember what happened to Henry VIII wives

This Rhyme is essential knowledge for anyone who wants to fake an interest in English History.

Henry VIII's wives and their fates a rhyme.

Divorced, Beheaded, Died.
Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.

Now with the Queens.

Divorced (Catherine of Aragon) Beheaded (Anne Boleyn), Died (Jane Seymour)
Divorced (Anne of Cleves) Beheaded (Kathryn Howard), Survived(Katherine Parr)

How To Make a Dovetail Joint

A dovetailed joint is a method of joining two bits of wood which not only is very strong but looks good too.

Even if you never make one its well worth knowing what a dovetail joint is. Nothing implies a sound knowledge of woodwork like looking at a piece of furniture and exclaiming "Ah nice to see a dovetailed joint used" or alternatively "Emmm should really have of used dovetails."

Step 1.

Take two equal sized bits of wood. At the end of one mark off in pencil two "doves tails" as shown. Note at the end of this you want the tail bits still attached to the wood.

Step 2. Mark off a line you are going to cut down too. This should be the length of the wood. Cut down each side of the triangle to this line. Use a tendon saw if available (that's a short saw about a foot in length)

Step 3. Now cut sideways on both sides and you should be able to remove two pieces.

Step 4. Using a chisel remove the middle bit.

Step 5. Now use this bit of wood to mark off the bits to remove for the other bit of wood. Remove those bits using the process outlined above.

Step 6. Admire your handiwork, then wish you were better at woodwork.

How To: Thread a Needle

A useful first skill for any Chap who wants to repair his own buttons, sew up a tear in his sports jacket or do some emergency stitching on a gaping wound.

Instructions.


1. Cut the length of thread, about half and arm length is usually suitable.

2. Make sure the cut is clean, use scissors or a knife. If you just pull or bite the thread you will get a frayed end which is impossible to thread.

3. Wet your thumb and forefinger on your tongue.

4. Wet the end of the thread.

5. Hold the thread between thumb and forefinger with about 10mm sticking out.

6. Bring the eye of the needle to the thread.

7 Get Stitching.

Cook quality cheese on toast

Good cheese on toast is an essential skill, simple and quick to make. The standard cheese on toast is some light bread toasted with melted chedder on top but everyone can do this. The trick to being a chap is to raise the stakes somewhat.


Ingredants.
1. Fresh uncut bread
2. Meduim or mature cheader (Mild is for wimps)
3. A blue cheese -> Brie is good.
4. Cherry Tomatoes.

Instructions.
1. Cut the bread into slices about 1/2 inch think.
2. Toast this bread on both sides under a medium grill until light brown.
3. Place on each side about 4 strips of Cheddar so it covers most of the side.
4. On top of this put 2 slices of brie one at the top and one at the bottom.
5. Cut the Cherry tomatoes in half and place one half on each quarter of a side.
6. Place back under the grill and grill till the cheese has turned light brown.
7. Eat.

Top Tip for chaps.
1. Real gentleman only toast one side of their bread.