They’ll name a city after us & Easier than it looks

Abi: One thing that irks me about humans, is that some of us tend to think of things in terms of limitation as opposed to possibility. We think of millions of reasons why we can’t, shouldn’t or wouldn’t. We devote so much time to this reasoning that we fall into a pattern and begin to apply this way of thinking to almost every element of our lives.

We limit and restrict ourselves to such a point that we forget to see, we forget how to feel and we no longer entertain the idea of letting go. We miss opportunities and let things slip through our fingers.

The second image in my 52 weeks collaboration with my dear Sebastian.

Partly inspired by his love of all things sky “They can make or break a landscape, Abi” (something I have not attempted to photograph before). And parly musing on the topic of greatness and potential.

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Seb: Obviously influenced by Abi’s 1 of  52, I’m being rather experimental here. I’m not a self-portrait master by any means — I don’t even have a remote for my camera!

So this is a 10-second dash and the hardest I’ve ever had to do. It’s REALLY hard to balance a blackberry on your nose when your camera is ticking down… Needless to say, getting the blackberry into the 1-centimetre plane of focus was also fairly difficult…

Why black and white? The colour version is actually quite nice but B/W made the blackberry pop right out. The incredibly-narrow depth of field is also a little distracting in the colour version. Incidentally, the larger version is well worth seeing, for the detail of my beard and the blackberry if nothing else!

(As a blog-only treat, here’s an outtake of the blackberry rolling off my face… I believe my mouth is starting to form the words ‘Oh shit’…)

Anyway, it’s now blustery and chilly here in the UK and I think the next few weeks will take a look at the beginnings of AUTUMN! (Fall, for you Americans.)

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Back when I was younger I had lots of friends. We were all very intelligent (except for Simon, but there’s always one hanger-on) and we would often pass the time by inventing. We came up with some truly great ideas but were simply too young to do anything with them. They were just cool ideas that we hoped, one day, would be available to us.

But being young, and teenage, sometimes our creations weren’t wholly healthy or  innocent. Sometimes they were dark, disgusting, malevolent machinations intended to reap vengeance upon those we hated, those that bullied us… and Hitler! Yes, we were world-wise 12 year olds and we wanted to go back in time and kill Hitler! (Deep, I know!)

We invented ways to force girls to love us. We devised ways to pass exams without studying. We dreamt up video games and alternative input systems that wouldn’t appear until 10 years later.

But the most hilarious and fruitful brain storming sessions were those spent devising methods of torture.

For more Too-Much-Information stories go to Lilu’s blog! Or stay here, if you like stories involving bodily fluids.

Call us morbid, but I don’t think we really thought about death as such. It’s not like we went around wishing death upon other people either. It was just… one of those teenage things, I guess. And the funny thing is, they weren’t particularly visceral methods of torture either. We were young, so the idea of tearing someone’s penis off hadn’t really popped into our heads yet. We hadn’t seen any graphic films, so gunshots and mutilation were also out of the question.

We were limited to diabolically creative methods of torture. Take for example the Chinese water torture machine that intermittently dropped steel ball bearings instead of droplets of water. Drip… drip… smack!… drip… drip… smack!

It swiftly turned into the best kind of competition, the kind where the winner is the only person left in the room. Everyone else has run in disgust to the bathroom or bushes to vomit.

I’m half-ashamed to admit that most suggestions revolved around bodily fluids. Poo. Pee. Snot. But we were young — being force-fed your own shit isn’t as bad as being sodomised by a big man, is it? Actually, don’t answer that one.

And then someone thought of… the container. A glass container large enough for a man to be placed in, but too tall to climb out of. Some kind of chain/harness to hold you down.

You could then fill this container with stuff.

Take a moment to imagine this container.

Imagine a container like this, just like the one used in Houdini’s famous water escape. You are held down by straitjacket and chains, but you’re not Houdini; there is no easy escape. You are immersed in liquid and there is no way out. There is no friction to be had from the sides, so you can forget about climbing out — you are chained, anyway!

But most tantalisingly, the level of the water is only a few inches above your head. The top of your head is dry, but your nose and mouth are under water. You begin to drown. There’s perhaps only a few litres of water between you and fresh oxygen. What if you swallowed the water? Could you swallow enough that the water level drops below your nose?

A friend’s throaty, wet cough brings us back to reality for a moment, and in that same instant everything slots into place. The torture device is complete!

A tank full, not of water but phlegm. Yellowing, glutinous phlegm. You must eat your way to freedom through three inches of lung-flung mucous.

A slow, syrupy suffocation awaits: chew your way through seven centimeters of bitter bile with the consistency of molasses, or die trying.

We were rather disgusting for 12 year olds…

Pumpkin abuse & ‘Damnit mum, I told you to get a small one!’

Abi: It’s that time of year… Before I go any further, I just want to point out to our American chums that Halloween is nowhere near the big deal it is in the Yooessay. It’s more of a weak nod as opposed to the full on, horn tooting TA DAAAA! it is for you guys.

If I’m really honest, Halloween in the UK is rapidly approaching something representing a celebration for the patron saint of petty crime and mindless vandalism. It is also possibly the only time of year I make soup that smells better than it tastes.

I opted out of balancing this on various parts of my anatomy, unlike Someone I could mention. There are many things I envy about Seb and now I think we can confidently add “Nasal balancer of Nature’s Candy” to that list. Or perhaps just “sensationalist fool”.

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Seb: As painful as it looks.

Mix of grimace and grin.

A homage to week 2.

I really don’t want to talk about this one. It really, really hurt. Let’s just say this wasn’t the first photo, and I was well aware that my nose might get pushed up into my brain…

But hey, it’s 52. Happy Halloween.

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I recently bought a new digital camera. Unlike the last, this one has video capabilities. As you can imagine, I’ve spent the last few days filming just about everything: birds, cats, my crippled sister, the undergrowth outside… and even myself. I’ve been brainstorming, trying to come up with some kind of video series that’s both interesting, and a good test of my ability. The video below is the result — it’s quick, it’s dirty (in one take!), but I think I could be on to something.

It’s entitled ‘Things you’ve always wanted to know about men but were too afraid to ask’, and the first episode is ‘Why men pick their nose’. Yes, I’m aware that the series could do with a shorter, catchier name… but I can’t think of one. TYAWTKAMBWTATA? No. ‘… too afraid to ask’ perhaps? Or perhaps I could just embrace my uselessly anecdotal nature and turn it into ‘Things you’ve always wanted to know’. We’ll see.

Enjoy the video. Let me know if you like it, or not. It’ll be educational at the very least!

(If you can’t see the video above, you’ll need to visit my blog — and as always, I am a proud sponsor of Lilu’s TMI Thursday!)