Categories
Guidance

Inspiration

a catInspiration is like a cat. It does not come to you when you call it. If you believe that you are its master for one minute, then you are mistaken. Looking for inspiration is a follicle exercise.

In my experience, there are a few obvious mistakes that should be avoided.

If you are looking for inspiration, you should not go to the works of those who inspire you. Crazy as it seems, this will not work. Under these circumstances, all you will end up with is a pale imitation of someone else’s genius.

This has happened to me on numerous occasions, when I have written songs as a direct response to another song that I have heard. Sometimes you will forget about the original source, and things will work out fine, as your crappy imitation becomes, in the long term, what you perceive as the de facto original. More likely, however, and I speak from experience, is that for the rest of your life you will be unable to sever the connection between the original art and your shoddy ripoff, and it will remain always as no more than an embarrassment.

In my opinion, the state towards which we strive should be one of not resembling our influences. If someone asks you who your musical influences are, and you say Coldplay, and your music sounds like Coldplay, then you might as well be a Coldplay covers band – at least it would be honest. I’ve always felt that the whole “musical influences” question is a dumb one anyway. On a personal note, one of my band’s songs was once described as “The Muppet Show meets Jamiroquai” so I’ve adopted this as my standard response *(to the “musical influences” question)*, even though it is completely unsuitable for the majority of our songs.

We *(by which I mean You)* sometimes make the mistake of assuming that big inspiration can only be contained within big things. Inspiration, like a modern sleeping bag, can be compressed down into an impressively small space. Next time you seek inspiration, try looking around you at small objects – about the size of a testicle – and see what pops out of them.

At the point at which you are so desperate for inspiration that you’ve come to a blogger for advice, I’d say that you’re not in a mental state that is conducive to the task. You have to bear in mind that there are two states, the “thinking” and the “doing”, and I’d bet tuppence that you’re in the “doing” state at the moment. Admit it.

Now that you’ve admitted it, here’s what you should do. Find a rucksack. Into it, put the following items:

* Pen
* Paper
* Pork pie
* Torch *(in case you find yourself staying out late)*
* Keys
* Mobile phone *(but turn it off – it’s only for emergencies)*
* Camera
* Beer money
* Binoculars

Put on suitable clothing, and go out for a walk. City or forest, it doesn’t matter. The brain has a valve which prevents it from digesting information at the same time as creating it. In 15 minutes, your mind will get accustomed to the fact that you’re not force-feeding it self-righteous bollocks written by a blogger with absolutely no relevant qualifications whatsoever, and it will switch from “doing” mode to “thinking” mode, or, if you prefer, from “suck” mode to “blow” mode.

Because, let’s be honest, right now, you suck.

Categories
Guidance

Squash strategy

To gain the upper hand in a game of squash, let go of a really good fart in one corner of the court. Then, try to hit the ball so that it lands in that corner. Your opponent will be unable to get close enough to the ball to return it.

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Guidance

How to be an owl: Part Three

Another important distinguishing feature of owls is their ability to fly. If I am also going to be able to fly, then the obvious method is to obtain some wings and some feathers, and attach them to my body. However, I suspect that this will be a little difficult, so I am going to explore an alternative method.

What if there was a limited version of flying, available to humans without any additional modifications or training required? Though not as flexible as the method which owls use, it does at least allow you to fly in one direction pretty quickly.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: falling.

I’ve been practicing this quite a bit. I’m getting rather good at it. Though these funny marks are appearing on my head and I seem to be losing control of the right hand sde f bd

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Ewan Food Guidance

Cook With Pussy

grilling

At last, now that limelight-hogging shark is out of the way, I can achieve the fame and notoriety that is deservedly mine!

boiling

I’ll show him! Bloody talentless hack… I’ve got more cooking savoir-faire in one of my whiskers than he has in his entire seabound body!

contemplating

If only this had happened sooner! Perhaps my career could have been saved before my looks were savaged by old age!

devouring

Now quiver before me, mortals! I shall be your queen! Your beautiful, culinarily blessed queen!

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Ewan Food Guidance

Cocktails with Ewan Cruise: Tequiwi

word up, mothersharkers...

My, who the blazing heck is this, in front of some kiwi juice and a bottle of tequila? It’s only that dude, Ewan The Shark! And he looks like he is about to speak…

ice, just like vanilla

Welcome one, welcome all, to Cocktails With Ewan “The Shark” Cruise. Or should that be Ewan “Cruise” The Shark. Probably more appropriate.

As you can see above, I have placed 4n ice cubes into the cocktail shaker, where n is a coefficient determining how icy you want your cocktail to be, which I see, has efficiently enhanced your determination to make a cocktail.

the bit that makes the cocktail a cocktail

This is the hardest part to execute. Put some tequila into the cocktail shaker.

I really hope that you are managing to keep up with this.

the best photo I have ever taken

Whereas the previous step was the hardest to execute, this step is the hardest to photograph. Whilst holding a fluffy shark in one hand, a carton of kiwi juice in the other hand, and a camera between your teeth, pour some kiwi juice into the cocktail shaker. How you hold the cocktail shaker is up to you.

WARNING: do not try this at home

Shake your cocktail. As anyone knows, there is only one proper way to shake a cocktail.

And it’s not inside a washing machine.

pour...

Pour the cocktail into one of those really groovy tumblers just like they used to have in the ’50s in America. It is essential that you use one of these tumblers, as this drink is useless without the kaleidoscope effect you get when you are draining the last drops of your drink and staring down the barrel of an empty glass.

...and serve

Presto! Witness its majesty! Witness its charm! Witness its unsettling murky green colour!

Witness the flavour. Delicious.

*Ewan will return…*

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Ewan Guidance

Carpent With Ewan

Ewan in a drawer

What’s this in the drawer of my new coffee table? It’s a shark called Ewan, and he’s going to show me how to reinforce it!

These drawers just ain’t strong enough. The bottom bit slots into some grooves that are just a few millimetres deep, and once these drawers are laden with magazines, that base bit will buckle and fall through. We need reinforcements!

Before and after

Here is the drawer that we are about to reinforce, alongside one I prepared earlier. Get ready for the ride of your life!

The pencil line being drawn

Measure twice, cut once. Or, in our case, measure once, draw a pencil line on the piece of wood once, take it through to the kitchen once… whoops, I’m getting ahead of myself…

Sawing

…put some newspaper down once (pleases the sharkette no end). Sawing is definitely a job for someone with opposable thumbs, so Pete did this bit.

Saw

When you are finished sawing, put the saw on the work surface rather than leaving it on the kitchen floor. I learned this the hard way. Note also that when you pick the newspaper up, it will be covered with a dusty reside, created whilst sawing. This dusty residue, created whilst sawing, is not too dissimilar in colour and texture to sawdust.

A line of glue

After checking that your pieces of wood fit, apply a thin line of wood glue to the edge that will be your vertical…

Two lines of glue

…and a thin line of wood glue to the base. Assuming that gravity points downwards in your region, make sure that your drawer is upside down when you do this. There is no point reinforcing the top of the drawer. Also make sure that your thin line of wood glue is close enough to the edge of the base that it will make good contact with the piece of wood, when you put it in place.

Application

Put the wood in position and press it firmly into place. For every hour that the glue says that it needs to dry, allow four seconds. This drawer is ready to put back into position in a rip-roaring one minute, thirty six seconds!!!!!!!

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Guidance

So you want to be a TELEPHONE DESIGNER?

You’ve already taken the FIRST STEP by buying this guide!

Many people have DREAMS of being a TELEPHONE DESIGNER from an early age, and many don’t realise it until they are older. This guide is designed for people of all ages, races, SEXUAL ORIENTATIONS and body shapes, in order to help them ACHIEVE their goals of becoming a TELEPHONE DESIGNER!

You will need to equip yourself with some things in order to start your career as a TELEPHONE DESIGNER. Find yourself a PENCIL and PAPER.

Okay, we’re ready to start!

Firstly, you will need to understand what people want from their TELEPHONES. It needs to be COMFORTABLE against the side of the face, and in many circumstances people want their TELEPHONES to LOOK GOOD. It will also need to have lots of FEATURES like a memory, a last number redial, and a secrecy button so that they can shout WANKER down the TELEPHONE at people without them hearing.

To make sure that your TELEPHONE will support these features, make sure that it has SPACE on it for some BUTTONS.

Okay, we’re ready to draw our first TELEPHONE.

Put your PENCIL to the PAPER and draw a closed shape. This can be a CIRCLE, or some sort of DEFORMED CIRCLE, or perhaps a TRAPEZIUM. Draw some BUTTONS on it.

CONGRATULATIONS! You have drawn your first TELEPHONE!

To find out more about becoming a TELEPHONE DESIGNER, purchase my book.

Categories
Ewan Food Guidance

Cook With Ewan – ManFood

cook with ewanYou are a man. You need food, and you want it now. Your hunger has reached gargantuan proportions, and you have about ten minutes before a very important television programme. Alternatively, you just want to get eating out of the way so that you can move onto more important things.

You need ManFood.

It’s fast and easy. It’s difficult to get wrong, because even when cooked to perfection, it is pretty much inedible. However, this doesn’t matter. You’re so hungry that the food won’t touch your tongue on the way down. You just need a balanced diet to last you through your gym session, and you need it fast.

Boil 5 minute pasta.

Pasta on the boil

Get green pepper, red tomato and pink ham out of fridge. Chop.

Fresh ingredients

Olive oil and paprika from cupboard. Cheese and oily basil from fridge.

Cupboard ingredients

Drain pasta. Everything in pan except cheese. Back on hob. Stir.

In the pan

Cut cheese.

Cheese

Contents of pan into bowl. Cheese on top. Eat.

Voila. Oh my god it looks repulsive.

Try not to vomit.

Categories
Ewan Food Guidance

Cook With Ewan – Fried Misc

cook with ewanI received a lot of feedback to the CheeseOnToast++, and most people said “Wow. You must be the most goddamn sexy shark ever to grace the Internet!”

And to those people, my devoted fans, I send kisses and words of lust. I want to hump you all.

Some other people said that I had managed to make a simple dish look complicated. Some other smart-arses pointed out the error below image 5, where I stated that I was a carnivore and ate only meat, yet the dish that I was preparing was entirely vegetarian.

AcerbiaDave: I am a carnivore and only eat meat… yet I am eating an all non-meat meal

I shall not even dignify this bullshit with a response.

Anyway, this week I am going to show you how to make a complicated and impressive dish, in very few easy steps. And a whole bunch of difficult ones.

Only kidding.

Step One. In THIS pan…

Rice on the boil

…set a suitable amount of rice boiling, following the instructions on the box. In THIS pan…

The ingredients

…heat up some olive oil for frying. Give the chopped bacon (3 rashers) and sliced red onion (half of a decent sized one) a head start of about three minutes, then chuck in the sliced mushrooms (2), sliced peppers (red, green and yellow – quarter of a pepper in each case) and cashew nuts (as you desire, but avoid the salted sort).

Then dish it up.

On the plate

Finally, drizzle on some soy sauce. This is best done by a human, as they have opposable thumbs for holding onto the bottle with, as demonstrated below by my lovely assistant and dinner guest Lord Toadington-Keynes.

A bit of soy sauce

What girlish hands you have, Lord Toadington-Keynes (Lord T-K: Fuck you, shark).

In terms of quantities, this recipe serves one bored-shitless Lord and a fluffy shark. If you have a girlfriend present, you lucky fucking bastard pigfaced twat, then you probably need to increase the amount of bacon and mushrooms, and perhaps some more peppers too.

If your girlfriend is currently on the other side of the country, then eat this plate of food in dejected silence in the corner of your living room, while listening to angsty music and dreaming of fellatio.

Categories
Ewan Food Guidance

Cook With Ewan – CheeseOnToast++

cook with ewanThe most important thing to know about CheeseOnToast++ is that it is ++. You must know this. You must believe this. You must understand this. You must live this.

So make sure that all your apparatus is dirty. Those pork steaks two days ago were gorgeous, weren’t they? So don’t wash up the baking tray – take advantage of all those lovely porky juices just begging to be recycled. ((Important! Cooking with dirty utensils is dangerous and will kill you. Only attempt it if you are a shark and spend your entire life swimming around in human excrement anyway.))

Brown some bread on one side.

Toasted on one side

Golden brown, every time. Golden brown, my little Sharkitechts. That’s the key to good toast.

Then put some tomato puree on, and spread it nice and thin. You can see those nice dirty porkjuice stains everywhere. Mmmm.

Tomato puree goes on

Pesto! Yes, I told you, my remoradoring fans, this is CheeseOnToast++!

Pesto goes on

Slop on a teaspoonful and spread it about. And only then is it time for the cheese. Try and mix a couple of varieties – Cheddar with Red Leicester is a particularly good choice, as the yellow and orange contrast nicely. I used Cheddar and Cathedral City today.

Cheese goes on

Back into the grill with you. Make sure you handle that tray with oven gloves, especially if you are a fluffy shark.

Back in the oven

Season to taste, SharkFins. Some pepper and green flakey things called herbs. I don’t put too many of them on, partly because of the pesto that is already in place, but also partly because I am a carnivore and only eat meat.

Seasoning

Every single meal that you ever create should be served with a pork pie garnish. Remember that. It’s very important. I’ve also drizzled some olive oil over the CheeseOnToast++, just to make it gooier.

On the plate, with a pork pie

CheeseOnToast++, like all meals that can be eaten onehanded, should be enjoyed whilst leaning over a balcony / verandah / snake pit / politician’s wife.