Category: Ideas

Avatar Wilmot in the Wild

The time is here. The time is now.

Look at the time. Now we’re late. What were you thinking?

As we have pirouetted into both a new year and a new decade we need to address a massive problem that has been in plain sight all this time and nobody has bothered to address. Luckily I have the brass cohonies to step up to the plate and plok that sucker right out of the park (what?) unlike everyone else.

Chris’ personal hero and best friend, Gary Wilmot, hasn’t been seen much recently. In fact the last time I saw him anywhere was around 2010 when he was playing the role of ‘guy in a tuxedo’ in some production of Chicago. You know, because he can sing and dance, and everyone loves him as a showman and all round entertainer? I expect his plate is full of meaty morsels however I want to bring him back to where Wilmers really shines and that’s on the television.

Here’s my idea – ‘Wilmot in the Wild’. It’s a light entertainment show, perfect for the 6:00pm to 8:00pm Saturday evening slot. Each week a series of contestants, those lucky members of the general public, are given some clues as to the whereabouts of where Gary Wilmot is hiding. They follow the clues to more clues and it’s a gigantic treasure hunt where Wilmers is the pot of gold waiting at the end. The first contestants to find him win a luxury hamper and get to perform a duet with Gary, on stage, at the local karaoke bar. We move around to a different city each week so we can really take in the sights up and down the country. The hampers can offer various local produce. I can even get some of my meat balls in there to really seal the deal in a wigwam.

Wilmers will, as a bonus, secretly stalk the contestants as they look for him with a view to offering a post-modern take on the gameshow format. He will also interview passers-by, usually dressed in a hilarious disguise, so nobody knows who he is.

This cannot fail. With the right financial backing I know that I can get this project up and running in time for the Autumn schedule. Start sending your money right now, please!

Avatar Middlesax

Seeing how absurdly easy it’s been for Ian to get his turgid prose published, I’ve secured myself a publishing deal for a book of my own. At first I was just thinking about this as a way to rake in some easy cash, but then it dawned on me that I would need to pick something to write about, because ultimately if you want to publish a book you need to bang out a few thousand words.

In the end Ian was, once again, my inspiration. His forthcoming book on Middlesex inspired me to come up with my own literary masterpiece about this lost county. What better than to marry the former county of Middlesex with the history and wonders of the saxophone?

So, I present to you: Middlesax. Featuring:

  • A long and detailed comparison of Baker Street in north London, home of Baker Street station and Sherlock Holmes – which is located in the former county of Middlesex – with the saxophone solo from Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”.
  • Lyrics and score for pop songs arranged specially for the saxophone and rewritten to be about Middlesex, including “Say Harrow Wave Goodbye”, “Edgwarever I Lay My Hat That’s My Home”, and “Sexual Ealing”.
  • Pictures of saxophones and saxophonists in front of Middlesex landmarks, including a tenor sax at Enfield Chase and an alto sax half-submerged in the River Brent. I’m also hoping to get a picture of Kenny G on the steps of Neasden Methodist Church.
  • A list of places in Middlesex that can be spelled using only notes that can be played on a Saxophone. (So far I haven’t found any.)

Available now for pre-order from Amazon and all other bookshops, but only within the boundaries of what used to be Middlesex. Buy it now!

Avatar As good as new

A while ago I bought a new car, as you might remember. (It replaced a large tin of beans I was temporarily driving, and is in every way better.) I liked driving a new car. The only sad thing about it is that, once you’ve been driving it for a while, it’s not new any more.

I’ve now learned that there is something you can do about this. Here is what I suggest you do.

First, get yourself into a traffic jam, and make sure the car behind you is being driven by an absolute tool. I chose a really solid jam on the M1 back in April, where I could stop in lane 3 with my handbrake on and nothing at all was moving.

Second, and this is more tricky to arrange, get the absolute tool in the car behind you to stop paying attention. Being an absolute tool, he won’t have put his handbrake on, and instead he’ll be sitting there with his feet on the pedals. When he stops paying attention, his feet will slip and he won’t notice his car setting off forward at not insignificant speed because he’ll be looking at his phone.

Third, use the rear bumper of your car to stop the absolute tool’s car from making any further progress. This will result in a small crack across the width of your rear bumper. If your car is anything like mine, the rear bumper will be the only place you’ve picked up scratches and a couple of chips to your paintwork.

Now, speak to your insurance company. They will get some money off the absolute tool which will pay for a firm of professional accident repairers to pick up your car, take it away, fix the rear bumper and return it.

When your car is returned to your home address, it will not only have been repaired, with a new freshly-sprayed bumper replacing the old one with the scratches and chips in it, but it will also have been valeted inside and out, including cleaning all the tyres and polishing all the interior fittings.

Hey presto! Your car is now just like new.

My plan is that, about this time next year, I’ll get another absolute tool to go into my rear bumper so I can have it all polished up again, and I can drive a brand new car forever.

Avatar Blockbuster Gold 2019/20

I often start my posts with a question and this one is no different. What makes a brilliant film? Chris won’t know this, because any sight of cinema will cause him to explode so really the question goes out to… everyone else? At the very core you need a great idea, a smashing premise that you can hang 90 minutes of dialogue off and then charge people ten quid to watch it. Film companies have been doing this for almost a hundred years.

As it happens I came across the beginning of what could be a billion dollar franchise sitting right behind me. The story goes like this:

A very kind colleague in the office decided to make some cheesecake and give it out… FOR FREE! Offices are great for this kind of altruistic behaviour. Not just any cheesecake though, we’re talking Orio Nutella cheesecake. Sarah, who does bake but didn’t make this, sits behind me and occasionally comes out with delightful utterances such as, “Ghosts have names too you know!” She’s a gem. So after being given a lovely slice of sugary goodness she put her fork down and said, “I don’t like Orios, I don’t like Nutella and I don’t like cheesecake but that I liked!”

Boy, what to do with this? I jumped on the chance and immediately offered to buy the film rights. Which I did. For one Kitkat Chunky. I did also try to orchestrate a book and theatre deal however she shot me down. Clearly she’s been talking to other people…

So there we have it. I’m gonna have my people talk to some other people and very soon a script will be hitting my desk, possibly written by me.

Cheesecake Dilemma. Add it up: Mix and Snatch. And my personal favourite, Yes please cake.

Avatar Ruislip Man

I think I’m on to something big here, but I want to know if you think it’s marketable *finger window*.

I moved to Ruislip back in August and immediately noticed that this large and important suburb was entirely missing its own superhero. I have decided it is my civic duty to fill this clear gap. I am, therefore, going to transform myself into… Ruislip Man.

Here’s my first publicity photo. I think you’ll agree it’s pretty heroic.

Hopefully, once I’ve saved a few old ladies trying to cross the street and rescued a few cats from trees, Ruislip Man will be a household name, paving the way for a lucrative range of spin-off toys, stationery and action figures.

Incidentally, I’m now recruiting for a sidekick. Let me know if you’d like to apply and what your suitably suburban superhero name would be.

Avatar WEAPONS!

How do you store your weapons?

Do you keep them in a cupboard? Do you show them off in a stunning display in the nook at the top of the stairs? Are they lightly nailed to the wooden beam across the dining room ceiling?

A charity shop near where my mum lives likes to keep them in a wooden cot or a crib (I’m not entirely sure which one it is) because that’s how they roll. There’s no room for a baby in there, only tools of war.

The next time you’re trying to make your friends jealous with the chainsaw you just bought, why not take a leaf out of their book? There’s nothing more eye-catching than a cot full of weapons.

Soon everyone will be doing it. Make sure you get there first.

Avatar How Thick Are Ye?

The great thing about television is that now, in 2017, pretty much any idea is marketable. So much so that there are now programmes about watching people get married, watching people having babies, watching people having opinions and watching people watching television. Personally I am looking forward to the programme where you get to watch people watching people watching people watch television, mainly because it might cause the universe to implode. Either that or Alan Partridge’s suggestion of ‘Monkey Tennis’.

My suggestion for broadcasting is called ‘How Thick Are Ye?’. It’s a very simple concept; we take a nice middle class family living somewhere down South who do not know any better: sensible adults, adorable children etc.. They earn a generous wage per month yet seem to spend an awful lot of it in the supermarkets. For whatever reason, they buy far too much food and then throw most of it away.

Our experts would travel to whatever godforsaken county these imbeciles live in to watch them spend £300.00 on a weekly shop and then despair that they have nothing to eat. After ten minutes of pointing out to the viewers just how wrong they are, they then jump out at the family just for kicks. The experts then spend the rest of the programme berating the family for being so stupid and telling them to stop shopping at Waitrose and try somewhere more reasonable such as Tesco or Aldi.

The family are rated on a scale of one to ten as to how thick they are. If they’re found to be less than five, they wake up the next morning to find themselves tied up and all of their worldly possessions have been thrown in a skip, covered in manure and crushed in a junkyard. The now frightened onlookers cradle their children, desperate to change their ways and look at the world in a different light. The experts untie the prisoners and let them return to their empty residence.

It would be a light-hearted one hour programme, perfect for the Wednesday night schedule on BBC1. A life-changing journey for all. I was considering Chris’ favourite Gary Wilmot and Dale Winton for the roles as experts. They’re decent enough to pull of a premise such as this.