Gardening: A Guide for the Horticulturally Impaired

For the last several years I have tried my hand at growing my own plant organisms of the "flora" variety using clay pots, potting soil, seeds of a certain type, and armed with my intuition and knowledge of the biological engineering required to produce a successful garden. It was soon after my very first expedition into horticulture that I realized that the whole "intuition and knowledge" thing is fairly important, and it's also something that I lack.

Unfortunately something that I do not lack in the slightest is stubbornness. So, every year I keep trying my hand at growing plants, and every year I realize that i suck massively at it. Why do I keep trying? I don't know. Trust me, if I knew, I wouldn't keep doing it.

So last year I did tomatoes. They struggled hopelessly for the months that I was in charge of their well-being. Frankly, they deserve a vegetation medal just for being able to survive on the irregular waterings they got (pretty much whenever I remembered to do it) and the ridiculous amount of sun that very nearly turned their leaves into something resembling kettle chips. When I went on vacation for abut three weeks and asked a friend to look after them, they thrived! I came back and they were twice the size with actual tomato flowers! Go figure. That's when I realized that it wasn't just bad luck that made me fail at growing plants, it was that I was just generally terrible at gardening.

In the years before that (in which the plants included green beans, carrots, and wildflowers) I had just chocked their utter failure up to the fact that Canada was just an inhospitable climate to grow anything. It couldn't possibly have been me. Not a chance.

In my five or so spring-summers of growing things (or attempting to, at least) I have learned a fair bit about the practice. Not necessarily about how to grow things, but mostly about how not to grow things. Have any of you seen How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days? This guide will kind of be like that. If you haven't seen it. Good on you.

Don't plant a single seed and expect it to grow.
My virgin year of gardening I planted wildflowers, but being the niave gardener that I was, I only planted a single seed in each pot. So I had three pots, each with only one seed. As a result I waited nearly a month for... one tiny sprout in one pot and absolutely nothing in the other two. At that point I just dumped the remaining seeds, which was probably like... 40 into each pot in a last stitch effort to grow something. Mostly a last stitch effort not to feel like a failure at something as simple as germination. Dandelions do it all the freaking time when nobody wants them to, yet I couldn't get a freaking daisy to grow without effing it up! The secret is sheer volume. Simple as that. They don't write on the package that some of the seeds don't work, or that they're dead, or they malfunction, or... What's the proper term for a seed that doesn't grow into a plant?

Anti-Seed?

Don't underwater them.
Not watering your plants and expecting them to grow is like trying to have a cup of tea by sucking on a dry teabag. Unsuccessful. Water is one of those things that is key for photosynthesis, which is kind of a big deal to plants. However, if you are planning on neglecting your plants (which makes no sense, why would you plant them in the first place?) my recommendation is that you dehydrate them before they sprout and not after. It's a lot more cruel and depressing to let a little plantling shrivel up into a brown twig-like thing with crusty leaves than to let a seed just dry up under a hardened pot of soil. Think about it. Consider their feelings.

Don't overwater them.
This is where things get delicate. It's also the area that I cannot seem to master. I was tired of my plants getting dried up and frantically watering them in order to rescue them from the brink of becoming an interior decoration for pretentious sun-dried-flower connoisseurs. So I decided to just flood them with as much water as would fit in the pot, as frequently as I could. Turns out that just a great way to get your seeds to float to the top of your little garden pond of sadness and get waterlogged. Oh, and if it gets humid outside, the soil will start to mold. Just bad all around (unless you enjoy the smell of baked penicillin).

Don't grow carrots in a neighbourhood that is known to have an abundance of rabbits.
It was like a scene from a freaking Bugs Bunny cartoon. The moment my carrots were of any substantial size (which was, at most, about an inch long), I would wake up to find a quarter of them either gone, or dug up and dumped across my back yard. Thanks rabbits. It only took me an agonizing three months and daily waterings and depressing moments of feeling inadequate should I ever need to grow my own food in case of an apocalypse, to grow those gosh-darn carrots (that still only grew to a couple of centimeters) and then you had to go and eat them all! I'm glad you've been fed, there aren't enough of you in my neighbourhood already. Just watch, the next time I see the carrots you stole from me will be when they're all over the road after your innards have been scraped across the pavement by an SUV.

If it gets really hot, take them out of the direct sunlight.
Like I mentioned earlier, I almost made sun-dried tomatoes while they were still on the plant. The surfaces of the little tomatoes were actually getting sunburnt! I looked it up! I didn't even think they could do that!

I'll stop here because I've once again realized that I am really not the person that should be giving gardening advice to anyone.

I have decided that growing plants is a lot like raising children. If you don't have time to take care of them yourself, give them to someone who does, but preferably don't have them in the first place. Give them lots of water and protect them from sunburns, but they'll still always be happier with the babysitter.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

Stray by Sheri Joseph

Taking Public Transit: A Guide for Impatient Germaphobes

This morning I decided to make a list. This list would be of things that we all hate with every fragment of our substance but would complain tirelessly if they were to suddenly disappear. And while I did come up with some other options (corporations, government, traffic cops) I found something that went straight to the top of the list: public transit.

We've all been there. Public transit is never perfect, and never will be. The bus or train is always late, or dirty, or cold, or hot, or filled with pungent, obese vagabonds with crazy beards, three fingers, one shoe, grocery bags full of avocadoes, and penchants for small talk that involve the doors closing too fast on their imaginary friends.

In order to deal with these issues properly (and by "properly" I mean swiftly and tolerably), I have prepared a guide. This guide will deal with the primary complaints that (I feel) are most commonly associated with public transit travel: Time, Atmosphere, and People.

Time

In a regular school week, I spend about 500 minutes riding (or waiting for) city transit. That's approximately 8.5 hours (I'm rounding up for obvious reasons) every week. In more of my shoddy calculating skills (even with a calculator I can bastardize the act of calculation, I'm that good), that means I spend about 270 hours of my life every year on city transit and that's just me going to and from school! If I added in the summer months, working, going out with friends etc. it's more like 750 hours. If you take that number and throw it against the 8760 hours in a year, that means I spend approximately (and again I'm rounding up for obvious reasons) 9% of my year riding or waiting for public transit.

Even with that appallingly depressing number, I don't think it's the total number of hours that people complain about, but the number of minutes that they wouldn't have to spend waiting if the bus was always on time. Think of all of the other things I could be doing in the meantime! Watching ten extra minutes of The Best of Just for Laughs, resewing a button on my coat, petting my cat a couple dozen times, spending several more minutes debating whether or not I should make a lunch, playing peek-a-boo with my idiot dog through the window to the backyard, repeating my mantra about not making anyone cry that day, or even learning a phrase or two in another language. The world would just be a better place if I didn't have to wait for the bus.

Unfortunately for you, I don't have a solution for this one. Time is always going to be an issue with public transit. Unless you decide to become a bus driver, I just don't see a solution. Oh wait, here's one.
Get a car.
Oh and bring something along to help pass the time: an iPod (or other such portable music-playing device), a book, a crossword, a Rubik's Cube. Whatever gets you through the hard bits.

Atmosphere

Whether it's cold, hot, or just dirty, public transit has a reputation for being uncomfortable. My theory is that they want people on and off the train/bus as fast as possible, so if you hate being there... It works out perfectly. However, that doesn't help when you need to be stuck in a bus shelter or a cramped train car for a long period of time, whether you're waiting to get on or off. The best time of the day to travel by train is between 3:30am and 5:30am. It's right after they clean the trains, but right before the early morning rush. If you really hate the C-Train enough that you are willing to use it at these insane hours of the morning, I think it's time that you invest in a vehicle. Also, get some counselling, you obviously have bigger issues...

My advice is to find a seat that doesn't have stains, smudges, spills, crumbs, dirt, mold, gum, rotting food, strange smells, single items of clothing, balled-up newspapers, or abandoned infants already in the seat. That's just asking for trouble, for what you think might be just some crumbs, could be anthrax, and what appears to be an abandoned infant could actually be just a really creepy doll. No one wants to sit near that. My advice?
Look before you sit.

Trains and busses are also severely demented when it comes to their heating and cooling systems. In the summer, when it's insanely hot outside, they decide not to use air conditioning at all even though I know they have it. It's like they think "It's Calgary, I'm not going to turn on the AC, it's just going to get cold outside again in 35 minutes." So you walk from the hellfire that is Calgary in the summer, into a slightly more shady hellfire. In winter, they decide to use the equipment. They overcompensate the heat inside the bus because the temperature outside of it is about -30. In my mind, I associate getting on a bus in the dead of winter as being similar to what it must feel like to be thawed after being cryogenically frozen, only in about two-and-a-half seconds. My advice?
Wear layers.

People

If you haven't run into at least one weird guy on the train who will sit staring at you for a good eight stops, then blurt out how much you remind him of his dead mother/wife/child, then try to ask if you are by any chance related to pretty much anybody he's ever met (Are you Marnie's cousin? Or Sally Burns? No? How about Nathan Patricks? No? Really? Spitting image, I tell ya...), then you're just not doing it right.

Alright, let me cut to the chase. Here are your basic "targets of avoidance".
Avoid anyone who sniffles, coughs, wipes their nose on any article of clothing, or is covered in pustulating boils; unless you wish to catch the plague. Avoid anyone who appears to be holding their breath, they can be unpredictable (most likely, they're either crazy or about to explode in a fit of rage). Avoid children, yeah. Avoid anyone wearing glitter, you don't want that stuff on you, you'll never get it off. Avoid people holding open food or drinks, one quick stop and it's everywhere. Avoid overly happy people, they will want to talk to you, you don't want that. Avoid pretty much anyone that looks like they might be about to rape something, because you can never be safe enough.

How do you avoid them? That's easy enough, just don't sit or stand in their general vicinity. However, if there is only one seat left on the bus/train and it is next to one of these "undesirables", and you choose to stand... It's pretty obvious you're avoiding them. I say screw it, your comfort is more important than their freaky-ass feelings. You'll only have to deal with their insulted glances for 15 minutes, tops. My advice?
Put headphones in your ears, wear sunglasses and a thick coat, do not smile at all. This should keep people at bay. You may also wish to take it one step further and pull a hood up over your head and put your hands in your pockets. Nobody will bother you if you look like a criminal. The best way to beat them, is to become one of them...

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

Cell by Stephen King

Conversations With Myself

Hello darlings.
It's good to be back.
I haven't been gone that long, you say?
I know. I know, but any time away from you seems like an eternity. My heart yearns to tap my fingertips lightly on each key as if I'm sending pure love into cyberspace with every stroke.
That's stupid, cheesey, and slightly pathetic, you say?
Well, you said it, not me. You just don't appreciate the pure poetry that exists within the confines of this blog, and I pity you. I pity you.
I should pity myself, you say?
That's just not very nice of you, and I think I will end this little exchange of unpleasantness before I resort to verbal assault on your moral character (most likely referring to your complete lack of tact and possibly your free-wheeling attitude when it comes to sexual practices).
No retort? Yeah, I thought so.

What I've learned this weekend is that sleep isn't all that important as long as you have enough natural adrenaline to keep you going.
What do I mean, you ask?
Good question (and I'm glad we got past the whole "pity yourself" thing really quickly). This weekend I managed to survive 48 hours with a mere 3 hours of sleep under my belt, but I powered through it. The secret, my friends, is motivation.
What kind of motivation, you ask?
The good kind, my friend, the good kind. The reason I was able to keep my eyes and my limbs functional on 3 hours of sleep for 48 hours is that it was because I was doing something that I love (filmmaking). With pleasure and excitement, comes adrenaline. If I was getting up after 3 hours of sleep to watch sheep graze, I would become the fastest case of spontaneous narcolepsy ever on record.
What's narcolepsy, you ask?
Look it up, lazy ass. Who do you think I am? Your mother?
Why do I have to be so mean, you ask?
I don't know, maybe it's because I have to talk to idiots like you.
You don't actually exist, you say.
That's a very good point...
I'm the most brilliant and creative mind that has ever functioned and anything and everything that I think about lights up like a thousands suns everytime I mention its very name, you say?
That's more like it.
I'm being very pretentious, you say?
That's not really the word you were looking for, but we'll work on that later. You're lucky you have me, man, or you'd be just another one of my idiot personalities.

So I broke my camera this weekend. Unfortunately, this happened the night before the big production day, so I never got to take any still photos. It was probably for the best, as it might have been a distraction.
How do I know it's broken, you ask?
Well, unless a camera is supposed to make a little crunching sound every time the lens extends or retracts, I think it's broken.
Just fix it, you say?
Who do you think I am? R. W. Canon. I can't fix lenses. Can you open up a point-and-shoot, tap out all of the micro-shards of optic lens, melt them down into a little puddle of glass, and pour it back into the camera? Ta-da! Fixed!
I don't have to be so sarcastic, you say?
Actually I do.
No, I don't, you say?
Yes. Yes, I do. I very much do.
Do I realize that I'm still talking to myself, and therefore, I am just mocking myself, you ask?
Yes. Yes, I do. Now.

I would like to apologize to anyone reading this for it's weirdness. I would also like to apologize to those who are now slightly scared of me because they read this. Please don't be. I'm actually a very nice person and I keep my insanities mostly to myself. That's such a lie. I'm sorry.
Why would I lie, you ask?
Because while I never lie about important things, and I value honesty above anything else, I am actually quite a gifted liar.
That's getting pretentious again, you say?
It's not pretentious if it's true. Think about it.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Your Childhood: A Guide for the Maladjusted

I'm sure everyone reading this has, at one time or another, been told they have had a deprived childhood. I'm also sure that it wasn't told to you by a malicious sociopath just trying to hurt your feelings, but by a friend or aquaintance who had learned that you had been lacking something in your precious early youth that society seems to think is essential in the process that is child-rearing (or at least was in the early nineties). Now, don't take their word for it. I'm sure you've turned out just fine. Here is a random selection of said "essentials". I will also assign a trauma level rating to each, measured in therapy hours required to fix the subconscious psychological issues that stem from not having that specific thing in your life when you were a wee tot. Like Pogs.

Riding a Bike: I don't really know why not having ridden a bike (or owned one, I guess) is considered more deprived than not having ridden or used a skateboard, rollerblades, a scooter, or a pogo stick. I suppose bike-riding can pull the "I've been around for nearly two hundred years" card, but that's really no excuse. They all fall under the "alternative modes of transportation that border on unnecessary and do not require the aquisition of a license to operate one" column heading. I say we rise up and start badgering people about rollerblades and pogo sticks as well. It's only fair. So you missed out on a parental unit pushing you on your two-wheeler until you could ride all by yourself without training wheels like some happy Hollywood family. Boo frickin' hoo. I'm sure they bought you ice cream at some point. That's just as effective with a lot less screaming. I rode a bike recreationally for many years in my late single digits to early double digits and the only thing I gained is a few pairs of torn jeans, probably a hundred dollars in bandages, and countless scars. Bikes are not for the uncoordinated.
Trauma Level: One hour. You can tell the therapist that you didn't really need one and aren't bothered by it, then still have time to talk about how you were always picked last in gym class (like that system ever really existed).

Playing Video Games: This is probably more relevant to today's preteens than to my generation, but I find it still applies. I still get weird looks when I say I've never heard of, let alone played, Starcraft (whatever the hell that is). The only thing I ever really played as a child was Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. at my grandpa's house when I was 6 on the original NES (like I know what that is...). Seeing as how I was one of the youngest of like... 15 cousins, I never really got to play much. So my experience with video games is watching my cousins shout at a dog that made fun of their obscenely poor water-foul slaughtering skills. However, we have to take into account that some video games are quite violent and, perhaps, people that never really played them as a child are better because of it. I mean, Mario jumps angrily on fungi and spits fireballs at unsuspecting turtle creatures. I know he's Italian and all but... it's unnecessary.
Trauma Level: Two hours to talk about how you never got a turn at the console and now you have self-esteem and assertiveness issues, and one hour to use one of those therapeutic punching bags to let off some steam.

"I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at the idiot holding the gun like a bouquet of flowers."

Flying a Kite: Unless you're Mary Poppins, chances are you have precious little kite-flying experience. In today's world, the kite is a "toy" that has suffered serious neglect. When I was a kid, I flew a kite. Not often but, let's be honest, once a year is enough to satisfy that little slice of the "stuff to do in the summer to get out of the house" pie chart. Even when I was a kid, not many people did it; and yet, people are scrutinized for never having done it. It's not fair, really. It's like judging people for not having seen Gone With The Wind, when really... Who has?
Trauma Level: None, just go watch Mary Poppins. You'll see what you haven't been missing.

Playing Monopoly: If you haven't done this, what's wrong with you? I think this one is the one I need to back 100%. Not only do you learn how to play nicely with friends; you learn basic strategy, real estate procedures, and money-management and business skills. Not to mention that you get to be a tiny part of a franchise that has been around for a century and has versions based on every decade, every species of animal, and every television series in existence. If you haven't played Monopoly, go play it now. I'll wait.
Trauma Level: Eight hours; one hour to talk about those nightmares you've been having about being molested by Uncle Pennybags for never having played the game, and seven hours to play one game with your therapist. At a leisurely pace of course, we don't want any cases of PTSD.

Sending children to jail since 1936.

Having Seen the Entire Disney Animated Feature Collection: I am guilty of judging people based on their lack of connoisseurship when it comes to the classic Disney animated features. Unless you didn't own a VCR, I just don't think there is an excuse for not having seen The Lion King, Aladdin, or Beauty and the Beast. I really don't. Sorry. What a sad existence you must lead. Not quite getting any James Earl Jones/Mufasa references, not enjoying Angela Lansbury as much as you should, and not experiencing that tingly feeling in high school when you've read the first half of your translated copy of Hamlet and you clue in.
Trauma Level: Seventy hours. Yes, seventy. That is how long it will take you to watch the entire Disney animated feature collection. Not counting Pixar. It's the only cure.

Having a Pet Goldfish: I understand why parents buy their children low-maintenance pets. It's so they can experience and understand what death is before a major human death has a chance to affect them. How depressing. Seriously though, a goldfish is the worst template for death a parent could use. My goldfish (and I had several) lasted, on average, about a week and a half. Goldfish are easier to kill than WWI fighter pilots. I'm sure a good number of children think that by adjusting the thermostat by one degree or by tapping on the door to grandma's bedroom, it will send her to McNally & Sons funeral home faster than you can say Teletubbies.
Trauma Level: None. Thanks to not having a pet goldfish, you dealt with death like a well-adjusted child; not knowing quite what was going on until a few years later and then thought "I probably should have been sadder".

Camping: Who doesn't love a crackling fire, roasting marshmallows, playing a harmonica, hiking through the woods, stringing up your food in a tree at night to avoid bear attacks, mosquito repellant, using outhouses in the middle of the night, minus thirty degree temperatures, and the smell of weed from the next campsite? It is truly a coming-of-age experience. I camped for many, many years. Raised on it, I was. Even with all of it's drawbacks, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I do understand, though, that not every family is as outdoorsy as mine and it's a shame. Nowadays, there are ways to take video games into the wilderness, so there's really no excuse not to. The bears are waiting.
Trauma Level: One night in your backyard with a flashlight, a sleeping bag, a book, and some snacks. It's not the same, but it'll do.

It's OK, I'm sure with the appropriate amount of therapy as prescribed by me, you'll be just fine. Or at least slightly less damaged than you have been. No promises though.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl

Common Latin Phrases: A Guide for the Ambitious Academic

Everyone strives to be more intelligent. If you don't, stop reading right now, this guide will only make your goal of complete ignorance more difficult to achieve. Stick to your guns, no one likes a quitter. For those of you who do wish to gain a touch more knowledge, keep reading. I would like to touch base with some old latin phrases and see how they're doing, what they've been up to for the last 26 centuries, find out why they've got the legal community wrapped around their gnarly little Roman fingers. Mostly it's so that laymen, like us, can find out what those phrases we've been throwing out during junior high debate tournaments over the years actually mean.

Bona fide: "in good faith"
According to my research (insert flashback of watching The Magic Schoolbus), this phrase is used in contemporary English as a way of asking for someone's credentials, as in "show me your bona fides." Honestly, that sounds like an invitation for exhibitionism, and not the good kind. I think you'll find its more common usage is as a qualification of truth. As in, "Oprah Winfrey is a bona fide rich person", or "Stephen Hawking is a bona fide cripple."

De facto: "by the fact"
This has been deemed synonymous with such other phrases as "for all intents and purposes" or "in fact", but it really means that it is something that is true in practice but not officially established in law. Until the "bro code" was published, it was de facto that you never leave a high five or a fist bump hanging when it is offered to you. Common sense, really. Personally, I think it sounds like a cool Italian last name but, instead, it would be spelled D'Facto. I'm picturing someone in the mafia who eats ravioli out of bullet ridden human skulls.

Pro bono: "for the good"
Boy, has this one been distorted over the years. No longer does it mean "for the good". Now it means "for free". I guess, if you're a nitpicker and you don't enjoy the benefit and general happiness that can result from having friends, you might argue that they can be interpreted as the same thing. I think that is a very materialistic approach to the philosophy, and I will proceed to assume that you are a lawyer. My condolences.

Ad nauseum: "to (the point of) nausea"
While most commonly used as an almost metaphorical hyperbole to describe menial events that have been continuing to the point of nausea, I would prefer to use it in it's more literal sense. Bring it back to it's roots. Such as, "I ate jager bomb jello shots ad nauseum" or "I rode the carousel with my screaming nephew while inhaling a combination of second-hand cigarette smoke and pink cotton candy ad nauseum."

Quid pro quo: "this for that"
Otherwise known among circles of cigar-smoking poker-playing clone husbands of the 1960's as "tit for tat". Translated into a dialect of English most commonly found sung by Elvis Presley's co-stars it becomes "If you'll scratch my back/Then I'll scratch your back/Like two peas in a pack/Let's get rid of our itch together." Politicians have also been found to use this phrase as a strange occupational slang for "bribery".



Deus ex machina: "god out of the machine"
A plot device where a seemingly impossible problem or situation is miraculously solved by some contrived intervention of a new person, force, or object.
*Insert crass and insensitive Bible reference here*

Non sequitur: "it does not follow"
To me, rather than represent a literary device that makes a passage or event humorous due to it's apparent lack of relevance to what came before it, I think it should be yelled during boot camp at every military training base on the continent. Imagine the moral of a group of young soldiers being told they are marching incorrectly by having a lovely latin word shouted at them instead of a sentence that might rhyme with "Gut the shmuck up and get your feet moving, you smother plucking buns of fishes!"

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Naming Your Pub: A Guide for Alcoholic Entrepreneurs

Pubs are a great place to mingle. Socializing clearly being the primary function of a pub. If you are interested in owning a socializing establishment like a pub, the most important thing you need to get started is a good name for it. This is of course targeted towards Irish pubs. I mean, they are really the best kind. English pubs have their charms and they make nice meat pies, but they just lack the raw, brogue atmosphere of being in an Irish pub. A feeling that can really only be described by gutteral noises made in the back of your throat after you've experienced a night you most likely don't remember.

So please take note. You can learn a little something about the art that is pub-naming and perhaps your future ventures into the business of owning "socializing" venues just might pay off in the long run. I mean, how can it not? It involves eight different types of Guinness!

The Last Name: Probably the most common of all Irish pub names is the traditional last name. Of course, if you choose to go this route, make sure you Irish it up. Now turning the word "Irish" into a verb is normally something I avoid, however, in this case, I make an exception due to the importance of having an authentically Irish name. Traditionally, just adding an "O" to the beginning of a name would suffice but these are tough economical times. You can't afford to take the risk that your name will not be quite Irish enough to please the typical drunken red-headed bloke with the mutton-chops. He could bring in a lot of business. I suggest taking an already grotesquely Irish name and then adding an "O". Then, for good measure you need a really good adjective to describe this fictional Irish namesake. Your pub needs a name that will make people walk with a significant limp in their right leg just by reading it. It needs to be an adjective of anger, insanity, or just downright grumpiness. Stay away from "Old" or "Mad". Old Murphy's or Mad O'Brien's or (heaven forbid) Mad Old O'Sullivan's are examples of pub names that make people picture green beer and waitresses dressed like this:

Cliche is not what we're going for here. Understood? Also, something like Bashful Maguire's is not acceptable. You don't want people to think you will gladly host family St. Patrick's Day parties with shamrock cupcakes and leprechaun balloons. My official recommendation would be something along the lines of Shifty O'Shea's, Loathsome O'Leary's, or Cantankerous O'Callaghan's. Alliteration is not necessarily required, it's just charming.

The Described Noun: This method is also quite common and one where people tend to get the most creative. You basically just take any noun - and by any noun I mean absolutely ANY noun - and add either an adjective or a verb in front of it. Choosing a verb tends to make things a bit more fun. Some examples are The Idle Cook (in Yorkshire), The Bleeding Wolf (in Cheshire), or The Quiet Woman (in York). These are all quite creative, but the point is to find something strangely unique that you respond to personally that will intrigue people enough to step into your home away from home. There are very few boundaries for this method as there are so many different combinations. Many pubs have favoured using animals as their noun. Lord knows why. I think The Murdered Squirrel or The Diseased Prawn just don't sound like places I want to eat chicken fingers in. If you must pick an animal, I suggest going the jolly route (traditionally avoided by the edgier pub-namers) and choosing something like The Giggling Hampster or The Slap-Happy Tortoise. As far as adjectives/verbs go, the only one I strongly suggest you avoid is "drunken". Far too obvious. People don't need to be told that a pub is a place where living things can get intoxicated. I think they would rather go somewhere with a name that can be misconstrued as an edgy used-book store. Then they can tell their wives where they are and not have to lie. For example, The Happy Medium (in West Sussex) or The Blooming Fuchsia (in Suffolk) sounds more kosher than telling your wife you're in The Drunken Duck (in Cumbria), even though it may slice your manhood in half. Ahh, The Hairy Lemon.

I recommend just finding a favourite old-timey item and giving it a completely obscure verb. I like The Drooling Doorknob, The Fleeing Monocle, or The Wandering Typewriter. I say "old-timey" item because the last thing we need is a pub called The Itching X-Box.

The Blank and Blank: This is my personal favourite. All of the examples I've ever seen of this method seem like the pub owner flipped through a dictionary and chose the first two nouns they came across and said "Yup, looks good to me". So much so that you have pubs called The Cow and Snuffers (in Cardiff) and The Goat and Tricycle (in Bournemouth). I have noticed in my research (and yes, I did some) that it is often a pairing of an animal and then a random noun. Even so, there are so many possibilities, the mind begins to wander. One boundary I can think of is to keep it PG-13. Children still walk the streets. So I guess The Crab and Syphilus is out. I would also stay away from using "dog" or "cow", overused to the extreme. One more thing to avoid: pairing things that may end up sounding like a dish that might be served inside the pub itself. So that rules out names like The Chicken and Toast or The Tuna and Wasabi. In following those rules, I recommend names like The Swordfish and Bookshelf, The Chickadee and Treebark, or The Otter and Dollhouse.


That brings us to the end of this little "guide to". Now go forth, name your pub and remember to send me a free-"socializations"-for-life membership card. To be honest, it's the least you owe me.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

The Agitated, Belligerent Senile

So it's reading break. I've spent the last hour or so Googling random words, and I found this site of Weird Ads from the 50's, 60's, and 70's. I found them remarkably entertaining, so I'm blogging about them.

"Tranquilize grandpa before he turns his cane into your next boyfriend."

"Camel Tobacco: Making speed-skating wheezier since 1913."

"Can't afford laxatives for your quintuplet sons and they're angry about it? Pick up some Fry's Chocolate today!"


"You won't be able to quit, but don't worry; we've made healthier cigarettes so you can smoke a hell of a lot more of them, with half the guilt."


"Gillette is our name. Decapitating prematurely dextrous babies with pituitary problems is our game."

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Lives of the Circus Animals by Christopher Bram