Home-made fancy dress
Fortunately for me, any furniture or painting DIY things I've done have turned out fine: the bookcases are still intact, the paint is a good colour and went only on the areas it was meant to, and plugs I have put together have (so far) managed not to electrocute me.

So, instead, I shall regale you with the tale of the time that the young BobFossil entered the under-10s fancy dress competition for the village fete.

I will freely admit that I was a precocious little bugger, with a highly advanced vocabulary, reading age and knowledge of culture, thanks to my academic parents. At the age of 6, I was especially fond of the opera "The Magic Flute" by Mozart. I wasn't yet aware of the masonic connotations prevalent in the plot and imagery, but it had a good story, some storming tunes, and a crazy man dressed as a bird: Papageno. The coolest of all semi-retarded support characters in a Mozart opera.

Yes, I decided to do the fancy dress competition dressed as Papageno (I did mention I was a precocious young pillock). I got a length of cloth from my mother to make a cloak, raided my feather collection (every time I saw a feather, I'd pick it up and keep it, so I had quite a few), and liberated some needle and thread from the sewing box. I was going to make a cloak of feathers, ensuring a win at the fete, and for my name to go down in legend as the coolest kid in the village! (Yes, I was a bit of a fantasist at that age).

I hadn't realized quite how tough and solid a feather is at the base, and my needle got stuck. I couldn't push it in or pull it out. Of course, the sensible thing at that point would have been to get a thimble. But no, I decided to force it through with my teeth. I bit down on the needle, pushed and with an audible *crack* the needle snapped. I couldn't see where the long bit had gone, and swallowed nervously at the anticipation of telling my mother that I'd managed to break one of her needles. Gah, there's something weird in my throat *swallow again*, ok it's cleared now. I wonder what that was?

You can see where this is going, can't you...

Yes, I'd swallowed two inches of pointy steel, which was even now heading towards my stomach. I told my mother, who (after calling me a stupid little twerp a few times) took me to A&E at Addenbrookes. After a 4 hour wait, I had an x-ray, where they pointed out the little sliver in my stomach, which was the needle. I had an appointment made for 3 days time for another x-ray, so they could see if the needle had passed out "naturally", or if they'd need to go in and get it. Fortunately it didn't show on the next x-ray, so it must have gone undetected in one of my turds.

But when I think about the potential sensation of a needle ripping into my bowels, or sticking into my anus from the inside...*eek*.
After that I stuck to dressing up as Frodo Baggins (old tunic top, no shoes, a dagger and a ring on a chain round my neck) or Gulliver (old tunic top, no shoes, holding a small model "Lilliputian" horse).
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 12:35, Reply)