Casper Candlewacks

Archive for September, 2011

I know what you want. You want more idiots. Here’s a cracker from my event at the Marlborough Literary Festival:

Sherbert Isăman

Sherbert was brought up somewhere exotic and middle-eastern (we didn’t quite decide where), but she escaped from her Harem and decided to travel the world and become a witch. Hearing that Britain’s frogs had peculiar magical qualities, she crossed the channel using her Harem Pants as a sort of parachute/boat and began to search ponds and lakes for frogs. When she finds one, she catches it in her Harem Pants, sticks it in her tea strainer and infuses it with some hot water, making a most delicious, sweet but astringent cup of Frog-Tea. Sherbert believes that every cup of Frog-Tea bestows upon her different powers, some good, some evil. So far, she’s just got a tummy ache.

Such fun, as always. More festival events please!

Here’s a couple of fun creations from my events at the Hayridge Centre in Cullompton, Devon today. The kids were fantastic and, as you’ll see, bubbling over with ideas!

SPLAKASHACOWHAKANOODLECHICKEN THE 3RD HER MCCABBAGER

Splakashacowhakanoodlechicken the 3rd her McCabbager (who’ll only have you refer to her by her full name) is pantophobic. In other words, she’s scared of absolutely everything. So she hides in a wardrobe with little eye holes, squeezing a whoopie cushion to scare people off. Because, quite frankly, if you were walking down the road and came across a farting cupboard you’d definitely run away.

BOBLICK MUSHROOM-BOGIE

Named after his three passions in life: mushrooms, bogies and licking people called Bob, Boblick has just had an unfortunate run-in with a family of local pigeons. He tried to steal their eggs, you see, so they retaliated as any pigeon would, by dropping their stinky refuse all over his clothes and face. Blinded by pigeon poo, Bob ripped off his soiled clothes and reached for the nearest thing he could find – a bikini on the washing line. Then he walked into a lamppost, losing all his teeth. Still blind and looking for a place to keep his dirty clothes he found a poodle, thought it was a handbag and stuffed his clothes into its mouth. Boblick can now be found in women’s swimwear, blindly rampaging around the streets of Corne-on-the-Kobb, being a general nuisance.

If any kids from the two schools are reading this, you were fantastic today! Don’t forget to send me any extra pictures or stories you might have drawn or written, or just comment down below on what you think of your creations.

You see, this is what I love about visiting schools. Devon, a young chap from (would you believe it) Devon, was inspired enough by my idiotic visit to Willand School to draw these idiots. Aren’t they brilliant?

I love them. The man filled with men has a hilariously cheeky smile, and the spiky technicolour chap is straight out of Star Wars. Well done Devon!

Now, if anyone else has done this sort of thing after an event, why not leave a comment and I’ll let you know how to send it to me.

Hi, Internet. Can you hear me?

I don’t know how this thing works, really. We don’t get fancy things like computers or microwaves in Corne-on-the-Kobb. In my house we only get electricity because Lamp built a rod that catches all the lightning and saves it all up for when it gets dark.

Anyway, my name’s Casper Candlewacks, I’m eleven years old and some strange man with floppy hair has just given me a sheet of paper with questions on it and asked me to give some answers. While I speak he’s tapping away at a tappy thing and the words I’m saying are popping up on the screen. Like this. And this. Will you just write anything I say? BLAAAH. POTTED WEASELS. THE FLOPPY-HAIRED MAN IS AN IDIOT. HE LOOKS STUPID WHEN HE TAPS ON HIS TAPPY THING. Ah, this will never get old.

OK, so I’d better answer your questions:

“Is your mum an idiot? And your dad too?” - anon, from Bigland Green

They’re both idiots, yeah. In their own way. Mum watches a lot of TV, and I mean a LOT. She only ever gets up off the sofa during the weather reports, and that’s only because she never goes outside. You know those shows that come on at lunchtime that you only see when you’re ill, about knitting or watercolours, and you wonder who ever watches them? Yeah, it’s my mum. My dad’s a chef. Well, he calls himself a chef, but if he is then so’s anybody who can start a fire in a frying pan. Once he burnt my ice cream. How do you even do that?

“Where would you like to go for your summer holiday?” - Emma

I’ve never been abroad. I heard there were tigers. I’d quite like Scotland because they catch and eat this animal called a ‘Haggis’. I don’t know anything more about the ‘Haggis’ though, and what I do know was told to me by Mitch McMassive who you shouldn’t trust really.  Once he told me that birds fly south in winter because there’s a 50% sale off spare beaks every christmas in France.

“Casper, how do you run away from a tiger?” - Jake

Don’t know…I’ve never been abroad. I hope you didn’t need the answer urgently though. Well, my guess is you sprint as fast as you can towards the nearest paint shop. Buy a tin of orange paint and a tin of black. Then paint yourself in stripes and roar a bit. Hopefully the tiger will make friends with you instead. If this doesn’t work, learn to fly. Tigers can’t fly.

“Was it fun driving the Bubbel Buggy?” - Will

It was terrifying! After a while you get used to the popping sensation and it’s really good fun, but it doesn’t half shake your bum. Lamp doesn’t believe in suspension, you see. He said “If I wanted suspension, I would’ve made it float.” I couldn’t sit down properly for a week.

“Do you like swimming?” - William

Ooh no. We don’t have a pool in Corne-on-the-Kobb, but we do have the river Kobb. It’s frrrrrreezing and full of sharks.

“What does B.A.D. stand for?” - Kai

Beavers Are Dirty. It’s true as well. Once, as a punishment, I had to clean sixty beavers until they were sparkling. Took me three days (with lunch breaks).

“Have you ever been bitten by a pigeon?” – Anton

Yeah, and it hurt like mad. I got attacked by a whole man-pecking flock when The Great Tiramisu cursed the village. Tell you what, I’d rather clean a million beavers than be eaten by pigeons. Imagine your last thought as you slipped down its gullet being “Cor, pigeon’s breath doesn’t half stink!”

“How do you make a monkey laugh?” - Samuel

Print jokes on the skin of its bananas.

“How would you tame a man-eating pigeon?” - Rtvik

I wouldn’t. I’d just run far far away (or to the nearest paint shop for a tin of grey paint).

“When’s your birthday? And what would you like for your birthday present?”

It’s in April at some point, but neither of my parents remember when. So we just celebrate my birthday over the whole month. One day we have the cake, the next day we clear up the cake. One day Dad gets me a present (last year it was a bag of courgettes from the local shop), the next day I take it back to the shop and spend the money on sweets. As for what I want, if it’s a choice between courgettes and sweets then I’ll take the sweets.

I’m exhausted now! People don’t often ask questions in Corne-on-the-Kobb, and if they do they’ve normally wandered off before you can give a good answer. It was nice to chat, anyway.

(You can read all about Casper’s adventures in ‘Casper Candlewacks in Death by Pigeon!’ by me, the floppy-haired typist, Ivan Brett. If you’re reading this in the future you should ride your hovercars to the nearest book shop and look out for his other adventures, ‘Casper Candlewacks in The Claws of Crime’ and ‘Casper Candlewacks in Attack of the Braniacs’. Enjoy!)

OK. First of all, sorry. It gets to a point where you’ve not blogged for so long that you feel guilty about it, and then you avoid it because it makes you feel bad and then you pretend it doesn’t exist. I got to that stage. So, as an apology, I PROMISE to write at least something weekly from now until Christmas. How does that sound?

We’ve had some brilliant questions for the ‘Ask Casper’ segment, which I’ll get him to answer as soon as possible. He’s been busy this summer, getting up to all sorts of adventures which you can read about in some book or another, I forget what it’s called.

But anyway…who wants to see some idiots? This time we’ve got two characters from Willand School in Devon, both utterly bonkers:

BOOGOOLALA SHOWGISE (Years 3&4)

There’s often a theme that runs through idiots we create in these events. One of those themes is bins. We’ll get to that. When Boogoolala (which is a boys’ name, by the way) was a child, he went shopping with his mummy and bought a set of clothes. It was a nice set of clothes, admittedly, but not nice enough to be the only  set Boogoolala would ever wear. Now he’s 23 years old, and struggling in the clothes department. That tiny shirt and incredibly stinky sock are the only remnants of that original outfit. The rest have long-since rotted away or been eaten by mice. Now, the bin. Boogoolala’s house shares a back alley with a reputed burger chain in Corne-on-the-Kobb, which has ridiculously high standards. Any bun that’s cut unevenly, any patty too burnt at the edges, any lettuce with the wrong number of frilly bits, that burger gets chucked in the bin. So Boogoolala roots around in the bins for the tastiest rejects and sticks them to his legs instead of trousers. When he gets hungry, he plucks one off and munches away. And best of all, he’s never more than a square meal away from wearing shorts!

ALLIAH FLAPJACK (Years 5&6)

Alliah was making jelly with her dog. I don’t mean she was turning her dog into jelly, although that would be delicious. I mean Alliah’s dog was present at the moment of jellification. But she made one fatal mistake – she turned her whisk up one level too high. Before she knew it, she and her dog were covered in sloppy strawberry slurges of the stickly slime. Now, we all know that dogs hate jelly, right? So it’s no surprise that Alliah’s dog was so upset about the jelly that it bolted out of the kitchen, breaking the speed of sound (which made its ears fall off).

Alliah desperately wanted her dog back, so she constructed a simple dog-homing device. (You can try this at home if your dog’s ears fall off and you can’t find it. Unfortunately you can’t try it if your dog’s run away with its ears intact. Selfish.) Alliah took her dog’s favourite stick and stuck it to the leftover ear, then listened to the ear like you would with a conch shell. Now, when you listen to a conch shell you hear the sea, so if you’d listen to your dog’s ear you’d hear…your dog! Alliah’s set out on a big adventure, following the noise of her dog-homing device. Whether she finds it…well…that’s up to you!

Two great characters. But I’d like to know something. Which will happen first: Alliah finding her dog or Boogoolala forking out on a new pair of trousers? And who do you like best?

AND STICK AROUND UNTIL NEXT MONDAY FOR ‘ASK CASPER – THE ANSWERS’

Exciting!