The Box List – Things To Do Before You Give Up And Start Wearing Biege

Bucket List (buck-et list)

1. A list of things to do before you die. Origin the early 21st century phrase “kicked the bucket”.   2. A shocking 2007 film starring Morgan Freeman(Driving Miss Daisy, Million Dollar Baby) and Jack Nicholson(Easy Rider, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest), where two terminally ill old dudes do a load of stuff and a load of money is wasted on unnecessary and unconvincing computer graphics rather than (ironically) actually flying the actors to the locations.

Well, as the great Dolores O’Riordon sang… if everybody else is doing it, why can’t I? (Alright, strictly speaking it was the album title)

1. Create a non existent medical complaint and visit Doc Martin.
2. Visit the ‘Seven Wonders’ largely to prove Karl Pilkington is a visionary.
3. Grow some and go to the dentist.
4. Go on a road trip somewhere further than Pwllheli.
5. Visit Bhutan – to explain to them that a nation in the Himalayas landlocked between India and Chinese-occupied Tibet has no right being ‘one of the happiest nations in the world'(unless it’s relative to the neighbours, which I didn’t consider. Damn).
6. Reform the boyband for one last crack at the big time.
7. Market my own version of yoga – promoting the 7 key positions to lie on a sofa for long periods without having to “get comfortable” 3 times an hour.
8. Drive a plane (As I can’t drive a car it would probably be an idea to move this one to the end).
9. Live for a week by the gospel according to The Daily Mail.
10. Experience life for one day with normal hair
11. Attend one of the dinner parties at the end of every Jamie Oliver program ever made and leave 10 minutes in muttering “What bunch of t*****s”.

Glasson - Meddlesome

12. Follow Louisa Glasson around for one day saying “Hold on Miss Glasson, before you speak, ask yourself ‘Is this really any of my business?'”.
13. Travel back in time to sixth form to tell Mr Cleland “Sir, you said I’d not achieve anything, but I’ve just travelled through time what have you done? Other than look like a grey haired Mr Bean?”
14. Use the same time machine to travel back to the Stamford Arms, the day after my 18th and ask John to explain the logic in ‘retrospectively’ refusing to serve me for under age drinking.
15. Write my memoirs (specifically ‘memoirs’ not biography or book, essentially just so I can wear a smoking jacket).
16. Remake Waterworld
17. Learn sign language, then hang around train stations being one of those mental blokes who has really significant conversations with himself, but signing.
18. Do a medium sized DIY project without saying “Righty tighty, lefty loosey” at any stage.
19. Meet James Blunt and ask “Can I have your autograph Mr Button”.
20. Buy a house on Homes Under The Hammer and during the interview say you bought it because “I needed to get rid of some cash, pronto… shit, can you hear sirens?”
21. Get a random blokes name tattoo’d on your arm and when asked who Alan is, just look wistfully into the middle distance.
22. Take something which has already been invented on to Dragons Den and swear blind it doesn’t exist yet (such as a coat hanger).
23. Visit every cafe, tea room etc in Bournemouth demanding “We want the finest wines available to humanity. And we want them here, and we want them now.”
24. Wait until someone in Japan has folded 999 paper cranes and then offer them the wishbone from your chicken dinner.
25. Spend a week referring to yourself as “We” instead of “I”.
26. Ride a gondola and literally “rock the boat”.
27. Ask a German to teach you German because “Your lot are bound to have another crack”.
28. Learn to play the recorder (on a busy train).
29. Spend a day busking, by badly miming to Daniel O’Donnell.
30. Go into a ‘serious’ music shop and ask where their Il Divo section is.
31. Wear armbands at a swimming pool, aged 32.
32. Sit in a wheelchair, with both arms and legs in plaster, at the top of a bungee jump telling people to “try it, it’s immense!”.
33.Run into an Esperanto class and ask breathlessly “Am I in time?”.
34. Ride the Metrolink from Altrincham to Bury with an enormous rucksack, telling other passengers that you are “travelling the top ten train rides in the world and after this I’ve only got the St Bernina Express to do”.
35. Prove once and for all whether you can milk a duck.
36. Sell Arsene Wenger a 29 year old British player.
37. Spend a day as the researcher who has to stop fat people in the street to ask if they’ll answer some questions on camera about being fat.
38. Wander around Barcelona’s La Sagrada Familia, with hard hat and clipboard, randomly measuring stuff and telling people your doing a quote to finish it.

Mecca Bingo, Stafford NOT Mecca, Hijaz.

39. Stand outside a Mecca Bingo in full ihram staring furiously at a TomTom satnav.
40. Be the designated driver at Oktoberfest
41. Sit in a busy pub during the Manchester derby, knitting.
42. Do a serial killer wall collage in the front room about a friend, badly cover it with a sheet and then invite them round for a brew, at no point acknowledging it’s there.
43. Try and remember where we left Pip’s hubcap when we kidnapped it (allegedly).
44. Employ a more personal take on Danny Wallace’s ‘Yes Man’ strategy to life, by answering “No” to every question for a month.
45. Dress as a vicar and attend lectures on Darwin’s theories, with your fingers in your ears, shouting “La La, La La, I can’t hear you, La La…”.
46. Put a massive bodykit on a Nissan Micra.
47. Attend a random wedding and spend the day telling the groom’s family and friends “I don’t know why she invited me to be honest, I’m her first husband but she didn’t invite me to the other weddings… and how come none of the kids are here?”.
48. Stand outside Claires Accessories for a day, flashing a Social Services ID and sternly saying “Not today Missy” every time a scally brings their 1 year old in for ear piercing.
49. Stick a random wax crayon drawing on the fridge with “To Daddy” on it and casually tell visitors that your son ‘Eduardo’ posted it to you from Peru.
50. Spend an evening in the pub with a clipboard, loudly rating all the men that come in on ‘Looks, Cleanliness and Convertability’.
51. Stand and start a slow clap wiping away a fake tear whenever someone says something completely irrelevant in the pub.
52. Make a ‘Lost Pet’ sign with a picture of a large Bengal tiger on it and post them on every lamp post within a 2 mile radius of your house.
53. Walk around complimenting strangers shoes for a day.
54. Eat spaghetti in a restaurant (with you fingers).
55. Streak a Crown Green Bowls tournament.
56. Tell an Australian that you’ve visited all six continents, and when challenged say “No Sir, I think you’ll find you are a country, invented by us, and not a continent. Grow up.”

"Johnny Foriegner"

57. Refer to anyone with a vaguely regional accent as “Johnny Foriegner”.
58. Break into a locker at a swimming baths and replace the clothes with exactly the same outfit, exactly two sizes smaller.
59. Wake up hungover to discover you’ve bought a car on eBay.
60. Blag your way on to a TV news programme as an ‘expert’ on a subject you know nothing about.
61. Get an exact portrait of yourself in Elizabethan costume and hang it above the fireplace. Casually tell visitors it’s “Prince Phillip of Spain, an old family relative or something”.
62. Take a group of Americans on a completely made up “tour” of Milton Keynes, “… and the building on your left is where Bonnie Prince Charlie gave the famous ‘…father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife.’ speech.
63. Teach a foreigner English, but substitute random words for filth.
64. End every sentence with “in accordance with the prophecy” for a day.
65. Phone vague acquaintances and ask for their full names because “you’re updating your will”.
66. Spend a day in July in a handmade Rudolph jumper, excitedly telling passers by “only 147 days to go”.
67. Invite a Jehovah’s witness in to yoir house with a wink and a flirty “for having such pretty eyes”.
68. Fill your house with kitten ornaments, kitten pictures, kitten magazines, wear a kitten jumper and when mates come round talk to and stroke imaginary kittens.
69. Get yourself ‘Escort’ flyers printed, give them to friends and say you’re looking for a career change if they’re interested.
70. Get a 9 foot black and white photo portrait done (soft focus, lying naked on the beach, tide lapping you ankles etc) and hang it in the front room in view of the street.
71. Swap the furniture over in two rooms while the wife is out and then look ‘concerned’ when she asks what you’ve done “Come on love, you just need a little sit down and a rest, I’ll make you a nice cup of tea”.
72. Stand with a complete stranger at the bar and shout “Jaegarbombs for everyone, on us”, then leave.
73. Turn up in the pub dressed as PC Lovetruncheon, carrying a stereo and squirty cream and tell your mates you’ve been “working” at a pub down the road.
74. Have a swordfight to defend The Wife’s honour.
75. Spend a day saying “OMG! I like totally knew you were going to say that!” every time your friends speak.
76. Run into Pets At Home dressed as a Druid and release all the hamsters shouting “Fly my prettys”.
77. Sneak onto the final stages of the London marathon, dressed as Mr Blobby and beat the ‘winner’ on a sprint finish.
78. Grow a full beard and when your mates mention it, tell them you overslept this morning.
79. Spend a day ‘helping’ old people who don’t want to cross the road, cross the road.
80. Wait on the other side of the road, follow the chicken and find out what it’s plotting.

Moon Landing - Hoax

81. Build an exact model of the moon landing, set a camera up facing it and when mates come round panic and shout “Shhhhhhit, you can’t tell anyone you’ve seen that… Swear to me! The CIA will f**king kill me”.
82. Don’t add any inflection at the end of you sentences, creating awkward silences when people don’t know if you’ve finished…
83. Spend a day outside Tesco, dressed as a Jedi, waving your fingers at automatic doors as shoppers enter saying “Allow me…”.
84. Go on Jeremy Kyle and get a DNA paternity test done for someone who is clearly less than ten years younger than you.
85. Hold a mirror under a toilet cubicle door and say “Peekaboo”.
86. Walk through a busy city street with a microphone, pretending to do a piece to a camera in the distance.
87. Spend a day asking strangers what gender they are, “We’re doing some research”.
88. Take a bag of chips into Pets At Home and ask what size their goldfish go up to?
89. Build a working lightsaber.
90. Spent an hour every morning deliberately whistling songs that will get stuck in peoples heads for the rest of the day (Britney being first choice).
91. Furiously shout “Is that a threat?” every time someone asks you to do something.
92. Follow guests around your house wiping down everything they touch with Dettol wipes.
93. Go to Waterstones and swap the second and last pages of all the murder mystery books.
94. Decorate your spare room as a nursery (complete with empty cot), get a babysitter and tell them “little one’s asleep, but can you check on him in an hour or so?”.
95. Wear sequin hot pants on a lad’s night out.
96. Host a massive birthday party with loads of food and drink, invite one person you hardly know and spend the night excitedly saying “The rest of the gang will be along soon, you’re gonna love them they’re crazy”.
97. Answer “42?” (The ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything) to every question you get asked for a week.
98. Introduce yourself to friends and family as “Alan”, walk off muttering “I reckon I got away with that”.
99. Drop a £1 coin in front of kindly old folk and when one bends to pick it up for you, scream like a banshee and leap on it like a overly pumped prop forward.
100. Walk the streets of a major city, make and do not break eye contact with every one you pass..
101. Learn how to sleep, rather than squinting at an iPhone at 4am compiling random lists of things to do.

... Number 102... Replace sleeping pills with laxatives... Number 103...