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This was written in
2007
so is now very dated
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Our own designing went from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous. Some years ago, as the result of an idea that had been proposed on one of the very early internet knitting lists, I made several toilet roll covers, either based on mathematical ideas we had used before or loosely connected with the idea of the toilet roll looking like a tower. They were fun but there was really nothing to hold them together as the basis for another book. The themes were not sufficiently open-
Suddenly, one night, in a flash of inspiration, it came to me that we should combine our love of puns and word play with some crazy designs. In minutes, we had a long list of phrases including the word ‘roll’. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? It was so obvious.
The first to be made was Chicken Roll. It had motifs of yellow chicks on a background of spiky green yarn resembling grass. The top of the roll was a flecked brown yarn, intended to look like gravel, and on top of that there were several small Easter chicks.
Our thoughts ranged further and took in phrases related to paper, tissue or anything else we could think of. Then we got even sillier and ventured into ‘roles’. We soon had a list of about 50 possibilities and set about making them over the next few months.
About 20 were finished when my imagination was invaded by a new television programme. I was highly amused by How to start your own country. It was the funniest thing I had seen in ages and I giggled continuously which is rather strange as most of the information disseminated was extremely serious. It was the personality of Danny Wallace, the presenter, that set the tone. The concept was that Danny had made himself king of a country that existed only in his London flat and he then went through the process of trying to establish this as a ‘real’ country and gain acceptance from the rest of the world
The citizens for this new country, which eventually came to be known as Lovely, were recruited via a web site. This was basically a cyber nation. Anyone, anywhere in the world could become a citizen provided they were prepared to abide by the only commandment – Be Good. The original ambition was to get more citizens than Vatican City, the smallest country in the world. In no time at all the population passed that of Vatican City and several other small countries. By the end of the series Lovely had moved nine places up the list. Could anyone have envisaged that the internet could venture this far in so short a time?
The researchers and production team of the programme had done a wonderful job and King Danny had meetings with many influential people around the world. All handled the interviews as though this was all a perfectly normal thing to do. He was seen in establishments as far removed as Death Row in a US prison and the headquarters of the United Nations. The interviews were sensible and serious, the presentation was less reverential. During the series he investigated immigration, crime and punishment, international monetary dealings, and many other topics.
You may be wondering what any of this has to do with us. The programme that particularly caught my attention was when he decided the country needed its own flag. He commissioned a few flags to choose from and selected a red and blue cross on a white background. It also had a purple square where the red and blue arms crossed. To put his own slant on a traditional design, the whole cross was turned at an angle and shifted to one corner. The flag was available for download from the Citizens’ web site and citizens were advocated to print the flag, declare their home an Embassy and send in a photograph of the Embassy.
I decided I could go one better. Whilst thinking about toilet roll covers we had been contemplating Bog Standard. I had every intention of making several flags which would have been very simple as many national flags are merely simple stripes but I hadn’t got around to them yet. King Danny’s flag was a bit more demanding but all the shapes needed were geometric so the calculations would be easy.
The original plan was to make an elongated flag to wrap right round the toilet roll. This was difficult as the proportions were wrong and it meant the top of one edge of the cross would meet the bottom edge which just wouldn’t have looked right. The solution quickly became obvious. There had to be two flags, one on each side, with a flagpole for each. I made a cross first, as a base for the other shapes. It had to be pulled undone a couple of times but each shape was so small this was not a problem. The flags were soon finished and a plain white top was added. The flagpoles were slightly more of a challenge and were eventually made from the plastic barrels of old ballpoint pens, covered with knitted tubes and topped with domed gold buttons.
I was proud of my creation and sent a photograph to King Danny. Almost immediately an email arrived vaguely suggesting it might be used in the Citizens’ TV programme. Most parts of the main programmes had been recorded well in advance of this but there was a digital ‘press the red button’ programme, after the main programme each week. The digital programme went out live and really proved Danny’s skill as a presenter as he was able to answer all callers, often on very serious matters, always in the character of King.
The email seemed as though it was perhaps an automated response but I soon realised it wasn’t when I got another email asking me to phone the production company as soon as possible. This was on a Friday afternoon prior to a Bank Holiday and the producers were very anxious to get Bog Standard on Citizens’ TV the following Wednesday. I had already started to make a second version because I knew I could make a slight improvement on the first. I agreed to send the second, hopefully to be there in time for the programme. I also agreed to provide instructions for making it in a form that could be downloaded by anyone, from the web site. It all went in the post at the weekend with the hope that the holiday would not delay it. By then I was quite hooked on using Danny’s flag on other items but anything I made had to be quick and easy.
One possibility was a hat but that would only look like a larger version of the cover. A tea cosy posed the same problem. A sweater would take too long.
About ten years earlier we had produced a little booklet with a simple mathematical way of making mittens. We had produced many copies of this booklet over the years but I hadn’t used it myself for a long time. Much of it was how to add lines, patterns and shapes to the mittens. The flag would lend itself perfectly to being mittens. I emailed the producers and warned them that there would also be a pair of mittens on the way, if I could get them finished in time. It was an easy process to amalgamate the flag and mitten pattern. I originally planned to make both sides of both mittens as flags and decided, at the last minute, to make one side plain. It was a good idea. In addition to making them much faster it meant that the mittens could be worn on either hand. One way would show the plain back; the flag could be revealed with a wave of the hand. The other way would mean the flags were immediately obvious.
On Wednesday morning I got another email to say that both packages had arrived safely and would be included in that evening’s programme. There were only two other people who knew I had made these and neither of them was in a position to be able to see the programme. I had sent it in the name of my alter-
The programme eventually started and, after the introduction, the first item was Bog Standard. Danny made a great deal of it saying it was the first prop they had received for the programme. When he had finished talking about it, and the mittens and pattern, he put it on a stand at the front of the desk, where it stayed in full view throughout the programme. Steve and I found it highly amusing and perhaps regretted not telling anyone else about it. It was more than we expected but it had merely been a bit of fun in line with our usual sense of humour.
We thought that would be the end of it – but we saw it again. The last programme in the series did not have Danny at his desk as he was out meeting with his people and declaring to the crowds that the country would now be known as Lovely. The programme ended by playing the Lovely National Anthem and showing a series of photos of Embassies. Most of the photographs flashed by very quickly but the last, lingering image, to close the series was the original photograph I had sent in of Bog Standard on the toilet in our recently renovated bathroom. It’s not everyone who gets their toilet on television!
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26a. ON A ROLL