Stackin' Shelves

Instructions Verb [Latin: ‘Stacking Crusta’]

Pretend that you’re a Supermarket Shelf-Stacker on a nightshift. Stand with an ample stance, parallel to an elevating series of fictitious Supermarket shelves. Then, starting fairly low, use both hands to stack invisible cans of preserved food (e.g. Baked Beans) onto the whimsical racking, in time to the beat. Work your way along each shelf, fancifully filling it with mysterious merchandise, then up to the next theoretical ledge.

Once you’ve filled the top shelf (at a stretch), turn around 90^o and repeat the productive process on a new empty shelving unit, quick-smart, forthwith, accordingly.

Origins

Back in 1982, Yuki Ikizumi knew how to throw a 忍者投げスター (Ninja Throwing Star). From an unripe early age, this Tokyo-based Japanese jouster had extraordinary wrist-flicking powers, which helped him dominate at youth martial arts tournaments, competing with foam Nunchakus, polystyrene Samurai swords and rubber throwing stars.  

Successive years, dedicated to honing these acrobatic sparring skills, put him in good stead for stacking preserved food products at his local ‘Big Ace Supermarket’ (ビッグエース). Now seventeen and skint, Yuki loved to show off his lightning-quick shelf-stacking abilities, during poorly-paid Saturday nightshifts, which became infamously known as the 'Tokyo Shift'.

During these epic supermarket stints, young guns challenged each other to overzealous shelf-stacking bouts, surrounded by jostling crowds of betting ‘Cool Kids’, for phenomenal cash winnings, tightly controlled by blinged-up Japanese gang clans.

Yuki would destroy his product-assorting competition, every time, anytime, and his notorious notoriety turned him into a local legend, due to his uncanny ability to repeatedly stack fifty cans of (sliced) Water Chestnuts in under ten seconds.

Stardom naturally followed Yuki, as well as adoring female fans, and marketing moguls, who desperately scrabbled over each other, to persuade Yuki to stack and endorse their Japanese household-named products. Yuki himself rapidly became a household name, covered in household-named merchandising adverts, from household-named Caps to household-named Shoes.

The pinnacle of fame occurred when Yuki appeared live on Japan's most popular TV show, 'Zip-Zap Ding-a-Ling' endurance gameshow, in which he continuously stacked cans of Baked Beans onto a conveyed shelf for over thirty-seven hours! Herculean effort!

No doubt, the Japanese nation had discovered a new star, with a new irritating 'Stack On, Stack Off!' catchphrase (newly forced by the marketing moguls), which spawned into a new irritating multimillion-pound merchandising empire.

Yuki now lives in relaxed and affluent retirement bliss, surrounded by an adoring family, and he still holds the official World Record for single-handedly stacking 100 packs of Wonton crispy noodles onto a 5ft high, 5ft wide pine shelf (official competition dimensions), in exact 147.38592 seconds.

よくやったよ (Well done Yuki!)

Jackhammer

Instructions Noun [Latin: ‘Jackhammer’]

Imagine that you’re a Big Butch Miner stooping over a heavy pneumatic rock drill, like a Silverback Mountain Gorilla on a toddler’s scooter. With a very wide stance, contort your face with an almighty effort, whilst tightly grasping the imaginary Jackhammer handle, and pressing your arms up and down to the beat of the drums, as if you’re drilling down to the Earth’s Core with haste.

Origins

In 1871, the infamous South African diamond rush was in full-swing, catalysed by ‘The Star of South Africa’, an 83 Carat Diamond, sold on the Victorian London Market for an eye-watering £25,000 (equivalent to approximately £47 Trillion today).

Spurred on by dreams of impending fortune, diamond-lovers from far and wide descended onto Kimberley, transforming this once barren, sleepy South African Townville into a hysterical mad fever-pitch of lunacy!

…and there was no finer hysterical mad fevered lunatic than ‘Big Jim Wade’, a butch extroverted mercenary from Cape Town, with biceps the size of obese Hippos.

Ja inderdaad (yes indeed), this carnival peacock would strut around the Kimberley diamond fields, irritating countless gem miners with his outrageous claims, like “I once dug up a Sapphire bigger than a man’s skull ja!” and “I can cut through rock faster than an overactive Ostrich can run ja!”

There was no doubt that he was the fastest tunnel digger in Africa, due to his uniquely engineered double-barrelled compressed-air pneumatic rock drill. However, due to popular unpopularity, Big Jim Wade quickly became known as the ‘Big Grim Maid’, with most miners desperately wanting to remove him from their senses, including sight, hearing and smell.

Then one night, during an almighty booze-up, a pack o’ miners challenged ‘Big Grim Maid’ (Big Jim Wade) to the challenge of challenges, for an enticing gem of a prize. Literally.

They persuaded Jim that if he jackhammered his way straight down to the Earth’s Core, he could claim the ultimate Jewel of Jewels, a naturally hardened, boulder-sized diamond of everlasting, incorruptible purity, known as ‘Earth Heart’.

Big Jim Wade kissed both of his gargantuan biceps, and with a smug smirk swore to jackhammer to the core, at Sunrise.

True to his word, at dawn a silhouetted Big Jim Wade stooped over his hydraulic piston-powered drill, like a Silverback Mountain Gorilla on a toddler’s scooter. He was surrounded by an engrossed baying pack of hangover-sufferers, desperate to witness the disappearance of the bothersome puffed-up carnival peacock, once and for all.

Big Jim Wade did not disappoint.

When his almighty Jackhammer cranked into life, its pneumatic power pummelled rock to pebbly powder in an instant. With mammoth arm-muscle power firmly in control, Jim did in fact cut through rock faster than an overactive Ostrich could run, to the astonishment of an engrossed baying pack of hangover-sufferers.

Jim disappeared from sight within a blink of an eye, like he’d fallen through a trapdoor into a dark abyss. For the following hours, a small doomy contingent of doom-mongers sat around the hole, half-listening to the southbound pneumatic noise, whilst casually doom-mongering, forthwith accordingly.

Then all was quiet. Silent. Eerie. Hush.

Then there was much rejoicing.

“Big Grim Maid has strayed & stayed away! Hip-Hip-Hooray!”

All of the Gem Miners were happy!

Big Jim Wade was also happy, as (according to him), he discovered that although the ‘Earth Heart’ did not actually exist, he did discover that the Earth’s core was actually (according to him), a “cavernous super-sized steam room filled with floating jellyfish, that tickle a lot as they drift around ja!”.

Jim never resurfaced again, as he found his subterranean nirvana. The lasting legacy of his jackhammering skills still remain today, known as the Kimberley ‘Big Hole’, in honour of Big Jim Wade:

Kimberley 'Big Hole'

('Kimberley Tourism' image)

Walk Like An Egyptian

Instructions Verb [Latin: ‘Ambulate Sicut Aegyptus’]

Made famous by the American pop rock band ‘The Bangles’ in 1986, this classic dad-dancing wedding reception track opens the door for dramatically ridiculous limb-movements, in the name of creative art.

Just awkwardly shuffle back and forth across the dancefloor, like a two-dimensional hieroglyphic with mesmerisingly weird ‘Z’ shaped limb movements. The more perpendicular the adjoining joints are, the better!

Origins

Ancient Egyptian Pharoah Khukhu’s evil brother, Prince Toukertouk, was bored, bored, booooooooored.

Every day, he just seemed to slump into his jewelled jacuzzi, on the shaded regal roof terrace, and stare at the construction of his ruling brother’s epic creation, ‘The Great Pyramid of Geeza’.

Khukhu gets the glory, glum Toukertouk gets the story.

But he was still bored, so Toukertouk cracked open a large jar of Nile barley beer, and proceeded to swig the swally at a phenomenal pace.

One thing led to another, and another, until he found himself swaying at the top of the newly finished pyramid, staring at a deep scarlet sunset. Toukertouk felt so invincible, that he raised both arms aloft, and proceeded to topple backwards. The impact was far from ideal, but it was notably more ideal then the subsequent tumbling and rolling down hundreds of sharp-edged granite blocks, until he slapped onto the ground, like a limp kipper.

When he awoke, four hours later, Toukertouk looked down to discover that he had successfully broken most of his limb bones…which was far from ideal.

Through gritted teeth (and numbed beer-related pain-relief), Toukertouk managed to hobble back to his opulent royal resting quarters and collapse onto his woven camel-skinned bed.

When he awoke, three weeks later, Toukertouk looked down to discover that all four of his broken limbs had fused into ridiculous ‘Z’ shape bone formations… which was far from ideal.

Walking had to be re-designed, arms had to be re-trained, but Toukertouk eventually managed to shuffle out of his marbled floor, and out into the marketplace, filled with humanity.

He yearned for contact with humanity, but humanity couldn’t do anything else, apart from staring at evil Toukertouk, as he awkwardly shuffled towards them with mesmerizingly weird ‘z’ shaped limb movements…which was far from ideal.

Prince Toukertouk’s walk became ancient Egyptian folklore and scribed in multiple hieroglyphics. The rest…is history.