On the 19^th of June each year, people across the globe are encouraged to slow down in their fast-paced, frenzied lives and observe World Sauntering Day. Created in the 1970s by W. T. Rabe as a publicity stunt for the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan, the purpose of this day is to remind us to take it easy and appreciate the world around us, rather than rushing through it.

To saunter is to walk at a leisurely pace, preferably with a joyful disposition and little concern in your heart. This manner of walking should be casual, yet stylish and most importantly a journey without a particular purpose. A true saunter is to walk without a specific destination or aim in mind.

To help celebrate this delightfully unusual day, Hendrick’s Ambassador, Jim Ryan, has crafted the Lollygag Lilly cocktail, an extraordinary tipple that can be enjoyed at the end of a day of sauntering or sipped from your favorite hip flask whilst you promenade at leisure.

“Slow your roll and saunter during your journey,” comments Jim Ryan. “Destination? What destination? Sip this tipple while tiptoeing through the tulips. You will never forget that experience. I promise.”

‘I’m happy. I’m happy, and I’ll punch the man who says I’m not.’ So sang the great Ivor Cutler, a philosopher, poet and friend of The Beatles. The Unusual Times had the pleasure of meeting one of the silliest and most wonderful Scotsmen who ever lived. The day ended with Mr. Cutler crowning our Joe Saklatvala the next ‘King of Nonsense’.

Ivor Cutler’s work was whimsical, odd and profound. The comedian Billy Connolly said ‘The world needs Ivor Cutler to teach it to think differently’ and it does. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were so impressed when they saw him on TV that they invited him to star in their Magical Mystery Tour film, which he did, playing the part of bus conductor Buster Bloodvessel.

His cooing voice and macabre harmonium playing accompanied stories of the everyday turned upside-down. He asked the big questions; questions like ‘What happens to sharks when they grow old?’ and ‘How do you help shoplifters lift shops?’

He took words and hung them on a washing line, revealing their meanings like exposed underwear. From the 1960s he occupied an unusual place in British culture, somewhere between surreal folk singer and poet. He released albums with wonderful names, including: ‘Who tore your trousers?’, ‘Dandruff’ and ‘Velvet Donkey’.  His books include ‘Many Flies Have Feathers’, ‘A Fly Sandwich and Other Menu’, ‘Is That Your Flap, Jack?’ and ‘A Stuggy Pren’.

He left behind a large body of work, much of it playful (and very childish) including ‘Pickle your knees’:

‘Pickle your knees in honey,

Pickle your knees in peas

But if you want the sweetest knees in the business- ha ha ha ha

Pickle your knees in cheese’

And even though he is now dead, his words live on. I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Cutler when he was alive (the best time to meet anyone).  I had no idea who he was. I just knew I was chatting to an old be-capped Scottish man at the bar of the Royal Festival Hall in London. He was at that bar most lunchtimes, sharing accounts of his adventures and eating pretzels from his bag.

One summer afternoon he invited me and my girlfriend to his strangely decorated home on the outskirts of Highgate. Despite it being a summer afternoon, the house was dark inside, and full of birdcages. When we arrived, he gave us stale Battenberg cake and tea and then played us a song on an instrument I’d never seen before. I later found out it was a harmonium. The song included the memorable line: ‘What’s my favourite kind of jam? Traffic jam’. The impromptu performance over, it was time for an impromptu lesson. We were handed pens and paper and instructed to begin writing. We scribbled as fast as we could. He did the same. After a couple of minutes we were ordered to put our pens down. I’d always thought my love of silly things was a curse, and so I was nervous as I handed over a page of my finest gobbledegook to this intense stranger.

Mr. Cutler cast a stern eye over my writing. An old clock cuckooed in the corner of the room. He looked at me thoughtfully and said: ‘I want you to take over as the King of Nonsense when I die’. My girlfriend muttered something that sounded a lot like ‘Prince of Foolishness more like’. Ivor Cutler died in 2006 and I will do my best to honour the prestigious title he bestowed upon me. To quote the great man: ‘Good morning, how are you? Shut up!’

Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was made of fire and trouble. She was a poet, a model and ‘The Baroness of Dadaism’: she trashed the rules of her time with reckless glee and created what many believe is the single most important work of art of the 20th Century. The Unusual Times’ Joe Saklatvala introduces you to a strangely unsung genius.

In 2004, a panel of 500 eminent art experts was asked to vote for the most influential piece of modern art. The winner was the Fountain of 1917, Marcel Duchamp’s famous signed urinal. The Fountain caused outrage and helped redefine what art could be. However, Marcel Duchamp was probably not the creator of this infamous piece. In a letter to his sister in 1917, Duchamp confided that the idea of submitting a urinal to an art exhibition came from a ‘female friend.’ This mysterious ‘friend’ was almost certainly the extraordinary Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927.)

The Dadaist art movement started in around 1915 and burnt everything that had come before. Seeing that ‘sense’ had led to World War I, this new wave did the only sensible thing and embraced nonsense. The Dadaist’s most ferocious shock troop was the gorgeously defiant Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Armed with a wicked sense of humour, a mind like no other and a rudely healthy irreverence, she was an underground star of bohemian New York and Berlin in the 1920s. Dressed in a look described by the fashion historian Amber Jane Butchart as ‘Dadaist Cleopatra,’ she lived her life as a surreal performance.

Freytag-Loringhoven wrote and performed many poems too scandalous to be published. When words failed her, Elsa produced new ones; my favourite of which is the delicious portmanteau ‘kissambushing.’ Many of her other words are far too rude to include here, but I would encourage those interested to have a look at her work. With this in mind it’s worth mentioning that her love life was as lively and unorthodox as she was…

When not producing wildly inventive art, she performed in vaudeville theatres, modelled for several artists, including Duchamp, and generally rode life like it was a racehorse. We may not all have heard of her, but she has undoubtedly changed the world we live in. As Duchamp himself said ‘The Baroness is not a futurist. She is the future.’

Can you decode this devilishly tricky message?

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” -Oscar Wilde

On March 5^th, 2009, Jill Wade found prints of cloven-hooves in the snow in her back garden. Bizarrely, the tracks appeared to have been left by a two-legged upright animal. Researchers were unable to offer an explanation. Many locals were disturbed by the prints and saw the event as a return of the so-called ‘Devil’s Footprints.’ What had caused them? Was it indeed Satan? Was it an escaped kangaroo? Or, perhaps it was something even more unlikely (but equally bouncy)?

The prints in Jill Wade’s garden in Devon had a historical precedent; following a night of heavy snow in 1855, residents of West England awoke to find miles of mysterious ‘hoof-prints.’ Unable to explain the phenomenon many of the locals suspected it was the work of the devil himself. The tracks covered an enormous distance, possibly as much as 100 miles. As well as traversing high obstacles, such as houses and haystacks, whatever had made them was also small enough to pass through pipes of only 4-inch diameter. What on earth could have caused this?

I described the appearance of these marks in our now infamous April Fools’ prank, but I now wish to look at the real historical case.

Theories to explain the marks range from an alien, to the devil, to an escaped kangaroo, to hopping field mice and almost everything in between. With the benefit of 158 years and access to some new revelations I hope that I can get to the bottom of this most wonderful of mysteries.

By Joe Saklatvala, Cardinal Investigator of The Unheimliche

Join Joe Saklatvala as he embarks on an investigation into an enigma that has remained unsolved for over 150 years. This inquiry will lead him to some very strange characters and into the darkest recesses of English folklore.

Part 2: ‘Walking in the Devil’s Footprints,’  where he will introduce you to the suspects and meets a lady with an intriguing clue.

BE WARNED. The results of this experiment are shocking, and if true, prove that everything we thought we knew about our expedition was wrong!

With our botanical explorers still out of contact in the jungle, Hendrick’s Investigator of the Unheimliche, Joe Saklatvala has met with psychic #3 seeking to ascertain their present whereabouts.

In pursuit of England’s finest psychic talent, I headed to the bull’s-eye of the psycho-geographical dartboard: Glastonbury.  As my guide, I sought the assistance of Futurius, pagan guru (and lead singer of the ‘Medieval Rock’ band Circulus). My aim was to determine the exact location of our Quest team through the services of a  map-dowser.

While waiting for Futurius, I looked for a sign from the universe to tell me how to begin. The universe responded in its usual silly way. An old woman with a third-eye tattoo on her forehead walked past. I called out to her, and a wizard (well, he looked like a wizard) turned around instead. I asked him if he knew of any good map dowsers. He texted someone he called ‘Stella Moon’ my number and we went our separate ways.

Then Futurius showed up. An impressive and intelligent man, he pledged to do all he could to help me on my mission. By chance his friends, ‘Deadhead’ Buzz and a tall muscular gentleman named ‘Willow’, turned up. With their help, we soon had a list of psychics, dowsers and astral projectors. The first psychic I called was about to go on holiday and couldn’t meet. The next was a dowser, but refused to take on the task. I then tried a White Witch, but she declared herself busy till tomorrow. We kept trying, but were thwarted at every turn.

With the clock against us, we entered an esoteric bookshop to ask for help. The bookseller stood on a high step and addressed the customers: ‘Is there a psychic here?’A pretty young woman named AstroBella was the first to volunteer (it seemed that half of the book-browsers were telepathic).  Futurius, AstroBella and I found a  quiet blossom-filled garden and began our dowsing.

AstroBella took out her crystal and held it above the map. Wind whipped through the pink blossom and we remained silent as we watched the pendulum swinging above the map. Could it be that supernatural forces will reveal the answer we are looking for? First she honed in on a continent…then a country and then a town.  The moment was heavy and exciting. ‘Where are they?’ I ask.

The answer was revelatory and confounds all we thought we knew about our Botanical Quest. ‘They are close to the town of Kisumu in Kenya!’

If AstroBella is correct, this means that David Piper, Charles Brewer-Carias, Lesley Gracie and the rest of the team have travelled many thousands of miles from their last reported position. Could this be proof of trans-dimensional wormholes?

Diagnosis

Joe Saklatvala has yet to find out whether the Botanical Quest is in Kenya, though their last reported location was Venezuela. Futurius was last seen dancing on Glastonbury High Street with a crumhorn-playing woman in a gown.  Joe has yet to hear from the elusive Stella Moon.

With our botanical adventurers still hopelessly incommunicado in the rainforest, Hendrick’s Investigator of the Unheimliche, Joe Saklatvala consulted with a second psychic – a Spanish gypsy medium named Amber Elise Valentine.

When I gave the taxi driver Amber’s address, he was stumped.

‘I don’t know where that is mate.’

This surprised me, as London black-cab drivers famously know every square inch of their city. He eventually found the location and I slipped out into a quiet square of apple trees. Moments later, I was seated on a black leather sofa.

Amber asked me if I had anything that David Piper has touched. I handed her a tin of hair wax. She told me to think about the expedition, then began shuffling her tarot cards, asking me to say ‘stop’ when I feel ready.

After a few seconds I tell her ‘stop.’

“Right that’s the first card…oh dear…err…don’t worry about this”

(‘Don’t worry’ is a phrase which always has the opposite of its intended effect: I was now worried.) “It’s the ten of swords, meaning death or the end of a relationship. It’s not a nice card.”

She told me I wasn’t using ‘my third eye.’ We repeated the procedure and the same card came out again! Amber put  it back in the pack and continued, distracting me by  talking about her gypsy past-life. Cards describing the team’s progress were now placed down on the glass table.‘”They want for nothing at the moment…ah, the Queen of Pentacles- there’s a bossy lady with them…very full-on, very in-your-face.” She couldn’t possibly be referring to our Master Distiller, the delightful Lesley Gracie.

“There’s one person on this mission who’s missing home comforts.” I immediately thought of David Piper, with his love of life’s finer things, pulling leeches from his torso.

“There’s a spirit called Tom that wants to reach out to David. Someone will trip up on the expedition and somebody will get bitten.” A ‘boat card’ popped up several times.

Amber then prepared me for the highlight of my visit: contacting the spirits directly. The room went quiet. She told me to uncross my legs, as I was blocking my Chakras.

“I’m going to go very deep now” She closed her eyes “…and the reason I want to go deep is that I want to go to Venezuela.” Her breathing became heavy. The walls appear to draw in.

She described the jungle: “It’s hot, it’s claustrophobic…they’ve found a nice river. It’s cool, they are washing in the cool water. They are very excited; they have had some great finds. They’re elated.”

Could it be that they have already found the precious botanicals needed for a new gin?

Before she could reveal more, she shook her head “I need to come out now… if I go too deep I can’t come out and if you shake me, I’ll have a heart attack.”

I decide it was a good time to leave.

‘Pranks & Mischief‘ hosted by Dr. Bramwell at Hendrick’s Carnival of Knowledge

With its earliest known appearance in the landscape of human behavior dating back more than 2,500 years (to Prussia – no less,) pranks have quite the storied history.

Today, Hendrick’s interviews ‘practising prankologist,’ Dr. David Bramwell, to learn more of this fascinating condition:

Hendrick’s Gin: Dr. Bramwell, how do you do?
Dr. David Bramwell: I’m in rude health thank you.

HG: We would like to begin by asking if you wouldn’t mind informing our readers as to what exactly defines as ‘mischief,’ and what a ‘prank?’
DB: A prank is a subversive art form, a sense of mischief is a pre-requisite for the former. They are both attributes of the trickster. The trickster is an artist whose tools are deceit and transgression.

HG: How long have you been a practising prankologist, as you call it? Are there many prankologists in the world?
DB: We all have it in us to be pranksters and nearly every culture celebrates pranks through April Fools Day or the equivalent. It can be traced back 2,500 years to Persia. I wouldn’t call myself a practising prankologist necessarily, though I am prone to visitations from a large rabbit that encourages me to disrupt the status quo.

HG: Do you feel this profession what preordained since birth, or is this all just perhaps a phase, as it were?
DB: I hope the desire to spread a little mischief will always be with me.

HG: Just out of curiosity, what did you have for breakfast this morning?
DB: Treacle sandwiches.

HG: What would you determine was history’s greatest prank?
DB: It’s a toss up between Scientology or the books of Lospang Rampa, who was a Cornish plumber who passed himself off as a Tibetan Lama. His book, the Third Eye, remains the UKs best-selling book on Tibet.

HG: Have you ever been pranked personally, we wonder?
DB: I was nobbled last year on April Fools Day with an email from a local music promoter, announcing that the drummer from terrible prog trio Rush was coming to Brighton to play a one hour drum solo on his rotating 108 piece drum kit. I bought four tickets for the event and phoned three other friends who have equally bad music tastes with the good news. I felt such a fool afterwards.

HG: Lastly, Dr. Bramwell, we would like to ask whether you indeed plan to host a lecture at our Carnival of Knowledge at the Brighton Fringe, or whether that will prove to be a big, unfortunate prank?
DB: I will indeed. It’s about the role of the trickster in society and why we need pranks and mischief to keep culture alive. It covers everything from Chris Morris to Orson Welles and comes with the promise that the audience will not be pranked in any way. Bearing in mind of course that, as a prankster, I really can’t be trusted…

After an unlikely chain of incidences culminating with a mind-numbing clout on the head, Miles Orvis was medically dead for 6 hours before being resuscitated. During this period, Mr. Orvis (no choir boy he) was consigned to hell. Today, he gives us this review:

“First off, the food is excellent, exceedingly rich and well prepared. But the serving sizes are miniscule; often just half a bite and they take it away. There is nowhere to sit and the whole place is noisy. The clothing is extremely tight. And unlike in prison, where they typically disallow belts, in hell they supply all manner of leathery belts upon entering. Traffic is horrendous, not a single street sign or police officer to be seen. It is, however, an excellent place to talk politics, because there are loads of politicians down there. The best part about hell is the people. Interesting individuals of all sorts and no one holds back. Overall, on a scale of 1-10, I would give hell a 3, maybe a 4. Not as nice as Barbados, but preferable to Phoenix. Would I recommend to a friend? It depends where you’re coming from.”

Miles Orvis’ Quick Hell Info Guide

Wifi…………………………………………………………………………….None
Cover Charge………………………………………………………………….Prepay
Service……………………………………………………………………..Inattentive
Friendliness of Staff………………………………………………….Poor to medium
Décor………………………………………………………………………….Eclectic
Atmosphere ……………………………………………………….Lively and diverse

As David Piper and the Hendrick’s Botanical Quest are now deep in the jungle, they are impossible to contact by conventional means. There was only one method available; this afternoon, our own Joe Saklatvala sought the counsel of a psychic medium to get an update on our intrepid friends’ progress. She warned him that the team should be wary of a black snake!

When I phoned Ava the psychic to arrange a meeting I told her very little. I said that someone I knew was in a place where he could not be contacted and I wished to know more about his present state. Her response gave me the willies. She replied that the man in question had dark hair (which David does) and was in the jungle (which he is).

I put the phone down feeling decidedly odd.

Two days later I was in Shirehampton, where Ava is based. I passed an old barber’s shop where the walls were decorated with thirty years of life. I went into the shop and photographed the scorpion on his wall, the postcards and coins. He noted that I had missed the best bit and then showed me a wall covered in naked pictures of his ex-wives (it’s probably best that I don’t share my pictures of this). Shirehampton was clearly not a normal place.

Ava’s house was on small road close to the graveyard. She led me in to a room decorated with shamanistic paintings.

I passed her an object David Piper had touched, a vintage soviet diver’s watch. She took the heavy watch in her hands and rubbed it.

“He’s in a group” Yes. “He’s in the jungle for conservation work?” No, I replied, but he is there for plants “Ahhhh, botanical stuff!” she answered. “Someone will have a problem with their leg.. is there six of them in the group?” Her facial expressions then froze.

“Watch out for a snake..it may be black..it’s certainly dark.” she whispered. “Are there lions where your friends are?” No, don’t think so. “Is it Africa?” No. “The Amazon! They should be careful when close to rivers, which they are now.”

When I asked her about our Master Distiller Lesley Gracie, Ava remarked “Long hair” and then asked if her name was Mary.

She returned to the subject of David Piper “He was a North American tribesman in a former life and will enjoy meeting other tribesmen,” before adding, “They will be very successful. They will bring back what they came for.” She dealt out a pack of ‘Goddess Cards,’ each illustrated with a different goddess. The goddess Innana was the first card to be turned over, revealing that “David is on a journey of discovery.” Innana, it should be noted, is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love.

She then went on to describe David’s future, which I won’t share with you (I’m not one to gossip, but he will have two wives).

I then asked her about Charles Brewer-Carías “He is feeling nauseous; it may be something he’s eaten.”

Will they be attacked by a black snake? Will they be successful? Does Charles feel sick?

Stay tuned for further psychic reports… In the meantime, learn more of our Perilous Botanical Quest by registering to our Society of the Unusual here.