The Joyless Jigsaw

Let me disappoint you. Even though he isn’t happy, this post won’t reference the villain from the Saw films. Oh. Well, now it does. Never mind. It’s also not (quite) a full review of a jigsaw. I’ve got no clue what you’d say. "The picture was nice but I couldn’t put the pieces together because I’m bad at jigsaws. 2 and a half stars."—The picture wasn’t even that great—that’s actually it being used as the title image. Thank you, Google. Or not as the case may be. The Katherine Ryan gig had ended by this point, which you’d think would mean the fun had too. "When the Katherine Ryan gig has ceased to exist, so has the enjoyment of the witnesses" is a Chinese proverb (invented in South Wales literally a few seconds AFTER it was written down. Yes, after).

By the way, just to reiterate who Katherine Ryan is...

The proverb is untrue.

There was surprisingly still a lot to report. Arguably there never was ‘a lot’ to report, let me rephrase. "There was an equal amount of inane events to pointlessly extend into a blog post that alienates the whole universe apart from 2 people, one of whom wrote it." It’s actually kind of alienating for me, too.

A priority of the day was one everyone has every Monday of their lives. Yes, you know what I’m talking about. The priority to see a picture of a sheep next to a sign for "Local services." No need to reiterate what country this was in. It really must have been intentional. No one’s accidentally THAT satirical; it’s like a superpower at that stage. Marvel reviewing has officially become too invasive.

This isn't the sign but, in case you don't know what a sheep looks like in sign language... *groans*

The next major priority was a trip to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. I wrote that out myself. Well, I wrote out a post in which I copied and pasted a long place name from said place’s Wikipedia article. But who’s to say I didn’t enter the Wikipedia article in the first place. The internet, that’s who. This is the one time I’ve actually been unembarrassed to ask for a photo that only featured me.

Whether I should've been embarrassed is open to interpretation.

I should tell you I was actually inspired by a photo a friend made while campaigning for a student union position. It is here.

I look a lot less embarrassing now, don't I? Tragically, I don't. Well played, Bruce.

*He wasn’t actually there you know, you thought he was? HAHAHA (so did I).* Let me tell you people it’s worth going there just for a picture. Get one of your friends to run for a student union position and Photoshop themselves into the place’s background first. The victory is that much sweeter. Right next to the train station is a shop where you can buy any item… as long as it’s got that place name on it. Having a long word in capitals really adds to the Mona Lisa, as those posters proved. They don’t exist. I think. Can’t confirm. We didn’t go into the shop. Damn willing to reveal where we DID go though: An Ice Cream shop responsible for THIS flavour.

Would you just look at this atrocity?

Didn’t thrill either of us, I’ll be honest. Granted, neither of us like those flavours anyway so there was never much hope. It was like a liquefied frozen pizza. Something I’d know about from the millions of liquefied frozen pizzas I’ve eaten. Apple crumble ice cream was the official weapon of choice, and I immediately felt cheated by all previous apple crumbles I’d experienced, and some ice creams. Don’t know what Lowri got but there’s a seagull somewhere who might. I do know there were meant to be chocolate bits in it. She got none. The seagull probably stole the only one there. Maybe when he went on his own in the same shop earlier they didn’t give him enough chocolate bits. I don’t know why I assume the seagull was a He. Maybe because preying on women to get food is a masculine trait. Ahhh society.

There was also a shop that sold all kinds of chili. Missed opportunity not to sell a Red Hot Chili peppers CD. Have to be cheap, though, people rarely buy CDs these days so they’d probably need to give it away (give it away give it away now). I’m not even sorry.

We also went to a sweet shop and didn’t buy anything. A brave move since the shop was tiny. In fact, if it was a bar it’d be the smallest bar in Wales–and much more deserving than the current holder of that title. We literally went in, looked for a bit, the woman there started talking to us about how everyone goes there, the chilli shop, and then it went silent, and we left and said bye. Ugh, why does all literature these days feature antiheroes?

Well after that outing, the story takes a melancholy turn. Let me tell you why. Jigsaws. They were far easier when there were only about two pieces to put together. Now there are about three. We attempted one called "Greeting the vet" or something.

Well, apparently it's not called what I thought.

Never finished it. To be fair, I barely tried. My annoyance didn’t stop me from buying two ridiculously sized jigsaws for next time, one of which actually looks so awful there’ll be no reward in the effort.

Gaze upon the atrocity.

The price tag made it look so good. I'd sell it if I thought some idiot would buy it. I bought it, there must be someone else out there. That part of the tale has a fittingly bittersweet end. Lowri told me her dog had eaten one piece of the jigsaw, which in a way is worse than multiple. With multiple you know you’re so far beyond hope it’s pointless being devastated. I’m just glad there was a dog around to take the blame for my jigsaw eating. Because of that tomato ice cream, it was only the second weirdest thing I ate that week.

Things started looking up though: We went to Bangor. Ha-ha. There are a good range of shops to be fair. Discount shops are some of the finest emporiums from across the land. That really is just my own opinion—it’s never been more important to stress that. We were barely appreciating it, partly because it’s Bangor. Also partly because paraphrasing this guy’s jokes to the point that the joke bits were removed took up too much time.

Dinosaur hand puppets were quite useful to make a 2-hander (hehe) play based around his money jokes. It literally only lasted five seconds and the props looked like worse versions of this *Google image of hand puppets*—still a better film than Jurassic World.

These are more detailed than the ones we used.

Our fun ended soon after this. Well, mine did. Lowri’s fun ended when I showed up in the first place. Or at least I thought it had. After the 4-hour bus trip back, which I didn’t have a phone for most of because there was a piece of irretrievable foil stuck in the charger’s USB, the Bus stopped basically right next to where I needed to be rather than the half hour away from it that I was expecting. The fun officially ended when I found out my Nightmare before Christmas poster had fallen and a sharp chunk from the bottom had come off.

Or at least I thought it had. When life removes a sharp chunk from your Nightmare before Christmas poster, use that chunk to remove the piece of irretrievable foil from your charger’s USB. Always been my motto. Yes, always. It never made sense before then. This blog marks the end of mine and Lowri’s adventures until we do something again. It won’t be long. I don’t think before a few days will be spared, a few days at least 50 percent of us will refer to as "A few days I’ll never get back." Which 50 percent of us will say that is still unknown. Probably not me though. I know that it’s impossible to get back any day—regardless of quality. I’m really struggling to find a thematically important concluding song. Maybe some quirky sign off name would help.

It’s farewell for now from the MacGyver of Nightmare before Christmas and Charger USB’s. Wait… THAT’S PERFECT.