Scaryduck's Top Tips

Scaryduck's Top Tips

Things you don't want to see the insides of

i) Yourself. If you are seeing your insides, it is usually a sign that something has gone seriously wrong. Try to avoid this scenario if at all possible.

Also, if you are seeing the insides of something you don't normally see the outside of (eg, your liver, kidney or your bottom), you may safely assume that you are having the Worst Day Ever, or are starring in a re-make of Inner Space. Or a Sven Hassel book.

Top Tip: Rotating knives = bad, as a rule.

ii) Your local pizza takeaway. Pizza should only be ordered by phone. That way you can preserve the mental image that "Dinos Pizza and Kebab's" resembles, and has similar hygiene standards to, the Pizza Huts of this world.

On no account should you go out of your way to drive past this establishment – no matter how glossy the menu that was thrust through your door by persons unseen – to "check them out". If you are ever told that the delivery driver is off sick, you would be best advised to sink as low as Pot Noodle rather than offer to pick up your 12-inch Hawaiian with extra sausage yourself.

In the great scheme of things, random pizza takeaways rank somewhere between taxi offices and a Casualty Unit waiting room on a Friday night as undesirable places to find yourself. On the plus side, you may discover, exactly why the delivery driver has gone home sick. You may also recognise the pizza chef from his glory days as TV's Skeletor.

Top Tip: If you can see your meal being prepared – flee.

iii) Vending machines. This is ground that I've been over before, and these days, even the simplest of devices delivering powdered crap and warm water into a plastic cup looks like the inside of an ebola-infested dalek when the service engineer comes to call. Why do you think the he has so much protective clothing?

Top Tip: Don't have the soup. You know how posh people say the contents of teabags are the factory floor sweepings…?

iv) Your car. Gone are the days when you could flip the bonnet open, fit a new alternator, replace the oil sump and tune your motor to race standards on a Sunday morning with parts you liberated from the local tip and an oil-smudged Haynes manual. My Austin Allegro ran perfectly well for several years with vital parts sourced from a lawn mower. Indeed, there was a marked improvement in performance, and no, I'm not making this up.

These days, the engine compartment is filled-to-bursting with a terrifying maze of tubes, wire, shiny metal alloys and alien technology sourced from the Roswell crash. You can just about be trusted to check the oil and fill the windscreen washer without invalidating the warranty – anything else involves tools that have not yet been invented and require an anatomy not of this planet to see into whichever parallel dimension they've hidden the spark plugs.

Top Tip: Walk, or get an Austin Allegro. All much the same, really.