Here come the decorator gimps.

10 January 2002
Victor just loves DIY.

When the estate agent showed you around you were filled with grand designs: breakfast room at the back, decking for the garden, laminate flooring throughout downstairs. You envisaged a haven worthy of an advertisement or even a home improvement show, and entertained the idea of finding wives and children to fill it.

You have the house, yours for six months now, and you are no closer to achieving your dream. The furniture is still in storage. You are seriously considering dumping it - it won't fit in with the new colour scheme anyhow. It took you a week to strip the paper off the front room; it will take another to paint it. There are eight more rooms. The children have not materialised. Nor even the wives.

You need gimp decorators! At only 5.95 GBP per unit they will alleviate your DIY headache. A panacea for diseased development - or your money back.

Each gimp comes shrink-wrapped and cryogenically freeze-dried in its own packaging and juices, personalised to meet your needs - just add water. Choose from Papering Gimp, trained to make its bed on a pasting table (litter tray not included), capable of recognising and matching over 2000 EU approved embossed motifs, including flock and anaglypta; Plasterer Gimp (5 min tea breaks, makes his own); Painting Gimp - impervious to noxious fumes, masking tape supplied as standard; Rapist Gimp - marshals his co-workers with threats, ideal for that special night in (masking tape supplied as standard).

All gimps come uniformed in white t-shirt and dungarees, hard-wearing workman's boots, and trademarked pencil perched behind the right ear (Deluxe Rapist unit also includes fetish mask). Gimps are also fully interactive - they whistle, curse each other and sing along to popular tunes on commercial radio stations. Buy the full set and marvel as they perform barbershop style - perfect for that distinctive housewarming.

Facts and figures for the gentlemen at home: a team of four units will completely cover a standard-sized space (15ft x 12ft) in a day. If you buy fewer than the full set simply increase the decorating time accordingly (11/2 days for 3 gimps, 2 days for 2, 4 days for 1). This means that a two-up-two-down can be turned around in just over a week from purchase! Can you afford not to buy all four?

What's that? How can you get your hands on one (or more!) of these animated little fellows? You can purchase your Decorator Gimp from most good hardware stores, including B&Q, Homebase, Focus Do It All and larger Woolworths and Wyevale Garden Centres. You'll find them between the grout and the curtain rails. Conveniently portable, Decorator Gimps can be taken away the same day (while stocks last)!

New for 2002! Gimps can now be sent on errands! For a limited period you can buy the Gimpmobile transit van at the reduced price of 29.95 GBP (if you buy two or more Decorator Gimps). Fifty-six patented adjustments enable the driver of lesser stature to travel to, and return safely from, builder's merchants. Go on, SPOIL YOURSELF.

Current clown:

18 December 2003. George writes: This List

Most recent ten:

15 December 2003. Jamie writes: Seven Songs
11 December 2003. Dan writes: Spinning Jenny
8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
4 December 2003. Matt writes: The Mirrored Spheres of Patagonia
1 December 2003. George writes: Charm
27 November 2003. James writes: On Boxing
24 November 2003. Jamie writes: El Matador del Amor; Or, the Man who Killed Love
20 November 2003. Dan writes: Rights Management
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
13 November 2003. Matt writes: Disintermediation
(And alas we lost Neil, who last wrote Cockfosters)

Also by this clown:

8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
27 October 2003. Victor writes: Our Tune
6 October 2003. Victor writes: Sucking face (in a public place)
15 September 2003. Victor writes: You got any ID?
25 August 2003. Victor writes: Blood on the Boulevard
4 August 2003. Victor writes: In (paren)theses
10 July 2003. Victor writes: Island Fling
19 June 2003. Victor writes: Back (back) and forth (and forth)
2 June 2003. Victor writes: 300 clowns, 13 eight-year olds
12 May 2003. Victor writes: The swings and roundabouts of outrageous fortune
21 April 2003. Victor writes: ...just sitting there quietly contemplating suicide
31 March 2003. Victor writes: Victoria
6 March 2003. Victor writes: Relevant experience
17 February 2003. Victor writes: You will eat chips and go nowhere
27 January 2003. Victor writes: A bushy fish for fishy Mr Bush (after Juvenal)
6 January 2003. Victor writes: The Accidental Voyeur
16 December 2002. Victor writes: Gripper goes bang
25 November 2002. Victor writes: Bediquette
4 November 2002. Victor writes: Where have all the spastics gone?
14 October 2002. Victor writes: An Immodest Proposal
23 September 2002. Victor writes: Fastscan masterplan
2 September 2002. Victor writes: Dry Humping Social Club
12 August 2002. Victor writes: Beat the Mongol
22 July 2002. Victor writes: What life is not
1 July 2002. Victor writes: Stupor heroes
6 June 2002. Victor writes: Dry
13 May 2002. Victor writes: Muppet Suite
18 April 2002. Victor writes: gingermingeninja
25 March 2002. Victor writes: Sodomize with Pukka Pies
28 February 2002. Victor writes: Dave's problem
4 February 2002. Victor writes: King of the Aisles
10 January 2002. Victor writes: Here come the decorator gimps.
17 December 2001. Victor writes: Make war, not supper.
22 November 2001. Victor writes: Cough
29 October 2001. Victor writes: vbarnesinstruments.com
4 October 2001. Victor writes: Green Gauges
10 September 2001. Victor writes: Blind weed
16 August 2001. Victor writes: Snout!
23 July 2001. Victor writes: You're not going to put this in a clown are you?
28 June 2001. Victor writes: What is a droll?
4 June 2001. Victor writes: Burt Pakamak
10 May 2001. Victor writes: Board to Death
12 April 2001. Victor writes: Tricolon with anaphora?
22 March 2001. Victor writes: Point of View
26 February 2001. Victor writes: Goth's Dinner
1 Feburary 2001. Victor writes: Les Miserables
4 January 2001. Victor writes: Flat-packed furniture
14 December 2000. Victor writes: Deliverance
20 November 2000. Victor writes: Bottomry: Exorcising Ghosts
26 October 2000. Victor writes: Body Art
2 October 2000. Victor writes: Disney must die
7 September 2000. Victor writes: Ice-cream in Offworld
14 August 2000. Victor writes: I like sweets that taste of medicine
26 June 2000. Victor writes: I've seen the future, and it's feathered

We are all Upsideclown: Dan, George, James, Jamie, Matt, Neil, Victor.

Material is (c) respective authors. For everything else, there's it@upsideclown.com.

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