Change?

Mercy mercy me. Do you feel that in the air? Do you smell what’s cooking? Can you still hear the screams of joy in your ears? Are you still yawning from staying up all night watching the world change? You’re not alone. It feels as though all of the world’s sports teams have won the championship on the same night. Let’s all throw confetti. Let’s all throw an impromptu parade. Let’s all throw our history books out the window. It’s time to buy some new ones. Let’s write them together shall we?

You know who’s a good writer? It’s A.J. Adams of course! A.J. is a great friend of wufniks. Remember Wufniks #1? We certainly do. A.J. is in there! Go read the joy again and again for yourselves. A.J. has provided us with a new story for 9 Things and its a whopper of a doozy of a wufnik. Enjoy.

Wufniks has a new friend to tell you about. Well, he’s not a new friend yet. He still needs to return our calls and we are sure that he will once the muffin basket arrives. Matt Prins is a strong and sensitive Canadian man who sometimes has a moustache. He is doing a cool thing right now with computers and papers and drawings called:

Instant Books Go and read and share with all of your friends. Thanks Matt, we love you.

First new friends, now on to old friends. Crispin Best has finally gone off the deep end. I blame the lack of sunlight. He has many metric tonnes of new stories and pictures to show you, as well as a big crab who gives messages.

hooray for Crispin, hooray for Matt Prins, and hooray for this family, who is about to get a new puppy.

sweet potatoe pie,

Monkey’s Lunch?

Today is the big day in the good ol’ U.S of A. It is voting day or, as the Native Americans call it, ‘the day after Monday’. Wufniks is proud to endorse Barack Obama for president of Earth. Most of you wufniks out there probably don’t live in the America but if you know any Americans, please, give them a hug today because it’s a big day for everyone.

Speaking of hugs. We are hugging each of you with our minds for supporting our site by visiting it and sending us words. Wufniks is becoming a happy, shiny, smell good family. Thank you for joining it and please keep coming because there is so much more to see and to do. Today we have two more submissions to add to our 9 Things. Valerie O’riordan and Raoul Colville, step right up, you’re the next contestants on Wufniks is always right. Ms. O’riordan also has one of thoes blogs that are going around these days, you can read it heeyah. A big round of applause for those two.

You can see some more members of the bright and shiny wufniks family, Crispin ‘don’t call me Robin’ Best and Kamila ‘I’m from Chorlton’ Rymajdo on the spinoff of all spinoff spinoffs, for every year. It is possibly the best idea that anyone has ever had.

hanging chads,

Trick or Treat?

Merry Halloween to you my spooky wufniks. Today we celebrate the only day where goths look normal. The only day you can bother your neighbours without fear of dog bites. The only day where you can fill your pillow cases with candy. The only day that most of us enjoy role playing. It’s important to have a safe word for when things get a little too hot underneath that rubber mask, if you catch our drift. Our safeword is Pumpkin. You give, we’ll receive.

Speaking of receptions. We’ve got a Manchester double feature today to add to the ever growing list of 9 Things that stand between you and happiness. Like a sunflower it’s growing. Like a puberty.

Today we have Dave Hartley and Alistair Harford- the double Hs coming at you! Read their submissions here.  Alistair is a blogger- trust me on this one. Also, Mr. Hartley has a blog, check it out for yourself if you don’t believe us. We would never trick you.

Have a good night wufniks, and stay reflective out there. These are life lessons.

marshmallow peanuts,

Snow Day?

It’s official, Wufniks has called a snow day. Let’s all just stay inside and be warm. Let’s rub our feet together. Lets put hot water into hot water bottles, lets put our clothes in the microwave. If it were up to us we would cancel all school tomorrow. You can stay home from work too if you have a job. If not, then sleep until noon, stay the course, this is a recession- nobody do anything rash.

Wufniks had a cold day, in case you couldn’t tell. You know what keeps us warm? No, not warm pudding down our pants, it’s our in boxes when they’re full of tidbits for us to read and show to you out there. Thanks especially to everyone in Manchester who has sent us stories or contributions to our 9 Things. Hey you, rest of the world. Yeah, I’m talking to you. Keep sending us things. Our feelings resemble those of kissing hedgehogs when you do that.

Today’s installment is a whole list, a litany in fact. It’s by the lovely and moon shakingly talented Laura Webb. Experience the litany right here. Somewhere, Zadie Smith is smiling.

ice ice baby,

Singing in the Rain?

Salutations and a fine mahuk to you all. Have you ever noticed that sometimes it will rain and then other times it won’t rain? Sometimes it will rain in one part of the world but in another part of the world it might not be raining. I think about these things when I’m alone, or wet.

Have you ever been to Manchester? That is where rain comes from. God bless that city but it is fairly soggy.

I came across this site a couple weeks ago that embraces the rainy locales of Manchester and mixes it with everyone’s favourite google program: google maps. Rainy City Stories has an interactive map of greater Manchester and you can click on certain locations and find stories that people have submitted that go along with those spots. Neat idea? Great idea? You betcha!

Guess who I found on there today? Wufniks’ old friend Elinor Taylor. You can find a story there that you can also find in Wufniks #3.

There is more things. We have a new friend of Wufniks, his name is Tim Woodall. He has given us a new submission for our 9 Things… project. Take a look at it here. He is also a blog master. Read everything. That’s all for now. Keep sending us things, we love it when you do that.

breakfast in bed,

Welcome to the Machine?

Howdy gangstas!

Has this ever happened to you: You think of a great idea for a movie. The type of movie that will come out around Christmas time and blow everyone’s mind and make us all believe in hope and love and donkeys again? After you thought of this great idea for a movie did you then go to a movie yourself and then in the coming attractions found out that this movie has already been made starring Brad Pitt?

This happened to me the other day. Right here. To make matters worse I found out that this movie was already a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Remember guys, before you think of an idea for a movie, make sure that Brad Pitt or F. Scott Fitzgerald haven’t already thought of the idea first.

Moving right along. Speaking of machines, remember Crispin Best? This man is an absolute machine. I really mean it. He is our editor-in-cake, and an accomplished blog professional. Surrounding his gigantic human heart are dozens of gears and mechanisms and pulleys that create the masterful specimen that is Crispin Best. Crispin has provided us with the next installment of our 9 Things… You can read it on our site or on the spinoff of all spinoffs, For Every Year.

Before you go to bed tonight, remember that we here at wufniks are proud of you.

glow in the dark wallpaper,

Another Round?

How’re you? Have a good weekend? I sure did. Wufniks had a bit of a team building weekend out in the country. We did trust excercises where one person would fall and the other would catch them. Classic. We also had to transport oranges using only our necks and pass them to each other using our previously learned team building skills. At the end of the weekend we even had a genuine ice cream social, but with spiritous beverages instead of ice cream. I must say, a couple pints of alcohol were imbibed on that night.

This weekend reminded me of Noah. Not Noah Baumbaugh, director of The Squid and the Whale. It was the original Noah. History’s first drunk:

” And Noah the husbandmen began, and planted a vineyard.  And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and was uncovered within his tent.”

Genesis 9: 20-22.

“Uncovered” means he was naked.

I am also reminded of the Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi who said:

“A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people’s, but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear, etc., cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not fear from contact with objective existences. And if such security is to be got from wine, how much more is it to got from God? It is in God that the Sage seeks his refuge, and so he is free from harm…”

I think you can all agree that it was a good weekend.

But the weekend is over now. It ended at officially 6PM GMT when the sun went down in this God foresaken country of ours. Meaning England. Meaning Britain. Meaning the UK. Down to business now.

We have had a great response to our 9 Things… and we’ve got a ripe barrell of them sitting in the store room.

Our old friend Kamila Rymajdo has given us new addition to the list. Go read her. She is the greatest. go. read. now.

Lastly. If you are in London, please, hug a Tottenham supporter tomorrow.

pumpkin pie,

Back to School?

Happy Friday to you my furry wufniks. I must admit that it feels good to do a posting where I’m not harping on you all to get stories in to us before the deadly deadline is up. Do we even have a deadline looming at the moment? Who knows. Let’s all just let our hair down. Relax guy, you need a break.

Speaking of deadlines. Did you know that the deadline to apply to Oxford and Cambridge Universities was like a couple days ago? I’m sorry if you missed it. So your dreams are dashed, there’s always next year. It will give you another year to get ready for the ridiculously difficult interview questions such as:

1. Would you rather be a novel or a poem?

2. If you were a grapefruit, would you rather be seedless or have seeds?

3. Why is there salt in the ocean?

Those were actual questions from last year’s interviews. Our wufniks spies have gotten ahold of this year’s questions and they go a little something like this:

1.  Which is the better band that remains from the split of Death From Above 1979

MSTRKRFT or Sebastien Grainger and the Mountains?

2. Better conductor on ‘Shining Time Station‘

George Carlin (R.I.P) or Ringo Starr?

3. What is the saddest Disney movie ever?

Get ready for that interview kids!

Speaking of kids, Anthony Richardson is a good kid. He’s added to our list of the 9 Things that stand between you and happiness. Thanks Anthony.

You keep knocking ‘em down and we’ll keep setting ‘em up.

potato salad,

Under New Management?

Hey kids! Remember us? We’re wufniks. We remember you. We also remember putting up a post sometime in July saying how we were all ready to get things going again. What we forgot to mention was that we were all about 1000 words into a 15,000 word dissertation. We are students. Well, we used to be. Now we’re just unemployed and filthy. The point is that we were busy busy beavers during the summer months and wufniks became the red headed stepchild of the literary magazine world: ignored and bruised.

We are learning to set realistic goals again and our next goal is to publish Issue 4 in physical form by the end of this calendar year. We would also like to pay more attention to this site and fill it with all the lovely tidbits that people send to us.

Finally, we are happy to share with you another brainchild from the imcomparably genial Zadie Smith. Ms. Zadie had another idea for a challenge to give us and it went something like this: Nine Things Stand Between You and Happiness. That was it. Simple and beautiful as that. We have asked some friends of ours to send in a response or two to this challenge and we have posted the results here. If you have a response to this challenge, please send away and we will post them on the site.

Finally again, have you heard of Crispin Best? He is one of our founders and editors and writers and dreamers. He is also the king of spin offs. He has created a spinoff site of wufniks here and it is a blog in which he creates beautiful music with the blogosphere and at the moment seems to be having some kind of torrid love affair with a Lite-Brite. As if that wasn’t enough, he has spun off from that site and made thissum which is a story or picture or sandwich for every year starting from 1400 in which Chaucer first invented the sandwich. You should absolutely check out these spinoffs for Crispin because he gets sad when he thinks about the moon.

Well then, it was nice catching up with you. I hope you check out all these links and stories and tidbits. We are wufniks and we love you. We are trying our damndest to make pretty things for you to look at. Don’t forget to keep sending us your love puppies and word kittens.

much love,

Lorks a Lordy

Tut tut tut.

Where have we been, eh? The milk’s gone sour, the bread’s all dry, and – there – by the fridge, the mice have stopped bothering to clean up after their jamborees. Little trombones and straw hats everywhere.

It’s our own fault. We went on holiday. We imbibed of rum and played at games of chance. We accepted ill-advised wagers over how late we could leave our homework. Never again.

But you’ll forgive us. Because between then and now we’ve also done some industrial wufniksing. And it looks like issue #4 is going to be fatter and more engrossing than a lard Rubik’s cube. But less messy. Imagine! So keep your eyes peeled for more news on that.

Until then, here is a fact that might get you high-fiving yourself in excitement: we have a new challenge. And it’s not just any old challenge either. It’s not one of those party forfeits which involve eating as many crackers as you can in a minute. Or reciting the alphabet backwards. It involves attempting the impossible, or thereabouts. And it’s been set for us by the man himself, Martin Amis. Fancy having a go? Click your pointy thing at the challenges page.

Well, that’s about all for this installment. Except for this young man and his wonderful balloon. But remember: wufniks loves you more than walking barefoot on deep-pile carpets; more than drawers with smooth opening mechanisms; more than is strictly appropriate, all things considered.

Wotcha, squire,