Eleanor Morton: The Expert Guide To Procrastination

An extra hour in the day means even more time to waste for lazy people. Exciting new comedian (and Olympic-standard timewaster) Eleanor Morton offers some tips

Feature by Eleanor Morton | 09 Apr 2012
  1. Gravel Snowmen  This fun game can be played all year round. Brighten up any porch with your handcrafted Gravel Men, Women and Children, which you can accessorise with hats, gloves and bits of tinfoil. Gravel is much harder to work with than snow, but that’s what makes it all the more rewarding. If you do not personally own any gravel, why not take some from your neighbour, the local park or a Crematorium rockery? After all, gravel shared is gravel halved!
  1. Newsnight Drinking Game Self-explanatory. The usual rules apply: drink whenever Paxman scoffs at the soul of another human being, and whenever you hear ‘just answer the question minister!’, but you can make it more exciting by drinking every time an interviewee looks likes they’ve managed to stop themselves before saying something racist, and when you can see the space between Paxman’s socks and trousers.
  1. iPhone sunglasses Two iPhones. Two eyes. Some sellotape. (Take a picture of each eye to have on the screens so it looks like you can still see. You can’t see). You’ll be on the screaming edge of cool.
  1. Doris Day Day Curl up in a pointy bra and watch all the classics – Calamity Jane, Tea for Two, and the other one she did with the goat.
  1. Pluck out all of your eyebrow hairs one by one and then carefully stick each individual hair back – on the wrong eyebrow. Alas, I cannot play this as I have one long blonde monobrow. But others assure me it’s a wheeze.
  1. It’s Michael Gove! Have you ever wanted to punch Michael Gove full in the face? Well now you can! All you need is your fist, a member of the public and the unyielding belief that they are Michael Gove.
  1. Brontastic Relive the classic stories of the Brontë sisters. Spend the day crying in a Yorkshire accent, staring into middle distance and wandering around your back garden drunk. Whenever you meet anyone (say, the postman or your hairdresser) clasp their hands in yours and whisper ‘I know now we cannot meet again, for your love is poisoning my soul and every waking moment is an arrow in my cold heart’.
  1. Paint My Painting. Do you have a painting on your wall you reckon needs sprucing up? Add a couple of coats of Dulux and transform a classic. If you have a Picasso, you can repaint the eyes on the right side of the face.
  1. Radiator Fun. Doing some baking?  Oven seems too conventional?  Simply hold the cake mix against the radiator until it is cooked for that delicious, slightly metallic taste.  
  1. Zoo Race. Have a race with the animals in the zoo. Most of them will not be able to go beyond the five-metre perimeter of their enclosure for fear of electrocution. A great game to prove why HUMANITY WINS AGAIN. 
Neurotic troubador Eleanor Morton is rapidly becoming one of Scotland's most in-demand comics. Keep an eye on listings for her next gig near you http://www.twitter.com/EleanorMorton