Inanimate Interviews: Jam Magazine

TOM: Ok aaaaaaand press record again to finish.

Pause and a short click.

TOM: Wait, why has the red light come on?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Hmm? I dunno, it wasn't there before.

TOM: Wait, it wasn't?! B-but that means we haven't been recording for...

TOM presses rewind on the blog.

BLOG: .did tsuj ouY .moT yrrow t'noD

TOM presses play.

BLOG: Don't worry Tom. You just did.

Pause

TOM:... That was in October!!! THAT WAS OCTOBER 4TH 2012!!!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Awwwww..... that's- that's bad. Isn't it?

TOM: Yes! And it's your fault!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Woah that's not- well... people make mistakes.

TOM: You're a computer! Computers don't make mist-

An error report bursts in on the scene.

ERROR REPORT: I did a bad! I did a bad!

TOM: Ok I take that back. Look let's just try and get started again. What have we missed?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: The interview with Lance Armstrong's Calpol, the interview with the Mayan Apocalypse, the interview with a Russian Meteorite, the interview with that off-tasting lasagna...

TOM: Right ok, let's see who we've got next. Aha! You're going to like this one. It's your chum Jam the Magazine!

Name: Jam

Function: To provide a publicised platform for creative works for the Royal Holloway University campus.

Characteristics: Creative, glossy, multi-faceted, literate.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Heyyyyyy Jam!

JAM: Hello Chuckles, I haven't heard any submissions from you in a long time.

TOM: (with accusing look) Yeah, how about that 'Chuckles'?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Weeeeeeell we've been busy but now we're good to go for an interview! And may I say how good you're looking!

JAM: That's very kind of you to say,

I've had a sort of upgrade,

I'm doing things a different way,

I'm on a creative crusade!

Pause

TOM: (whispering to Whiskey Chuckles) What was that?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: That's their poetry phase. It happens quite frequently, Jam's a little... crowded up here (taps the top of what serves to be Whiskey's head).

TOM: Ok, err well is there anything I can't get for you Jam?

JAM: The Jam looked up and shot a hopeful look Tom's way politely responding, "Oh, a nice cold glass of Submissions would be nice thank you." Despite a heavy printed issue not two weeks ago the magazine was hungry for more. The Jam couldn't help think that Tom the human and Chuckles the fictional blog character hadn't really been busy but had simply failed to do any wor-

TOM: What's this then?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Prose I think though I can never tell the difference between the prose days and the free verse days to be honest.

JAM: -and that's when Jam realised his two interviewers were glancing at him conspiratorially.

TOM: Were we? Ahem, anyway first question. What's been your biggest achievement so far?

JAM: "My first printed issue of my new look has to be a highlight if I'm honest!", I said with a satisfied expression spreading across my cover. "Not a spare copy lay in sight after I'd done a Santa Claus round campus dropping them off all around."

TOM: This is weird, he keeps narrating himself.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Shhhh, he'll switch in a moment. So Jam, Jammy, Jammuel, Jammo, what have you got planned for the future?

JAM: Further issues soon,

Picnic-based social events,

More of the haiku.

TOM: Ooooo, I like a good picnic. Well are me and Whiskey Chuckles still welcome to pop in to hang out at your website? You know, once we've dealt with our 'productivity issues'.

JAM: Of course just watch out for the Ape.

TOM: The ape?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: There's this detective who is also an ape, it's great, he ate a guy once and he did it all while wearing a nicely pressed shirt. But I digress, Jam it's been great having you here with us. Any final words?

JAM: SUBMIT to THE JAM!!! YOU WILL ALL SUBMIT!

TOM: Please tell this is another phase.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Oh no he's gone into deadline mode. Quickly, throw me a limerick!

TOM: I-I-I can't think of one! You're part Irish you do it!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Fine.

"Now there once was a humble blog,

With quite a limited backlog,

But just like a rash,

It returned in a flash,

This really works better as a prologue."

JAM leaves the room to munch on the impromptu rhymes.

TOM: Bye then! Well that went ok I think. You were recording this time right?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Yep, red light was on the whole time. All we got to do is press save and publish this thing.

ERROR REPORT, who has been sat in the corner for a while, runs flailing at the recorder.

ERROR REPORT: I wanna do it!

TOM & WHISKEY: Nooooooooo

BLOG: Y8493Y8Q9------38924£^&*$q)&*£

Well that's the second Inanimate Interview done, apologies for abandoning the blog for a while but hopefully me and Whiskey will be back on form now with more regular posts. If you want to see where Jam hangs out then check out their page here: http://www.thejammagazine.co.uk/

Next time we'll be hearing from ironing Board again and interviewing the Fridge as well. Til' next time Chucklers.

Tom

The End... of the Beginning but not the Beginning of the End Hopefully.

It has been many days since Whiskey and Tom talked.
Many days where Ironing Board did nothing but fretfully wonder about his future as a blog post character.
Many days where Virgin media Super Hub continued his life of heroic but unfulfilling deeds.
In those days Tom and Whiskey had drifted apart, the busy work load and hectic schedules of the two acquaintances had kept them apart. It was a dark time, a chuckle-less time and the whiskey tumbler was empty and dry. Things looked bleak...

TOM enters. He looks around the blog, blowing some dust of the pageviews.

TOM: I'm going to miss this.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Hmm, what?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES is led underneath a pile of discarded apps and backdated GIFs. He turns to face TOM.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Warra' you want?

TOM: I was just picking up some fonts and then leav- Are you, are you drunk?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Maybees... May-Bees. May bees... light your way home Tim.

TOM: How are you drunk? You're made of Whiskey!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: I don't have a face!!!

TOM: Look let's get these GIFs off you.

TOM peels off the memes and the built up spam.

TOM: There we go much better.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: I durand to know why you're in my house! Mister... Man!

TOM: I was just goi-

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: I Duran Durand!

TOM: What's Durand?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: They sing the songs. They sung a song about Rio...

TOM: Yeah ok Duran Duran I get it. But I was just getting out of here.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Her naaaaaaame is Rio and they caaaaaaall him Ferdinand!

TOM: I think that's the wrong, no that's definitely the wrong Rio.

IRONING BOARD: (from off-page) Whiskey? Whiskey are you singing again?

IRONING BOARD enters.

IRONING BOARD: Tom. Hello there.

TOM: Hi.

IRONING BOARD: It's been a while.

TOM: Yeah, look how long has he been like this?

IRONING BOARD: Well let's see, you left on the 10th Septmeber. We were ok for a week or so and then he just started drinking himself dry. I've been trying to get him to take on a new case, a new interview but he won't do it without you.

TOM: Really?

IRONING BOARD: He can't function unless you type. Without interest and creativity he's just another forgotten corner of the internet. We're another forgotten corner of the internet.

Pause

TOM: I'm sorry, I've just had a lot to do recently and-

IRONING BOARD: How much time does it take to post for us? Really.

TOM: 10 - 15 minutes I suppose.

IRONING BOARD: Well, I think you know how little I'm asking for then.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Has anyone actually SEEN a lemur? Are they, are, they're like folk tales. They're a folky myth. I think they're a folk myth.

IRONING BOARD: Don't leave him like this.

TOM: Ok. You're right. It's time I breathed some life into this again. First things first we need to sober Whiskey up.

IRONING BOARD: How?

TOM retypes something.

COFFEE CHUCKLES: Hoooooooooooleeeeeeeeeeeeeee ****. ARGH! OWWWWW!! What the hell man!?

TOM: How do you feel?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Like Nescafe just did a dump in my brain, cheers!

TOM: Well he's back to normal. Guess we better do a post.

IRONING BOARD: Don't worry Tom. You just did.

Initial Thoughts

TOM: Errrr soooo how's things?

WC: Hmm? Wait, what's happening?

TOM: What do you mean?

WC: What have you done with my name?

TOM: I got tired of writing it all out, it's long.

WC: STOP IT! It's my name!

TOM: I gave it you!

WC: I'm changing it back.

TOM: You can't d-

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Bam!

TOM: You are out of order mate. Two initials are fine, I'm changing it back.

WC: What the? Stop it! I told you to stop it!

TOM: I'm in charge here!

WC: Oh yeah?

TM: Yeah!

Pause

TM: You bastard.

WC: Oh two initials are fine apparently. Suck it up TM. Maybe I should call you-

TRADE MARK: Oh that is just childish! Two can play at that game.

WATER CLOSET: You made me a freakin' toilet! Too far man, too far.

TRADE MARK: Oh this is nothing.

WIENER COLLECTOR: Bring it o- WIENER COLLECTOR!?!? Go screw yourself!

TINY MUSCLES: Hahahaha Wiener Collector... Wait TINY MUSCLES?!! I am in shape! I AM!

WIENER COLLECTOR: 'ROUND' IS NOT IN SHAPE.

TINY MUSCLES: IT'S A 'SHAPE'.

WIENER COLLECTOR: You're only doing this because you haven't got us a new guest to interview.

Pause

TINY MUSCLES: It's been a slow week and Super Hub was pretty popular it turned out, so I didn't know how to top it.

WIENER COLLECTOR: Look forget about it can I at least have my name back?

Pause

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Thank you. So when's the next interview?

TOM: Dunno, when I find something worth interviewing. Well where's Ironing Board? We could interview him.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Ironing Board went to Magaluf remember.

Pause

WHIKSEY CHUCKLES: Hold on. Ironing Board is a he?

TOM: I- I presume so. I don't know. Wow that's awkward. Is that awkward?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: That's pretty damn awkward man. We don't know her gender!

Long pause

TOM: Are YOU a gi-

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: OF COURSE I'M NOT A GIRL!!!

TOM: Oh damn! Ironing Board is back. Hide!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Where!?

TOM turns the screen away and turns his keyboard upside down just in case. WHISKEY CHUCKLES tries to hide behind the page views icon. IRONING BOARD enters.

IRONING BOARD: Guuuuuuuuuys. I'm hooooooome.

Pause

IRONING BOARD: Hello? Whiskey? Tom? Guys I know you're here, there's like 30 odd lines of dialogue if I scroll up this page. Let me just check what you were talking about.

TOM: Ironing Board! How's things? How was Malaga?

IB: Magaluf actually, oh it was-

Pause

IB: What are you doing?

Inanimate Interviews: Virgin Media Super Hub

TOM: Hello and welcome to the very first of the interviews that Whiskey Chuckles and I will be conducting on this blog. The plan is to first create a character around this item based on its role, its look and perhaps its origins or time of use. This character will then be questioned by the two of us where we'll hope to answer any pressing questions the readers have for the guest and also learn a little about the object's perspective. So, first of all I'd like to welcome my co-host Whiskey Chuckles to the-

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Wait, we're doing this now? I didn't think of any questions, where's my bath robe?

TOM: Why do you have a bath robe?!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Ironing Board gets a bath robe!

TOM: That's a shirt I left on the Ironing Board.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Whatever! I found my bath robe now can we just get this over with?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES puts on a bath robe.

Pause

TOM: Now I want a bath robe. Forget it! Without further ado please welcome our inanimate object of the week: Virgin Media Super Hub.

Name: Super Hub

Function: To provide stable wireless and wired internet connections to its designated household.

Characteristics: Black, sleek, modern, "super", provides a service.

TOM: Welcome Super Hub are you comfortable? Can I get you anything?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: (whispering) Ask for a bath robe!

SUPER HUB: The SUPER HUB requires no robe! I am SATISFIED with my current state.

TOM: Ok well then if you'd like to tell us a little about yourself to begin with...

SUPER HUB: Super Hub was conceived on a DISTANT WORLD-

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Made in China.

SUPER HUB: -called MADICHINA! There I was granted the power to create wired and/or wireless connections for ALL!

Pause

SUPER HUB: Within a certain distance of MY POSITION!

Pause

SUPER HUB: Unless MY POSITION is foolishly placed and I am obscured by furniture or LEAD-LINING!

TOM: Ok, well thanks for that, I don't think we have any lead-lined walls here on the page so I'll start with the first question. If given a human body and a human life what would you do and how would you act?

Pause

SUPER HUB: I would be called OSCAR! I would be a mild-mannered employee of Virgin Media's OUTSTANDING and EFFICIENT customer support team, but after office hours I would TRANSFORM into-

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Lemme guess, Super Hub?

SUPER HUB: SUPER HUB! Fighting the forces of... LEAD! Beating back the hordes of the DISCONNECTED! And I would also study trains INTENTLY!

TOM: Right so you clearly have a noble streak going on there and you're a bit of a train spotter I take it?

SUPER HUB: I AM THE TRAIN!

TOM: Moving on to our next question, this one is from you Whiskey I see.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: That's right! Now look here Mr. Super Hub, you might think you're the bee's knees.

SUPER HUB: I do not presume to be a part of BEE ANATOMY!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: But I'm linked to the internet, it's my lifeline and too many times I've felt that lifeline cut. Last year before I was a blog I felt the world grow distant and the echoes of "Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday...," faded into nothingness and it wasn't because it's a forgettable song! It's because of people like you! Where were you when the student was deprived of Wikipedia and Sparknotes? Where were you when Josh Duhamel tries to Skype his family in Transformers!? Where were you when the hot girl in every slasher film tries to tweet "This camping trip is dead boring! @Ironicstatementbecausetheresakillerinthesewoods"?!?

Pause. WHISKEY CHUCKLES breathes heavily after his rant.

SUPER HUB: ~[deploying apology]~ We apologize for any connection issues you may be having. An engineer has been dispatched to help resolve the problem. Would you like to consider upgrading your package?

TOM: I beg your pardon!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: He means your internet package. Besides I think we've shut him down.

TOM: Great. Our first guest and we've shut them down. That was all your fault you know.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Doesn't matter whose fault it was, we got what we needed. Answers.

TOM: But he never told you where he was in all those scenarios.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: He told me something better. When you find yourself disconnected, you engineer a way around the problem. You look in your text books if you're a student. You meet up with Shia laBeouf if you're Josh Duhamel. You become the badass gore-covered survivor if you're a hot girl in a slasher film. We don't need Virgin Media's engineers to fix our connection. WE are the engineers.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES drops the microphone and leaves the stage like a total bad ass.

Cautious Chuckles

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: You're back.

TOM: Of course I'm back. You're my blog. I'd never leave you.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: That's... that's a little weird. We've only been going for a few days and-

TOM: What? You want more space?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: A little and maybe we can slow down a bit.

TOM: But I've only posted once before now!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: I know, I know I'm just tired.

TOM: You can't be tired! You don't do anything.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: I do, do things!

IRONING BOARD: Hehehe do-do.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Shut up Ironing Board!

TOM: Hey you don't get to talk to him like that! Now you look me in the eye and you tell me what your problem is Chuckles.

Pause

TOM: Well?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: I'm scared!

Pause

TOM: What are you scared of?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: I'm scared of the internet. I'm scared of trolls and firsts and likes and pokes and nyan ninja keyboard LOL cats. I'm just a page of text with some bright colours in the background.

TOM: Look it's going to be ok. And besides, you're not just a page of text. You're a page of dialogue!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: With tropes?

TOM: (scans the post) Sure, with tropes. How about I make you a picture?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Like a logo?!

TOM: Yeah, how about that?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: That sounds good. Can I have a theme tune that plays when someone visits the page?

TOM: Don't push it.

The First Mirth

TOM: Err hi.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Hey

TOM: So you're my blog?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: That's me. Look are all of your posts going to be like this?

TOM: Yeah, I think. It's sort of a thing I like to do. A signature style. Like you know certain killers have an M.O.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Wait, you're a killer?!

TOM: No, no, no I mean like a trope or a method.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: A trope? What the hell's a trope? Do you kill people with your trope?

TOM: NO! I don't kill people, with or without tropes! Oh come on you're meant to be MY blog and you don't even know what a trope is? Never mind, I feel like we should maybe get to know each other a little bit.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Ok, well I'm Whiskey Chuckles, which you know because you just named me. Dumbass.

TOM: Hey, woah! Why with the attitude?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Why with the attitude? You've made me sound like a freakin' hobo-clown hybrid!

TOM: Look I like whiskey and it sounds like I have taste, and I also like comedy so...

TOM stares at the screen, at the blog's name.

Long pause

TOM: Damn it, it does sound like a hobo-clown!

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Thank you! Look just let's run with it, maybe it'll catch on.

TOM: Ok, ok so you're my new blog which every now and again I will post on in the form of conversations between myself and something of interest.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: So you're going to talk to inanimate objects?

Tom: Yes. No! Well... yes I am. Why do I get the feeling you're squinting at me in a sceptical fashion?

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: I'm totally squinting at you in a sceptical fashion.

Pause

TOM: I'm not sure I like you.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Yeah well get used to it. So who are you? All I know is that you're a killer who drinks whiskey and stabs or burns people with tropes.

TOM: Oh for crying out loud! I'm not a killer; yes I drink whiskey once in a while and a trope is a... it's a literary thing.

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: A literary thing?

Tom: Wait, I need to Wikipedia it...

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: You've got to be kidding.

Tom returns after a brief search.

TOM: Yeah it's a literary thing.

Whiskey Chuckles: Great work detective. So just for any potential readers out there, how about we sum this misguided conversation up?

TOM: Good idea. Ok so as a writer-

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: You're a writer now?!

TOM: Shut up! As a writer I like to make characters and in the past I've had some fairly bizarre but amusing mock-conversations with characters I've imagined in the past. So in an attempt to do something creative with this nonsensical ability I've decided to create a blog where you'll find comedic discussions between me and perhaps an ironing board-

IRONING BOARD: Ooooo, am I on the internet now?

TOM: And many other things including books, films, games, foods, television and maybe even random objects that people wish to have interviewed. So please give it a read as I'm totally new to blogging but would like to really give it a go. Cheers.

Pause

WHISKEY CHUCKLES: Has anyone checked this guy's history?