Day 5: Today, subvert consumer society from within

Above: Me, Chris, and cards which didn't photograph very well.

Even more delays! I swear I will get back on track soon! Promise! If I don't you have every right to blog about how much of a bad blogger I am. Name me and shame me. It's what I deserve! But in all seriousness, my essay is now finished, so blogs should be a bit more frequent, but I won't let blogs get in the way of my social life. Because my friends are the best!

I'm now blogging about Tuesday, where Benrikians were required to subvert consumer society by placing little messages in products in shops that will hopefully make the said consumer society feel bad about their purchases. As Chris was also following the Book, we decided to hit town together - double the subversion! I cut out the cards from my current book, and from last year's Diary (I bought the book after this task, but it was one that I thought sounded awesome and was sad that I missed out on - thank you for giving me another chance Benrik!) and went to town to hopefully hit the public even harder emotionally than my terrifying middle finger based onslaught the day previous!

Chris and I cleverly decided to be a bit subtle in our attack, we'd look around shops for a while innocently, then slip our cards of guilt into relevant items. We first hit up Marks & Spencer, as this sold a nice variety of clothing and home items. Or so we thought. Actually, it's mostly clothing and food. Chris slipped a card into a really expensive meal he saw in there, as he felt it deserved it. I didn't know this at the time though, he was so sneaky I had no idea he did it. We then went to the clothes section and I snuck a card into a shirt pocket. Very badly. Whereas he kept getting rid of his cards in really subtle ways. Impressive! In fact, he was so good at it that by the time we left M&S he had about 5 cards left, while I had 7.

We then went to Burton/Dorothy Perkins. We started by throwing some cards into some ladies boots we saw near the entrance. During which, I very subtly said loudly 'Hmmmm, I wonder if my girlfriend would like these?' No one would suspect a thing! Unless they knew I didn't have a girlfriend... We then went to the Burton section and Chris put a card into a bag. Specifically the card you're supposed to put into a bag. He opened it up and had a look inside it, making sure that the bag was 'to his liking'. On the way out, I had a look in some lady's bags. During which, I very subtly said loudly 'Hmmmm, I wonder if my mum would like this?' No one would suspect a thing! Unless they knew I didn't have a mum... Oh wait, I do. But the bag was ugly, I hope mum wouldn't have liked it.

Next up - vases! Specifically for the 'This vase is expensive yet empty - same as you?' card. This was actually really quite difficult, vases don't go by often in town. Chris went to a shop called Glyph to do his, and fortunately, there was a vase in there. But, even better, and for reasons I won't disclose, it was good way for Chris to exact a small vengeance on someone who is closely linked to that shop... I went to Abbeygate Lighting, an, ahem, lighting, and other aesthetic goods, store. Which was closed due to a power cut. Despite all the lights being on inside. Ooooookay. I went to the Wharf instead, where they did have vases, it's just that that they were completely clear glass vases. Oh well, seeing as nowhere else seemed to do vases, I slipped one in. It didn't even hit the bottom, resting very obviously just above the base. We quickly high-tailed it out of there.

Above: FAIL!

We also went to Boots sometime between vase hunting, for the perfume card. Neither of us really knew where the perfume was, so we attacked other items instead. Chris saw a big, expensive kit which was specifically designed for foot fetishism, sorry, I mean foot care, which I incredibly unsubtly slapped a card onto. We looked at other objects, looking for expensive stuff in particular, and I put one of mine in a pricey box of... Actually, I don't remember what it was. But it was quite expensive. So it had it coming! By this point Chris was almost out of cards, though I still had a couple more left.

Next up, we looked for even more expensive items for our last few cards. Especially the 'Have you read any Marx lately, you capitalist swine?' card, one of my faves. We had a look in a classy antiques store, but there was nothing quite expensive enough. Fortunately, next to this was a big department store. We went in and looked for the most expensive items. Which we'd decided were fridges. So we put the cards in the fridges, gaining lots of weird looks on the way out. But not before Chris thought that he might be able to put the card intended for a car in a toy car. Clever! But, believe it or not, there were barely any toy cars in the store. So we went hardcore. No, not sexually hardcore. That was way later...

We went to a car lot and considered asking to have a look in some cars and try and sneak them into the glove compartments. Alas, we didn't have a good feeling about the first one we went to, so went to another. Which we had an even worse feeling about. So we just snuck the cards under the windscreen wipers of some random cars, and, with that, finished our subversion! What I found funniest was probably the fact that there is a shitload of CCTV footage of us going around town and looking at slightly unusual objects, and just generally looking suspicious (I kept looking for cameras too, because that won't alert anybody watching the surveillance footage...).

After this, which was definitely the most fun I've had tasking so far, Chris came to mine for a bit, where we played poker badly (we weren't entirely certain on the rules), which he won. We then played a bit of bass, conversing about how ludicrously difficult Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' is, despite it sounding pretty simple. We then headed off to Jay and Kate's (eventually, we forgot just about EVERYTHING we had each time we left). Which was an awesome night, but I can't really remember much that happened that particular night, seeing as I've spent the last couple of nights there too. But I know I had a lovely time! I wrote that much in my diary! And having a lovely time is the important part. Right, guys? Please don't kill me for forgetting!