Now this is a task that has been simmering away in the back of my mind pretty much since I started playing SF0. The only problem with it was that many people have already done it, and so how would I pull away from the pack and do something notable? The idea hit me about a week ago, and it has finally been put into practice.


And, at the risk of becoming a man whose life is revolving around puns (see making stationery non-stationary and flashing people as a distraction), I worked on advancing the time-honoured method of keeping things secret: I kept it under my hat. I feel, however, that this requirews some explanation. You see, in my time at university I have become rather well-known for wearing a bush hat day in, day out - less so nowadays, due to it being very old and somewhat flattened by excessive being-sat-on-accidentally. In fact I wore it so much that I believe more people around uni know me as Indy than my real name (due to it being similar to what Indiana Jones wore - these people's originality astounds me no end). Below is an example of the hat from previous years.




The next step was to work out how to keep items in the hat to stay where they were put. You could simply put everything in there and hope it all stays, but Stafford is an extremely windy town, especially in these winter months, and so as soon as the hat left my head everything placed in it would soon disappear into the sunset. So instead of just putting everything in and hoping for the best, I went out and purchased a metre of elastic and a needle and thread. Understand that I have not done any form of needlework for about ten years, so any type of accomplishment that another person would feel from making temporary pockets in their hat was fet tenfold by me!

At this point, it's probably prudent to mention what I would normally carry with me every day. My usual day-to-day items are not carried in a wallet as much as a shoulder bag, which carries everything i might need over the day. Anything. The current inventory list includes:

-phone
-credit cards, library cards, etc.
-two lighters
-house keys for both houses
-pool ball
-toothbrush
-spare batteries for the camera
-MP3 player and headphones
-coursework notes
-chocolate
-hair ties
-pens, pencils, eraser, etc.
-Nintendo DS
-spoons
-SF0 Calling cards
-and a small amount of cash in varying denominations.

Obviously, I wasn't going to fit all of this in a hat unless it was significantly bigger. So instead I narrowed it down to what needed taking daily - cards, calling cards, money, phone, lighter (you never know), and keys. This sorted out, I marked the partitions in my hat and set about sewing.

The hat stayed on my person for a whole week, through thick and thin. I got a series of odd looks and barely contained laughs of incredulity from bystanders, especially when going to pay for something in queues at the market. My personal favourite comment was that of the woman working behind the counter at the chip shop - "That's a fantastic idea, no-one would ever steal your hat! I'm tempted to do that now!"

The only problem I have with the hat is that, as I've previously mentioned, Stafford is extremely blowy about this time fo the year. Even with the added weight of everything strapped into the hat, the wind can still catch the brim and send it flying. Also, this was aided by the fact that these hats aren't really designed to have things put in them (barring the wearer's head, of course). Therefore, the phone, the lighter and a great deal of pound coins made for a very lumpy hat which tended to not sit quite right on my head. Never mind, though - I'm still tempted to keep my effects in it after the Task has finished!