Recipes

Anyone who says that public libraries are obsolete or that semi-random, serendipitous access to printed books is not important any more is a bellend, simple as that. Without my local public library I would never have found out half the enlightening, useful and inspiring things I know.  The internet is immensely valuable but it just isn’t the same. I’ll admit that what follows is quite esoteric, but you never know when you’ll need to make some fake brain matter. Perhaps I’ll do my long-cherished grand guignol theatre project some time soon.

These recipes come from a (surprise!) rarely borrowed book called Special Effects Make-up, published fairly recently by Methuen, translated from Danish. No, I don’t know why there’s a demand for home-made gore effects in Denmark either. There just is, OK?

“Brains

Mix the following ingredients in a bowl: mashed banana, liver pâté, porridge, rich cleansing lotion and a little gelatine… leave the resulting substance to thicken a bit after you’ve finished.

Brand X

Have you ever watched a film or TV show and thought “that’s a really terrible imitation of [brand we’re meant to recognise without it being the actual brand, which they can’t or won’t use for legal and/or commercial reasons]”, for example when a character gets a vague-looking beer out of their fridge or has Fakey-Flakes breakfast cereal on their kitchen table? I definitely have. Sometimes they’re atrocious, not much better than the deliberately generic Acme products in an old cartoon. Some of them are actually not terrible at all; occasionally they’re even quite witty. Real world discount supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl also specialise in these Brand X near-clones. One of the best ones I’ve seen recently was Lidl’s “Neos” (i.e. fake Oreos), whose name and packaging is so brazen I had to laugh at their audacity.

Of course it’s also remarkable and somewhat depressing to realise just how attuned, trained and indoctrinated most of us are to logos, branding and corporate identities. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be disconcerted or find it funny when somebody does an imitation of these brands, alludes to them, puns with or satirises them.

It stands to reason that it’s somebody’s job to design and make these TV perfect simulacra of consumer goods. One of those somebodies is Independent Studio Services, who have a long list of film and television credits as background and practical prop suppliers. I’ve picked out just a few of their products. There are loads more of these on their site. If like me you’re a bit autistic about things like this, I warn you that following the link may lead to inexplicable episodes of missing time.