The Poorhouse, scared of appearing too much of a stereotypically masculine he-man, decided to take up a nice new hobby a few days ago more normally associated with strange old women. A practical and creative guru (who may remain anonymous unless they want to out themselves) introduced him into the world of...

KNITTING.

It started off well, with the initial field training being successful, if slightly slow. The phrase "Star Pupil" was not exactly required to describe the situation. Step one was to learn the magic of a slip knot.

Yes readers, there is a knot out there that looks like it has been tied, but a swift tug of the string and it vanishes before your very eyes. Surely there must be many a magical trick based on this crazy phenomenon. Of course one wonders why there is an non-conjural advantage to a knot that is danger of vanishing every time a weakling tugs on the thread, but apparently there is.

Step two - "casting on". Basically making the wool stick to the needle in the first place (excuse the advanced terminology). The final and most thrilling step....the knitting itself. Starting - and ending, for the time being - off with basic knit the less-than-deft hands of the Poorhouse were carefully guided to produce the below object d'art.

Admittedly most of the stitches (hoops? Whatever one calls an individual knit-thing.) were done by tutor extraordinaire. Nonetheless the Poorhouse beamed with addictive, practical pride.

Until 2 days later.

Trying to continue the glory, the Poorhouse set to a-knitting, recreating the exact learned steps of how to knit, to produce..........an unholy knotty mess. Ruination! Sobbing! Fury! Tear-apart! Destroy!

Fortunately, in stepped another covert knitter-tutor. Apparently there are a lot of them about. Lessons were relearnt. Attention was re-paid. The Poorhouse - having the worst memory in the world - made sure to not leave more than 30 minutes between the time learnt to do a task and the occurrence of actually doing it.

So, the mission is back on. Stand back in awe and witness the creation of the amazing real-life product so far named the Small Grey Trapezoish-Rectangle.

There is something of a back list of orders for scarves, hats et al. stretching further than the biggest ball of wool in the world, but by all means add yourself to the list. First opening is approximately December 2079. Anyone who would rather have a small badly formed geometric shape of sorts in grey may be given priority.