How to Make Friends and Influence People

Blow up three round balloons, quite firmly


Push a small cloth bag of marbles into each balloon making sure that the ends of the bag hang out below the rim of the balloon and tie-off the ends of the balloon and marble bag into one knot. Don't question this, just do it, The balloon might burst the first couple of times you try it, but eventually it will work

Tear a newspaper of your choice into strips (I favour the Financial, Sunday or Oban Times)

Fill washing-up bowl (or bucket) with tepid water

Dip the newspaper strips into the water and then apply to the surface of a balloon

Make sure each balloon is completely covered in paper with no gaps except for a small (tiny) circular space around the knot of each balloon

When this first layer is drying, apply a second layer. Repeat until you have good coverage

If you want to cheat and use Copydex, I won't tell on you

When the paper shell is dry and hard to the touch (could mean sitting up all night watching, touch-testing and re-testing), stick a pin through it popping the balloon, but crucially you must hold onto the knotted bit that's sticking out and make sure you don't lose it up into the brain cavity area

Next you need to paint a face on one side (or both sides if you want two-faced friends) of the shell and add a wig, make-up, facial hair or jewellery as desired

Take a pillow and sew to each of the four corners an arm or leg (tights (colour of your choice) stuffed with scrunched up newspaper)

Tie a ribbon around the bit of the balloon and bag sticking out and feed and re-feed the two ends of that ribbon through a circular bit of cleaned washing-up bottle that you cut up earlier even though I forgot to tell you because you are so smart that you anticipated you would need a neck bit and I might forget until now

Safety pin the ribbon and the plastic neck to the middle top of the pillow

You have now made a new friend.

Repeat until you have 3 (or more if required - not recommended, they can pair up and leave you alone, but with 3 there'll always be one left over for you to talk to) new friends

Name them (I named mine Keanu Reeves, Drew Barrymore and David Foster Wallace, for example)

Put Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show on and let them know you're just popping out for a while (ask them if they need anything while you're out, he/she/they is your friends and maybe feeling vulnerable and new at the moment) (and they are naked, which is why you are going out anyway)

Buy capsule wardrobes - casual, formal and at home lounging around vestments, including underwear and shoes. Definitely hats, too - for each

Spend a few hours getting to know each other a little then set off for a caravan holiday on the South-West coast of Scotland (you will have to do the driving, and pack the car and make the picnic, but they won't need pee-stops on the way)

Enjoy your holiday

PS: Don't forget to take them home with you (unless you have a huge argument or you decide your first attempts weren't that great and fancy making new ones when you get home again, in which case you could leave them artfully posed around the caravan for the next occupants to find and maybe have more luck with than you did)