You may have come across The Diary Will Change Your Life, the series of journals produced by ingenious duo Benrik. Each day or week comes with a task, be it "Threaten A Foreign Country" or "Go Dogging as a Jehovah's Witness". We didn't think people actually followed the instructions. Then we went to last night's launch of this "Best Of". How wrong we were.
Attendees of the party at KK Outlet in Hoxton Square, London, were invited to take part in a "speed life-changing" session: a bit like speed-dating, but instead of facing a series of future-wives or husbands, participants got two minutes with a dominatrix, a voodoo priest, a cosmetic doctor, a Hare Krishna and a tattooist. To our amazement, the two-minute tattoos on offer were quite popular (despite Ben Carey of Benrik mentioning the "Mexican stand-off" with the publishers when they realised they weren't joking). One brave/crazy lady, an avowed follower, even went for the full "Benrik" tattoo, on her shoulder.
Call us a bunch of wusses, but we strongly recommend appreciating Benrik's finely designed ideas in a more passive mode, and should the urge for the inked needle become too strong, try tattooing a banana instead (see below).
This Book Will Change Your Life (Boxtree) is out now. www.benrik.co.uk
