There is a short story and a long story, and I’m not sure you have the time or patience for the long one.

The Spoon thing is a very VERY long running joke. It started approximately twelve or thirteen years ago when a large proportion of the people I knew were Glaswegian.

The Glaswegian accent is a very wonderful one, in my humble opinion. It can be used to command attention – for instance “Have you got a problem mate?” said in a Glaswegian accent can usually make people back away much more effectively than if said with oooh say a West Country accent. A lot of comedians seem to have Glaswegian accents, possibly because you can fit a lot of drama into it. After all, it has lovely rolling vowels and lots of high and low tones and you can speed it up or slow it down very easily as well, perfect for comic timing. And it’s also undeniably a regional accent, an accent of the working class. Which is why BT and a few other major companies, when they were seeking voices that would comfort the common man and put him at ease, stocked their entire phone support divisions with Scottish people with gentle Glaswegian lilts. I swear a lot of them were putting it on.

I loved the accent, and not having been very long from the Isle of Man at that time where it is still legal to shoot a Scotsman coming out sea (true!), I’d obviously not met a lot of Scottish people previously.

I loved the way they said Spoon. It comes out as “Spune”, starting with a long anticipatory lingering ssssp followed with a swift tight thunderclap “-une” at the end, usually a tone higher. Of course I also love the way the Northern Irish say the word “Orange” which is impossible to describe (aside from the fact they don’t usually say that word anyway because afterwards shooting starts). However the way the Glaswegians say “Spoon” is definitely better and when it was pointed out, it became an object of great fascination and hilarity.

Eee, many a party ended in them days with a bunch of Scotsman sitting in a circle, pissed out of their minds and all saying “Spune” to one another then giggling. Further spoon jokes followed (all mainly based on pronunciation) and when I lost touch with that crowd, the spoon thing sort of stuck with me though no-one got the joke anymore because I can’t do a Scottish accent. It didn’t make any difference though. From thereon, I thought spoons were incredibly funny objects.

More jokes came of this. Originally there was the Know Your Spoon Campaign – founded in the early nineties. A stunningly unsuccessful campaign too I might add, chiefly because of its complete lack of nation wide advertising and the fact John Leslie turned down the offer of being its spokesperson (which is just as well really now, looking back on it). The KYSC did gain a cult underground following however and that’s where I earned the dubious title “that spoon lady”. Chat nicknames soon became “Spoonlady”, e-mail signatures soon included the words “the spoon lady”. Thus time passed and when it became trendy to buy your own .com…I got something with a spoon flavour to it (even though I now had a developing interest in Hamsters (so to speak)).

Spoonland is my secret base where I plot my evil plans. Spoonland.com is a virtual manifestation of the same.

After all, I always wanted to be an evil genius. All the other girls at school wanted to be nurses or air hostesses but not me. I had the penchant for inventing horrifying vehicles of mass destruction (in Lego). I had an evil laugh. I had a grudge for which I held the entire world responsible and a need for domination (which I exercised on gerbils back then but have since expanded my realm). Hell I was really made for the position! It was either that or a desk job in the civil service.

Alas they didn’t do degrees in Evil Geniusness back then so I had to settle for a few placement courses in Nemesis-ism and being a part time bete noire for a while. I finally graduated with a BSc in Arch Villain-ism in ’94 (which is more or less like an Evil Genius isn’t it? They’ll never know) and I’ve done a few other external courses since then just to keep my skills up to date.

It’s only really now, however, that I have finally accumulated sufficient knowledge and power to begin putting my plans in action. Frankly, fitting the office up with the trap door to the shark tank and swivel chair etc weren’t particularly hard, it’s amazing what self assembly kits you can get in those big DIY shops these days (though the table my large scale model of my planned area of domination is on is a bit wobbly because the pack was missing a screw, and some of the cupboard doors stick a bit as well).

Getting the cat was easy, as was getting the mutant side kick/odd job man. Acquiring the small volcanic island was a real bitch though – do you know how much those things sell for these days??? In the end I had to kill the previous owner and assume their identity, which is fine except that none of their clothes fit. The rest of it should all be plain sailing though…I have successfully infiltrated the telecommunications industry even now*…

If you are a casual visitor, please stay – you’re welcome to look around. If you are one of my regulars, Hello! Lovely to see you again! The overhaul should mean that Spoonland should get very exciting in the next month or so.

I best go now. The World doesn’t dominate itself you know!