00:00My book, The Unordinary Book of Ideas, is being released very soon.
00:04A collection of 55 playful projects to encourage creativity in kids and adults alike.
00:08So I thought now would be the perfect opportunity to tell you about some of my favourites,
00:13as well as some hidden details and easter eggs.
00:15Also, next weekend, the 26th and 27th of September,
00:18I'm going to be at Dublin BritCon for a meet and greet,
00:21and the book will be available early to buy.
00:23Then on the 2nd of October, I'm giving a talk at Bath Children's Literature Festival,
00:27with live project demos, a Q&A and signing.
00:30Links for tickets to both events are in the description.
00:32But anyway, I need to tell you a secret.
00:35When I made the Domino video and first announced a book a few months ago,
00:39it hadn't actually been printed yet.
00:41Instead, this is something called a dummy book,
00:43and it's completely blank inside.
00:44Which means...
00:46A couple of months later, I went to Scotland,
00:52where the book was being printed at the Glasgow-based printers Bell & Bain.
00:55I was beyond excited.
00:57What had previously just been a document on my laptop,
01:00was suddenly about to become something real I could hold in my hands.
01:03It started with paper.
01:04Literally hundreds of tons of it.
01:06There's obviously lots of ink, too.
01:08Enormous drums full in cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
01:12It's very noisy, I don't know how much you can hear me.
01:15But black, cyan, magenta and yellow are all printed separately.
01:19So, the paper comes in here.
01:36It's printed using a method called lithography,
01:39where a raised plate is made that stamps the text and images onto the paper.
01:43A different stamp is made for each of the four colours,
01:45and they look a little weird on their own,
01:47but combine the four plates and colours,
01:48and the finished page magically appears.
01:51This right here is some of the pages of 15,400 copies.
01:57Look at that, Ralph and Bella.
01:59It's lovely.
02:00On some of the pages, there's also a flipbook animation of Ralph walking around.
02:05Wow, there's another one there.
02:06They're just in a weird order for when they're folded.
02:08The process is then repeated on a smaller machine for the cover.
02:22And I got to keep an uncut sheet, which is now proudly framed in my house.
02:27Now, printing a book takes several days,
02:29so the next steps are going to be demonstrated using random books.
02:32The finished sheets are loaded into another machine,
02:35which perfectly folds them into small booklets,
02:37then get compiled with booklets of all the other pages,
02:39and glued together along the spine.
02:41Next comes my favourite part.
02:43They then ascend this wonderful spiral,
02:45which takes exactly three and a half minutes to reach the top,
02:48allowing the glue time to dry.
02:49Finally, the edges are chopped, trimming off all the excess,
02:52and as the printer very kindly sent me some later footage to demonstrate,
02:55finished books come out the conveyor belt.
02:57I just want to thank everyone at Bell and Bane for being so accommodating,
03:01and explaining everything so thoroughly.
03:03The whole process was fascinating,
03:04and I feel so lucky to have been able to visit and watch it happen.
03:07So thanks a million.
03:08So here it finally is in person, the unordinary book of ideas,
03:12and aside from anything else, it really is a beautiful object.
03:16And I can say that without any arrogance,
03:18because although I wrote the entire thing,
03:19it was wonderfully illustrated by the very talented Peter Bernard and Rick DeLucco.
03:24In the past, I used to release postcards relevant to whichever video I was working on,
03:28and Peter and Rick perfectly captured that style.
03:31The entire book is illustrated without even a single photograph.
03:34There are literally thousands of individual drawings,
03:36and in fact, when I finished, and they asked me for an author's portrait,
03:40let me just find it.
03:43I asked if they could do that too, so here it is.
03:45Me doing my awkward smile with Henry on my shoulder.
03:48The cover takes the form of a collage, very much like the postcards,
03:52and is teeming with easter eggs and references to past videos, including the breakfast train,
03:56an English breakfast, cereal from the domino run, I'm noticing a breakfast theme here,
04:00plus coins, flags, a tapir, and even Ralph as a superhero.
04:04Something I've never actually acknowledged on my channel is that I've hidden the number 432
04:08in every single video since the start. It's already been in this video,
04:12you just likely didn't notice it, and of course I had to hide it somewhere on the cover of the
04:17book.
04:17I'm not going to spoil it, you'll have to find it yourself, but just know that it is there somewhere.
04:22Oh, and if you turn to page 43, it's actually page 432.
04:27Talking of page numbers, there are various points where Ralph and Bella are playing with the numbers
04:31and letters, and as I pointed out at the printers, there's even a flipbook animation of Ralph walking
04:35across some of the pages.
04:37So as we open the book, there are some more beautiful illustrations.
04:41There's Bella and Ralph, it's dedicated to Tom because I miss Tom dearly.
04:46There's a contents page, an introduction, oh I lied to you, when I said I wrote the whole book,
04:51these are the only two pages I didn't write for legal reasons, it's all the kind of safety stuff,
04:55and then we get straight into the projects.
04:57But I'm rambling. In amongst the projects are a handful of other activities,
05:01including to find the odd Ralph out and colour them all in, and to press a leaf between the pages.
05:05So I want to tell you about two in particular.
05:08The first is to find the tapir. Tapirs are my favourite animal.
05:12I've made several videos about them, including the first ever on my channel,
05:15and I have a top secret video coming in the next six months, which heavily involves one.
05:19So I've hidden a tapir in every single project.
05:22Some of them are intentionally quite simple to find, such as this tapir in the first project,
05:26but for others they blend much more into the illustrations.
05:29So in the Create Your Own Newspaper project, the tapir, I'll give you this one,
05:34is hiding in the newspaper article. Oh, and Bella's also hiding.
05:38The other activity I want to tell you about is pretty similar,
05:41to find the hidden palindrome in every project.
05:44Palindromes are words such as racecar, spell the same forwards as backwards,
05:48and inspired by one of my all-time favourite albums, Racecar is Racecar Backwards,
05:52I've hidden one in every single project.
05:54Hopefully finding them all is going to prove to be quite the challenge.
05:57Even the easy ones aren't really that easy. So Otto, O-T-T-O, that's this chapter.
06:03Um, and it's actually why I chose that as Sir Sovington's first name in the first place.
06:08Um, others, if I go back to the newspaper article, others are actually entire sentences,
06:14such as, was it a cat I saw? Um, so that's six words, but the whole sentence is a palindrome.
06:21Uh, some of them are separated by punctuation, some of them involve numbers,
06:25so yeah, good luck finding them all.
06:27Alright, so far I've told you about everything but the projects themselves,
06:30so I want to share with you a few of my favourites.
06:33First, making a travel signpost out of ice pop sticks.
06:36The second ever video on my channel saw me make a giant travel signpost,
06:40with arrows and distances pointing to places I'd visited,
06:43and the goal of this project is to make a miniature version.
06:46It requires basic supplies you likely already have, and encourages you to learn about maps,
06:51working out distances, using a compass, flags, and culture.
06:54The end result is a delightfully homemade souvenir by which you can remember your travels,
06:59or get excited about future trips.
07:02Henry!
07:03Another favourite is to visit somewhere on a banknote or coin.
07:06Again, this is something I've done many, many times on my channel,
07:09so I'll share with you an example I haven't made a video about.
07:12Last year, I visited the Pyramid and Sphinx in Egypt,
07:15so of course got a shot alongside the corresponding banknote.
07:18When I visit a museum, for instance, I aimlessly wander and feel woefully uncultured,
07:23but using a banknote or coin as a guidebook encourages me to become more interested,
07:27and I learn more as a result.
07:28So I think this is a wonderful project.
07:30And finally, and this one was always going to be a favourite,
07:33to make a model train journey around your house.
07:36Once again, I've done this more times than I can count,
07:38and that's because it's such a blank canvas of a project,
07:41with so many ways to get creative and make it unique.
07:46In fact, it's been a while, so that's what I'm going to do in my next video, but with a
07:50twist.
07:51It's really hard to narrow it down to just three. All 55 projects are so different and so much fun.
07:57They're not strict instructions either. They leave plenty of wiggle room for you to use your own
08:01creativity and put your fingerprints all over. If everyone watching did the same project,
08:06no two outcomes would be the same. Each one of you would make something unique and charming and
08:12handcrafted, and I really love that.
08:14So yeah, I hope this hasn't been a sales pitch. I've just made a book that I love,
08:19that I'm very proud of, and that I think will have immense value to the reader,
08:22encouraging your own creativity and playfulness. It's released on the 1st of October in the UK
08:27and Europe, and the 24th of November in the US and rest of the world. But you can pre-order
08:32it
08:32right now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, Target, Walmart, and many independent bookshops too.
08:38If you want to meet me or hear me go on even more about the book in person, the links
08:43for
08:43both events are in the description. I appreciate they're only in the UK and Ireland. I am planning
08:47more. It's easiest to follow me on Instagram to find out about these things first.
08:52I'll see you next time.
08:52Bye.
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