hello world, you're looking rather changed if i may say so...

So. Changing the world. Easier typed than done, even on my battered laptop that's missing a few keys, but the increasingly-optimistic Mark Watson has challenged us to do just that while he is on holiday in Portugal. Naturally teaming up with sister Rachel (@pandorapink, just plain ol' pandora on the forum), we had a bit of a think of what we could possibly do.

We realised that realistically there isn't much that we an do with a big impact and between us we're already doing our own little bits. Rachel has just qualified as a physio and lives for helping old people and stroke patients learn to walk again and I'm doing the Great North Run for charity in September. But to make it a Watson/this week specific event, we decided that something daft would be a much more enjoyable way to spend an afternoon...

We decided that making a few people smile would be a worthy, if not very meaningful way of changing the world. And what is more smiley than a complimentary post-it note..? Armed with a stack of post-it notes and some marker pens, we wandered about the town centre of our nearest time, Kettering (people that know Kettering will realise that Kettering may require something a lot more drastic than a post-it note to change, but at least it's covered in multi-coloured notes now). We left around fifty smiley, complimentary, perky, jokey, flippant, twee, sarcastic, flattering and dappy messages. If you live in or near Kettering, you can find them in books, in shops,lifts, photobooths, public toilets, stairwells and on benches, payphones, doorhandles, and cafe tables. The photo evidence is in a flickr album linked at the bottom, though we often werent speedy enough to stick a note, take a photo and run off before someone noticed (which is why I told @RickProcter that it was a challenge involving post-it notes, courage and agility).

I'm not sure if it has changed the world, but the idea that it might have amused a few people might make the world slightly more happy in a vague immeasurable sense. And if it amused anyone even half as much as seeing Rachel try to stick a smiley face into a copy of Crime and Punishment, 'because it's pretty fucking miserable' amused me, then it's a job well done I think.

Flickr Album of Post-it Note Joy