With Halloween on the horizon, Adam and I somehow got on to the topic of gruesome things we could do with a heart for his party. We decided that the gore factor of having a pulsating heart on a plate in his fridge was definitely worth attempting.
Initially the plans revolved around attaching electrodes to achieve a TENS style effect. A bit of googling threw up little more than some dodgy Darwin awards contenders (I'll let you look that one up). Ultimately we came to conclusion that if it could be done, it would be on youtube, so we decided to pursue different avenues.
Adam wanted to go down the inflation route, while I was convinced a motorised solution would be easier to build and control. We decided that it wasn't worth arguing about until we at least knew we could purchase a heart.
Thus, the first half of last Monday evening was spent calling in every butcher (Polish and Halal, we weren't fussy) asking if they had any hearts. Thankfully we weren't arrested and eventually found what can only be described as a breakers yard for sheep. The guy on the band saw at the back sticks in the memory, as do the skinless (but sadly not eyeless) sheep heads to the right of the display.
The gentleman took our order and disappeared out back, leaving us to peruse the assorted bits of meat. Most were identifiable, a collection of pale looking almost spherical organs were not. Adam paid 46p for the heart and was leaving the shop when curiosity got the better of me and I decided to enquire about the identity of the unidentifiable organs. With churlish grin and hand aloft, palm up in a grasping position: "Testicles!" he bellowed. We left, quickly, each of us giggling. You could probably make a decent soup out of them.
I tried to buy flour in a Polish supermarket but, alas, I do not know the Polish words for 'plain white flour' so had to resort to Tescos. I did find some nice cherry juice though, sadly not as good as the greek sour cherry juice we had in Parga. The search continues. We did find another butcher that supplied us an ox heart, to go with our lambs, for just £1 though.
After some wrangling, embedded motors were to be our actuators of choice The 12mm pager motors I'd spotted on ebay were deemed to be ideal. Wednesday evening saw me detour via Oval to collect them.
A bit of electronics research, a few days, a pub quiz and more than one trip to Maplins later and we considered ourselves all set. Not one to miss any excitement, Will joined us on Friday evening to assemble the monstrosity.
This is where I'd normally put a link to the youtube video. Except it didn't work. The pager motors just didn't have the grunt to induce any significant movement in the lump of tough meat. The electronics were abut half way complete but at about midnight we called a halt to the proceedings. We destroyed a cat-5 cable to use the insulation as a tube and half glues half duct taped a balloon on the end then Will and I left to catch the tube/bus back home.
I didn't attend the party, but I imagine Adam probably cooked the heart, whole, in a stew. I'm not sure if I'd have eaten any.
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