How to make Crisp Packet Triangles

How to make Crisp Packet Triangles.

Within the next decade or so (by the end of February in the Year of Their Lard 2005, in case any historians from eight centuries in the future are looking back on the dusty archive of this Shrine as the beginning of the inevitable new religion), we are hoping to include detailed, colourful and altogether very patronising diagrams (that's with a d) to improve the facilitation by which the Art of the Triangle is taught to the many who are the People who Live in Darkness (not to be confused with bats, who are not people).

It is of course noted that there are several Divine Ways in which Crisp Packet Triangles can be brought into the world, and most of these are not dependant on immaculate conception as their basic premise. For the time being, we are hereby authorised to tutor you in one of the most straightforward of these methods and ways.

The Simple 16-Step Guide To Triangular Construction

1. Obtain a crisp packet, or optionally one of the many alternatives to a crisp packet which may be utilised as the basis for this operation. These particular instructions are based on the assumption that the packet you find can be considered rectangular by somebody of sane mind. These can usually be purchased at all the most relevant shops.

2. Relieve the packet of any extraneous contents that it may have, such as, for example, crisps.

3. Ensure that you are now the owner of an empty and flat crisp packet (or similar item- see #1) by placing the packet in question on a floor, and stamping up and down on it for a timespan of roughly five minutes. Your stamps should be mostly in a constant vertical direction for fear of irrevocably ripping the packet, and should not greatly exceed five minutes for fear of causing it internal bleeding. This process is catalysed by the use of a hard, even an unc*rpeted, floor, and if you are a very fat person wearing heavy shoes.

4. You are now ready to make a Crisp Packet Triangle. If you suffer from high blood pressure, it might be a little excessive to have a few medically-trained personnel on hand should you collapse during this, but such precautions will not greatly impede the Triangle making process.

5. Find which side of the packet you are using is shorter than the other side. If this is your first time making a triangle, it might be best to use a ruler (if you are a man, be sure not to exaggerate the inches), but if you are a more experienced triangular, it may be done by visual consideration alone.

6. Fold the packet over relative to the shorter side, so that the length of the shorter side is halved whilst the length of the more lengthy side remains the same. If you are using a crisp packet and you find that the 'spine' gets in the way of making the two sides of the fold even, do not worry. On this fold (but only on this fold) it does not matter if the two 'halves' of the fold are not equal.

7. Repeat the process described in #6- in the same words, fold the packet over relative to the shorter side, so that the length of the shorter side is halved again whilst the length of the more lengthy side is still completely unaffected. On this fold, the lengths should meet and the halves should be equal, otherwise the triangle making procedure could be severely impinged.

8. Remove any air that may have inadvertantly crept into the packet whilt you weren't looking. This is done by running caressing fingers along the soft packet, the soft nerves of your tender touch feeling every ripple and breath of the soft, tender skin. If you should now feel the need to go and lie down, be sure to place the packet under a heavy book before you go so that the air doesn't get back in again. On the subject of air, it is important that by this stage in the proceedings, you have not forgotten to breathe for any long period of time.

9. If you want this easy, you could wait a month or so now until pictures are installed on this web page because describing this bit isn't easy. In effect, you should hold the packet lengthways and fold one of the ends (of the long side) through a right-angle around a diagonal pivot in the middle so that you end up with a right-angled shape. If you don't understand, get a geometry teacher to do it for you, but be sure not to listen to what they are saying with their mouths because it might prove fatal to your brain in your head. A rough illustration of this (the folding, not the geometry teachers' deadly mouths) can be seen in Fig 1.

Fig. 1 (above)

10. Take the half of the packet that you have just folded through a right angle, and with any amount of care and precision that you choose to apply to the task, fold it underneath the triangular area just formed, so that it is now forming the other right-angle with the side that you didn't fold. Again, this is possibly better illustrated with the use of a diagram (Fig 2. will suffice for the time being). If you are a blind person, get the person who is reading this text for you to study the diagram.

Fig. 2 (above)- grid supplied to facilitate visually assuming measurement. Grid supplied by Squares & Geometrical Designs Ltd., Earlsfield Road, London SW18.

11. Take the other half of the packet- the half that you did not just flap under the central triangle- and flap under the central triangle. You should now find yourself with a right-angled triangle in the middle of your work, with two dangly bits, one leading from each of the triangle's two shorter (and equal) sides. An illustration would be supplied for clarity if I could presently be arsed.

12. Push the flap that you have most recently folded into the triangle, under the top triangular bit, so that hopefully it will half-'disappear' into the main section. Ultimately, this particular flap will completely disappear by the time the triangle is finished, so if you are compelled to write naughty words or draw naughty pictures on this particular flap, then this is excusable. A Crisp Packet Triangle should be wantonly defaced at any other time.

13. Take the other flap and fold it into the triangle in the same way. Do not walk under ladders whilst doing this, as the Shrine Zone is not legally responsible for the consequences. Any cars parked in the Shrine Zone car park have been placed there at the owner's risk, by the way, and we're not legally responsible if we burgle them.

14. By now you should have a square-like shape of sorts, one half of which is the now-almost-finished triangle, the other half of which has been formed by the sticky-out bits of the flaps. This can be assessed using your eyes.

15. Fold the triangle made out of the flaps into the main triangle in a similar way to what you did with the flaps. Give it a good push until what you have left is quite clearly a triangular shape.

You have now completed your triangle!

16. Celebrate with nourishment of either a solid or liquid form. Tell all your friends and commemorate with a party. Send a full and detailed e-mail of your triangle-making experience to the Crisp Packet Triangle Shrine Zone.

Congratulations. You must be very happy.

You can now found out what to do with your triangle, or if you were particularly thrilled by your triangle-making and are not too tired you can now go on to make a triangle out of other things. The fun has just begun!

Footnotes

Arsed- clq. sl., "bothered". Derived from the Latin ars brevis which means 'flying pig'.

Breathe- breathing is good. I would recommend it to most creatures with aerobic respiration.

Crisps- you should not, ultimately, be afraid of crisps, because this behaviour is now considered irrational when with polite company. Although it is well documented that crisps can make loud crunching noises, or give off a skunk-like smell that can displease surrounding animals, or be putridly soggy, it is worth remembering that they are simply inanimate thin slices of food carved from the entrails of a dead potato, and as such, you should only be particularly afraid of crisps if you are a small insect with a weak skin who happens to notice prawn cocktail crisps falling upon you from a particularly large height.

Man- the basis of this rather cheap sexist joke relies on the consideration of this usage of the word "man" to refer to a homo sapiens of male gender, rather than to mankind or other such modern nineties political correctness, and on a basic knowledge of late century twentieth century Western mating neuroses. It should not be explained with footnotes.

Most- but not all.

A Particularly Large Height- for example, seven metres.

Push- the application of force. Can be done with fingers, providing your other fingers are holding the other side of the triangle (or the triangle has been placed on a surface with an extremely high friction), otherwise the net effect of this force will be to push the triangle away from you, which is pointless because you only have to move it back again.

Shops- yes indeed, shops. Properly known as "shopping establishment houses", these can often be found next to, or near, other shops, or sometimes on their own.

Spine- the bit down the middle.

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