How to make a fire brand

You will need:

• Wood (not too short or you're liable to get burnt, and somewhere

between too thin when the wood gets burnt through and too thick, when it's inconvenient to hold - something about the thickness of 1.5 broom handles but maybe slightly shorter)

• Tinfoil (a fairly thick variety - its job is to protect the wood under

the torch)

• Chicken wire (the smallest mesh you can get - this is to stop bits of

fiery cloth going everywhere)

• Something like staples to hold the wire in place and a device for

putting them in with (we used those double ended horseshoe shaped nails and a hammer once, but the Big Stapler is better)

• Something to cut the wire with, and gloves.

• Cotton or linen (but definitely natural fibre) sheets.

Cover about the top foot of the wood with two layers (minimum) of aluminium foil and then proceed to tear the cloth up into strips about an inch wide and as long as you can.

Start winding....

(check to see if you have something that looks like one of the pictures on Flickr, if not - tie another bit on, and wind again)

Keep doing this. This is boring, really - hence all the dubious jokes.

Eventually.... stop

Cut out enough chickenwire mesh to wrap round the end and staple it in place.

Go to the pub for a bit.

Dip the end of the torch in paraffin for a good long time (you can determine this by making more than one torch and having a test burn or two, good ends to start from are two hours and overnight)

Light it!

In an ideal world, it should burn for about half an hour or so, but once it's gone out you can sometimes restart it by swinging it wildly round your head so that any paraffin in the centre is flushed out to the edges. DO NOT do this near people, or with torch balls (they tend to go flying off unpredictably).