Advice for the alternative lifestyle.

Homicide is a way of life.

Last week, we showed you how to construct a working time machine and drink mixer from the leftovers of household maintenance, how to convert a prominent member of the UN to Communism, and how to stage an armed Fascist uprising at your local town hall. This week, we show you how to commit the perfect murder.

Obviously, the first thing you need to do is choose your target. This could be anyone. I can't tell you who to go after. It could be someone you don't like much, someone you have a long-standing grudge against, someone you don't even know, even someone the voices in your head keep alluding to with all the discretion of a gorilla in high heels. Whoever it is, stalk them, make friends with them, or start picking off their friends and family. Any of these strategies are suitable depending on your opinion on them and your mental state.

If you are related to the victim and you are their long-lost whatever, you may want to let people catch brief glimpses of you on the few days leading up to the big event. If you take this option you might want to wear some kind of elaborate disguise, clothing that covers recognisable features or a scary mask. If you take that option, never remove the mask. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T LET THAT MASK LEAVE YOUR FACE. ESPECIALLY NOT DURING A BIG SHOWDOWN.

Secondly you want to choose a method of slaying. Strangling leaves no damning evidence, especially if you wear gloves, but a knife or gun is harder to overpower, and while a chainsaw can be both effective and fun, you'll have a hard time disguising the noise and the volcanic quantities of blood from concerned friends and neighbours. If you use an alternative weapon (cheese grater, corkscrew, ball-point), make sure you use that with all your slayings so that the police give you appropriate credit for all the discovered bodies.

Now then, unless you're a complete unknown to the town who's just escaped from a halfway house and is wearing a big furry hood or something, you'll probably want to dispose of the body, so you can pretend that absolutely nothing has happened and that the person in question has just wandered too close to the car crusher. You can always torch the poor soul, but you might want to smash all the teeth to smithereens with a hammer beforehand so they don't get identified. Your best option is to chop it up into lots of little bits, put each little bit in a separate paper bag, and put each separate paper bag in a different really hot furnace / river / shallow grave.

Why a shallow grave? You ask. Why not dig a really, really deep one, then concrete it over? To be honest, I don't know. I suppose a shallow grave is more convenient. It might take a whole day and a team of workmen to dig a really deep grave then build an enormous statue of Ray Jay Johnson on top. But if you can, then do so by all means. By the time it's been pulled down as an eyesore and the body's been discovered, you'll be in the Bahamas having Oriental women lowered onto your John Thomas. That's assuming you're a man. Most murderers are men. White men between 18 and 30. Bit of statistics for you there.

Now is a good time to go home and watch the evening's television you had the foresight to tape before going out, so that you have a plausible alibi.

DEFENSE: Where were you at 8pm on the night of August 15th?

YOU: I was at home watching Jonathan Creek.

DEFENSE: Can anyone testify to that?

YOU: Well, yes. I can, for one.

DEFENSE: And which episode of Jonathan Creek was it?

YOU: It was the one with the house of monkeys.

DEFENSE: Did you work out the ending?

YOU: No, but it was a very good episode, wasn't it?

DEFENSE: Oh yes. I liked the one with Rik Mayall in myself.

YOU: 'Twas a bit anticlimactic for my liking.

Of course, the prosecution could always put forward the supposition that you taped it and watched it afterwards, but since most judges are doddering old farts who can't tell the difference between a VCR and a disembodied pancreas, that's not going to sway them much.

After that, repeat the process with someone else, live off the deceased's hard-earned dosh, try to ignore the accusing stares everyone gives you these days, and congratulations! You have gotten away with murder!

This little slice o'heaven brought to you by Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw.