Annual Christmas Roundup

Another Christmas has been and gone, so we’d better start wiping up the spillages and straightening the furniture.

Let’s see what Santa’s sack disgorged into my lap this year.

Comestibles

Little Italian biscuits with almonds in them
A selection of cheeses
Usual assortment of chocolates

Drinkables

Nice bottle of wine
Crate of 20 bottles of Budweiser (it’s so me)
Mug with a bear on it

Enjoyables

Theatre tickets
Room escape game tickets
Lego architecture set

Tea towels

Public Service Broadcasting tea towel
Mr Smith tea towel
David Bowie’s Big Boy Runaround tea towel

If anyone got more tea towels than me this year, I’d like to hear about it. But for me, the best Christmas present of all is my twelfth bean of 2015. It’s been a wall-to-wall bean-filled year for me on the Beans. Happy Christmas.

Merry Christmas

Garforth LOVES Christmas.

If there is any doubt about that then this photo will silence all who dare to question it:

The day after this was taken some joker decided to blank out the ‘fucking’, so whilst the sentiment was still there it lost some of its potency.

I believe that Christmas is a magical time and if this is how Garforth feels about it then nobody has the right to take that away.

My Four Pounds

I bought a thing off eBay for a Christmas present. It cost me some money, plus £4 post and packaging. That’s reasonable enough. I paid the money and entered my work address for delivery so that it wouldn’t be sent back if I was out.

What I didn’t expect – what nobody expected – was that it turned up at work the next day. The next day. In the morning. No postman is that fast. No courier couries that quickly. No delivery man deliveries so rapidly.

It turns out that the seller’s girlfriend works in the same building as me, on the fourth floor. The day after I’d bought the thing, he put it in an envelope and gave it to her. She brought it in and, first thing in the morning, handed it to my colleague. The packaging cost him a fraction of £4 and the postage cost him the square root of nen.

So naturally, of course, my Christmas is ruined. The spirit of Christmas is charity and giving, and this shyster’s used his unfair advantage to wangle me out of £4 for a service that was not required. The spirit of Christmas is dead. My festive joy and cheer have been used up. I’ve torn my decorations down and burnt my Christmas cards. I dumped the tree out of the window onto the roof of a passing van. I put my fist through the TV screen when the John Lewis advert came on. If Santa shows up at my place I’ll give him a thick ear.

The moral of this story? Don’t buy things off eBay. It will indirectly cause your landlord to charge you for repainting the smoke-stained ceiling.

Picture comments!

Elena asked recently… “Can I html an image into this comment box?” The answer then was no.

The answer now is still no, but I have added a funky new picture comment tool deeley to the site, which might come in handy.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

(Don’t say I never get you anything!)

P.S. I got a motherloving bean, motherlovers!

Famous Award Acceptance Speeches – #47

Transcript from the original recording – 3 August 2014

“Thank you, thank you for your kind words.

When I first started the Woefully Inept Plumbing Company back in 2001 I was told that I, Woefully Inept, had a stupid name. They told me that my name was not a name and that whoever had named me was an idiot. That really got to me; that two hundred people could come up with the same idea, the same awful joke, and that two hundred people would take the time to call me up, as they did back then, and tell me. It’s not as if I’d never heard it before. I had a difficult time during school, and those of you that are close to me will know that growing up was no easy task. I was the butt of a lot of jokes that swept through the school like a rampant case of man flu. I certainly did my time several lifetimes over, but I held on in there and I got my two GCSE’s in Leisure and Tourism and Graphic Design, and until this moment that was the third happiest moment in my life.

Pauses to cough and take a sip from a glass of water

My company was built from the ground up. It took a very long time for the public to catch on that the Woefully Inept Plumbing Company was not a description of the kind of service they could expect from my staff, that I was not actively trying to describe the poor levels of work that would encourage the likes of BBC’s ‘Watchdog’ to come and investigate us. I did not want to name my company after anything else but the very thing that had kept me going through the darkest moments. I am me and I am my company, and to name it anything else would be cheating myself and my family out of the honour of having a successful business.

Yes, we did not turn a profit for over eight years yet my fierce determination would not deter me from my dream. You cannot spell ‘determination’ without ‘me’. You cannot spell ‘determination’ without ‘dream’.

I am that me. This is that dream.

So to all those people who ever doubted me, to those that mocked the choices that paved the way to this very point, and to those people that still call and send humorous emails with mean and derogatory comments, I accept this award on their behalf. Thank you.”

Lukewarm Toothpaste

Winter hits the roofs of many,
Like death would touch the life of Kenny.
There’s nothing to revive the heat,
A fanciful, audible, minty treat.
That is, or was, or should have been
Until now. I have foreseen
The future, oh it blinds my gaze,
This thing will astound and amaze.
You need to see this, you need to taste
The power of lukewarm toothpaste.

It cuddles and caresses your gums,
Whether on brushes or on thumbs.
It’s stroking all your sexy edges,
On the streets and behind hedges.
It nestles and nuzzles and frequents
Those areas food just cann’t dent.
It’s watching you as you try to sleep,
So it can heat where you can’t creep.

You may be scared but hear my words,
They stick to you like lemon curds,
It would be such a dreadful waste
To not adore lukewarm toothpaste.

Beans Christmas Raffle!

Hi all, welcome, welcome. It’s that time, not that time again because we haven’t done it before, but that time! Time for the Beans Christmas Raffle!

And boy do we have a doozy of a 1st Prize for you… One lucky winner will* win Chelmsford!

chelmsford-sign chelmsford-shirehall chelmsford-bridge

That’s right, the City of Chelmsford is the county town of Essex. It is located in the London commuter belt, and is just 32 miles north east of Charing Cross, and, get this, only 22 miles from Colchester! Once you win this fabulous new city, you will be in charge of a population of approximately 110,000! Think of what you could do with that.

Second prize will* be a Yardley Tac Set from Boots.

Third Prize is** a tin of Pinapple chunks!

Ooooooooooooh! Exciting isn’t it. 10 Tickets are yours for only £10.10 send you money now to:

Beans Christmas Raffle
Pouring Beans Estate
The Internet
PC1 1PC

* won’t
** isn’t

An moment of inspiration

This week I passed a statue of a great man on Woodford Green.

I stopped to admire it, and as I did so, I recalled the stirring words of what was probably his greatest ever speech:

“Iodine sandwiches; iodine sandwiches. Iodine sandwiches – iodine sandwiches, iodine sandwiches. Iodine sandwiches.”

Who among us could hear those words and fail to look around for a fascist dictatorship to defeat? Not I. That’s why I immediately set about decking anyone shifty I could see nearby.

Who have you decked recently, and why?