Month: April 2016

Avatar The Timps Chea Party

It was a small gathering, but it was enough to garner interest from the highest rungs of society’s ladder. That was always the case for the Timps Chea (pronounced “Chi”) Party.

Bolderville sniffed at the contents of his cup and scoffed; a little noise emanating from the back of his throat, “Is this what counts as an acceptable blend these days?” Emmental peered up from the book she was sifting through, mid-sip of her own drink, and shot a daring, lacklustre look in his direction. This was not the first time Bolderville had interrupted her book, her story, her line of thought. His opinions could be heard from the other side of the room, even through the most heated of debates. Once something upset his tastebuds, or his stomach, he was first to announce it and always at the top of his voice.

“If you don’t want it you are more than welcome to try to find something more to your tastes in the back of Nanny’s cupboard. I think she still has some Oakenfold Harbinger from her trips to the Ivory Coast. It goes remarkably well with civilised company,” she quipped, hoping to dismount his verbal attack before he even had a chance to regroup his efforts. Bolderville didn’t even bother to acknowledge her remark; he was too preoccupied with the flavour rolling around his mouth. Usually he had ripped the drink to pieces by now.

Could it be that he had changed his mind and the chea was growing on him?

“I’ve tasted better down the crack of even the most slimiest, more repugnant shops in the sweatiest districts of Backgammon. In fact, the last time I threw up I’m almost entirely sure it had the texture of this!” That was more like him. Those were the words of a blunderbuss, a person botherer, an unpleasant, parsnip-twitching, egotistical hammock of a man.

Emmental sighed. Her own chea, a blend she had cultivated herself after long afternoons in the portland stiles, was as light and bewitching as the eyes of the black kitten Nanny had given her just the other day for her twilight birthday. Between the two of them they had enchanted just about every member of the Tripod Dynasty, even burned out Haggard McPondPoodle. The chea reflected her personality. It gave good lips and a savage grace. There was no point wasting any on Bolderville though; he would not understand the subtle nuances, and fake a gagging noise to attract attention from the clot of Susan beasts in the courtyard.

No, today was her book and her chea. Let him with his he and his ho waddle in the puddle of his own discontent. Let him dampen the air with foul language and disharmony. Crash away, my good man, Emmental thought, for you have no business here.

Only one problem but remained; nobody knew what a Timp was.

Avatar Things! Ep. 4 – Petrol Pockets

Around the world, every single day, remarkable people are creating remarkable new things, making their ideas and innovations a reality. And since the start of 2016, Pouring Beans Productions has been sending its reporters out to meet some of those people and catch a glimpse of the exciting inventions that are in development.

In this episode of Things!, Dougie McLaughten meets a man from Banbury who hopes to revolutionise the way we buy petrol and other inflammable spirits.

Avatar Chris’ New Favourite Song – ‘Broiler’

In ancient Latin a ‘broiler’ is a broken boiler. So many people have been brought to their knees because of a lack of hot water.

In accordance with Beans law, so it was requested that a song be written to accompany Christopher’s anguish at no longer being a Big Man (TM) and having to resume his role originally handed to him in a sock over a year ago.

I was the person handed that task and I am the one who has furiously sculpted the song that lays before you. There is no joy to be had in this post. If you are looking for sunshine and pickles then I would suggest you look elsewhere. Only doom and gloom permeate this blackened tune.

If only the National Whinge Line was still up and running. Keep your next of kin on speed dial.

Broiler

It was a Tuesday night,
I wasn’t feeling alright.
I knew I’d felt better,
As I clung to my sweater.
Inclement weather in May,
Added to my disarray.
Kettles wearing a frown,
My boilers broken down.

I think it’s the flue,
Problems, I’ve got a few.
The warranty’s out of date,
Got there two days too late.
Now that the meters teasing,
Everything’s slowly freezing.
Oh, there is just no pleasing,
Shunt’ be this cold this season.

(Instrumental break)

Glow worm, Valliant, Worcester Bosch

So, I am left this way,
In this cool month of May.
Engineer can’t come by
‘Til 3pm next Fri.
Over a week like this?
Fiddlesticks, ladles and whisks!
Combi’s left me so blue,
Tell me, what can I do?

Diddle diddle dee dum de dum de babaaaa badum

I hope this is sufficient for everyone’s purposes. Whilst this tale may not be true, it easily could have been.

Avatar Christening: Order of Service

The Christening of
Changlet Christopher Ian Paul McIver Hill
led by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu

Order of Service

York Minster, Deangate, York, YO8 7HH – Monday 18 April 2016

Cross and Dove

Hymn: O Lord You Are Definitely Real And We Believe In You

The Archbishop of York to read from the Book of Revelations, chapter 12 verse 18, “The Unwavering Faith of the Hills”

Hymn: Let This Child Be Raised Unto God

oOo

Bible reading by the father of the child, Mr Chang, from the Book of Lego, chapter 8 verse 66, “Silence Thee Atheist Scum, for Jesus is my Wingman”

Deployment of Changlet into the font for the Solemn Holy Dunking

Hymn: Take Thee This Freshly Moistened Child And Send Him To Sunday School

Sermon by the Archbishop of York: the tribulations of St. Menendez The Faithful in the Replacement of the Taps

oOo

Prayer, led by Changlet himself, who has been provided with a text-to-speech system and a loudspeaker.
Changlet: We Need Three
Congregation: We Are Three
All: Amen

Hymn: I Just Got My Scout Badge For Praying Lots

Organ recital of Handel’s “Heretic Waltz” as congregation departs

oOo

Sausage rolls and Vimto will be served in the Pig and Whistle function room from 15:00.

Avatar Modern Life is Confusing

So… there’s nothing quite like the English language. It can manipulated and distorted in so many ways that what it resembles now is completely different to how it was a hundred, fifty, even twenty years ago.

That said, sometimes innovation does not happen overnight. You have to allow it to simmer for a while. It will bubble to the surface to get your attention when it is ready to do so. Don’t rush it, for the love of Buster Keaton! I was recently scouring the internet to look for a birthday present for my godson and instead stumbled over this.

Ladies and gentleman, let me present you with a link to the Animal Pig:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013PX3XYI

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Animal Pig you should know two important things:

  1. This pig is an animal
  2. This animal is a pig

Note how the two facts are very similar but also very different at the same time. I had gone looking for a present and alternatively received an education in how to refer to modern animals.

Now when I am on my way to a farm I can look forward to seeing the Animal Cows, the Animal Chickens and the Animal Goats. If I’m heading to a zoo I can feast my eyes upon the Animal Elephants, the Animal Giraffes and possibly, if they’re not too busy, the Animal Tigers.

I’m already working on a FUN leaflet for my nieces to explain that we’ve been doing nature all wrong and that we have to shift with the times otherwise we’ll just look simple.

In one sense, why did no-one tell me this sooner?! In another, awww, pigs.

Avatar Remembering is Fun – ‘Kevin’s Favourite Song’

Due to a distinct absence of Kevin and Kevin-based products it now falls upon Chris and myself to fill in the blanks. I’m not very good at grooming poodles or doing up houses so this will be a lengthy and painful process.

I’m also really rank at doing IT. I did an IT once and the whole office didn’t recover for six weeks. I don’t get to do an IT anymore.

Instead let’s hark back to a time before all of this guff. A more simple time when I would spend most weekends levelling up my characters on ‘Secret of Mana’ on the SNES and crying about girls, or a lack thereof. Kevin, meanwhile, was off living it up big style. Not only had he managed to do his face in on a holiday to Greece with Tom Cruise lookalike and badger enthusiast Mr T Matthews, but he also was holding down a sweet job in Monkey Maze and beating up crims as his crime fighting alter ego, The Malevolent Pen.

With all of this going on you’d think he wouldn’t had had time to keep up with the latest fashions, the hottest beats, the sweetest sounds. Well you’d be wrong. Many a time did I go round to his house to find him pulling shapes to THE song of 2002:

He played it constantly. This was his jam and nobody else’s, and if they tried to make it their jam he threw them into a canal. I saw him do it; it was brutal.

There was a time where each time I would call him he’d be sat in a car outside DJ Luck and MC Neat’s recording studio in the hope of catching them and getting them to sign his test vinyl pressing of the song.

I know there will be a large pool of people who won’t believe this because after his endless posts about Status Quo it’s hard to imagine him not wearing a pair of jeans and a ponytail and being chased around by a shit Simon Pegg double. Yet, with my hand on my heart and my leg in the furnace, I can tell no lie.

I wonder if he still plays it now, in the dark, quietly, as his child sleeps. One day Tiny Mountain might wake up as the sun gently caresses his face and he’ll turn to Kevin and his first word will be, “Irie!”

I hope so, guys, I really hope so.

Avatar Turning back the clock

This week I’ve left behind the glamorous world I have occupied for the last year and returned to my old job. Those of you with long memories will recall that it principally involves pushing buttons when foreign people point at me.

There have been several effects as a result of this change.

I find myself catapulted back into a life I last inhabited in January 2015. We all remember that month and everything that happened in it. For me, Uptown Funk is still at the top of the charts and Lithuania has only just adopted the Euro. I won’t actually buy the blue and green striped jumper I’m currently wearing for another ten months. I am living in the past.

I am left with a sense of malaise, which comes from the feeling that my career is moving backwards and not forward, and from the changes that have happened to my old job in my absence. I am also getting re-acquainted with many of my old colleagues which involves talking to people. I don’t like talking to people.

Others have been affected too. My beloved Crab Mug, once the darling of a major broadcaster’s master control room, has returned to my flat, where it feels deflated and redundant, but conversely my white coffee cup (ceramic with silicone lid and grip, in a design that makes it look like a disposable cup from a coffee shop) has been liberated from my locker, which had been shut for the last 14 months, and is enjoying something of a renaissance.

This has been a difficult transition for me, one whose effects will be felt through my life, like aftershocks from some sort of career-based earthquake, for months to come. Some of the results are positive and others are negative.

But one thing is for sure. Everyone I know will have to put up with me complaining about it for the forseeable future, and in that sense, they may be the real losers here.