Month: January 2019

Avatar Soggy Hula Hoop – A Poem

Just because I am about to ruin everything by injecting a healthy dose of sleaze into the Beans doesn’t mean that I still cannot occasionally touch upon things of a more mature calibre. Last year I was out on a wander and I came across such a beautiful image that, as well as engraining it deep within my soul, I took a picture to capture the elegance.

It is so wonderful that I am hoping to submit it in the CEWE Photo Award 2019. Why should I keep it all to myself when this kind of gift should be shared with the world?

So, musing on all of this, I concocted a poem to express how I feel. It will never come close to truly expressing the warmth and pulchritude of it all but I hope to appeases all of you (i.e. Chris) for now:

Soggy hoop, fragile loop,
Can you feel the rain?
Moistened crisp, kissed with this,
Are you still the same?
Hold you near, disappear,
Never to exist.
Gone are you, gone anew,
Seasoned in the mist.

Avatar Underneath my car

We are truly living in the future now. In the past, when I’ve taken my car to the garage for one reason or another, the mechanics have done things to it and given it back to me, and it looks the same. I just see the shiny outside of the car and not the rest of it.

Well, no more. My new car came with a service plan and yesterday it had its first annual service. And now, apparently, the annual service doesn’t just mean that the car gets checked over and serviced inside and out – it also means that the mechanic takes a video of the underside of your car while it’s up on the ramp so you can see the bits of it you can’t normally see. Then they text it to you and it’s there for you to watch on a special website for ever and ever.

Obviously, I found this thrilling, so I’ve set the video to some music and invite you to join me on a voyage of discovery as we travel… underneath my car.

Avatar Seagull competition

Look at this thoughtful chap.

Seagull

He’s perched on a lamp post on Llandudno pier, gazing out to sea. Down below, fat tourists wander around with sticky donuts and runny ice cream, but from his vantage point, the sound of waddling morons dies away. He hears the wind whipping at his sleek feathers and the call of the other gulls circling above. He sees the sun glimmering from the rolling peaks of the slate grey Irish Sea. He is deep in existential contemplation.

The question is, what is he contemplating?

That important question is not just about probing the philosophical leanings of a Welsh sea bird. It’s also your route to a big, big prize, which may or may not be fish-based.

If you think you know the answer, and you’d like to be in with a chance of winning the Luxury Mystery Prize that might have been selected by a seagull, then leave your answer, answers or both in the comments below.

As the seagull himself would say: squawk!

Avatar Here is a thing

The other day Ian sent me a text asking something about the new Beans editor, and I didn’t know the answer without having the editor in front of me to fiddle with. What I needed was a new post with some words in it. So I opened the Beans, made a new post, and started typing some nonsense to fill up the screen.

I just closed it when I’d seen what I needed to see, but next time I came here, my nonsense was still there, faithfully saved for me by the kindly Beans. At first I thought that was just because of some kind of auto-save function, but then I read it and realised: no. This was no automatic save. The Beans had seen what I had typed and recognised it for what it was. Sheer poetry. It calls to mind the most uplifting words in the English language. So, rather than keep it to myself, I have chosen to publish the words I wrote below, so that you can enjoy them too.

I have chosen to title this, simply, “Untitled”.

Rum te tum

Boo be doo

Lal la laaa

Hoo be hoo

Rum pum pum

Habadeehee

Lumpy pumps

Trumpy flumps

Grumpy sumps

Avatar What’s New and what’s Shrew – Mackers

Hello

So now that we’ve hit the big cheese January shake-up, who is clamming for their next head-dunk into the world of greatness? As I am still assuming the role of Sherpa for you ingrates let me rustle up a steaming batch of hot sauce to keep you in the good books:

  • Fashion – light up your eye bulbs with this. So everyone thinks that lemonade sink holes are worth pursuing? Yeah, like a dog with cramp. Ditch that has-been and opt for Serlo Pumps, the best kind of shoes straight from Bulgaria. They’re sorted, they’re sassy and they’re climbing up your drainpipe for a little sweetness. Don’t close the window yet. If you’re ever gonna out-do Amelia Jossdon, with her pencil skirt and jam sandwiches, you need to plump up for pointed jodhpurs. That will make everyone scream like Mr Sheen.
  • TV – can you believe that they made eight seasons of Desperate Housewives? I gave up many, many moons ago yet for some reason and haven’t been back since. I expect it was because the smug voice-over put me into a coma every time an episode started. Russian export ‘Boots to the Roots’ is the latest new thing where famous people trace their family history, find distant relatives they’ve never met then turn up and kick the merry shit out of them. Australian docu-drama ‘Wazzock Paddock’ is also turning up the heat on both sides of the world. In it, a select group of idiots are kidnapped and thrown into a large paddock where they are asked questions to try and change their sexist / racist / misogynistic views, and if they don’t an angry kangaroo is lowered in. 
  • Art – can beans be an art? Yes, they can. In honour of the wonderful food and snack Barry Wombfoot has enlisted the help of 100 people to create a massive hill of beans at the bottom of Ben Nevis in Scotland. Once it has been erected, Barry will use brown sauce to draw a picture of Phillip Schofield 200ft in the air whilst being suspended from a helicopter. To slightly more mundane activities where young artist Lilo Peel has knocked down her parent’s home in Dagenham, Essex and will build a new house entirely out of office supplies she has been stealing for the last two years from her place of work. The piece will be called ‘Self Eviction’ and has been both condoned by the Local Council and lauded by industrial showbiz wonderbot, Gary Wilmot. 
  • Film – it’s a bit slow this time of year what with everyone gearing up for the awards season. That still hasn’t stopped the previously banned trilogy of films by Winky Bowson from sneaking into select cinemas in London. ‘Chop Chop’, ‘Chop Again’ and ‘Chop Chop Away’ have received the remastered treatment and for the cost of one sandwich in London (£365.17) you can catch all three in a special midnight screening in Camden Town. I won’t tell you why they were banned but let’s just say that you can’t do sit-ups that way anymore, times have changed and you shouldn’t use banana yoghurt in that capacity.

So there you go. You can waltz off into the night, safe in the knowledge that your level of cool is still off the chart. I’m running down to Doncaster for a nice sherry.

Avatar 2019 State of the Beans Address

Good evening. Gentlemen, please, be seated.

My name is Sergeant-Major Professor Sir Elbert Louche OBE, and I am delighted to have been invited back for the fifth consecutive year to deliver the annual State of the Beans Address, this year held for the first time here in the glorious humidity of the glass dome at the Center Parcs in Hebden Bridge. Please could I ask delegates not to use the water slides during the speeches.

My colleagues and I at the University of the Internet have been doing science at Pouring Beans all year long, and have taken cell samples from the inner membrane of the website which, by bombardment with gamma radiation, we successfully mutated into a genetically modified single-cell website that looked exactly like Pouring Beans but which generated its own blog posts several times a day. All the blog posts featured pictures of tabby cats. This promising line of inquiry will be pursued further in 2019.

In the meantime, we have collated some statistics on the Beans and I am pleased to announce that, for the first time since 2015, we are able to report an increase in activity. 2018 saw a total of 91 new posts, up seven on the previous year, and 1,870 comments – very nearly double the number posted in 2017. This is very pleasing, even if it is all just inane chatter between Chris and Ian.

There follows a breakdown of activity per member.

Ian

Ian wrote 42 posts, earning him a full 12 beans. This was a year-on-year increase by five posts, and he equalled his perfect bean score from 2017. My research team have nominated Ian for a special Commendation Award, which they printed off in colour and which features some snazzy WordArt.

Chris

A total of 48 posts in 2018 puts Chris seven up on his previous total, and he too earns a full 12 beans, beating his 2017 total of eight beans. He last had a perfect run in 2015 and he is feeling pretty damn smug.

Kev

 

As an “associate member” of the Beans, Kev is a second-tier user of the website and not seriously expected to match the post totals of his more committed counterparts. However, he did make seven posts, one more than in 2017, and my research team and I agree that this should be recognised as a Good Effort.

In summary, then, 2018 shows every sign of being a turning point in the fortunes of the Beans, arresting the decline in post and comment counts that had been accumulating since 2016. It is with delight that I can announce that all members are having full biscuit privileges restored in the communal kitchen areas. Chris, as the Winner of the Beans 2018, also takes home this stylish Blankety Blank chequebook and pen. Congratulations to him.