Month: March 2019

Avatar Seagull Competition: Results

It’s been a long time coming and the tension is almost too much to bear. A couple of months ago, we asked the Beans Massive to tell us what a Llandudno seagull was thinking back in May 2017 when he was photographed thusly.

It’s taken a while to select a winner, principally because of the difficulty of locating this exact seagull and then establishing a way of communicating a question about its internal thought processes from nearly two years ago that it could understand, and then interpreting its answer. It has also proven a bit tricky to get it to select a prize.

Read More: Seagull Competition: Results »

Avatar Big Frank’s Global Domination – The Music Biz

So what do you do when you’ve already conquered the chips, graphic design, computers, cycle hire and boat hiring services worlds? What else could you possibly need to include in your empire to satisfy your desperate need for a domineering monopoly over the rest of the world? You want to stick your dorsal fins tightly into the music business, that’s what.

Not just any music business though. You need to enter the Southern California hardcore scene. We have all seen Big Frank and he is clearly obsessed with thrash metal, speed metal, hardcore and the like. If he’s not punking out on the roof, spitting at pigeons and throwing pork pies at strangers then he’s working tirelessly to move the hardcore scene forward with his enduring work ethic.

Let us not forget that this was the man who started Nemesis Records and who put out the first Offspring album. Big Frank began as a tea boy and worked his way up all the way to the top, grinding his teeth with local bands such as Fisticuffs, Mental Eric, Cracked Vase, Hate Your Mum and What a To Do before moving to producing some of the tastiest albums of big hitters like Vaynes, Syck Syck, Death Hands and Cheryl’s Anus.

To put everyone else to shame too, as well as doing all of this he is a full-time tattoo artist and looks after sick and injured animals. I mean I may as well give up now, there is no way I can ever compete with this man. He must work 26 hour days. Big Frank is clearly a glutton for punishment; what a guy.

The next time you’re getting neck pains from rocking too hard, I hope you’ll think of Biggy F and his overwhelming contribution not just to music but also to the world. You think long and hard, sunshine.

Avatar Designer diseases

I’m starting a new business venture and this is your chance to get in on the ground floor. Here’s the pitch.

Designer diseases are going to be the next big thing. Here’s how it works: influencers are everywhere now, filling up Instagram with their poses and getting lots of sweet corporate sponsorship on Youtube. What they’re missing is the human angle, something to pull on people’s emotions. Enter the designer disease.

We will offer a full 360-degree customised bespoke personal consulting service where we will offer a choice of designer diseases and infect the influencer with their choice of ailment. We then provide the tools and resources for the influencer to splash their horrible illness all over the ‘gram, soak up the sympathy and massively up their likes.

Already, Kendal Jenner (is that one of them?) has signed up for a package we’re calling “The ‘Roids”: painful hemhorroids form a distinctive grape-like package that’s visible through lycra and gymwear. We suggest using pile cream as a stylish but challenging form of face paint.

Are you in? I’m going to need $15,000 for a 5% stake. This is going to be huge.

Avatar A Menagerie of Filth

As we were all secretly hoping for, and even though the month of February slipped by without any, let’s fill up the last of March with a swift dose of filthy bad boys:

Look at all of that.

I expect there will be droves of perverts desperate for nouveau erotica swarming into our coveted halls.

They’ll take one peek at the troughs on show here and they’ll not be able to contain themselves.

It’s a burden that we have to bear, seeking the numbers and lowering ourselves to unwanted depths of depravity, yet sometimes this is what you have to do to be a success. In order to reach the top of the mountain you have to trudge through the bleak, dirty depths first.

And, deep down, you know you love it.

Avatar A life in furniture

Living above a bed shop, you’d think that the item of furniture most at risk of overwhelming my life would be beds. But no: here in the London Borough of Royksopp, it’s sofas we’re drowning in.

As you probably already know, my domestic co-habitant, Steve “Stevey” Stevingtons, is immensely and sickeningly rich: certainly a millionaire, possibly close to Jeff Bezos levels of financial liquidity. So it was that, a month ago, he splashed out on a new sofa to replace his old one. It was a real beast of a thing, a mo-fo so-fa to seat five, with a cornery bit and a separate footstool thing. Absolutely glorious. But as soon as it arrived we both saw the problem: as spacious as our living room is, it’s not big enough for two sofas to be practical.

The old sofa was moved to the balcony for a while, which is also vast, but that was short lived once it got rained on. Steve was forced to dispose of it and for a time we were back to a one-sofa arrangement, until it became clear that the new sofa – hand-stitched in a small village in the Alps and delivered by helicopter at a cost well into six figures – had a saggy ass in one of the seats.

The Stevingtons dynasty are not known for tolerating shoddy workmanship, least of all drooping upholstery, so the new sofa was broken up and this week a third, identical sofa arrived in its place.

I am pleased to report that seating arrangements in the penthouse are now entirely buoyant and without any saggage in the ass or any other region, and I am hopeful that this sofa-saturated period has finally drawn to a close. Thank you for your time.

Avatar You a voley mother f… intervention

Christopher. I’m talking to you as both your friend and your alien overlord.

It has recently come to my attention, well, to the attention of all of us that you seem to be showing signs of unwanted behaviour. There have been times over the last few months where doubt has been creeping into our collective consciousness as to whether you are able to cope. Cope with what, you ask? I’d like you to take a deep breath and read your comments under Kevin’s eleventh (what a hard-working trooper he is) podcast, Celebration Days.

I need you to understand our reasons. If you’re allowed to carry on like this then it can only lead to worse things. Your love of roads will turn to a love of voles. You’ll spend your weekends scurrying along riverbanks with blades of grass between your teeth. You’ll open a bowling alley called ‘Hollywood Vole’ where all the balls have vole faces on them, all the items on the evening menu have titles with voles in and when you press the soap dispenser in the gents it makes the sound of a vole chewing on a dandelion.

You have to remember that what we do is out of love and kindness, even now as we’ve strapped you to a chair and put a roll of newspaper in your mouth, soaked in petrol. We know that you’ve been under a lot of pressure recently, which is fine, and we don’t expect you to change immediately overnight. This is a process which will require you to change significantly. Your view of the world will need to be distorted, then broken, then fixed back together with PVA glue before you can set foot outside again.

All this talk of voles just isn’t healthy. It was okay once or twice but you repeatedly brought it up. After the first few days it was all you could say and then Zoe took a photo of you in Hampstead Heath. It was the most shocking thing any of us had ever seen, and I’ve seen the film ‘Grease 2’.

When I’m done talking, Steve Steveingtons is going to loosen the shackles around your ankles so that you can move a little more freely. We’re going to watch a short film about the horrors of voles and then, after a light lunch with a little Q & A, we’re going to let you loose into the kitchen so you can make everyone a nice hot beverage.

Avatar Congratulations! It’s an orb!

Pregnancy, eh? What’s all that about?

I mean we all know what it is about, don’t we? Humans making more humans to fill the spaces that other humans have left. It’s the great circle of life, the wheel of fortune. If we didn’t make more humans, who would sit in all those prams? Who would use them nappies? And, heavens above, who would leave all those tiny Lego pieces on the floor for you to stand on them and wish you didn’t have legs?

Kevin has the luxury of having one tiny chilblain with another on the way. But does he? Research taken earlier today by Professor Reuben does now suggest that Kev and his lovely wife Sarah may just be on the verge of having an orb instead of a human baby. The most recent scan taken by, pft, “doctors” shows a much rounder form than previously anticipated. The subject, Mrs S Hill, has a very orbular shape around the stomach and wombular areas. When I gently placed my hand on top of the orb it kicked, then it hummed and then my palm felt warm. Orbs are known for emitting both humming noises and warmth.

This came as quite a shock to the both of them. Myself and Professor Reuben set out the facts as we saw them in graphic detail, which involved several large sketch pads, a teatowel, three inhaler cups (thanks, Kev) and a dozen bottles of mayonnaise. Within mere minutes both of them were crying with what could only have been joy. Yes, it did mean ruining the surprise of rolling out a glowing orb on the big day although we believe it was for the best. Society has not come far enough to embrace the orbs and welcome them into the playground, the classroom and, most upsetting of all, into our hearts. 

What does that mean for the prospective parents? What do they have in store if they will be caring for an orb instead of a baby? In the interests of stretching out one very basic idea into several posts I have decided to extend this simple premise into a few separate articles of writing. I mean, why not? It’s the flavour of the month. Tune in next time for tips on how to look after their and maybe even your orb.

Avatar Happy Christmas, Ian

Everyone loves Christmas. It’s a special time of the year when I get very stressed trying to buy and wrap presents for all the people in my life and then somehow deliver them all to the right people so they will get to enjoy them on Christmas Day.

Almost everyone in my life got their Christmas presents and, on Christmas Day, opened them and hopefully enjoyed them. But not everyone in my life follows the usual path. Not everyone lets themselves be led by the forces of what is “normal” or “sensible” or “in any way reasonable”. Such as, for example, Ian.

In advising me how to get my presents to him, Ian suggested I drop them off at his mum’s house. I did this, at approximately 5pm on Christmas Eve. Ian’s suggestion was not, however as sensible as it seemed, or indeed sensible at all, because he only got those presents on his next trip to Leeds, and that was yesterday.

I could have posted them to Newcastle and he could have had them on Christmas Day. I could have brought them to Newcastle when I was there last month to see him. But no. This is not his way. This is not how his Christmas rolls.

And so, now that Ian has finally got his presents in early March, I am wishing him a very happy Christmas, and offering him my best wishes for 2019.