Month: November 2023

Avatar Teaser trailer

I’m in a ridiculous position. Normally, on the last day of the month, I’m scrabbling around for something to turn into a blog post so I can earn a bean before the clock runs out. Nightmare. What picture can I find on my phone? What mundane event can I expand into a witty anecdote? What horrifyingly self-important letter of complaint from my past can I share?

This month isn’t like that. This month, on the final day of November, I find myself with a different kind of anguish. This month I have a whole series of blog post ideas ready to go, but I can’t use them yet. 

I’ve got pictures from the Papples recording session for Pop Squared. Tons of them! And they’re great, and funny, and there are stories about them. But I’ve already posted one set of Papples photos this month and I haven’t uploaded these ones. 

Then, I’ve finally edited the behind the scenes footage we shot while we were making “Space for an Ace”. It’s great. I pulled a few clips from it a few years back but the rest has loads of fun stuff too. Trouble is it needs another tweak before I do a final export, and in any case it would need to go on YouTube and there’s no time for that tonight. 

I’ve also got Four Word Reviews brewing. The album “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba has been on my desk for the last two weeks, but every day I thought I’d have time to listen to it I ended up not having time, so I haven’t managed to fit it in yet.

This is all without mentioning my camera roll, which is of course brim full of potential posts. Probably. 

Anyway, the point is that this month I’m tossing off a last minute post not because I’m short of material, but because I’ve got loads of stuff lying around and yet I still don’t have anything ready to go. So instead please enjoy this teaser trailer for upcoming posts here on the Beans. You’ll love them. If I ever get round to them. 

Avatar Blurrd 2: Return of the Killer Blurrd

Back in June, me and a bunch of cronies travelled hundreds of miles out of our way to go see Queens of the Stone Age at Cardiff Castle. A week and a half ago, we drove as far as Stockton-on-Tees to see them again.

Stockton is not usually known for its music venues (at least as far as my limited knowledge of the place goes) so the fact that the band chose this over the arena in Newcastle, the Sage in Gateshead, hell, even the Stadium of Light in Sunderland is baffling. The Globe in Stockton was so small we could barely get into the room; the closest we could get to the stage was the very rear by the doors. It felt like more than 3000 people were there, the supposed capacity of the place.

I bought three bottles of water and stood in line at the bar for half an hour. A lady got annoyed because, after going through the security checks, her umbrella was confiscated.

in time honoured fashion, I took several photos from the back of the room and most of them were blurry. Here is my most blurred effort:

I am very proud of my efforts and think I should take up photography immediately.

Avatar A slice of 2010

While rummaging in the dusty Beans archives for material to put in the 2024 calendar, I found a load of photos we took during the making of the Papples’ second album, Masterpiece, back in 2010. (I also found pictures from 2011, when we were making Pop Squared, but I’m saving those for next month because you have to keep those post totals up.)

There are 149 pictures in the set, so you’ll be relieved to hear I whittled them down to 80 before adding them to a new photo gallery in the usual place.

The photos start out in my old flat in Streatham, where we can be seen doing a bit of recording and editing, but then quickly turn to a day trip we took to Kent. I think we spent the day touring around various seaside towns, messing about, taking photos for the album cover and possibly sending postcards to Kev. I’m fairly sure the photos include visits to the Isle of Sheppey, Westgate, Whitstable, Sandwich and Samphire Hoe, though there may be other places too.

In Westgate we refused to get out of the car, and instead spent our time getting into stupid positions (in the boot, legs out of the window) and using the headrests to pretend to be walruses.

Along the way we learn a number of things.

Ian enjoyed taking a self-portrait. Selfies hadn’t been invented in 2010, but if they had, he’d be the king of them. Among the 69 pictures I discarded were lots of alternative shots of Ian’s face that he took himself. There are still loads in here.

I thought it was funny to be completely expressionless and vacant in pictures, and did this almost every time a camera was pointed at me. Most of these are irritating and don’t work, but I will admit that the picture of me outside a pub called “The Smack” still makes me laugh.

We also learn that Kent is full of places with stupid names, and we photographed most of them. Pictures of daft streets, towns and businesses litter this album. It’s a masterpiece of silliness. Enjoy.

Avatar Forty first

It’s been revealed today that Ian “Mac Mac Mac Mac” McIver, a high class civil servant from Newcastle, has become the first person to be 40.

For years now, scientists have theorised that a person might be able to become 40, but nobody in human history had ever actually managed it. Now, a number of papers in leading medical journals are beginning to explore the genetic mutations that might have made this feat possible.

Speaking at a Sherry and Fortified Wine Symposium in Washington DC, US President Joe Biden – who has been 39 for more than 42 years – congratulated Mr McIver on his remarkable achievement. “If this guy can do it, perhaps we all can,” mumbled Biden, whose speech was becoming indistinct after several hours tasting samples of port.

While almost 40% of the world’s population are now aged 39, there is great trepidation about what the leap to 40 might mean. Sir David Attenborough, now aged 39 and 696 months, speculated that those reaching the new age might find themselves pushing onward to 41 or even 42 in the years that followed. “It could be a slippery slope,” he told reporters outside his local LaserQuest, “like the ones penguins slide down.”

Two fearless volunteers are said to have signed up to follow in McIver’s pioneering footsteps, but safety is paramount and their steps forward into the world of 40 will be taken slowly. Criss Crimz, 39, and Kevindo Menendez, 39, are both expected to become 40 under controlled lab conditions during the next year. Scientists will be monitoring their progress carefully.

In the meantime, Mr. McIver’s feat does not seem to have fazed him, nor does his unprecedented old age seem to have dulled his lively air of self-importance. At a press conference yesterday, he pushed aside the lead researcher, who had been explaining early findings about his condition to the world’s press, grabbing the microphone and climbing atop the lectern to shout “I was first!!!!” to the assembled crowd.

“I’m all about the wins,” he continued, “winning at life. Absolute cog pipes, I’m gonna win ’em all!”

Security personnel removed him from the auditorium at this point, but as he was bundled out of the door, McIver could be heard to shout “It’s OK, soon you’ll get the chance to win, but not right now – because I’m winning!”

McIver’s whereabouts are not known since his removal from the press conference.

Avatar Nonna

Nonna knows best,
Nonna wants you to know
That Nonna likes pizza,
Pizza toppings on pizza dough.

Nonna needs num-nums,
Nonna kneeds the pizza dough,
Needless to say by evening
Nonna’s certainly ready to go.

Nonna can’t let go,
Nonna wants a side dish,
I can’t make garlic bread,
Side dish is a side wish.

Nonna isn’t happy,
Nonna lets me know,
Left for dead in a dustbin,
Mozzarella, cheese and pesto.

Avatar Memories (approaching the grey hemisphere)

It is now only two days until I pass into official middle age, two days before it all comes crashing down upon me. Actually that’s not true. I have long since been comfortable with my transformation from hip thirtysomething into a forty year old man. I’m sure that forty year olds have a lot going for them and, if not, then I’m here to shake things up for them.

I started reminiscing (even more than usual) about my youth and decide to record some of the lessor-known facts in case anyone was interested. They are in no particular order and most of them are probably not worth hearing anyway. Consider yourself warned:

Dad’s Army

I watched a lot of television as a child. A lot. I spent most days flicking through the TV guide circling what I wanted to watch in the upcoming week. On weekends it was worse, starting around 6:30am for the kids TV, taking a little break around lunchtime when the “adult” programs started and then coming back in the afternoon for more cartoons, sitcoms and anything else. The BBC repeated tons of sitcoms over the weekend and I was there for them. In my tiny child brain I would sing, “Who do you think you are kidding Mr Kipling?” when watching the opening for ‘Dad’s Army’. Don’t ask me why, it doesn’t quite scan properly (which may explain a lot of my efforts at writing poetry) and there is absolutely no correlation as far as I’m aware between the beloved cake-maker and the murderous dictator.

Wizards

Later on I wanted to be a space cowboy but earlier on in my life I wanted to be a wizard. This may have been spurred on by what I read in ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’. I would steal various shampoos, conditioners, bubble baths and sometimes things from the kitchen cupboards (the bathroom was next to my bedroom so it was easier to sneak in and out with my effects) and mix them together to create potions. Did I have a proper cup or beaker to do so? No, I used the top of an old toy that had broken off. It was as curved green pot thing that was supposed to be the top of the tree. I think my mum noticed things were oozing out of the back of the small wooden desk in my bedroom so they broke in to look at what I had been doing. It seems as though I had also mixed in a dead spider to my current concoction to, I don’t know, heighten the potency of the potion. Needless to say I was politely asked to stop.

Showing off

I did a lot of showing off. I had three other siblings to compete with, I had no choice. Right? Right. I’m glad we’re on the same page. During the summer holidays my dad would “borrow” a video camera from the school he was working at and we would make home movies of varying quality, mostly terrible. In the quieter moments I would use the camera to record whatever I thought would be a good idea at the time. Once I made a stop-motion video of my pink dinosaur killing himself by jumping off the end of my parent’s bed, and when I say stop-motion I mean practically still shots with huge jumps in the middle rather than painstakingly moving the dinosaur into the next position. The crowning achievement however was the time I recorded five minutes of me narrating a fictitious race between… well that part is lost to me. It was a race though because I was doing my best Murray Walker impression. I was young and I had a cold so my enunciation was pretty terrible. I moved the camera wildly from side to side saying whatever came into my head. The film is notorious for one line that my brother and sisters still bring up to this day. I cannot tell you what I am actually saying because there is no substitution in the English language that would explain it yet I cannot fully believe I would say what I said at the age of 6 or 7. What did I say? Sigh. “I wanna see some boobies!” I didn’t fully know what boobies were at that age so why I would want to see them is anyone’s guess. It’s baffling knowing that it’s me and not being able to understand what I’m trying to say. The answer is lost to time.

Entrepreneur

One more before I go. I had a knack of trading things at an early age. In primary school I would take the toy or thing that came in the box of cereal and I would trade them at school with other kids for toy cars. I didn’t want the cereal toys, I wanted their toy cars and for some reason the other people thought this was a fair trade. In secondary school (you may have heard this one before) I would take the lunch that my mum had so carefully put together and sell it to someone in my form for the price of a school dinner which, I believe at the time, was £1.30. I did this every day so I came away with over a fiver a week to add to my pocket money pile. I used the money to go into town at the weekend to buy video games and CDs. My mum wouldn’t be home until after 5pm on a weekday so I would come home and eat bread (about a quarter of a loaf) and cereal to take away the hunger pangs I was feeling. She didn’t find out about this until I was in my twenties. I ate so much bread I believe it may have contributed to the intolerances I am now experiencing as an adult man, plus it made me round and chubby like the Pilsbury Doughboy from all the extra carbs.

Avatar Tiny pig

Having recently been tasked with trying to find more photos for the upcoming 2024 Pouring Beans calendar, I was looking through the various photos on my phone in the hopes of locating the ones of the boxes I used to keep in the corner of my bedroom that were riddled with various quips, zingers and bizarre things written down during phone calls from over a decade ago. Needless to say, the search is currently ongoing (although the boxes may be hiding in the one cupboard in my flat).

As I flicked through the many, many pictures in my possession I came across a series involving a tiny toy guinea pig. These clearly were taken by one or all three of my nieces and transferred via the usual means of Whatsapp. I definitely do not own a tiny guinea pig and did not spend time putting them in hilarious places so that I could take photographs to mark the occasion. We’ve all met me, right? It is the kind of thing I could potentially do, I’ll admit, however this time I am not the culprit.

Given that everyone absolutely loves the PicCollages that I make, I have decided to make a PicCollage to collect the best of the six in my camera reel. Suck deep and bathe, my friends.