Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining me once again. Please can I ask that you all turn off the bubble jets on your personal jaccuzis until we reach the end of the Q&A session, since the noise makes it difficult to hear the PA system.

My name is His Holiness The Right Honourable Sergeant-Major Professor Lord Sir Elbert Louche, QC (Retired), KBE (Retired), KVCO. It is my personal privilege to welcome you to this large field on the outskirts of Hull that has been filled with jaccuzis and burger vans for this, the eleventh annual State of the Beans Address.

January is the time we take stock of progress on the world’s premier blogging hub, Pouring Beans, and look ahead to see what the future might hold. 2024 was, of course, the year in which the University of the Internet underwent a difficult merger with Purina, which means that my team and I form the Department of Freeform Online Literature which sits within the Faculty of Wet Foods. Our new faculty would rather we focus our efforts on tinned and pouch-based meals for household pets, which has rather divided our attention, but I am pleased to report that we did still find the time to check in occasionally to have a look at what was going on, and have based our conclusions on the vague ideas we gained in these valuable moments.

Vague or not, the numbers speak for themselves. While Pouring Beans is not, in any practical sense, a type of sport (our 2018 paper Beanbags Not Ballbags: A Study into the Lack of Sporting Talent among the Beans Massive explores this in greater detail), in 2024 it proved itself to be like a sport, in the sense that –

I can hear a number of bubble jets starting up, and I must ask you to switch them off, no matter how tedious my speech gets. I am waiting. Thank you.

The point I was making was that this year the Beans has been a game of two halves. On the one hand, we have post numbers. 109 new posts were made in 2024, the second highest number ever, beaten only by the high water mark of 2020. This is an improvement of seven posts over 2023’s score. You can see this achievement clearly represented in this graph, which I have personally carved from a selection of rock samples I stole from the geology department.

In contrast, and forming the other “half” of the theoretical “game of two halves” from the widely known footballing metaphor – yes, thank you, I am getting on with it – are the comment figures for the past year. In previous State of the Beans Addresses I have discussed the worrying downward trend in comment numbers, and 2024 saw the trend continue. 837 comments were made, the second lowest number ever.

Only 2014 was quieter, in terms of comments, but actually this masks the true horror of the situation: 2014 was also a year with fewer posts overall. If we look at the number of comments per post, 2024 is worse by far. In 2014, 82 posts were made, with an average of 9.56 Comments Per Post (CPP). In 2024, 109 posts were made, giving an average of just 7.67 CPP.

You can see the problem for yourself on the following graph, which is made out of discarded samples of Corian worktop from the bins of a major fitted kitchen retailer. Those of a sensitive disposition may wish to look away.

We turn now, as always, to the performance of individual Beans members.

Ian	Ian made 48 posts for the second year in a row, matching his personal best and earning him a full 12 beans. Taylor Swift will be dedicating a song to him on her next album, though she has ruled out allowing him to appear in the video.
Chris	Chris aimed for the same but fell short in June, giving him a total of 47 posts and earning him 11 beans. Ed Sheeran has promised to include him in the “thanks” on his new album’s liner notes, but declined to put that promise into writing.
Kev	Kev made six posts for the third year in a row, his third joint worst year ever; again, his posts were targeted to give him a score of two beans. Justin Bieber has bought the movie rights and is threatening to personally play Kev in a biopic of his life unless the situation improves.

In summary, then, we are continuing to see a pattern establish itself: post numbers are holding steady and are strong overall; comments continue to decline; Kev makes exactly six posts a year. Without a change in Ian’s workplace IT policy to allow him to post comments from work this looks unlikely to change. Perhaps the only glimmer of hope is that Kev has now finished his PhD in wireless abbab sales techniques and may be able to devote more time to posting on the Beans. Only time will tell.

For now, all that remains is to hand out the prizes, and I am delighted to announce that, in light of his perfect bean score, Ian has been declared the Winner for 2024. He wins this sensational home aquarium. Hopefully it will fit into his new house; we wish him luck figuring out the feeding and cleaning regime for the array of delicate tropical sealife we have provided.

Chris will be taking home one packet of Carr’s Table Water Biscuits which he can either enjoy with cheese, or which can just be eaten on their own if he fancies a really dry snack. Kev will wake up tomorrow with the word “six” written on the ceiling above his bed in permanent marker as a reminder of his annual post count for the whole of the 2020s so far.

I wish you all a successful and productive year, and am pleased to say that you can now turn the bubbles on again. Please could someone run a bit more hot into my jaccuzi before I get back in? Thank you.