Author: Ian “Air Travel Regulations” McIver

Avatar My Chair Story

So here is a story I have been meaning to tell for a while. It is a story about my chair, a chair story if you will. The entire story is about a chair so if you’re looking for a tale about something else then I would advise you to jog on, like a couple of sea lions, because it ain’t happening sunshine.

Once I was a person without a chair and without some level of warning I became a one people with a chair. How chairs come into your life I cannot say. Sometimes you get given them, sometimes you find them in shops and they’re the right kind of sitting device, that perfectly compliment your own particular exterior, that you have to buy them or regret it for the rest of your life. So there I was, a young man with a chair, sitting like a sitting person should. It dawned on me though that despite the right level of comfort and chair-intensity that there was something missing.

Typical, right? “Oh the problem with your generation is that you are never satisfied. Look at everything you have and it is still not enough.” Whilst that is true, no matter what I did there was something gnawing at the back of my ears that I could not put my finger on. What was it that I needed? A god damn foot stool, that is what I needed. This chair needed the perfect companion though, I could not settle for any old Johnny two foot-putter.

Fast forward eight hundred years later. After developing the ability to not only halt my ageing process but also travel to the far reaches of space in my custom-built Grimmy 101 Space Hulk Meat Vestibule, I stopped getting older and flew to the end of the galaxy. It took a while, hence the 800 years. When I got there though I was vastly disappointed. Despite plenty of signs boasting about this and that there were absolutely no furniture shops, not even a charity shop with thirty copies of ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ stacked up in the corner. My chair looked even more glum that my poor viso/volto did. I was about to flip the spinsh retractor into reverse when I noticed a rubbish tip at the end of the street. I had nothing to lose so I walked over, fearing the worst yet secretly hoping for the best.

There it was. It was staring me in the eyes (which pair of eyes I cannot recall), a footstool I could not recall every seeing in my extended life. Sure, it had taken 834 years to find it and it was worth waiting for. This the story of me and my chair, my chair story, and it’s also a little bit about a footstool. It’s my chair footstool science-fiction search story. I hope you enjoyed it.

Avatar Quiet Beans

It’s all gone a little bit quiet, hasn’t it?

Since the smash at the end of May there’s been nothing (nothing) to start clogging up the arteries of June. In fact, it is as if everyone has forgotten about June. Why is it so quiet? What is everybody doing that is preventing them from “living it up” right here?

Luckily I am still here to be VERY LOUD and QUITE CLOSE TO YOUR FACE to carry on the tradition of nonsense posts that help to pass the time. I am currently exhausted after my recent jaunt as trendsetter. Trying to keep up with everything that’s cool is an overwhelming and mostly unfulfilling way to live your life. I have therefore decided to return to my sheltered, nerdy existence because that’s how things are. It also means that I can focus my attention on my (recent) life goal of writing a thing. We have all written things in the past (see ‘The Magic Star’ for physical proof of that) although this time it will be a solo flight.

I am going to write a book, using my psychic powers, about the marvels of Middlesex. Yes, you read that right; I am going to channel all of my energy into digging up the real story about the county that apparently does not exist anymore yet that I still know about. Is it only talking to me? Have I somehow managed to create a psychokinetic link to the past? Only time, and around £19.99 when it is eventually pusblished, will tell.

I WILL KEEP ALL OF YOU LOVELY PEOPLE posted on my progress.

Avatar Pay the Toll

You have to pay the toll. That’s the way it works.

In order to get past you have to stump up the money or whatever is needed. You have to satisfy the teller to avoid salmonella. You must grease the wheels to sort out your shady deals.

I am about to venture down South towards the magical, Icelandic borough of Royskopp in order to meet Sheriff Rockingham himself. I have heard terrible, terrible rumours of the gentleman who he currently lives with though. Hushed tones have informed me that Steve Steveingtons is a violent wretch. I once sent him a Superman t-shirt which he loved with all his heart. One day he wore it to the pub, somebody accidentally spilled some lager on it and the authorities are still finding bits of people weeks later, scattered around the neighbourhood. A man with a temper like this needs to be appeased.

So what do you do? I understand that Steve Steveingtons is a big fan of the Trek through the Stars, something from television. Biggles maybe? I have been daydreaming about weird things mashed together and this keeps popping into my head at work. I don’t think my pedestrian drawing skills have done it much justice, and it doesn’t look anything at all like the one in my mind, but I hope that it is enough to stop him knocking me literally into next week.

If this should be my last post let it be known that I regret nothing, not even all the Beans comics I wrote.

Avatar More of You and Your Orb

Now that the shock of having an orb instead of a child has disappeared, you can settle into a routine that fits the both of you. Remember that you have to get used to your orb as much as he or she has to get used to you. You are not an easy person to live with and people do talk about you behind your back.

In order for your orb to understand how to behave around children and other orbs you may to take them out to a soft play facility. Here, kids and orbs of all ages run or hover around in well-crafted industrial buildings that nobody knew what to do with, panicked and then threw some padding on the floors. You can watch from the safety of the coffee shop, with your half-fat vanilla latte, whilst your little one floats in and out of tubes, ball pools and slides. You will also get to listen as other, more smug parents (more smugger or smuggents as they’re referred to) chunter on about how their child managed to get into Cambridge University based on the contents of their last nappy.

Maintain your distance whilst also keeping a close eye on them. This is one of those contradictions that you often see in parenting guides because really, deep down, nobody knows what they’re doing. You want your orb to make friends without you, ironically, hovering about behind them. And you certainly don’t want to one of those dads that follows their orb into the soft play facility and proceeds to comment on every single thing they do, and then convince them not to go down the big slide because it may be “a little too scary” for them. You’ll get a slap round the man nuggets for conduct like that.

Sometimes a float through the park is enough to keep them occupied. With the sun on your back and the fresh air coursing around your orb’s complex series of gas, emissions and chutney, they will appreciate the time you have spent together. Make sure to take plenty of photographs and decorate your orb’s room with memories you have made together.

If they burn a likeness of you into a piece of paper, put it up on the fridge for everyone to see. If they build a statue of you using pasta and PVA glue don’t go with your initial reaction and throw it in the bin; be sure to make a lot of noise about how great it is, put a picture on Facebook and then put it in the garage in the box with the rest of the tripe, or throw it out of the window of a moving car on the way to work the next morning. It’s much funnier that way.

Avatar Kids today, eh?

Wrap up tightly for this one. It is gonna burn like a case of hot pie (hot pie!) cold custard.

What is going on with toys for kids? If you ask Old Man Kevvers what he ‘ad when ‘ee were a lad he’d tell you that it was a drawing of a stick on the pavement, drawn in coal dust, and each morning it would blow away before he had a chance to play with it. Times were different in the 18th century or whenever Old Man Kevvers was around.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune to wander into a Smyths toy store then your eyes would be greeted by huge corridors of wall-to-wall dustbin fodder. They will stick a goofy face on anything and charge you fifty quid for the privilege, and your kids and your little sisters and your nieces and your cousins all want this steaming pile of excrement in their houses. Let’s take a look at some of the choices you have from my recent excursion to a toy shop with Professor Reuben:

  • Has your child or small relation recently been turned to stone by Medusa? Are you wondering what to get them for their birthday now that they have no pulse? Take a look at the Zipline Play Set for the recently petrified. All the fun of flying through the air on a piece of plastic. Make sure not to push them too hard otherwise they’ll shatter on the ground. Also works for those pesky ghosts refusing to pass into the next life.
  • Q: Where can we put something in an animal that isn’t provocative or sexy? A: In its mouth. Let me present you with the Number Crunching Squirrel! Put a piece of plastic in its mouth and watch it choke to death in the name of light entertainment. Jam disc after disc of brightly-coloured coins into Chip or Dale’s food pipe. It might play a song or add the numbers together, I don’t know, I was too horrified to find out.
  • I couldn’t walk past this without laughing. I’m very immature.

It was these three items as far as the eye could see. They are your ONLY options for future purchases. Break out the Kunst-Dose!

Avatar King for a Day

Early. Bleary-eyed. Rummaging through emails before work and there it is.

Now I have my fair share of luck like everyone else. I’m not swimming in lottery wins yet occasionally the cosmos chucks me a bone and a I manage a few numbers in the Chunderball. It’s a balancing act no doubt due to my years of annoying people and general sanctimonious behaviour. Yes, me.  Look at me.

“Congratulations! You’re our Mastercard Competition WINNER!”

I’m your what the what now? This email sat in my inbox is telling me I’m a winner. It is praising me for winning more than anyone else. I am a winner. I have won a VIP trip for two adults to attend the UEFA Champions League Final Madrid 2019. I would rather stick my eye sockets in a paste of pepper and lemon juice than have anything to do with fucking football but even so, it does come with hotel accommodation and a £250.00 prepaid card so I can stick twos up at the final and go off to get hammered in some squalid Spanish bar, where the locals can pick my pocket when I am stumbling back to my hotel room around 7pm or however long it takes for me to get wasted these days.

This is pushed to one side by my acute distinct overwhelming sense of pessimism. “What do you think you’re doing? You actually believe you’ve won a competition? When did you enter this competition”

“I… I erm I don’t er… I didn’t?”

“Well done, genius! You didn’t. Why on earth would you have entered a competition to win tickets to the UEFA Champions League Final? It’s clearly a sham. It’s a fake. They’re trying to scam your sorry ass for a quick buck.”

Having checked the details, even though it looked like a genuine email I was inclined to agree with my pessimism that it was some hoodlums attempting swindle the last few pennies from my account. Like with all great phishing scandals, I sent a message to Zavvi saying that I had received an email that looked about as legitimate as a Smidge Manly Coco Loco advertisement from Spain, and asked them to verify if this was the case. I received a response a few hours later, two responses in fact. It seems as though a lot of people had received the same email I had because the first reply was a mass-produced email from Zavvi apologising for their error. This was further confirmed by the poor customer service adviser who had to message me back to say that I had not won the tickets, as well as several tweets from people on Twitter who had gone through the same highs and lows as I had.

So in one sense I have missed out on the chance of flying to Spain to live out a brief fantasy of downing alcohol in a foreign country. On the other hand though I have avoided a poxy holiday based around a shit game of football.

Hotter Otter out.

Avatar Dear Beans… Crimson Colour Catastrophe

Dear Beans,

It has recently been brought to my attention that the world is not black and white anymore. It is a vibrant, colourful, smorgasbord of everything. I say everything because there are a lot of things now. I do miss the days when there were less things although I am quite happy talking to the small black disc in the corner of the room, especially when she plays me Captain and Tenille songs.

What disappoints me though is that there are no new colours. I want someone to come on the television and announce to the world, “Hey people! If you mix this and that you get a brand new shade! I’m calling it quotium brown!” I would prefer brighter colours though. There must be a new red or orange that somebody can rustle up like cookies from the cooker. We can’t have all the colours now that we’re only ever going to have. Forever. Forever and ever. People get so bored these days that they need new and stimulating things in order to keep them from going mad.

Do you think they are holding back on us? Are there scientists lurking within mountains, swirling ominous solutions in test tubes in the hope of squeezing out a new green?

If not, is there any chance one of you could invent a new colour and send it to me in the post?

Yours faithfully

Portia Cummerbund-Beige

Avatar Your Contact Numbers

Right.

Chris, I need you to call the Customer Service Desk; an old lady has turned up wanting to return a half-eaten box of grapes and exchange it for a soup ladle. Then when that’s sorted can you ring Captain and ask him if he has had sight of the whale in the last fifteen hours. There were a few blips on the sonar yesterday morning and if we need to start preparing the harpoons I would rather know now.

If Kev is still here and within an audible range, I need you to visit John/Michelle, who is currently in the middle of his/her sex change operation, and ask him/her to cover the deli counter over lunch because Barbara had to call in sick. Once that’s out the way can you make call Jane’s Cage to ask when she is likely to be able to move it to a more convenient place as it is clogging up aisle twelve and nobody can reach the tinned prunes.

Meanwhile I need to contact Wendy who, for some reason, has morphed into an Argos store. Before she starts selling reasonably-priced home and garden wares, in addition to electronics and toys, I must insist that she goes home and calls someone who is more qualified to deal with this situation. I also have to phone FTG (“Furious Toga Gargoyle”) who is parading around the freezer section and flashing his turgid, green dangly bits to anyone within reach. It really is more a matter for the police however I intend to deal with it before we escalate it to the correct authorities.

Let’s not dawdle now, people, we all have a busy day ahead of us.