Category: Awful, just awful

Avatar Dear Beans… hot groin action

Dear Beans,

Monday seemed like a regular day. I had woken up, gone to work, come home and eaten a hearty meal of mince, mince and mince. It was a good day.

It was a good day apart from the weather. It was freezing. I couldn’t feel my hands and feet, I clearly needed to do something to warm my flat up. But what can a regular Joe do in these awful times? Modern life is so expensive and there was no way I was turning the heating on for anything less than a blizzard. We were still several hundred flakes away a blizzard.

I therefore turned to my old friend, the hot water bottle. It has saved me from the cold on so many occasions and after a period of ten years was still going strong. I boiled the kettle and filled it up, and got comfy on the sofa with it positioned on my lap. I could feel the heat and it was so nice. I warmed my hands up on it then moved it to my back when it got a bit too much for my stomach. That’s the best thing to do with a hot water bottle, give it five minutes somewhere and then move it on. You have a whole body to warm up and there’s only so much one little HWB can do. Perhaps someone should invent a device that moves it round for you so you don’t have to?

I was sat in front of the TV watching a film with the HWB on my lap again when I noticed something was amiss. A searing kind of shock suddenly sprung forth between my legs. I’ve never set my testicles on fire however I would imagine the uncomfortable feeling I felt that day was very much akin to that. I pulled the hot water bottle from my lap to stop whatever was happening. Then heat turned to wetness, I could feel a wet sensation which confused the hell out of me. “What on earth is going on?” asked my prehistoric brain still trying to catch up with everything.

It was then after some close examination that I saw it; a little cut at the neck of the hot water bottle. Something (or someone) had cut a little slither meaning that any pressure applied to the bottom would force the water to come spurting out. I had accidentally burned myself with my own salvation during this chilly evening. Oh the shame I felt. Oh the humanity of it all! Who could have done such a thing to me, of all people?

My question therefore is what is the most embarrassing thing you have ever done to yourself either on your own or in public? I await your responses.

Yours painfully

Socket Mephistopheles

Avatar Do the splits

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the age of forty. After an uphill struggle through some difficult times you’ve made it and you’ve made it in one piece. Now all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the view through these novelty binoculars.

It seems as though I can’t go a few weeks without making a fool of myself. Last week I got lost driving back through Gateshead and almost drove into an industrial estate and then accidentally drove through a bus lane. That was fun. I don’t really have much of a defence other than it was dark and I was hungry so my hunger caused me to drive the wrong way. That’s what I’m going to write to Gateshead Council when they send me a letter asking to pay a fine for driving like a clown.

Let’s do something a little more contemporary though to really illustrate the fact that I’m potentially getting worse. Subjectively. Gingerly. Crimsonly.

It’s the end of the day and I am striding to my car. I don’t walk anymore you see I stride. I’ve got the prestigious job and the happy life so I take a manly stride to get me around places now. As I approach my car I see that the car next to me has parked a little too close because everyone is terrible at parking. I can open the driver door however it requires a bit of manoeuvring (I can never spell that word) to hold the door so I don’t smash it into the other car but also leave enough space to get my sorry ass into the seat. I manage to get my left leg in and I hear it, the sound that I have heard a few times before. I don’t feel as though I have lunged too far however by the sounds of things I have crossed a line and one that once crossed cannot be undone. I may as well have put my foot in the footwell of the adjacent car for what it’s worth.

I know the sound because it happened to me about a year or two ago. That is the sound of my jeans splitting. That is the cold air reaching my bare skin which up until recently was covered by my jeans. The material could clearly not take the isometric shapes my legs were making whilst trying to get into the car and now it’s all over. I still have to pick up some food on the way home and luckily I have some jogging bottoms in my gym bag, which is stashed on the back seat. In Asda car park I hide momentarily behind my door and pull them on over my now sagging jeans. Nothing left to do but stride around picking up what I need and head home like a grown-up, a grown-up wearing two pairs of trousers.

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 The first horror of Christmas

Every year the supermarkets try to outdo each other with horrific Christmas-flavour snacks and party food. You can tell that none of it is a good idea because none of it comes back for a second year. Anyway, this is just to warn you that Tesco have taken an early lead in the horrible Christmas snack mash-up stakes.

Tesco Pigs in Blankets Flavour Coated Peanuts

Avatar Excuse me!

Typical. You need to use the payphone and some idiot decides to jam a collection of old storage boxes folded into the tight space along with packing material thus taking up all the area I need in order to make my phone call. I mean I can hardly use the phone on the street, everyone will hear my conversation.

I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me.

Avatar Look at him (but don’t be inspired)

What’s going on here exactly?

Look at this berk. I took screenshots of this from some Twitter advert because it looked ridiculous. This guy is doing all these different kinds of exercises as though it’s supposed to inspire you to “reach goals easily” and “no gym, no problem”. What a waste of time.

I wouldn’t mind so much but for the last month or so this has popped up every other day. This guy needs to take a hint and get outta my viso/volto. My viewing eyes don’t need this kind of visual fungus. I don’t care if you can track progress and keep motivated, I don’t care if you can see visible results in four weeks and don’t think you can tempt me with silly muscular arm emojis.

What worries me most is the disclaimer at the bottom of the video: “The stunts in this video were performed by a trained professional. DO NOT ATTEMPT IT.” Stunts? It? They seem to have such a poor grasp of English that even if I wanted to “hit every single muscle” I wouldn’t trust them to do it given that they can’t even word a disclaimer properly.

I expect you may have already seen it but I wanted to spread the word regardless.

Also, Chris, get a real f*cking job, mate.

Avatar Puffins?

For this year’s traditional “Puffins?” Day post, I wanted to bring you a picture of a puffin surrounded by baked beans, because puffins are now a Beans tradition.

Turning to our benign computer overlords, I asked several AI image generators to give me a picture of “a puffin surrounded by baked beans”.

Read More: Puffins? »