Category: Beans

Avatar Welcome to 2005!

Welcome to the scary new world of 2005, George Bush has just been re-elected over in the USA, Former Nazi Pope Benedict has been elected the new Pope, Charles and Camilla are to marry and a new video service called YouTube is launched.

Being at the forefront of all that is technological here at the ‘Beans, we now have our own YouTube Channel, replete with  (count it…) ONE VIDEO!

More will follow very soon. Here’s hoping that moving from the relative obscurity of Vimeo, we might actually get someone to watch our videos (yeah right).

PouringBeans on YouTube!

Avatar 2015 State of the Beans Address

Good afternoon. Settle down please. Thank you. Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Professor Louche, and it is my privilege to deliver the 2015 State of the Beans Address.

A full analysis of the activities of the last year has been conducted by our team of expert analysts and we are able to describe the current position of the website to within four millimetres.

Summary of the year

In January 2014 The Beans was relaunched with a renewed intent to operate as a blog website with posts and comments and that.

Throughout the year lots of posts were made by everyone, except Kev who was too busy grouting his drainpipes to join in.

Together we have achieved a total of 82 posts and 784 comments, some of which were actually fairly interesting.

Contribution of what individual contributors have contributed

Ian was issued a target of making two, three or four posts per month. He scored ten beans in 2014, having achieved this ten times. He would have scored eleven beans but a terrible problem with the space-time continuum meant that one of his July posts was actually in August. Ian has, however, yet to fill in his Not About Ian page.

Chris was issued a target of making at least four posts per month. He scored six beans, and his normal performance was to make the required number every other month, with a fallow period at other times. Most of his posts had a picture in them. Chris filled in his Not About Chris page with a load of outright lies.

Kev was issued a target of making at least three posts per month, which was revised down from an original target of four. He scored two beans over the course of 2014 because he mostly wasn’t here. We don’t need to discuss whether he filled in the Not About Kev page.

Conclusion

2014 has been a very strong start to the New Beans and Ian has been the winner. Well done everyone.

Avatar From Newcastle to Leeds (and back again)

Now I know that everyone loves it when I put up posts about pointless things that I bought and there hasn’t been one for a while so no doubt people are salivating at the prospect of one for November or December. The truth is though that I haven’t had much spare cash to fling about in the face of sensibleness. I almost did on a relatively expensive thing but changed my mind at the last minute. So how about something a little different?

Last Monday I undertook an epic quest (?) to Leeds Brudenell Social Club in order to see two brilliant Canadian bands called P.S. I Love You and The Rural Alberta Advantage. There are several points to consider though:

1. I don’t live in Leeds anymore
2. I don’t drive yet
3. I needed to be at work the next morning

With this in mind it all seemed a little crazy, and it was. I board my train from Newcastle just after 6pm. It went straight through to Leeds with no detours, which was good, but the whole journey takes about 90 minutes and I’ve never been to the Brudenell before so I have to take a taxi. I caught one and arrived around 8pm and as the doors only opened at 7:30pm I hadn’t missed anything. Great. I take a seat and read the schedule; first band on at 8.20pm and second band on at 9:20pm.

I have to catch a taxi back to the station at 9:50pm in order to catch my train at 10:10pm. This means I will catch about half of the second band’s set which isn’t too bad.

But then disaster. P.S. I Love You don’t clamber onto stage until 8.35pm. Whilst they perform a blistering 30 minute set to an almost empty room I enjoy every minute of it. At first I sit towards the back so I can take in the whole stage. It is only ten minutes in that a group of people then choose to stand right in front of me, despite most of the room being empty, to watch the band. One woman even turns around, looks me dead in the eye and then carries on standing right in the way. I choose to move forward and sit on the steps closer to the stage. Another man then blocks my view about twenty minutes in however he is the sound guy and must be checking the levels. He’s clearly upset as he returns several times to check. All I can hear is ear-shattering rock n roll music however I do not work in the music biz and my ear drums were destroyed at least two decades ago from listening to Dr Hook and the Medicine Group way too high.

So this delay then sets a chain reaction off. P.S. I Love You leave the stage but the second band don’t get back on until around 9.36pm (I’m being precise for a reason). I get to see around twelve minutes of the Rural Alberta Advantage before I get the call back from the taxi firm and have to head off. I leave just as Amy Cole is explaining that she visited a honey farm during the day and spent about fifty quid on honey products (bless).

The expense doesn’t end there though. My train back to Newcastle does not arrive until midnight, by which time the Metros have stopped running so I am forced to get another taxi home. What do the numbers look like? Let’s run them through down here:

Gig Ticket – £12.00
Train ticket to Leeds – £14.00
Food for the train – £3.00
Taxi to Brudenell – £6.00 (I gave a respectable tip)
Gig Merch – £10.00 (P.S. I Love You were kind enough to sign them too)
Taxi to Leeds Station – £6.00 (another tip)
Coffee at McDonalds – £1.50
Train ticket to Newcastle – £14.00
Taxi Home – £12.00 (such a generous tipper)

Total – £78.50

I spent a full £78.50 for less than fifty minutes of music. I think that makes me dedicated and much better than everyone else and I knew that before I even started writing this post.

Avatar Fire Drill

As the Pouring Beans Health and Safety Officer, it has come to my attention that this site has been running for almost a year now and we are yet to have a fire drill.

In the event that this website catches fire, it is important that everyone knows what to do, where to find their nearest fire exit and how to close their browser window quickly and safely.

Imagine the horror if you were trapped in the Beans, the navigation bar ablaze, smoke coming out of the search box, and your only escape was through the Old Beans and down the Character Hatch™. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Please take some time to familiarise yourself with the fire exit signs so you know how to leave the website in an emergency.

fire-exit

Furthermore, at 11am on Saturday, we will have a fire drill. When you hear the fire alarm sounding, please make your way calmly to your nearest emergency exit and assemble outside on the Google homepage. The fire alarm is easily recognisable as it plays the ear-splitting sound of some baked beans being tipped out of a can.

Thank you.

Avatar The Compass of Approved Regulation Mealtimes™

There have been all sorts of recent stories in the news of late about people ending up in horrible social situations due to their complete lack of understanding of the Approved Regulation Mealtimes (ARM).

All of the embarrassment and could have been avoided with PBP’s newest tool for the smush-brained socialite, The Compass of Approved Regulation Mealtimes™.

Read More: The Compass of Approved Regulation Mealtimes™ »

Avatar Happy Death Day, Mr R. Brek!

It was exactly four years ago that a very good friend of mine died.

Not a lot happened on 24 June 2010, at least for the rest of the world. It was a Thursday. Apparently in some minor tennis tournament some guy beat some other guy in a really long match. Does anyone remember it though? Of course not. It is confined to the annals of history.

What unraveled for me though was the beginning of something special. In life Mr R Brek was, in all honesty, disgusting. A colleague at work had passed me him because they didn’t want him anymore and thought I would prefer his company. So in order to not waste him and his good name I knocked up a batch. It tasted akin to the material they line hamster cages with. I’ve sampled better food off the bathroom floor. One bowl was enough to put me off for the rest of my life.

Sometimes good things come out of bad things though. In life he could bring no joy but shortly afterwards we became great friends. He sat on my desk, smiling away without a care in the world, ready to lift my spirits whenever times were hardest. If there was a joke to be made he was the first to make it. It seemed appropriate to place a ‘Parental Advisory Explicit Content’ sticker on his face given how risque and daring he could be at times. When I changed jobs I brought him home to carry on the good vibes, besides not everyone appreciated his particular brand of humour. It made sense to put his feet up and enjoy life a little.

When I first gave him the idea of a ‘Newsboost’ Twitter feed he scoffed and threw apples at my flat cap, however eventually he came around to my way of thinking. It was at his instance, and his enthusiasm, that I gave him the ‘entertainment’ side wherein he flourished in a manner I would not have imagined four years ago.

So here we are, in 2014, still knocking around like a couple of twenty year olds. I wish him all the best on this day of days and trust that you will all raise a glass in his honour.

Ladies and Gentlemen, to the memory of Mr R. Brek who gave more in death than he ever did in life.