Clompotition time

Gather round, gather round everyone. It’s time for a fun competition that we can all take part in. Grab your friends, grab your relatives, even grab your doggo! Come one and all to start the new year the right way.

The right way being… over two weeks after it’s already started. Yes, I’m finally awake again and can form sentences that moderately make sense some of the time (and that’s all you can hope for when you’re me).

When I was at me mum’s house over Christmas, she had started the usual clear out of cupboards and tidying but sadly more pressing matters got in the way. She has a habit of forgetting about and then not using things before their sell-by date. These then get pushed near the back of the cupboard and are usually removed around December. Occasionally things get pushed to the very VERY back and are lost to time and space. How big are these cupboards? Not very, although you’d think they were the size of the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford when we move to the next part.

I fished out a couple of food items that were well past their best. Using state-of-the-art technology, I have removed the date and it’s up to YOU to guess when it expired. You get one point for the month and one point for the year. If you get both right you’ll receive a bonus point meaning there are three points up for grab each time. There are four games to play over the next four months and with minimal participation (for some of us, wink wink) you could win a superb prize (to be chosen at a later date, and not an imaginary prize like those jelly babies Christopher was jabbering about some months back).

First up – Mint and dark chocolate fondant thins from Sainsburgers. Choose your month and year, gentlemen.

The jelly baby quiz

Would you like to win a massive prize? Of course you would.

And would you still like to win that massive prize if it was actually not very massive and was just a fairly large pack of jelly babies? Well, yes, obviously; if anything that would be even better. Everyone likes jelly babies. You are now, understandably, physically clawing at the screen in an attempt to take part. Don’t worry. I will explain how it works.

How it works

The prize is a fairly large pack of jelly babies. The winner gets not just the jelly babies but also the opportunity to specify the brand. Are you a Bassetts fan or a Haribo acolyte? All tastes are catered for here. To win it, you just need to achieve the highest score in the jelly baby quiz, which is a quiz about jelly and babies.

Good luck! It’s time for the questions.

The questions

Jelly is made using which animal product?
Babies are born without which bones?
In a classic red-yellow-green multicoloured jelly scenario, what flavour is the green one?
To the nearest 400, how many babies were born in the UK in 2023?
Which is the correct part of a jelly baby to eat first?

Get your answers in now. One of you lucky entrants will win this not-very-massive massive prize.

Good luck again! And now, in addition, good bye.

BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2024 Awards

Good morning and welcome to the BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2024 Awards ceremony.

The year 2024 has been an interesting one so far and that level of interest is not about to let up any time soon that’s for sure. Sitcoms are the gift that keeps on giving because no matter what happens in the world, there will always be situations with comedy sprinkled into them like chocolate flakes on a 99 ice cream. Some days all I do is stumble into sitcoms, they’re everywhere! I found one in my pencil case last week and had to show it to the head of BBC comedy in case it was worth the money (it wasn’t).

People have brought into question why you would hold an awards ceremony not even halfway through the year, but you know what? We love celebrating so much that it was only fair that we got to do it more than usual. Have you looked out a window recently? I know I need something to spruce up my moose, so to speak.

It therefore boils down to our three contenders to wow you in the hope of winning that prestigious award. Take it away:

Knees Up
Jenny Knees cannot get a leg up in life. She has worked every day since she left university with nothing much to show for it apart from a mediocre flat with a mediocre flat cat and her flatmate, Sandra. One night she’s out drowning her sorrows at the local pub when she drunkenly boasts to a stranger that she can arrange a party better than anyone else in Manchester. In the morning she wakes up to find a deposit of £200 in her pocket and a list of required items on the back of a napkin. Some of the items though are very unusual and it’s going to take all her moxie and some funny conversations to get it all set up in time. It seems Jenny has undoubtedly signed up for a new line of work.

When the first party is a raging success, there’s another patron waiting the next day. In-between having to go to her regular job she has to plan the next one and the next, each party getting wilder and wilder. Something is bound to get out of control.

Can Jenny get a grip on everything or will the temptations of money, fame and power go to her head? Also will Sandra ever get the phone number of that guy with the lovely eyebrows? Hilarity will ensue no matter what.

Toxic Tosser
What do you get when you take the outdated ideals of a past generation and mix them into 21st century life? You get a recipe for disaster, hilarious disaster.

An ill-advised collaboration between the writers of Mrs Brown’s Boys and possibly some guy who worked on ‘Bless Thy Neighbour’ back in the seventies, Toxic Tosser takes you on a rollercoaster ride with Tony Topic, a man who was somehow frozen in 1975 and thawed in 2025. When he is released, Tony has to deal with all the quirky aspects of the modern world: over-priced food shopping, transgender people, openly gay men and women, diminishing energy supplies, the threat of nuclear war and TikTok. How will he manage this? With the help of his new friend, Gary Whiteguy.

Together they will tussle with these new ideals and try to make Tony understand that behaving and speaking the way he does is no longer acceptable. Can Tony stop touching every young woman he finds? Can Gary make him see that racial prejudice is actually a bad thing and should not be shouted down the high street? Will Tony ever be able to face spending over a quid for a Mars bar? Hilarity will ensue no matter what.

Think about Me
Typical safe BBC sitcom about a man and a woman living together and them discovering all the differences between one another. Jeff likes leaving the toilet seat up but Marnie likes it down. Marnie leaves her clothes all over the bedroom floor and Jeff prefers to have them in the wardrobe. Jeff sometimes likes a pint down the local with his lad mates and Marnie, feeling neglected, tells him that making time for one another is important and if he’s willing to sit down and listen to her concerns she feels that they can reach an equilibrium where each person gets what they want without them having to compromise or, at the worst, separate completely.

Stars an average looking man with some hot woman who doesn’t really know it. Hilarity will ensue no matter what

There you have it folks, our three contenders for the top prize. Vote now either using the psychokinetic energy of your untapped minds or the BBC comedy app. The winner will be announced in a little over a fortnight’s time (if the writer is struggling for a post at the end of the month) or perhaps you already know the winner? If you do, keep it to yourself.

Did a win. Did I win?

How lucky are you? I’d say that my luck varies as I’m more likely to get to work through a series of green lights than win a million quid on the lottery. You have to take it as it comes and be patient, luck will eventually come your way.

I was idling through Twitter a few days ago and came across the usual shit post of ‘like this post and you could win a something’ and normally I would scroll past it without giving it a second thought but this time I figured I would give it a go. Click. Done. I look forward to be 57,987th in line to win. More chance of being hit by a falling cow? Great stuff.

A few hours later my phone blips and I’m faced with this:

I have a single moment of elation. One of those, “No way! Me?” moments where you believe all the stars are in alignment and it’s finally happened. Click my heels, oh me oh my, and so on. Then I take a closer look at the message.

It could be a scam. The company has over 86 thousand followers on Twitter. They surely couldn’t get away with doing this every week without someone dragging their name through the mud and kicking them off the platform. Send them 60 bucks and get a free PS5? Sure. It sounds too good to be true. Are they generous? What does it all mean?!?

If I was in the US then I may have considered it, however due to the geographical limitations of being 3000 miles away I had to message them to decline their generous offer. A day or so later I’m scrolling again and they’re at it again; more messages about free PS5s. There’s another the following day. I feel as though I did win, I was the winner, it’s my win and nobody can take it away from me. That said, I am also glad I didn’t send anyone any money. I don’t even need a PS5.

Chris and Ian’s Rap Battle – Round 2

So here we have it.

Three years have passed since the world was shook by the resonating words of these titans of industry, these monoliths of maniacal word mastery. Ian “I was eating pie” McBugle and Sheriff Rockingham aka Chris Marshall, both ex members of pioneering genre-bending super group ‘The Rapples’, are back for another scintillating slice of lyrical suppositories.

But the real question is are they still up to scratch? Can you still expect the old and beardy to reach the dizzying heights of previous years? What can you expect from two almost middle aged men who spend their evenings sitting down and nothing more? Can they, in the eternal words of Kevindo Menendez, still mack it?

Of course they can, you fools!

Tickets have been sold out for ages but you lucky, lucky people get to hear the whole thing as it happens right here on Beans FM.

With a phat new stack of material, Chris is a seasoned pro and ready to take the stage once again. He’s got horses and a drinks cabinet full of dazzling wordplay and witty observations in his corner. He’s never been both fresher and on the fashions. McBugle, however, loves to play with people’s expectations. He’s slumped, unshaved, walking like the weight of the world is hanging on his shoulders only to shrug off his coat and flash a smile that could blind a box full of puppies.

Take a seat, ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be a bumpy ride. Over to you, boys…

Crossword answers

Everyone – and I mean everyone – has been waiting for this moment impatiently and, in some cases, violently. I am pleased to now be able to bring the impatience and the violence to an end, with the release of the answers to last month’s Pouring Beans crossword.

Back in early March, I stated very clearly that there were “no prizes”, but then shortly afterwards in the comments I appear to have also promised everyone prizes, so I suppose we’d better go ahead and analyse the entries that have been submitted.

Kev made a very good attempt in which he got all the answers right. His handwriting (or “handers writers”) was a bit messy but it would be churlish to deny him a prize on that basis, so a prize it is for him.

Ian made what I can only describe as an avant garde attempt at the crossword, getting only five of the twelve clues right, but redeeming himself with clear typography and also a very enjoyable drawing of a stickman with a ladder. On that basis I think he also has to get a prize.

So, with all the formalities out of the way, it just remains for me to offer my congratulations to the winners, whose prizes are now on the way, and to thank you all for taking part. Thank you. No, no, thank YOU.

Not number one

Occasionally, over the years, I’ve found myself in a conversation about what was at number one in the charts when I was born. These conversations come up from time to time, probably more often than they deserve to, usually prompted by a DJ on the radio talking about it.

For a long time my answer has been “Hello” by Lionel Ritchie, number one in the UK charts in early May 1984. That’s quite a fun song to be at the top when I was born and usually gets a laugh. Great. Everyone’s happy.

Yesterday I looked it up to see what else was in the charts that week, and was dismayed to find that I had somehow got it wrong.

“Hello” was a UK number one single, and Lionel Ritchie with his blind student making a creepy clay head had a run of six weeks at the top of the charts in spring 1984. But that run ended in April, and by Sunday 5 May Lionel’s informal greeting based ballad was only just in the top ten. The number one single when I was born was actually “The Reflex” by Duran Duran, which is nowhere near as much fun. As you can imagine, I was distraught.

To cheer myself up, I decided to see if my birthday number one was better than yours.

Kev

Let’s hope Kev is a fan of Frankie Goes to Hollywood because they were apparently everywhere in late July 1984. They were at number one with “Two Tribes”, and also at number three with the famously banned orgasm themed classic “Relax”. The rest of the top ten is mostly forgettable; at number two is a novelty single spin-off from The Young Ones, and the rest include Tina Turner, Cyndi Lauper and Shakatak. I feel like I’m on safe ground here.

Ian

Well, this is disappointing. Number one in mid-November 1983 was “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel, a massive singalong smash hit. Adding insult to injury is the rest of the top ten, which contains at least another five stone cold hits: “Say Say Say” by Paul McCartney (and Jacko, but we’ll skim over that); “Love Cats” by the Cure; Men Without Hats’ ridiculous “Safety Dance”; “Karma Chameleon”; and even “All Night Long” by the very same Lionel Ritchie who callously abandoned me on my birthday.

In summary, then, I am disappointed that my birthday number one turns out to be a Duran Duran single, and not a very good one at that, and thanks to the fact that he basically cheated by being born in 1983, Ian wins.

Crossword

Time to sit down with a nice cup of tea, and perhaps pull a rug across your knee to keep you warm like an old person, while you have a go at the Pouring Beans Crossword Puzzle. There’s no prizes, it’s just for fun, and possibly not even that.

Answers in a few weeks. Good luck.

Across

1: Morrissey’s typical remark on seeing some birds (8)
5: Fair description of former regular commenter Pete Doherty (4)
8: The Beans Massive wrote a book about a Magic one (4)
11: A Lego car of the right size (8)

Down

1: A Montessori school activity requires children to pour these (5)
2: Chris’s favourite brand of pesto. Making crosswords is difficult and sometimes you just have to go with whatever fits (5)
3: The location of Dr Rombobulous Combobulation’s hat in relation to his head (4)
4: What we store on the Magical Computers (4)
6: A Jewish priest. It has nothing to do with the Beans but, again, it fits, and beggars can’t be choosers (5)
7: The number we need and are (5)
9: A Smidge Manly impersonator stole this from the real Smidge (4)
10: Noise made by lions and also former regular commenter Brian Blessed (4)