Category: Conspiracy/Not a Conspiracy

Avatar Yes sir, we have no porno-no today

I feel like a bitter disappointment.

BITTER.

At the end of 2018 I was bragging about how we were going to jump on-board that sweet, sweet dusty bandwagon trail and start throwing about porn like it was going out of fashion. Since then despite a few notable graphic and rather explicit efforts it has mostly been a big nen for the last month or so.

I tried to look for some horrible images with which to draw the crowds in. I checked all over the internet and there’s nothing there. All the porn has run away. Unless it is hiding in the shadows I can only presume that there’s none left. Clearly the world was done with the sight of naked flesh on flesh on possibly animal on flesh.

All I can do is offer up this very small picture as compensation. All you filth hounds out there watching, I hope it is enough.

Avatar Mysterious Hand Man

On March 13, 2014, something important happened. What that something was, though, is a mystery.

Here are the facts of the case.

At an unknown time on that day, a registered user logged in to The Beans and – using their privileged access to this sacred dominion – perpetrated an act of digital flytipping. An image was uploaded to the web server which was not included in any post and which, until today, occupied server space without performing any useful function. That image can now be revealed for the first time in four and a half years. Let’s hope its owner will one day face justice. (Ideally chunky justice, but let’s not be picky.)

Here it is. The Police are referring to it as “Mysterious Hand Man”. Please call Crimestoppers if you have any leads.

Avatar Umbrellagate

I was very angry about it, I can tell you. I swore liberally and at considerable length.

Wait. Let me go back a bit.

So, last night I went to some birthday drinks for Robin, a friend of mine and a fine upstanding citizen. We met in a pub on the south bank in London. Rain was forecast all day, so I took my new umbrella. I love my new umbrella: it’s black and very stylish, and it’s got bright green trim so it looks very cool, and it’s got a push button on the handle that makes it open right out all on its own with a satisfying fwump noise. I kept it leaning against my seat all night.

Just before I left, I went to the toilet, leaving the rest of the party around the table. When I got back, and picked up my jacket, my umbrella was not there.

I asked other people if they’d seen it. I searched behind furniture and under chairs. I looked around at other tables. I asked behind the bar. Nobody could explain it. Nobody had seen it. It had gone. Clearly, some light-fingered Cockney wideboy had seen it leaning there, unobserved, and nabbed it, and was now strolling casually along the south bank with my umbrella in his filthy, criminal hands, probably whistling “Knees Up Mother Brown” as he did so.

At this point I was angry, as described earlier.

Anyway, on the train home, about 40 minutes later, Robin sent me a photo of some people at the party with my umbrella. They’d all been leaving as the pub was closing, and they’d found it leaning by the table – not the table I’d been sitting at, but another just next to it. I’d checked all the tables before I left – in fact I’d checked the whole bloody pub – and it hadn’t been there. Nobody had noticed its mysterious return. So presumably the Cockney wideboy’s misfiring conscience had got the better of him and he’d returned his ill-gotten rain apparatus.

My umbrella is now safely stored in Robin’s flat in Penge, and my anger has subsided.

I will now take questions from the floor. Thank you.

Avatar Smidge on Science: Wind

You can feel the wind, can’t you? You can hold up your hand when you’re outdoors and feel it. But you can’t see it. Have you ever noticed that?

If you haven’t noticed that, then don’t feel bad. It’s just that you and I don’t have the keen scientific mind of Smidge Manly. He did notice that, and what’s more he tracked down a couple of experts who could help him, and you, the ignorant public, to understand why.

Rejoice, for the third episode of Smidge on Science is with us, and it contains an unexpected appearance from an old friend!

Avatar The secret life of Chris

My past is a shady, murky place. Little is known by the general public.

A while ago, it came as a surprise to everyone when I revealed that I was once jilted at the altar by a bear. But there are more secrets to be revealed, and today I am finally ready to share one with you. For a long time I wasn’t sure I could ever tell anyone about this, because to be honest I don’t remember it, but apparently – many years ago, longer ago, in fact, than I thought I had ever been alive – I was a stylish Edwardian lady.

It all seemed quite improbable until the evidence turned up: this lovely portrait, hanging up in my local Wetherspoons, that undeniably shows me in my previous form.

What hasn’t come to light yet (and I’ve asked the landlord about it, but he said he didn’t know, and he had other people to serve so I had to stop asking him) is what my name was in those days. I doubt it was Chris. It would have to have been something more delicate and ladylike. If your research produces any results on that front I’d be glad to hear them.

Avatar New: the Keep Kev Ill campaign

Since Kev came down with a mystery illness – possibly conjunctivitis, possibly eye flu, possibly his brain leaking out of his face, we don’t know – he has been present here on The Beans much more regularly than usual. That’s had the unusual effect of making the “comments” section of recent blog posts, normally reserved for a conversation between me and Ian, to have a third voice.

I for one have enjoyed his increased presence, and having the number of comments he normally posts in a year or so all appear within one week has been a welcome change.

The question now is: how do we lock in these benefits, so that this magnificent period doesn’t come to a terrible and disappointing end when he goes back to work?

My solution is the Keep Kev Ill campaign. The aim of this campaign is simple: to supply Kev with an ongoing supply of debilitating but not life-threatening illnesses so that he remains at home, off sick from work, where he can continue contributing to the Beans. Who knows, after a couple of months he might even write a blog post.

I have started this important initiative by getting some people at work who have a cold to cough into an envelope, which I have posted to his home address. Please join me in sending more low-level biohazardous material to Micklefield, for the benefit of everyone who visits The Beans. Thank you.

Avatar 2018 State of the Beans Address

Thank you, thank you. You’re very kind. Please be seated.

My name is Professor Sir Elbert Louche OBE, and it is a great pleasure to return to the Beans for a fourth year to deliver the annual State of the Beans Address. As in previous years, the information I am about to share with you is the result of detailed scientific investigation that has been ongoing for the past twelve months.

We at the University of the Internet take this very seriously. We have all been wearing white coats and goggles, and there were absolutely loads of bunsen burners involved.

Unfortunately, for the second year in a row the news is not good and I have to report a decline in Beans activity. A total of 84 posts were made to the Beans in 2017, down ten on the 2016 total, and the comment situation is no better, with 989 comments made, a year-on-year reduction of almost 400.

This increasingly slapdash approach to blog posting has not gone unnoticed and the Home Office are threatening to put the website into special measures unless the situation improves during 2018. Nobody wants that. Standard procedure for “special measures” websites are to replace all content with cat pictures and open the comments section to cretins who can’t spell and always use emoji instead of punctuation. This is a situation to be avoided at all costs.

Here’s the breakdown for each member.

Ian

Ian made 37 posts, four fewer than in 2016. Last year he said he looked forward to “shitting over everyone again in 2017”. He will now be required to submit a written explanation about the lack of progress on this objective. However, he did score 12 beans.

Chris

Chris made 41 posts in total, more than Ian, but they were not consistently spread through the year, meaning he only earned 8 beans. His post count is also down by four on last year’s total. He loses the right to use proper glasses for fizzy drinks and from now on will have to use disposable plastic cups.

Kev

Kev made six posts to the Beans in 2017, fewer than the eight he made in 2016. This comes as no surprise to anyone, though if we wish to grasp at straws to find something in his favour, he came closer to matching his 2016 post count than Chris or Ian. We do not need to discuss Kev’s bean total.

In conclusion, 2017 has been an exceptionally quiet year and unless 2018 sees considerably more posts being made and comments being left, I am going to be quite cross. There is no commemorative goblet for anyone this year, and instead you will find that while you were in here listening to this speech all your cars have been keyed.

Thank you.