Letter to the RSPB

Way back, many moons ago, there was a suggestion from myself that Chis and I had written to the RSPB to complain about the lack of dinosaurs. The conversation can be found in the comments below the post An Admission of Sorts, a summary is included here:

“It is a letter that needs to be sent. I imagine that much like the one me and Chris wrote to the RSPB about the lack of dinosaurs at Fairburn Inngs, it will be ignored, but it must be sent nonetheless….”
Kev

“Two things are needed here… The second is more information about the letter to Fairburn Ings, which I have no memory of.”
Chris

“Is the letter mentioned on here, Kev?”
Ian

“I’ll have a chumble[sic], it feels like it should be.”
Kev

It wasnt. There was no mention of it which led to comments such as…

“Maybe the right thing to do now is ask whether it happened at all, or whether it’s some sort of weird dream.”
Chris

Well today, I have BIG NEWS. I found it. Just the letter mind, sadly the enclosed drawing must have been a one off and is lost to the mists of time. It’s a doozy let me tell you.

Sadly Mr. Steven James never received a reply to the RSPB, it’s almost as if they didn’t take us seriously.

RSPB.doc Download

In a side note, the little bit in the comments below the throw away bit about a letter that might not exist, is an excellent little ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ riff from Chris and Ian. Well done chaps, it made me lols all over again.

Crazy Religos: Who Really Rules The World?

In the second installment of Crazy Religos, I’ve decided to bring you the wonderfully insightful pamphlet, “Who Really Rules the World?” from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. If you didn’t think they were a bit odd for spending time going and bothering folks on their doorstep to talk about their imaginary friends then maybe you’ll be fine with the conculsions in here, but for the rest of us…

Where the things are

You know the things? Some of the old video things. And the old audio things. Not the finished things, we’ve got those, but the footage we shot when we were making the things? Those.

And some pictures. Those things too. And documents and writing and pictures and old websites. All those things.

Shall I show you where some of those things are? They used to be here:

But now they’re not there, because of brokenness and disaster. So now, I think they’re nowhere.

That’s where the things are. Or maybe, more accurately, that’s where the things aren’t.

Five

It’s here! Many years late and all the more welcome for it, we now present The Official Book of London 2014, “#Chris30”. It is of course from the fateful time Kev and Ian came to see me in London for my birthday, and Kev wasn’t very well, but we still played dinosaur golf anyway.

It’s a rollercoaster of long-forgotten birthday emotion, featuring:

The invention of Smidge Manly
The David Craig Face Clock
Book #selfies
Tit tetris (titris)
Chris’s chunky ass
Sadsack’s sick sack

You can read it right now on the Books page or, if you don’t want to go via the Books page, you can read it by clicking exactly here.

Creamtober

As we casually slide into the middle of October, I expect it’s fair to say that everyone is too busy off enjoying ‘Creamtober’ to read this post. I will, however, carry on as it will give them something to read once all the cream-based fun has ceased in the dark and dingy recesses of November.

Whadda ya mean you’ve never heard of ‘Creamtober’? Keep your voice down, you don’t want to alert others to the fact that you are not right on the fashions. Let me run you through the basics.

‘Creamtober’ was started back in 1981 by Baron Von Creamschteiner. He decided that there were not enough occasions where the joy of cream was celebrated so he invented an entire month of it. Everything in and around ‘Creamtober’ was about his unhealthy obsession with the silkiest of dairy products. It had to be clotted, sour, whipped, poured or squirty. There were so many options that people went absolutely crazy for it. The entire milk industry went very quiet for the next few weeks as cream sold out in practically every shop in the surrounding area. At first the word was out around his home land of Bavaria before spreading into the outer reaches of Europe, Australia and eventually the USA. Now each year three billion people spread the word and life the live of the Creamtobians.

How does one join in? That’s easy; grab some cream and you’re halfway there. Grab three hundred more tubs of cream and fill your fridge to the brim. Each and every time you open the fridge pour as much cream down your trash hole as you can. Do it until you feel violently sick and then leave it for an hour before repeating the same process. You need to cram as much cream into your body as you can each day for thirty one days. You will know the others who are taking part because you will see them in the street, clothes struggling to fit around their obese bodies, unusual lines underneath their eyes and little lines of white liquid dribbling from the corners of their mouths.

At the end of Creamtober you add up how much you have managed to consume over the month and send the results to the grand high emperor of Creamtober (see the address on his website, he lives in Blackburn, Lancashire) who will publish his results. If you have managed to top the charts with your cream-based exploits then you win a year’s supply of cream.

It also means that you can then move onto the next festive month: ‘Novemb-cheese’! Whadda ya mean you’ve never heard of ‘Novemb-cheese’? Okay, sit down and let me give you the rundown on the basics…

Middlesax

Seeing how absurdly easy it’s been for Ian to get his turgid prose published, I’ve secured myself a publishing deal for a book of my own. At first I was just thinking about this as a way to rake in some easy cash, but then it dawned on me that I would need to pick something to write about, because ultimately if you want to publish a book you need to bang out a few thousand words.

In the end Ian was, once again, my inspiration. His forthcoming book on Middlesex inspired me to come up with my own literary masterpiece about this lost county. What better than to marry the former county of Middlesex with the history and wonders of the saxophone?

So, I present to you: Middlesax. Featuring:

A long and detailed comparison of Baker Street in north London, home of Baker Street station and Sherlock Holmes – which is located in the former county of Middlesex – with the saxophone solo from Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”.
Lyrics and score for pop songs arranged specially for the saxophone and rewritten to be about Middlesex, including “Say Harrow Wave Goodbye”, “Edgwarever I Lay My Hat That’s My Home”, and “Sexual Ealing”.
Pictures of saxophones and saxophonists in front of Middlesex landmarks, including a tenor sax at Enfield Chase and an alto sax half-submerged in the River Brent. I’m also hoping to get a picture of Kenny G on the steps of Neasden Methodist Church.
A list of places in Middlesex that can be spelled using only notes that can be played on a Saxophone. (So far I haven’t found any.)

Available now for pre-order from Amazon and all other bookshops, but only within the boundaries of what used to be Middlesex. Buy it now!

An Admission of Sorts

As I pulled into the car park, locked the car and headed into Asda I knew I was in a rush. I grabbed the beer I was looking for, paid and made my way back to the car. Asda Radio has a habit of playing a bizarre mix of music no matter what time of day you are there. Running late to a friend’s house the unmistakable tune of ‘Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit’ by Gina G was audible over the hubbub of other patrons of the supermarket. It took me back to 1996 when this was our entry in the Eurovision Song Contest…

Now we’ve all seen how much of a shambles Eurovision is, perhaps some more than others. As a young impressionable 13 year old I had a lot of free time on my hands. I do remember watching the whole thing because I was convinced that this song, this catchy piece of fluff, created in someone’s studio by faceless music executives and sung by an Australian, not even a native Brit, was going to win. I had a lot of faith at 13; I wonder where it went? I expect it also had a lot to do with the fact that I found Gina G insanely attractive (I was going through a red-head phase, something that has continued to this day). Still, it wasn’t enough for me to actually go out and buy the damn single when it was released, not that it mattered because it went straight to #1 anyway.

Does anyone remember what position the UK got in the 1996 Eurovision song contest? Nope, me neither. I had to look it up but I did know that we didn’t win. The lovely Ireland claimed the crown that year. In my confused teenage rage I drew a picture of a person, possibly me (?), kicking an Irish elephant in the groin. Now this does raise a few questions, the main ones for me are:

Why didn’t I draw an animal that was native to Ireland in the first place?
Was I convinced that elephants came from Ireland or was it the first animal that came to mind?
I can’t draw elephants now; how on earth did I manage to draw one from memory without the aid of Google?

I can still see that elephant now, hands clutching where it’s penis should be, in extreme pain because of my kick to the cohonies. It is as if it’s been etched to the back of my mind, ready to haunt me when the time is right. Yes, I believe the elephant also had hands. Perhaps this is a rare instance of British pride where I wanted to believe that we were good at something and to share that with the rest of Europe.

By the way, have you ever read the lyrics to ‘Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit’? My favourite line is:

“I’ll give you love you can’t ignore.”

What kind of love is that? The one where you send bits of yourself through the post? The one where you set yourself on fire and jump off a building? It seems a bit full on for what is essentially a song about having a shag with someone.

I am Bruntingthorpe

I have been a lot of things over the years: fashion icon, washing machine repair man, sock journalist and lots of other jobs that we have all forgotten because it was nonsense. What I mean to tell you all though is that deep down I have only ever been one thing. I am Bruntingthorpe.

Yes, all those family holidays you spent down in Leicestershire were actually on top of me. I was and am that village and civil parish in the Harborough district. You know St Mary’s Church? Remember that time you lit a candle for Gary Wilmot? That was me. Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome, formerly RAF Bruntingthorpe? When you flew a whizzler through the spine net at four thousand kelvins? That’s me. The hamlet that is Upper Bruntingthorpe, where you learned sanskrit and made a paper mache paprika hut? Also me.

It feels good to be able to tell you all of this because it has been weighing on my mind for so long. You are never quite sure how people will take this kind of information. I am not expecting an immediate response so do take all the time you require in order to process this stark and shocking revelation. It may not be as quite as shocking as the time Chris found out he wasn’t actually Kelly Jones from the Stereophonics (see http://pouringbeans.com/may-review-a-review-of-may/) yet it will still take a bit of getting used to. People may openly mock you in the street or call you names because of your association with me.

“Oi, your mate is that village isn’t he? You’re such a Bruntingthorpe dork! What a Bruntingdork!” they’ll say. “Look out it’s the Brunter Boy Crew! You’re a jar of lemon clementines!”

I can only apologise for the abuse you may receive for this. They are clearly jealous because they do not wield (WIELD!) as much power as someone such as myself. Have you seen the size of my aerodrome? It really packs the crowds in, especially during the summer months.

You may be wondering how it is that one person can be a small village in the Midlands and you can go on wondering, sunshine, because I am not at liberty to be divulging secrets such as those. All you need to know is that I am doing a grand old job and will continue to do so as long as I am needed by the world.

Also check out their website www.village-web.co.uk because it is a scream from start to finish.

Pouring
Beans

Category: Historical