Spoons

I’ve developed a new hobby… carving spoons. Its really therapeutic. I got the idea as I was pondering something different we could teach the scouts on camp, and I happened across the idea of spoon carving.

I did what most people do these days and looked on amazon, where I discovered that hook knives (that you need to carve out the ‘bowl’) are too expensive to buy 15 of them for a camp. So then I looked at eBay, and discovered that you cant buy knives on ebay. So then I looked at AliExpress, the cheaper, dodgier, Chineseier version of Amazon and bought a load of them for £2.50 each! Woo.

Anyway I had to get a bit of practice in before I taught a load of kids how to do it, so after too many hours on YouTube these are the result, my spoons.

From left to right…

First attempt, using a bit of old pine bed slat
A walnut spoon, much better.
A (bed slat pine) Welsh love spoon, an additional (late) valentines present to Sarah.
My favourite spoon so far, I’ve no idea what the wood was but it finished up lovely.
Roughed out spoon from this weekend’s camping, made from freshly cut silver birch (tree had blown over in a storm) needs to dry out before I can finish it nicely.
The tools. (Not the cheap AliExpress ones though. Once I made the first spoon and enjoyed it I bought myself some nice MoraKniv ones)

So there you are. Spoons.

ABOFB 37: This is Your Life (Movie)

A Breath of Fresh Beans returns from the loo, with a lovely ponderance from Ian about who would play each of us in the move adaption of our life stories. We discuss…

Kev’s manly physique
Chris becomes arousing
The many stages of Ian
Alternative castings… No Crossovers!

You’re so sweet

Good news! The results of The jelly baby quiz are finally in.

As a reminder, all you had to do was answer five questions about jelly and babies, and let me know your preferred type of jelly baby so your prize could be tailored to you.

I’m delighted to announce that Kev is the winner, scoring well on all five questions, and a 400g pack of Maynard’s jelly babies are on their way to him.

A 400g box of Maynard's jelly babies, with the slogan "you're so sweet" on the front

Those of you who paid close attention will have noticed that the questions were quite vague and scoring them is at least partly a matter of opinion. This was supposed to enable me to declare everyone a winner and use the quiz as an excuse to send out jelly babies in all directions, spreading joy and chewy sweets to the whole Beans massive. However, despite Ian complaining about the quiz and then being reminded that he hadn’t let me know what kind of jelly babies he likes, five months on we are still none the wiser. As a result Kev has been declared the only winner and Ian’s lack of juvenile gelatinous snacks are his own fault.

Some people might say that this is petty, and that I could have just sent Ian any pack of jelly babies, but I would draw those people’s attention to the extensive terms and conditions that our team of crack lawyers have attached to competitions and lotteries run through the Pouring Beans website.

Anyway, let’s not let this minor administrative drama get in the way of celebrating Kev’s victory. Congratulations Kev – please enjoy biting the heads off first from all 400g of jelly babies.

Wait. That sounded sinister. Let’s just leave it at “congratulations”.

Trouble at the Winston

It’s finally happening. You know that venerable old videoconferencing system Microsoft has produced for years? You know the one that changed the world of video chat. No? The one EVERYONE used to use… right up until the point that the world went to shit and everyone needed to video call people? No not Zoom… Skype! Yes Skype, the underappreciated grand master of video calling. Well not for much longer…

As reported by ARS Technica skype is going to be put to sleep on 5th May after 21 years serving the VPC (Virtual Pub Community). Sad times.

It seems like we are going to be able to move to teams with personal accounts, which is nice, but what are we going to do without the incessant ‘tech titting’ or the random interjections of an animated prawn? I’ve tried it and I can sign in to Teams with my outlook.com account, although it hasn’t brought across any of the old chats, which the article suggested it should.

It truly will be the end of an era. How do you feel about the death of an icon (even if it is a pretty crappy one)?

ABOFB 36: Nip to the loo

Welcome to back to a breath of fresh beans, this week we’re just going to nip to the loo, don’t worry, not literally (we did that before we started recording).

Suggestions in this pod are:

Weird
Posh
Nosy
Espionagey

Kick out the jam (into your mouth)

Do you like plums?

Do you like jam?

Do you like jammy plums? Then we’ve got the product for you!

‘Kev’s Plums’ is a brand new treat that you and your family can enjoy all day, every day. We’ve taken the rich, tangy taste of plums and mapped that (using a computer) into the best kind of food you could ever have; jam!

Spread it on apples, spread it on potatoes, sponges, pizza and ice cream. You can even spread it on toast.

‘Kev’s Plums’ contains half the sugar you’d expect from other inferior james but with twice the taste. Experts agree with an overwhelming 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.9 score on IMDB.

Bring life back to the party. Bring your life to life with ‘Kev’s Plums’!

(From Kev Inc., a subsiduary of the Kevindo Menendez food dynasty).

Decode this…

What the hell is going on here? On returning to the scout hut after Christmas, we discovered this pictographic story on one of our white boards. What is it saying, and more importantly, what does it mean?

Theories so far range from vampire attack to complex honeytrap operations, but what do you think?

Midlife Crisis

I’m not sure if a building built in the 1500’s can be said to be having a mid life crisis in 2024, but if it can, then this one is. Like a post-divorce Michael Gove popping up in an Aberdeen nightclub, Temple Newsham is entering it’s “rave stage”.

We visited on Sunday and it was off it’s tits on something. The whole garden had been filled with mysterious lights (and hairy balls) and it had put it’s loudest attire on to have a good old boogie.

Fair play I say. Happy New Year all!