Category: Not very good

Avatar Dear Zara

Dear Zara,

It’s been a while since we last spoke. How are you? What have you been up to? Did you manage to achieve all your hopes and dreams or are you still pissing your life up the wall like the rest of us? Well, whatever it is you are doing to pass the time I hope it is as sweet as a kitten’s smile.

Anyway, the real reason I wanted to get in touch was this:

So what do you think you’re playing at, hmmm? You put your cup on the ground and walked away. There were several bins within the vicinity, well within a five minute walk. In fact whichever direction you chose you would have been close to somewhere you could have disposed of it in the correct way. Hell, you could have left it at my office and I would have sorted it out. By leaving it on the street like an arse you have effectively made yourself an arse forever.

The next time I have spaghetti hoops I will be sure to leave the tin in your garden. When I choose to have a bottle of Jack Daniels to myself I will be throwing it through your living room window. You may think this is too much a punishment for one such tit as yourself however I don’t think it is. I would sooner push you out of a plane thirty thousand feet in the air rather than let people like you walk the same streets as me.

All the best

Ian xxx

Avatar Four Word Reviews: Sticks + Stones

It was inevitable, wasn’t it? I should have known. It was only a couple of months ago that I wrote about the arrival of a CD box claiming to be Cher Lloyd and finding that the disc inside was actually Coldplay. Well, whoever it is that sends me these awful CDs to review (Gary Wilmot? Ian? God himself?) evidently reads the Beans, because this week another little parcel arrived in the post. Inside it, a box for a Coldplay album, and the CD “Sticks+Stones” by Cher Lloyd. I now have a complete set. Hooray.

Read More: Four Word Reviews: Sticks + Stones »

Avatar Seductively readable

I mean, I’m as horrified as you are to discover that something we thought had come directly from Ian’s brain is actually real, so I apologise now for having to make you aware of this, but it has to be done.

Penny Vincenzi!

She’s out there, not just real but actually writing books. Presumably it’s the same publisher as Ian’s, turning out neatly-bound stacks of highly flammable product without regard for literary quality.

I searched the shelves of the bookshop in vain for anything by Sweet Petunia, but now I think about it, I didn’t check the gardening or self-help sections.

Please can we all be on the lookout so we know what we’re dealing with here. If characters from Ian’s brain are now real and writing books, there’s no telling where this will end.

Avatar Cher Lloyd vs Coldplay

Awful CDs continue to land on my doormat with depressing regularity. Currently queued up for your Four Word Review enjoyment are “Voice of the Violin” by Joshua Bell, a collection of Motown covers produced by Pete Waterman, and the 1997 self-titled album by Kavana.

Lined up for this month’s review was “Sticks + Stones” by Cher Lloyd, a 2011 slice of Simon Cowell pop. But when I put the CD in and pressed play, something was wrong.

Can you see it? Yes, that’s right. The case says “Sticks + Stones” by Cher Lloyd, but the CD itself is actually another album from the same year, Coldplay’s “Mylo Xyloto”.

Obviously at that point I had to call a halt to the whole business. This is too much. Two albums I don’t want to hear in one.

Now I don’t know what to do. I might just have to listen to Kavana instead.

That might be the bleakest sentence I’ve ever written. If the best available course of action is listening to a whole album by Kavana, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.

Avatar Pay the Toll

You have to pay the toll. That’s the way it works.

In order to get past you have to stump up the money or whatever is needed. You have to satisfy the teller to avoid salmonella. You must grease the wheels to sort out your shady deals.

I am about to venture down South towards the magical, Icelandic borough of Royskopp in order to meet Sheriff Rockingham himself. I have heard terrible, terrible rumours of the gentleman who he currently lives with though. Hushed tones have informed me that Steve Steveingtons is a violent wretch. I once sent him a Superman t-shirt which he loved with all his heart. One day he wore it to the pub, somebody accidentally spilled some lager on it and the authorities are still finding bits of people weeks later, scattered around the neighbourhood. A man with a temper like this needs to be appeased.

So what do you do? I understand that Steve Steveingtons is a big fan of the Trek through the Stars, something from television. Biggles maybe? I have been daydreaming about weird things mashed together and this keeps popping into my head at work. I don’t think my pedestrian drawing skills have done it much justice, and it doesn’t look anything at all like the one in my mind, but I hope that it is enough to stop him knocking me literally into next week.

If this should be my last post let it be known that I regret nothing, not even all the Beans comics I wrote.