Category: Popular Culture

Avatar The Edge of Popular Culture

You see me, right? I’m not very good at keeping up with what is fashionable and popular amongst the general population. I must say, however, I was downright confused when I came across this in Primark:

20141128_175436

So, I guess this is a thing. Has everyone else been wearing mens lingerie and they just haven’t told me? Are there underground mens lingerie clubs where people strut around in their hosiery and take photos on selfie sticks? Has my imagination ran away and hid under the stairs because such a thing cannot possibly exist, or has the world lovingly embraced dudes in delicate pants?

Please. Your comments please.

Avatar An actual sensible idea… ArtDisc

Hello, sorry to interrupt the usual nonsense, but I think I’ve had a great idea, and I’ve called it ArtDisc.

Or at least I think I have, I don’t think I’ve stolen the idea, I think I had it. It’s quite simple, but I’ll break it down anyway:

  1. Everyone in the UK who owns a car right now probably owns a Tax Disc Holder due to the (until recent) need for everyone who owns a car right now to display a Tax Disc.
  2. We no longer need to display a Tax Disk in our cars anymore here in the UK.
  3. In a sad kind of way, I quite like my Tax Disc Holder, and I don’t want to throw it away or put it in a drawer to be throw away in a few years when I have a tidy out.
  4. Why don’t we all put something else in out Tax Disc Holders?
  5. ART! A photo, a picture your kids drew, a cut down post card with the Mona Lisa on it, whatever.
  6. We’d have a nationwide, free to enter, democratically curated national art gallery.

Are you with me?

I like the idea so much, I’ve already made it a website: www.artdisc.co.uk

If you like it too, will you help me push it all over the interwebs and things so that other people might join in?

Any suggestions welcome.

Avatar Wisdom of the 1970s

Yes, I know, the 1970s are now the often-maligned decade that brought us dodgy celebrities and brown corduroy flares. It is hard to forgive such things. But one thing the 70s did know a thing or two about is sunstroke. How do you keep the sun off your overheating head? The 70s know. The 70s have it all figured out, and it has nothing to do with expensive sun cream or buying an overpriced straw hat from an itinerant beach salesman.

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Avatar Things You Didn’t Know About 10 Owls

Anyone can write an article about “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Owls”, in fact you’re probably bored stiff of reading them they’re so common these days. You can hardly visit your favourite corner of the web without having five different variations of “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Owls” rammed down your vision pipes, well not here…

Here on PouringBeans™ we like to do things differently. This is no ordinary “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Owls” article, this one is special, this one is “Things You Didn’t Know About 10 Owls”!!!

Lets get straight to it…

 

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Avatar Lost treasures

I’ve been having a clear out this weekend and I found this 20-year-old NOW album:

Now 1994

Nearly 20 years ago I got it for Christmas, along with an Alba mini hi-fi system that had a tape deck, CD player and AM/FM radio. Those were the days. Here’s a selection of the great hits from this double-tape compilation:

  • Ace of Base – I Saw the Sign
  • Whigfield – Saturday Night
  • Corona – Rhythm of the Night
  • D:Ream – Things Can Only Get Better
  • East 17 – It’s Alright (The Guvnor Mix)
  • Aswad – Shine
  • Reel 2 Real – I Like To Move It
  • Doop – Doop

Unfortunately when I opened the box, tape 2 was missing, so while you can still listen to Come Baby Come by K7 and Swamp Thing by the Grid, everything that was on the second tape – from Searching by China Black to The Perfect Year by Dina Carroll to Return to Innocence by Enigma – is now gone.

But we all know that tape 1 side 1 was always the best part of the album and the rest was mostly tracks you’d skip.

Avatar B R E A K F A S T

Or as I like to call it, B to the R to the E-A KFAST.

As it is considered to be the most important meal of the day I can understand why some people would think and possibly overthink the process. They may take time picking out what they were planning to eat or there is a particular routine which must be seen through from start to finish before moving on.

There are some though that take it a step too far. One of these people is my sister. This is the sort of marvel that has to be seen to be believed but I will do my best to convey the absurdity of it all. It is a ten step program so let’s begin:

1. Take two different packets of cereal, in this case bitesize Shredded Wheat and obnoxious granola.
2. Line the bottom of your bowl with a layer of bitesize Shredded Wheats, about 7 or 8.
3. Pick them up and individually snap them in two.
4. Worry that you’ve taken too much.
5. Convince yourself that you’ve got the right amount.
6. Pour in the obnoxious granola.
7. Be sure to take out the raisins (we wouldn’t want any taste in there, right?).
8. Smear, not pour, smear half a pot of plain Activia yoghurt over the cereal collection.
9. Fold in the yoghurt so that all or most of the cereal is smothered.
10. Eat and enjoy?

Note that the bitesize Shredded Wheat will be a lot more resistant to the yoghurt that the granola will be and take this into consideration. Please also be aware that should some raisins be left in the mix this is acceptable as they cannot kill.

I hope that this inspires people to be less fussy about their eating habits. I know that it won’t though and the world will carry on spinning with the same amount of spanners who make everyone’s lives that little bit more interesting yet annoying.

I think that it would also make a good poster so any budding artists who want to take a punt please be my guest.

Avatar Your New Favourite Band: tUnE-yArDs

In the second post of what disappointingly appears to be a regular series, where we find out about the people behind one of the top modern bands in the pop charts, we look at the popular beat combo tUnE-yArDs.

tUnE-yArDs

Brooklyn-based team Tune-Yards (usually stylised as “tUnE-yArDs”) come from Brooklyn, an area of New York, and started their career playing music in Brooklyn USA. They were founded by Prunella Squitzelberger (pictured above) who performs lead vocals and effects a sort of improvised skiffle percussion using bubble gum. The band’s first album was a particularly sparse affair, featuring only the sound of chewing, inflating and popping, interspersed with spoken word recitals of Squitzelberger’s own abstract poetry, but with the addition of Dupe Kingsnorth on bass and cello the act has become much more lively.

The band’s current album, “Nikki Nack”, is their third, and to date their most successful, quickly outselling 2006’s “Chewniverse” and 2010’s impenetrable effort “Doctor McCluskey’s Casebook”. It has gained plenty of airplay on radio stations across the Brooklyn, NY area, where the band is from, and has all the signs of being part of the elusive “Brooklyn Sound” that is proving so popular there.

The power behind the throne is, of course, DJ and producer Nizzle, whose cool electronic beats and occasional rhythm-free blasts of overpowering white noise lend the latest album a cool chic and an unmistakeable now-ness.