Woodwork

I think this confirms that my transition to middle age is now complete. A few weeks ago I cleared out the garage, which had become a bit of a dumping ground, and decided it was time to finally put the space to better use. Every time there’s been a bit of DIY on the go, you see, I’ve ended up sawing and sanding and painting things on the garage floor. This is bad for my back, the floor and the end result.

My purchase of a small folding workmate bench a year ago has helped with this, but only so much. So I built myself a workbench, using bits of wood I’d pulled out of the loft when I boarded it out and some cupboard doors that were meant for the new kitchen but which had a paint defect.

I had expected it to be wobbly and uneven and possibly even end up rocking backwards and forwards if you touched it, but to my enormous surprise it is both level and extremely sturdy.

So this is just to say that I built a piece of very solid furniture from scratch, it was the highlight of my week, and I am now a middle aged man. Thank you.

Famous faces

We went to the theatre this week to see a musical, a big West End production of the Wizard of Oz. It was great.

I wasn’t the one who booked the tickets, so I didn’t see the list of performers until we were standing outside the theatre, where I could see all the famous names lit up across the big screens on the front of the theatre.

Just look at this all star cast!

I recognised almost all of them straight away, as I bet you did too.

Jason Manford is a stand-up comic who has carved out a successful musical theatre career. His voice is amazing!
Ashley Banjo made his name as part of dance troupe Diversity on Britain’s Got Talent.
Georgina Onuorah is a rising star of the West End, having transferred to this production from a run in Oklahoma! and before that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella.
Dianne Pilkington has been in one show after another since the late 90s and is a real star of the stage. I last saw her in a production of the 39 Steps at the Criterion.
Louis Gaunt makes his breakthrough performance here, having previously appeared in Bridgerton and The Larkins.
Christina Bianco as you already know has the most amazing voice, so I was thrilled to see her on the cast list.

There’s another bloke listed up there as well but I can’t recall seeing his name anywhere before. Maybe he’s new or something? Anyway, I don’t remember seeing him in the show.

Beans flashback: Chris gives blood

Can you believe that one of the defining moments of my life, and probably of yours too, was ten years ago today? The New Beans didn’t exist back then, so I didn’t record this for posterity as a blog post. The ten year anniversary seems like a good time to put that right.

Fame at last

My job sometimes involves me being awake in the middle of the night and doing strange things.

One strange thing I’ve had to do lately is find ways of making phone calls to Australia on behalf of some people at the other end of the country. Normally, you see, OJ Borg does the overnight show on the wireless, and he has a mobile phone in Australia that he rings every day at 2.15am. He then has a chat with whoever answers it, and he asks them to give it to another random Australian in time for the next show. Lately, though, his phone system has not been allowing him to call Australia, which is a real disadvantage for a feature of this kind.

Our involvement in this madness – making phone calls to Australia in the middle of the night – has escalated steadily over the last month until it reached a point where they wanted to explain what was going on to their audience. So I was asked if I would mind explaining.

I didn’t mind, though I was very tired and not sure I was making much sense. That is why this happened.

Then, half an hour later, it was time to make the call. I didn’t say a lot because it wasn’t connecting and I was busy pressing buttons and checking things because I was very worried I’d done something wrong, but I hadn’t, it was just that the mobile phone in Australia had no signal.

My agent will handle all requests for signed photos. Also, I am now taking bookings for the panto season.

Shenanigans

Before Christmas seems like an age away now. Do you remember what you were doing in December? No? Do you remember what you did yesterday? That’s a worry. You should get that checked out.

It was a fairly relaxed afternoon in the office and I was on my own as the time ticked towards the end of the day. Being chief morale officer in our team, a role I assigned to myself, I decided it would be best for some harmless mischief. I cast my gaze in the direction of the helpful list indicating the correct terms for the phonetic alphabet. Within a few minutes I had come up with my own and replaced it, expecting it to be mostly ignored as nobody ever seemed to use it.

When we returned after Christmas, I had largely forgotten what I had done… that is until my boss turned to me and asked if I was responsible.

“Responsible for what?” I asked, playing dumb. She had, apparently, noticed immediately and because of my reputation for zany behaviour I was clearly the culprit. Luckily due to it being silly, nothing was said about it. Everyone had a laugh. Ha ha!

“You almost threw me because you don’t have a daughter and this one here mentions one,” she said.

This was the sticking point.

This was the focus of most people’s questions and not the fact that I had made up three new words, referenced an album by Steps and a TV programme with Jack Whitehall.

Search engine optimisation

A couple of years ago I conducted a little experiment in what we hi-tech wireless abbab professionals call “Search Engine Optimisation”, or “SEO” for short. Some people in Silicon Valley just call it “S” now to be even more efficient, but I find that arrogant.

Anyway, the issue was that our very own Pouring Beans – arguably the place that people around the world should turn first when seeking information about beans, pouring or the decanting of legumes – was only third in Google’s search results when searching for the words “pouring beans”.

Standing in our way were a whole shady cabal of sly, underhand people whose nefarious aim was to educate young children, broaden their minds, focus their concentration and hone their hand-eye coordination. Under the cover of running Montessori nurseries, they had posted all sorts of web pages about an activity for little kids called “pouring beans”. Clearly those people were up to no good and had to be stopped.

In summer 2019 I made a post here on Pouring Beans, titled “Pouring beans”, at the unbeatable web address www.pouringbeans.com/pouring-beans, which was about the Montessori activity called “pouring beans”, using the same phrase we are all now tired of reading several more times in the text.

Three and a half years have passed and I am delighted to report that we are now, and have remained for some years, the top search result for “pouring beans”. Congratulations, everyone. We are a step closer to conquering the internet.

Searching for a Nightmare

“As he entered the room, the air grew stale and cool. It was abundant that the door had not been opened for a while and neither had any of the windows. Not that you could tell there were windows given how greasy and dirty they were. Thin streaks of light tried their best to illuminate the room only to greet indifference and a smell that could only be unwashed clothes and unwashed hair.

Towards the back of the room there was a doorway without a door leading to what looked like a small kitchen area. Small grunts could be heard, awash with fear and sadness. Part of him didn’t want to know what was going on in there.

He blinked. It was starting to take shape before his eyes. Along the left and right sides were a sofa and a bed respectively upon which figures covered in blankets, jumpers and hoodies, anything to obscure their features, sat huddled. They were visibly shaking; no amount of clothing could hide that. Hesitant but also inquisitive, he crimsonly approached the nearest character and pulled back the mauve hood that separated the two.

Eyes as big as spoons stared back. Bags of a similar size hung underneath. The skin was sagging and the features were difficult to look at even for the morbidly curious. Nonetheless, he was sure that he was in the right place.

“Lycos?” he asked, “Lycos is that you?”

There was no response. Either it didn’t understand or it wasn’t there, long gone into the stratosphere with the rest of the junkies and the winos.

The heavy-breather next to it was a malnourished AltaVista.

On the opposite side of the room Webcrawler was on his knees, licking a damp patch underneath the coffee table. Clearly a spill of something important to them. He could have smashed his head with a lamp and it wouldn’t have noticed.

Most of them were accounted for except the one he had been looking to find the most.

The grunting was still coming from the back kitchen.

He took a deep breath and peered around the corner. An old man faced away from him, his hands looking for something or someone. The pile of newspapers he sat on had nothing beside it. The kitchen stank of sex and shame.

“Did you want to ask me something?” the old man queried. “You can ask me anything. I want you to, I want you to ask me.”

He turned around and the drool was let loose from his mouth. It pounded the hard flooring.

“If you ask me I’ll make it worth your while. I guarantee.”

That was all he could stand and so, with the answers he had sought, he bounded from the bedsit and slammed the door behind him never to return.”

Orange / Lemon

Here’s a little story that will lift your spirits in these dark times.

At work I’ve been snacking on fruit to try and be healthier. Yes, I want nothing more than to tear into a bag of M & Ms every day, but we all know that that is wrong and is the start of the slippery slope to fat bastardom, something I am keen to avoid at all costs. The human body and its relationship with metabolism, which has been well documented, starts to get worse the older you get. Whereas previously I could eat somewhere close to a pound of mince in one sitting and be perfectly fine, if I tried that now I would spend the rest of the week locked in a toilet.

I bought a pack of oranges for the vitamin C. They’re always described as easy peelers but they’re a shit and a half to get into. Unless the definition of easy peelers is, “something that requires a sharp knife to get into” then you’re not getting into one without, well, a sharp knife that is unless you want your hands covered in juice and pith. The last one in the pack was weird looking, it was paler than the others and kind of resembled a lemon in a certain light. It also had strange green spots that looked like mould, but they were there when I first bought them.

The more I looked at the orange the less I wanted to eat it. I started asking people at work of they wanted it to which I was greeted with a resounding “no!” for some reason. A few days went by and still there was no desire to eat it. You know me, I’d eat a sewer grate if it was coated in jam. Was it the fact that it took several minutes to get into it that was putting me off? That oranges are a pretty weak fruit overall? Who knows but whatever it was it permeated in my mind and caused a few more days to slip past.

Eventually I stopped being silly and I ate it. By now people were sick of me asking if I wanted to have the orange. I left it on my boss’ desk when she was in a meeting and, when she returned, responded with, “WHAT’S THAT DOING THERE? I don’t want your bloody orange, Ian!” I, in turn, thought this was hilarious (#fittingin). On a quiet day when nobody was looking, I stripped it of its skin and chomped it in three bites. The unusual green spots weren’t mould, so I presume they were some sort of birthmark.

A joke is only worth doing if you’re willing to run it right into the ground. I took a photo before I ate the orange so I could eventually send this to everyone in my team.

They are gonna love me so god damn much.