Avatar Words I Hate, part 3

It’s becoming traditional (come on, we’ve been up and running for three months, so anything that’s been running this long definitely counts as a tradition) for me to wheel out another canister of literary vitriol around the start of the month. And seeing as April is looming up ahead of us I’d better get cracking with… another Word I Hate.

This one is short, because the case can be made very quickly and nobody can argue against it.

Fayre

This word doesn’t even need to exist. We have all the words with this sound and this meaning already: we have fair, meaning an outdoor event or celebration, and we have fare, meaning food and drink and perhaps generous hospitality. Fayre is sometimes used in place of both these perfectly good word by idiots who think it lends their temporary Christmas market or their roast beef serving pub some kind of charming air of tradition and jollity. But it doesn’t do that, any more than calling your newsagent Ye Olde Shoppe gives it medieval heritage. It just makes you an idiot who has called your venture a stupid name for misguided reasons. So stop it. You cretin.

Avatar Time for a Sing Song

What with April peeking around the corner, desperate to blast us all away with Easter-based hilarity, let’s take a moment to enjoy the last day of March with a wonderful ditty.

Part-written in turn by Reuben, but mainly by me, let us present to you the marvel that is ‘Barry The Chinchilla’. If you can remember the ‘Woman in a Tabbard’ song from the Big Breakfast then you should sing it along to that tune.

Barry The Chinchilla

Barry the Chinchilla
He bought a big gorilla
Used to play for Aston Villa
(His) favourite colour is manilla
Likes to dance along to ‘Thriller’
Wrote a play with Arthur Miller
Once was flattened by a pillar
Was an extra in ‘Godzilla’
Drinking pints of sarsaparilla

BUT

(Poor old) Barry the Chinchilla
Wicked Audrey was his killer
Bumped him off with cordless driller
(Finished off by his gorilla)
Then she went after Priscilla

(No more) Barry the Chinchilla
Nor his sister, sweet Priscilla

Avatar Missing

MISSING

We are seeking information on the whereabouts of “Kevil”. He is a bit taller than me and has far longer legs, and is characterised by turning up here and posting comments after weeks away just as I finally get round to making my hilarious “missing” poster, which I’m using anyway because I’ve made it now.

If you have any information about this individual please raise your hand.

Avatar Box Memories

The human memory is an unreliable tool. Things that you think you remember can be twisted and exploited because people are unreliable and easily influenced. If, like me, you know how superbly atrocious your mind is you learn to record everything or at least as much as you can in the written form. This is starting to feel like a lecture…

And it’s not. The boxes in the corner of my room have bore witness to many a stimulating conversation over the years and sadly the pen and pencil work is starting to fade. Before all these “ideas” are lost to time I thought it best to record them for posterity here, of all places, so we can revel in their warm fuzziness. You may also be able to help remind me just what the fuck they mean. In no particular order I present ‘Box Memories’:

1. Women’s werewolf rights
2. No HAT, no HOLMES!
3. Jam flaps
4. Flip reverse my sandwich
5. Chris = Biggy Bam
6. Adjacent apples on the shelf of life
7. It’s not what we do, it’s the way we do it
8. Epic nonny
9. Steam hot prayers (that was Tom’s stag do, I remember that)
10. I say it, but I don’t mean it
11. I had big boots that day for sure
12. NEW PAPPLES ALBUM = 15% and rising
13. Anvil hands
14. I’m gonna hit you with the fist of gratitude. SLAP!
15. It was too lonny gone ago…
16. RED WINE = MAN WINE. ROSE = GIRL WINE
17. My moustache is off the scale!
18. Apples for thought
19. MAN LIKES HIS DRINK
20. I’d like a BIG FAT January
21. Gourmet = small and shafted
22. “Sock Lions”
23. … it will make your face bleed with smiles
24. Get your warranty out of my chude!
25. I dream of having a database of moods
26. I need a rocket
27. HAIRY ON THE GO!
28. Total toilet
29. 30 = dead (how nice)
30. Banh-kuok (rolled bread, french bread, bread)
31. Big nay
32. Plentingtons = plenty of things

There’s also a faded flame that appears to say ‘Uncle Now’ and of course the now infamous Michael Jackson test.

Question: Am I dead?

If your answer is yes, you are Michael Jackson
If your answer is no, you are someone else

Avatar Neil Armstrong gets a Time Machine (using a Time Machine)

Here at da beans we do like to consider everything before we make our minds up. There is absolutely no point in rushing in with an idea or an opinion unless it has been thought through with a considerable degree of certainty.

Still, this kind of logic is nothing when faced with the abstract mind of a child. Who’s child? My child.

This child does not obey the laws of anything other than what I tell him, and quite possibly his teacher. That said there is still a realm of “eh?”, a dark corner of his mind that does not allow anything in that refuses to conform to that happy rainbow of “surely not”. I bore witness to such a thing recently which was documented in my notebook, which was as follows:

“Neil Armstrong… gets a time machine (which he can only use once) to travel into the future to get a better time machine to make him famous. Then the world blows up.

Note: if you get a time machine go back in time and destroy him!”

I have looked at this page in my notebook on many occasions, and indeed I was there when he was talking about this, and still I am baffled as to what it actually means. Any help that anyone can throw my way would be very gratefully received.

Avatar Words I Hate, Part 2

It’s March, and time Marches on. Let’s steal a March on it by looking at another Word I Hate.

Knickers

Many undergarments have ordinary-sounding names. Even something intentionally sexy, like a teddy (which is, of course, short for “teddington”) can have an unsexy name. But knickers? Nothing about it suggests something I want to get involved with. Nothing about it says “here is a thing that might attractively adorn a love interest”. It is even worse than “panties”, which frankly sound like a children’s name for pants and which should not be allowed in any romantic context ever.

Knickers starts with a deadly “kn” letter combination, a piece of linguistic showjumping that automatically takes the pleasure out of a word and gives it an ungainly appearance. And after that the rest of the word is all clacking c’s and k’s and a harsh sibilant ending. No smooth sounds here, no silky suggestions of a soft undergarment concealing the downstairs pleasure gardens of a lover or casual acquaintance. No. Just hard noises and an offputting spelling.

Knickers to it, I say.

Avatar Newsboost – Toaster Terror Trauma

The world was plunged into confusion and terror today as it was revealed that a growing number of toasters are using desperately violent measures to make themselves known following a decline in toasted-based breakfasts.

The growth in the “healthy breakfast revolution”, which has seen people more inclined than ever to sprint to work with some sort of energetic biscuit soiling their mouth, has pushed the standard staples of breakfast, such as cereal and toast, to one side and off the edge into the bin. There is such a large range of yoghurts and seed bars, and with 2014 containing less time than ten years ago people just don’t have the time to sit down and heat up bread anymore. The result has seen toasters become not only redundant but sad and a little bit cranky.

Toast hasn’t been this unpopular since 1959, in the year that saw bread publicly state that it, “hated everyone” and that “the world would be better off without humans”. Bread retracted this statement some days later but it had a lasting effect that wouldn’t see toast recover until some years later. At least back then you could argue that this was self-inflicted; the modern world hasn’t been particularly kind to toast. So much so that a large group of toasters has organised an attack in the West Midlands.

Toasters from in and around the Birmingham area have barricaded themselves in a local Wetherspoons and are threatening to singe the ears of several cats caught earlier this week unless their demands are met. So far these appear to simple: more toast, less not toast, more crumpets and bread buns and perhaps a waffle here and there. An official spokesperson for the toasters is yet to comment, although we would imagine that what he has to say would be indecipherable.

The local police have had to call in a specialised Toaster Sheriff, Sherilyn Lucas, to enter into talks with the toasters to smooth over the tension and hopefully come to a satisfying, or snackisfying, conclusion without the need for burnt kitty ears. Let’s hope that it’s less toast fur and more toast her for doing a sufficient job. Only time will tell if these puns are actually funny.