Hot on the heels of episode 33, we have another lovely Breath of Fresh Beans™ for you. This one features:
- Chris’s Horse obsession
- Ian’s bad choices
- Kev’s topical (for 2020) decision
Canine category catalogue
They say that dogs look like their owners. But this is plainly not true, because our dog is ginger and does not have a dark coloured beard. Though she does have impressive eyebrows, so at least in that regard we match.
Anyway. Now that I go wandering with the dog on a regular basis I am learning the ways of the dog walkers. You see other people with dogs all the time and it’s not often the dogs and their owners look alike, but they do come in certain easily identified types.
Here are the categories I would put basically all dog owners into.
| Retired lady with pampered pooch | These are the politest people and they will always stop and chat, sometimes even if you don’t want to, and will need to know what your dog is called and what breed she is. Their dog will be a beautifully manicured poodle crossbreed called Lucy who has a bow on her pink collar. |
| Young couple with overexcited livewire | They are very much in love but they aren’t ready for kids yet, so they got a Labrador cross which is bounding around the place like it’s made of springs. They tell you he’s only young and he’ll calm down when he grows up but he never will. One such couple I met a while back had a boisterous dachshund rather than a Labrador, and it was called Simon. |
| Middle aged lady with any number of greyhounds | The lady is wearing a gilet and a floral headscarf. She won’t stop to chat but she will say something formal and upper crust like “good morning to you!” as she strides past. She has at least two greyhounds or whippets and they too are wearing gilets. |
| Stressed dog walker with pack on the brink of rioting | She is about 30 and she does this part time. She is wearing a sleeveless puffer jacket and has several full poo bags hanging off her belt. She has five dogs of wildly different sizes and temperaments straining at five leads, and another three or four random hounds running around in the trees nearby. She cannot remember their names and if one of them runs away she has no hope of getting it back. |
| Skinhead bloke with terrifying attack dog | He is wearing very big steel toecap boots and at least one garment made of leather. His dog is a German Shepherd, or anything else that has the pointy ears of a purebred predator, and is called Zeus. He will not say hello back and he will watch silently and from a distance as his dog stalks other people’s dogs and also any small children nearby. |
| Large middle aged man with tiny ball of aggression | This man is perhaps 50 and is walking the improbably tiny lapdog that can only have been chosen by his wife. His wife does not walk the dog because it has not been trained and is uncontrollable. He will make a half-hearted apology as his nasty little pet snarls, growls and barks at your dog and pulls at its lead in an attempt to start a fight. |
| Tweedy country types with indeterminate number of border collies | A greying middle aged couple who are wearing tweed, flat caps and Barbour jackets. They might not be landed gentry but they definitely support fox hunting. They will say hello to you because they were bred to have manners but they would have nothing to say to someone of your social standing if you ever tried to make conversation. Their dogs are beautiful but have no interest in you and will walk past like you don’t exist. |
| Lonely old man with waddling mongrel | Do not engage the man in conversation. He is perfectly nice but you will be there for three quarters of an hour hearing his life story while his peculiar little dog with a stubby tail and a greying muzzle tries to have a wee on your leg. |
| Distracted mum with toddler, pushchair and feral spaniel | It is not clear why this family decided to get a dog at the same time as having several small children, and it is plainly making their life more difficult and chaotic than it needs to be, but it’s too late now because that’s what they’ve got. Dad is at work so mum is taking all of them for a walk. The dog is nice but not very well trained and is basically walking itself. |
| Handsome middle class professional with excellent ginger dog | I realised at the end of the list that I didn’t fit into any of the above categories, so it stands to reason that there must be one more that is suitable for someone like me. |
More lists
I’ve started using lists again. I keep forgetting things that need doing, such as uploading a bunch of photos to this here website that Chris asked for months ago, so I write them down and there’s less chance I’ll forget. Nothing is 100% foolproof though.
I should use them more often. I should have lists for everything but then there’s the risk of having so many lists that I won’t have time to do anything because I’m too busy writing lists. I need to tread that fine line carefully.
Walking through the “mean streets” of Morpeth, we came across this list scrawled on the glass door of an abandoned derelict shop. I clocked it, made a mental note of its location and then came back to it again on the walk back to the car.
I’m not sure if they were trying to be funny or not. It is a strange list for sure. Who is Soo-fee? Are they as well-known as Taylor Swift, Coca Cola and God? I would have thought that ‘bees?’ would have made the list and the fact that they’re missing is a crime.
I’m not inclined to write any of my lists on something that isn’t a piece of paper or a notepad. I can’t scribble something on a pub and then drag that around with me, it’s not practical. Perhaps the person with the pen lives nearby and needed a visual clue on the way to work or school. Whatever the reason, keep yo lists outta ma face. I’ve got enough of my own
The jelly baby quiz
Would you like to win a massive prize? Of course you would.
And would you still like to win that massive prize if it was actually not very massive and was just a fairly large pack of jelly babies? Well, yes, obviously; if anything that would be even better. Everyone likes jelly babies. You are now, understandably, physically clawing at the screen in an attempt to take part. Don’t worry. I will explain how it works.
How it works
The prize is a fairly large pack of jelly babies. The winner gets not just the jelly babies but also the opportunity to specify the brand. Are you a Bassetts fan or a Haribo acolyte? All tastes are catered for here. To win it, you just need to achieve the highest score in the jelly baby quiz, which is a quiz about jelly and babies.
Good luck! It’s time for the questions.
The questions
- Jelly is made using which animal product?
- Babies are born without which bones?
- In a classic red-yellow-green multicoloured jelly scenario, what flavour is the green one?
- To the nearest 400, how many babies were born in the UK in 2023?
- Which is the correct part of a jelly baby to eat first?
Get your answers in now. One of you lucky entrants will win this not-very-massive massive prize.
Good luck again! And now, in addition, good bye.
Gooseboost
Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of Gooseboost, reporting on all the goose-based news in your area and a little bit more elsewhere. I’m your host, Bruce “The Goose” Winterburn.
The headlines:
- New shade of dark orange paint colour renamed ‘Boss goose’ after tense voting process over the weekend
- Kentucky restaurant’s popular ‘Geese Feast’ menu item dropped to $14.99 for the whole of October
- Hysterical goose celebrity impersonater Dwayne ‘The Flock’ Johnson set to dazzle at 2024 HSJ awards next month
The top story today though involves locked doors, unsightly men and a gaggle of the most unusual guards you’ve ever seen in your entire life.
A prison in South America decided to change from guards dogs to guard geese in a switch that has sent most people into a flap.
Since December last year, a group of geese have been patrolling the perimeter of the Sao Pedro de Alcantara prison in Brazil’s southern state of Santa Catarina. The honking hoodlums dubbed “geese agents” are in charge of patrolling the green space between the prison’s inside fence and main outer wall. The staff of the prison remain convinced that the vigilance of the waterfowl species of bird is what makes them excellent guard animals and continue to use them in lieu of the more traditional canines.
This follows on from our May editorial, ‘Geese, please! Are they really that bad?’ where we set out to debunk some of the common misconceptions of the common goose. It is all to do with how territorial they are, especially when protecting the young. It’s very rare that humans will be attacked, but it can happen. They are capable of causing serious injury by biting or smacking you with their marvellously strong wings. A serious injury is not always guaranteed, it depends what kind of day they’re having. If you catch one on a Monday before they’ve had their morning coffee then you may want to get ahead and phone in sick at work.
If a prison is using geese to keep prisoners in line then surely it’s only a matter of time before they’re wheeled out for use in the police force. Expect CCTV footage from future Saturday night scraps in city centres around the UK to feature both man and beak. You have been warned.
Log burner controversy
The modern world is one of tolerance and equality, of partnerships and collaboration, and of diversity and open-mindedness. It is a world that many have come to loathe given how different it seems from the pre-twentieth century landscape we all grew up in. I personally am still in two minds about whether it’s gotten better or worse because if I was to side with the latter then I would be throwing myself into the great rubbish tip of cancellation. If I pine for the days of cheap petrol, lad culture and “cool Britannia” (bleugh!) from the 1990s then surely I’m a racist?
Well, no, I wouldn’t be because that’s bonkers but you have to be careful as to what you say and do, especially here on the internet. One false word and my reputation (?) would be in tatters. Consider me? Consider me not, thank you. All this cancellation culture comes from a lack of tolerance, but what I will not tolerate is blatant sexism of the highest order masquerading as a cosy forum for people to interact in.
Recently Vikki was, presumably, looking up things to do with log burners what with us getting one with the house and winter practically dossing around our respective doorsteps. She happened upon this and sent it to me:
A female only group? Chatting about log burners? One which I am unable to participate in because of my gender? Outrageous! Surely this is a hate crime. If you can’t advertise for gender-specific jobs then you shouldn’t be able to advertise FILTH such as this. I’m sure there are hundreds, nay, thousands of male-only groups where they’re all out there discussing the highs and lows of using a log burner, but I don’t want in on them. I want to see the other side of the coin; I want the female perspective and I can’t because I’m a man.
Am I wrong to want to be part of something that has nothing whatsoever to do with me?
Not at all. Let me in!
Tea ‘n’ Tabasco
At last! Raise a bowl of coffee in celebration: “A Folk History of Dublin”, the official ceremonial record of our historic visit to Ireland, is now online.
It’s one of our biggest-ever efforts, running to an impressive 82 pages of words, drawings and stupid ideas, including…
- Ian’s breakfast journey
- Danny and Michael go to New York City
- The red hot spiky baton of anger
- Plinth people and façade folk
- The now-legendary Kev’s Reality Flowchart
- Mr Bread Adjacent Eggs
- The angels smiling on Kev’s plan
The later pages of this document will be a particular surprise to Kev, who left the country before they were finished.
All of this collected wisdom and artistry is now yours to enjoy in the Books section of the Beans, along with our other sacred texts.
WFH
My job isn’t one you can do from home, so while the rest of the world has spent the last few years abandoning the office, I’ve still been turning up in person like some sort of mug.
The other day I had the opportunity to spend a day working from home, and grabbed it with both hands. I had lots of project work to do and none of it required me to be in the building: I had some training videos that needed voiceovers recording, I had documentation to write and I had some development work to do on some internal web tools I wrote. So on Friday I fired up a work laptop at home and got stuck in.
Not only did I get more sleep and avoid the time and cost of about 3½ hours of commuting, I also got loads done. Here is a summary of how I spent my ten hour shift.
| Activity | Duration |
|---|---|
| Attend morning meeting for WFH staff through my phone because the laptop wasn’t logged in yet | 0h 30m |
| Struggle to get the work laptop to connect to my home wifi and talk to IT support about proxy settings | 0h 45m |
| Check emails | 0h 10m |
| Make coffee, get distracted by arrival of post | 0h 10m |
| Open training slides in Powerpoint, set up USB microphone and headphones, test setup, get distracted and read news articles on the Guardian website | 1h |
| Do Guardian Quick Crossword #16972 | 0h 15m |
| Start recording voiceover, discover time limit on Powerpoint recordings, search for alternative screen recording software, install on work laptop | 0h 25m |
| Dog arrives in room, play with dog | 0h 30m |
| See message on phone, reply to message, see notification on Reddit, scroll through Reddit | 0h 20m |
| Break for lunch | 1h |
| Unlock laptop, set Teams status to “available”; toilet break | 0h 10m |
| Start recording voiceover with new software, get lost on complex slide animation twenty minutes in, discover there is no edit feature, resign self to having to start recording again, become despondent about project, make tea, look at phone again for a bit | 1h 30m |
| Let dog out for a wee, throw ball for dog which gets dog excited, dog spends extended period of time on very wet lawn, dog runs back inside and through house with muddy paws. Clean dog’s paws. Clean kitchen, dining room and hallway floors with Dettol wipes | 0h 45m |
| See email from team leader asking how day is going, redraft reply eight times, eventually just say it’s going well thanks | 0h 15m |
| Notice office-hours staff will be leaving work in 15 minutes, write email asking complex question about SQL database backups for web app that I need to work on, send email slightly too late for it to be seen or dealt with before Monday | 0h 30m |
| Rehearse complex slide animation that tripped me up before, change animation after rehearsal, fail to rehearse new animation sequence | 0h 30m |
| Make tea, get distracted by dog, play with dog | 0h 30m |
| Start recording voiceover, get lost on changed animation sequence twenty minutes in, plough on anyway since interest in project is now waning, continue to end of recording | 0h 40m |
| Discover freeware screen recording software has recorded in some random format to some place in the cloud, attempt to download and convert this to something useful | 0h 20m |
| Send email to team leaders shared inbox about something unrelated to today’s work to prove I am still online at the end of my shift | 0h 5m |
| Log off | 0h 5m |