Avatar Record covers

I was all set for writing a wonderful piece about the similarities between the symbolism of ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ by Mark Twain and brutal French cinema classic ‘La Haine’ when it dawned on me that I’ve had a pretty busy month and that perhaps I should take it easy for this last post.

I was tidying up the living room and came across a collection of 1000 record covers Mr. Merry gave me about 5 years ago. You know the type, a coffee table book with very little merit other than something to flick through when you’re waiting for a takeaway or someone to drop round. I had previously gone through it and put bookmarks in on certain pages, no doubt some genius plan to make a post in the future, so I did what I always do and made a collage to wow you all with.

The curious thing about ‘Last Kiss’ is that on the first pressing the girl had fake blood dripping from the girl’s face but there must have been some controversy about that and it was removed. So the rumour goes anyway.

I still can’t understand the logistics of Bobby Bland’s hair.

I can’t fathom why Hall and Oats would choose to call their album ‘Abandoned Luncheonette’.

Fanny. Americans, eh? When will they learn?

Avatar Important dates in history – 4 August 2022

Where were you on 4 August 2022? It was a Thursday so you were probably doing nothing. Nobody does anything on a Thursday except wait for the incoming Friday so they can start planning how many Jägerbombs they’re planning to neck before starting on the pints.

I do not remember what I was doing on this very important date. A Thursday? Probably playing some video game nonsense, eating a soufflé and had a shower before going to bed. I do love a soufflé on a Thursday. The Thursday soufflé I call it. Sometimes I eat it in the shower to feel like a king. I think we’re getting off the point here though.

This is a very important date in history and I know this not just because I’m writing this post and it’s my idea to do so. A legion of children, both young and old, cried into the stars on this day because after forty-four years the children’s animated film ‘Watership Down’ was finally reclassified as a PG.

You might think this is not a big deal, especially if you’ve never seen it. Last year I read the book and I can tell you that it is just as harrowing as the film. When I was a kid I taped a copy off the TV because that’s what you did. “This sounds interesting,” I told myself as I loaded the VHS in and pressed record. Back in 1978 when it was originally made, it was classed as a ‘U’ for universal meaning anyone with two eyes and a pair of legs could watch it. You could watch it as much as you wanted. For those not in the know, ‘Watership Down’ tells the story of a group of rabbits who move away from their home just as the evil humans destroy it to make space to build more houses. They then go on an adventure to find a safe place to live out in the wilderness of the English countryside. What could be so scary about that? The author, Richard Adams, did not shy away from presenting nature in its original format i.e. brutal as fuck.

A sunset depicting Bigwig in a snare, with the title in fancy font and the credits below.

One rabbit gets caught in a trap and almost chokes to death on its own vomit and blood. They are hunted by all manner of predators, get shot at by humans and ripped apart from other rabbits. The main antagonist is called General Woundwort who treats his burrow as a dictatorship and kills anyone or anything that gets in his way. One of the main characters has terrifying visions of the future and goes into a kind of seizure whenever this happens; the reason the rabbits escape at the start is because of him and his nightmarish precognitive abilities. Towards the end of the film a dog gets loose and… well, you get the picture.

Tiny baby Ian watched all of this and always wondered why it was that the BBFC would let anyone see this when it was clearly meant for older audiences. I found a copy in the charity shop recently and I am going to force Reuben to watch it because it’s important. Is it a timeless story of heroism, adventure, friendship and not giving up despite the odds? Yes. Does it look a bit ropey but still have a lot of nicely animated bits? Yes. Does it have the voices of John Hurt and Richard Briers? Yes. These, however, are not the reasons why I’m making him watch it. He has to know the trauma that I felt because then he will thank me for not subjecting it to him as a child. I think it’s about time I got some recognition.

Avatar The Rapples ride again

Do you remember eight and a half years ago, when we were rap stars? What did we do with all the fur and gold chains when that all ended? And how did three thirtysomething white northerners ever get away with recording four terrible, terrible rap songs?

The EP Space for an Ace might not be something you revisit on a regular basis (though I still think Turd Picnic is pretty catchy), but a far more appealing prospect is the video footage we recorded over the course of the weekend while we were making it. I’d just got a new camera and wanted to try it out, so we filled a tape with more than an hour of nonsense. A few bits have leaked out over the years (like this and this and this), but now I’ve finally edited the rest to make a pretty watchable 18 minutes of new stuff.

A lot of material was trimmed because it was rubbish. Other parts have been lost forever: a fair slice of the creative process for “Crash and Burn” exists only as silent pictures, because of a microphone mishap that Kev kindly makes me explain in the film. There was also a five-minute sequence with the three of us sitting on the sofa, talking to the camera and to each other. It looked hilarious, but we’ll never know what we were talking about now. Never mind.

Still, lots of stupid stuff survived, so I’m delighted to present – at last, eight years late – the Rapples in action, live from 2015. It’s pretty good.

Avatar Tiny pig

Having recently been tasked with trying to find more photos for the upcoming 2024 Pouring Beans calendar, I was looking through the various photos on my phone in the hopes of locating the ones of the boxes I used to keep in the corner of my bedroom that were riddled with various quips, zingers and bizarre things written down during phone calls from over a decade ago. Needless to say, the search is currently ongoing (although the boxes may be hiding in the one cupboard in my flat).

As I flicked through the many, many pictures in my possession I came across a series involving a tiny toy guinea pig. These clearly were taken by one or all three of my nieces and transferred via the usual means of Whatsapp. I definitely do not own a tiny guinea pig and did not spend time putting them in hilarious places so that I could take photographs to mark the occasion. We’ve all met me, right? It is the kind of thing I could potentially do, I’ll admit, however this time I am not the culprit.

Given that everyone absolutely loves the PicCollages that I make, I have decided to make a PicCollage to collect the best of the six in my camera reel. Suck deep and bathe, my friends.

Avatar Blurrd

Last weekend, some people hopped in a car and drove over six hours out of their way to go and see some men with musical wooden sticks on a big stage.

The sticks were played well. The musical men did good. It did not rain which is good because the people were outside and not wearing coats.

The less said about the toilets the better.

As the big ball of flaming gas disappeared from the sky, the stone structure on the hill looked pretty and made everything better.

That said, if you wanted a bottle of cold liquid you had to part with 300 pennies. A cone of frozen milk cost over 600 pennies. Huge posters telling you to keep hydrated was a piss take by all accounts.

Overall if I could have scooped out the men with music sticks and moved them somewhere else I would have done. Highly recommended.

Avatar A little help

Back in November, I sent Ian his belated birthday present. Film yourself opening it, Kev and I said, so we can see the joy and wonder on your face as you open the tat you’ve been sent. Ian said he would do this.

It’s now been nearly three weeks since Ian told us he’d made the video but hadn’t yet got it onto YouTube. We are still waiting with baited breath to see him open his present. Kev, of course, hasn’t seen the present yet and doesn’t know what it is. I have seen the present, because it was me that bought and wrapped it, but so much time has elapsed since the video was promised that I’ve honestly forgotten what it was.

As a genuine YouTuber, I have decided to do what I can to help, and have dedicated my latest video to explaining how to get a video onto YouTube and then put it into a post on the Beans. Everything then got a bit meta because I uploaded the video, showing you how to upload a video to YouTube and post it to the Beans, to YouTube, and then after that I posted it to the Beans. Anyway… here it is.

Avatar Another lost classic

You know what I’m like. Always losing things, and then finding them 14 or more years later.

First it was Big Day Out. Then my long-lost footstool turned up on eBay. (Have I told you about the footstool? Remind me and I’ll take you through it all in exhausting detail later.) Now something else has arrived.

Back in 2002, Al had just got a camera and we excitedly made a series of five admittedly mediocre films with the title “AlCam”. The most ambitious, and possibly least terrible, was AlCam 4, where our theme was “culture” and we attempted to cover art, fine dining, foreign travel and music, among other things.

The finished movie was transferred to Super 8 tape on the camcorder, and then all the files were deleted because they took up lots of space and in 2002 disk space was expensive. Then Al, er, misplaced the tape. I had big plans to put all the AlCam movies on DVD, and in 2003 I did just that. In order to get the movie into a digital format, I gave Al my copy of the film, which was on VHS. Al then also lost that.

The result was that AlCam 1, 2, 3 and 5 have all safely been stored on DVD ever since. AlCam 4 was never seen again.

Until, that is, Al started going through old tapes when he had a clear-out over Christmas, and sent me this picture from the little screen on his old camcorder.

In it, we see a youthful Al and Chris introducing AlCam4, complete with branded t-shirts, in front of a very hi-tech bluescreen background. It’s been found. And when I get the time, I’m going to put it on DVD. Not because anyone wants to watch it – I don’t particularly want to watch it. But because it’s been an unfinished project for 20 years and finishing things is important. Especially to me. I’ve had an empty DVD box on my shelf for two decades and I’m damned if I’m not going to take this opportunity to finish the job.

To answer Kev’s next question in advance… no, Al still hasn’t found “An Evening with Kev and Chris”, now missing in action since 2003. Sorry.

Avatar A moment from history

“Oh dear, English hearts are broken the world over. Mrs Goggins has missed her penalty meaning that England are knocked out by Germany. They will not make it past the semi-finals and Germany will go on to play the Czech Republic at Wembley Stadium.

Goggins looks gutted, a world on her shoulder and nothing to show for it. Our thoughts are with her at this most trying of times. There was nothing more she could do. I expect everyone in Greendale felt that.”