Avatar ABOFB 33: Disappointing Things

After only 9 months since the last episode, and because Ian made me feel bad for that fact, here comes episode 33!
I’ve dredged out from the lockdown archives this gem, where we discuss:

  • Gigs
  • Gruff Rhys
  • Ignoring the question
  • Food

Avatar Where has Kev been?

You know the deal, I disappear for a while, then I come back full of beans then disappear again. Its a story as old as time. Well this time you may be forgive for thinking that I’d just been too busy doing a masters degree or looking after kids or some other made up nonsense, well no. Not this time.

For the last 5 and a bit months I have in fact been trapped down the character hatch. I know, I know, you’ve both told me to leave it shut, but sometimes the curiosity gets too much for me.

Now those of you with a keen memory may remember the last time I went down there, got stuck and was abandoned by Ian who was too busy demanding ham I had no means to provide. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson, but no. I opened the hatch (with a pack of ham in my bag just in case) and sank down into the Old Beans.

I spent a few hours wandering through the ornamental gardens, had a picnic by the Zorse monument and whiled away another hour or two doing a sketch of the bell tower in charcoal. The tower’s looking in quite bad shape these days, and you can just make out the corpse of a recently deceased zorse leaning against a wall.

Anyhow, I was just about to come back home when I heard that sound… you know the one… The sound of moody guitars, breaking glass and arty poetry that could only mean… Pete Doherty. He spotted me immediately, he had the mad faraway glint in his eye of a man who’d been forced to exclusively eat zorse meat for 13 years, and he was pissed. In both senses. I think he’d worked out how to distill zorse piss into a kind of hooch. Anyway after chasing me round the great hall, the gardens, across the old Loinsford campus and back to the clock tower he eventually caught me and pressganged me into forming a new band with him and doing a tour of the forbidden lands, (the Cockall Archives, the Saint Kingdom and the Savannah of in-jokes).

The band was just us two, and all I could play was the recorder and the demo button on the keyboard. It was awful. Pete wrote some witty satirical lyrics about Ian’s love of ham and the fall of Chris Industries, and off we went. We played 700 gigs, mostly to empty rooms. Occasionally the zorses would come by, and then quickly leave, but mostly to empty rooms.

For whatever reason, when we returned, Doherty was sated. His anger subsided, the punching stopped and he just wandered off into the mist surrounding in the Loosh Vestibule. I was free. I made my escape and resealed the hatch. I’ve learned my lesson (for now), and I’m back. Hopefully.

Avatar Missing, presumed busy

Dearly beloved we are gathered here today to cast a keen eye over the mostly-absent third member of the Beans trio, Mr Kevin Hill.

Hill is not dead or missing after hiking through the foothills of Cheveley or anything suspicious like that. We know that he’s still flobbiting about somewhere, possibly in his lovely house or one of the many, many locations he has to drop and/or pick up his kids from.

He has a made-up job title (at least according to his Linked-In profile) and may or may not still be running some kind of poodle grooming business on the side. Is this what takes up all of his time? Are dogs the reason he doesn’t visit anymore? Expert analysists seem to suggest so.

The important thing is that we remember he is still a thing and remembering is fun. Though he may have abstained from posting anything for the last eight hundred years, though his track record of editing and uploading the podcasts is as sketchy as an afternoon with Vincent Van Gogh, Kevin is still a valuable edition to the team and we all look forward to seeing his cheery little face once again.

Avatar ABOFB 32: Conspiracy Theories

A Breath of Fresh Beans returns triumphantly after only 371 days since the last episode. We’re still ploughing through the wealth of recordings made during the various Covid-19 lockdowns, so its still technically series 4.

Anyway, we burst back into your ears to discuss:

  • Finland
  • Paul McCartney
  • Popcorn
  • Tinned Bears

Avatar Not Kev

A little while ago, in the comments thread of another post, Ian and I were musing about how we could get more material from Kev on the Beans, and Ian suggested we use AI to churn out some generic Kev-like material for a new “Not Kev” account.

Unfortunately there just isn’t enough genuine Kev blog material to feed in to an AI to teach it what it should be writing, so I suggested padding it out with a load of Jilly Cooper novels.

Anyway, long story short, I got ChatGPT to write us some “Not Kev” blog posts and, while they have turned out with a fairly heavy Jilly Cooper influence, they’re still basically decent enough to be posted under Kev’s name without anyone noticing the difference.

I’ve actually got three of these ready to go, but I think this is the best one.

Read More: Not Kev »

Avatar ABOFB 30: Work Music

We’re back, we’ve reached the big 3-0, and just in time for Kev to keep his first 2022 bean!

This time out Ian asks us to sum up our jobs as a style of music which, as ever, leads to a meandering conversation covering, amongst many things…

  • Kraftwerk
  • Jazz
  • Latin
  • Shaggy

Avatar Episode 13: Ivy

Episodes is back with another cracking example. Yes, I know its been fucking ages, but what are you going to do about it?

This time out we ponder the evergreen topic of Ivy, specifically:

  • Sensual statues
  • A good view
  • Riding a pig
  • Deep personal psychoanalysis from Dr. Marshall

Avatar 2020 State of the Beans Address

Good day to you all. Thank you. You’re very kind.

My name is Sergeant-Major Professor Lord Sir Elbert Louche, KBE. It is a great privilege to join you here at Fairburn Ings visitor centre for the sixth annual State of the Beans Address. Please could I request that you do not feed the ducks until the formalities have concluded, and also please don’t feed any of the crispy Peking duck to the ducks. The RSPB are trying to avoid another Mad Cow Disease type incident with their mallards.

Read More: 2020 State of the Beans Address »