You know how this works. Someone in your team goes away somewhere nice on holiday, and they bring back some sweets or something for everyone else. Sometimes it’s just a nice bag of fruity chewy things they picked up at the airport, but there are people who take pleasure in bringing back something unusual that divides opinion.
In our team we have a side table where people sometimes put biscuits and other things to share. (We call it the calorie counter.) This week I came in to work after a few days off to discover it had several interesting things on it. But one of the oddities of working in a department where we all do shifts is that different people are in on different days, and by the time I arrived, there was nobody on shift who had any idea where this stuff had come from.
So I was left to examine it and see if I could work out what it all was. Here is what I found.
News just in! Reports are claiming that, after the Chris Marshall / Mecha Godzilla collaboration in August, a new concoction has been sighted in an industrial estate in the South of England.
Some bright spark decided that it was time to splice the Chris DNA with children’s 80s stop motion animated favourite Bertha, resulting in a sight that will either warm your heart or frighten you to within an inch of your life.
The Chris Bertha (or the awkwardly-named Chrertha) was spotted churning out items earlier on this week. The types of items varied greatly from garden gnomes and beach balls to jumping kangaroos and inflatable plastic bears. Once the Chris DNA had properly taken over however it decided to make a hugely illustrated and highly detailed map of the A282 as well as some interesting recipes involving avocados.
“This is the worst news I’ve ever heard,” spat news correspondent Harsh Blenchley, “you don’t see it? You don’t see the monumental disaster on the horizon? Do I need to spell it out to you? Do you even English, my friend?”
After ten minutes of this, she finally explained herself.
“Everyone knows that Bertha is capable of manufacturing anything in the world. She was the original 3D printer. A complete original. That kind of power mixed with the monstrous C-Marshall DNA could easily be used to disastrous effect. If you installed a time machine and a matter transporter into Bertha then she’d be able to go anywhere, at any point in time and make anything she wanted. The world would be on its knees.”
Ms Blenchley could see the big picture even if the rest of us couldn’t.
After the information was reported to the local police, a raid was planned on Tuesday morning. Officers burst into the premises only to find a few empty boxes and a windmill money box.
There were rumours that the C-Marshall strain of DNA was being used in some unscrupulous experiments in Korea and China, although they have remained unsubstantiated until now.
Needless to say, if the Chris Bertha has been moved to a new site, and a time machine and matter transporter been added to it, then we’re all doomed. Stay tuned for more details.
Welcome back to Melocaeruledus corner. This week we take a deep dive into the scarier parts of the Fladger family tree with the Honey Fladger…
Honey Fladger
Scientific Name:Melocaeruledus melliferus (melliferus = “honey-bearing”, fitting its honey badger heritage and predatory, aggressive nature.) Common Names: The Honey Badger,
Habitat: Savannah, scrublands, arid grasslands.
Description: The Honey Fladger combines the white-headed bastardry of the honey badger (Mellivora capensis) with the shiney blue abdomen of a bluebottle fly. Compound eyes lend it a fearsome viso/volto.
Behaviour: Both feared and admired by locals, Its powerful build makes it a fearless hive-raider. Shrugging off bee stings, it consumes the honey, wax, and larvae with equal relish. Whilst it will generally eat anything that annoys it, it has a fondness for snakes, biting them behind the head and dropping them from a great hight onto other unsuspecting Honey Fladgers.
Notes: Its buzzing flight has been likened to the growl of a wolverine caught in a trap.
As we can all tell from my last post, even without the statement at the end, I was, and still am, very tired. What started as a brief joke message to my brother turned into a rambling post on here about all sorts. This was not what I had intended to do. I was going to set some time aside for another Chris open source DNA newsboost post only suddenly it was 11pm before the end of the month and I had to scrabble around for something quicker and easier instead.
Everyone knows that looking after babies is exhausting. That still doesn’t prepare you for how exhausting it actually is. It’s a new level of exhaustion not felt in a very long time; to think I used to get a bit rowdy if I lost as little as half an hour’s sleep on a weekday. Oh, what a fool I was.
The good news is that despite some major changes to preparing baby formula bottles and some minor stuff, a lot of it remains the same and muscle memory is keeping me afloat. I am a happy state of tired, one that means I struggle to remember which way to clean the cheese grater so that I don’t shred the sponge but one that knows it is all worth it because of who it’s all for.
Perhaps with all this weariness we’ll return to 2007 Ian, writing nonsense poems about shoes made of bonfires and random articles about haunted sesame seeds. That all remains to be seen and I apologise in advance if it does happen.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has turned his attention from politics to petals, declaring that his laburnums outshine those grown in London, and that he should take the helm of the Laburnum Society.
Speaking at a small community garden event this week, Burnham praised his golden-flowering trees, saying, “I honestly believe the laburnums I grow here are stronger, brighter, and more accessible than anything they’ve got down south. The Laburnum Society is not currently serious about serving the people. I’ve even had Laburnum Society Committee members asking me to stand for the leadership now”
Burnham went on to argue that laburnums should not remain the preserve of the wealthy or well-connected. “These flowers should be available to everyone, regardless of cost,” he said. “We need to make them a part of everyday life, not just something admired in gated gardens or exclusive shows.”
While his comments have raised eyebrows among traditionalists in the horticultural world, local gardeners in Manchester have welcomed Burnham’s push for a more open and inclusive approach to laburnum growing.
The Laburnum Society has yet to respond to his remarks.
If you happened to be living under a rock you may not have noticed a certain anniversary of a certain album last year. An album everyone, and I do mean everyone, has heard of from the year 1999. Can you remember the year 1999? What a time to be alive.
Pop music was yet to turn a corner from fabricated bands and artists put together by middle-aged men in suits to everything auto-tuned to within an inch of its life and sounding like they all came from the same computer programme. Yes, as you can see I’m an old person. I can’t say I preferred it when “bands” like Steps, A1, 5ive, Backstreet Boys and all the others invaded your ears through the radio but at least they had a bit of personality and a distinct style. These days I struggle to hear the instruments in modern pop music.
Anyway, back to 1999 and everyone’s favourite Dido. Even I with my angst and my Clash liked a bit of Dido. She may have pronounced ‘I’ as ‘ah’ in every song (“ah won’t go, ah won’t sleep, ah can’t breathe…) and struggled with a tempo anything faster than what can only be described as plodding however there was something about her songs. They were breezy, easy to sing, and plodded so hard even your dad liked it. This prompted everyone in the known stratosphere to buy a copy of her album which is why you’ll find it in most charity shops.
Cut to last year and the 25th anniversary of ‘No Angel’. A milestone. A wonderful thing. I was reading the description when I got to the bottom and squinted.
Dido is a singer. Is she photographic? Of course. So what’s a classic Dido photo? Did I miss that part of her career? Did people walking around with a photo of Dido shaking hands with Prince Charles? Dido playing with friendly gypsies? Dido squatting over a bin? I tried googling it and was directed to an article on Wikipedia about the first queen of Carthage. Please can someone post some classic Dido photos so I know what I’m missing out on.
(Thank you for reading this. I am very tired and struggling for WORDS.)
Not so long ago, in one of our booze-fuelled Virtual Winston all nighters, Kev revealed that we are – finally, five years after we last recorded a new podcast episode – reaching the end of the backlog. It turns out that if you only publish one or two a year you can eke them out for a long time.
Anyway, this presents us with an issue. Sooner or later, if we want A Breath of Fresh Beans to continue smashing the podcast charts, we need to record some more, but that’s easier said than done. First, because we’re very much out of practice now, and we’re going to need to put in the hours if we want to attain the levels of highly polished badinage that our listeners expect. And second, because our podcast isn’t about anything at all, so we always struggled to find things to talk about.
What we need is a supply of good podcast topics. And, as the man who accidentally stumbled on the thing that led us to the name of the podcast, I have decided that I’m the one to supply it.
For too long the world has been absolutely awash with herbs. Go into a supermarket and there’s half an aisle of little jars of greeny-brown flakes. Nobody has the room to store them all and if you try a new recipe it will inevitably require the purchase of some more which will then sit at the back of a cupboard for the next ten years.
Thankfully salvation is at hand. As part of their wider plans for a “decade of national renewal”, the government have asked me to lead a Herb Taskforce to rationalise the UK herb landscape.
A full report will be published later this year to coincide with the autumn statement, but I’m delighted to announce my preliminary findings here.
Basil – nice both fresh and dried. Versatile. Keep it.
Bay Leaf – floats in your food while cooking, then has to be removed because it’s inedible. Tastes of nothing. Banned.
Bouquet Garni – strange teabag of mystery leaves. Just use some other herbs. Banned.
Chervil – universally described as “delicate” which means it doesn’t do much. Just use parsley.
Chicory – very bitter. People put it in coffee which is weird. Use of chicory should be punishable by prison time to stamp this out.
Chives – these always repeat on me. Get rid of them.
Coriander – this is nice. Keep it.
Dill – banned.
Fenugreek – can’t even pronounce this let alone cook with it. Banned.
Herbes de Provence – just use some basil and oregano. Nobody will know the difference. If every region of every European country had its own herb mix we’d be knee deep in the damn things and no better off for it. Provence needs to get back in its box. Banned.
Italian Herb Mix – this is just basil and oregano. Use those. Banned.
Kaffir Lime Leaf – bay leaves for Asian cooking. Bin it.
Marjoram – this is a type of oregano. We don’t need to split hairs, there are more important things going on. Just use oregano instead. Banned.
Mint – yes. Keep.
Mixed Herbs – this kind of mystery herb mix is a waste of everyone’s time. Use basil and oregano. Any recipe requiring herbs can just use basil and oregano and it’ll be fine. Banned.
Oregano – yes. Keep.
Parsley – was hoping to ban this but it would leave restaurants without little sprigs of leaves to make food look nice, so keeping it on that basis.
Rosemary – I’ve got a good chicken souvlaki recipe that needs rosemary, and it’s nice on roast potatoes. Keep.
Sage – gets used in stuffing, I suppose, but will be keeping an eye on this.
Tarragon – no.
Thyme – no.
The above will become law by the end of this Parliament, so please begin throwing away all your other herbs now to avoid trouble when your cupboards are inspected by the police. Thank you for your attention to this important matter!
