Month: October 2016

Avatar Modern technology

What is the one area of your life that modern technology has yet to change? Which of your household appliances has so far failed to make its way to the twenty first century?

We all know what the answer is, and thankfully Pouring Beans Technology Division is here with the solution. Yes – what you need is a ToiletPhone™.

Lavatory with instrument of communication

  • For the times you run out of toilet roll
  • For the times the lock on the bathroom door gets stuck
  • For the times you get lonely while doing a really long wee
  • For the times you want to call your significant other with a live update on your child’s potty training progress
  • For the times you need to call your toilet’s technical support line

It’s the new appliance every home needs, and Pouring Beans will deliver and install it for just £996.95.

Call today!

Avatar Trekkin’ Abroad – Spain

“Da da de something something da,” as the song goes, “viva España!” Well, I am in Spaiñ now and it certainly seems to still be viving tolerably well.

This is a flying visit to a far-off land, so in many ways my assessment of the country and its people may be hasty or perhaps based on an incomplete assessment of the facts. But I see no reason why that should stop me passing judgement on the place.

So far, the main thing I have noticed are the number of English people here. English people appear to be not only visiting, but also living here and running almost all the businesses. I am growing concerned for the safety and welfare of the 46 million people who are native to Spain because as far as I can tell they are not here and I find myself wondering where they are.

Aside from that, the weather here seems nice and it is easier to procure bacon sandwiches, beefburgers and a decent curry than in the UK, so on the whole this place has its upsides. The downside appears to be that, if we leave the European Union, we will also leave behind most of the population of England.

Avatar Ultimate Party – De-Sade-ber

After the recent celebration of the work of both the band and singer, both called Sade, on this website I think it is only fair that we throw open the doors and try to organise something to carry on the party. Most occasions are only occasions and therefore are only allowed to be a day of celebration or, when you behave nicely, a week. It is very rare when an event will be allowed to run for a full month.

That is what I am proposing though. Given the gifts that Sade, both versions, have provided to the world it is only fair that the entirety of December is used to give them a much-needed pat on the back. I am therefore wanting to gather the world together to organise ‘De-Sade-ber’.

We take one overused and busy month, namely December, change the letters around and what do you get? ‘De-Sade-ber’! A full thirty one days of smooth, sensual overtones and jazz-like lounge lizard silken sounds. There are only sixteen tracks on ‘The Best of Sade’ so we will have to double up if we play one song for each day of ‘De-Sade-Ber’. But won’t it be nice!

You’ll be Christmas shopping in some horrible, sweaty shopping mall and ‘The Sweetest Taboo’ starts playing to ease the tension.

You’ll be wrapping presents to the gloriously swirly ‘Your Love is King’.

You’ll be, I dunno, swigging eggnog to ‘Cherish the Day’.

I think it’s a good idea. I think that you will think that it’s a good idea. I also think it has a catchy name regardless of whether you pronounce Sade the correct or incorrect way. I also think that people need more Sade, both versions, in their life.

Avatar Unconfirmed individual on nondescript greeting card

I like making cards. Making cards is fairly easy and fun providing you know what to draw or write on the front. If you don’t then it’s a painful and frustrating experience. Thankfully, most of the time I know what I’m doing, which makes a change (ba dum chish!)

It was recently my sisters’ birthday. Sisters plural, as in they both had their birthdays, in that despite being three years between them their birthday is on the same day. Which is weird. I decided to crack off a couple of cards in my usual manner.

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Now I know what you’re thinking. This card seems like it was destined to be for one particular sister, but you would be wrong. Without looking in the top-right corner that is.

This card was for Sarah and despite the uncanny resemblance to a certain intepretation of a Christian deity that is not a drawing of Jesus Christ.

I now open up the floor to see if anyone can guess who it is supposed to be.

No clues now.

Avatar This Way Up: episode 5

Traditionally in the UK, groundbreaking comedy has always been commissioned in series of six episodes. So it was for “Fawlty Towers”, so it was for “The Fast Show”, so it was for the revolutionary “Keeping Up Appearances”.

This is how we know that we have another world-changing format on our hands. “This Way Up”, the incredible sketch comedy from Newcastle-based comedy chumps Ian and Roo, reaches its fifth episode and the fans must surely be feeling just a little anxious that there is only one episode to go before it vanishes from the airwaves forever.

For now, though, let’s just be grateful for what we have, as we listen in to episode 5 of This Way Up, featuring the incredible sound of Ian rapping.

If listening is not enough, and you simply must own it for yourself, you can also download it.

Avatar Ghostman Pat

Following on from the success of the BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2016 Awards, in which none of the entries won and the BBC decided just to plough a serious amount of bread into yet another series of ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’, I have been commissioned to come up with some new ideas for that difficult 11-15 age gap that bridges the vast chasm between tiny children in uniforms to unkempt teenagers who can’t get into 18 certificate films at the cinema.

What kind of programming would these sweaty, nautical organisms like to watch on an evening? What would really get their bantwagons pushed up to the high twenties? We need something that is right on the fashions and I believe I have a good starting point. A (bad pun alert) spiritual successor to hugely-loved eighties children’s television programme monster ‘Postman Pat’.

Ghostman Pat

Pat has grown to become not only the nicest person in the history of Greendale but also the most respected due to his dedication to his job and in helping the other residents in their daily lives. He has an idyllic life with his wife and child, and not forgetting dutiful companion Jess the Cat.

Except one traffic accident later leaves Pat dead. Shuffled off this mortal coil.

The village engages in a month-long saga of grieving. His wife Sarah, inconsolable, is unable to move on with her life. One evening however, not long after the tragic accident, she is ironing some tea towels when she is visited by an apparition. The apparition of her recently deceased husband. It seems as though Pat is not quite done yet.

Fate has decided that his years of service are not enough. In punishment for the, quite frankly, dreadful Lionsgate film released a couple of years ago Pat must now deliver a total of 1000 parcels before he is able to leave and ascend to heaven, in a story that borrows heavily from Hiroaki Samura’s seminal samurai manga work ‘Blade of the Immortal’.

But how can Pat deliver any parcels when he has no physical presence and only his wife and son, Julian, can see him? It is up to them to help him finish his task and finally leave this world behind.

Along the way they must deal with fruit-polishing vampires, blancmange-toting merengue infidels and, of course, numerous cameos by everyone’s favourite all-round entertainer Gary Wilmot.

Can they succeed? Seven seasons and a TV movie, I think, should answer that question.