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.
My colleagues and I, working at the “Top Quality Blogging” Faculty of the University of the Internet, have spent another long year exhaustively analysing the Beans. This year, as well as doing science, we also tried doing maths and sociology at it, asking the website to answer difficult algebraic survey questions. The results are difficult to interpret, but early indications suggest the website has a strong preference for the value of “x” to be equal to “Nizzle”.
Our full report on that will be published later in 2020, but for now I’d like to present you with the statistics for 2019. The year saw 99 new posts, an increase of eight on the previous year and an all-time record for the New Beans. You can see how 2019 compares to previous years in this graph, in which each year’s blog posts are represented as a sturdy oak plank of varying length.
That good news is compounded by the comforting revelation that the number of comments posted to the Beans has remained stable. 1,860 comments were posted in 2019, just ten fewer than in 2018, and easily the second highest number ever. In this graph, the number of comments year-by-year are represented by pillars of lemon curd that tower menacingly above you.
Before we all start congratulating ourselves, though, let’s see the performance of individual members.
| Ian | Ian wrote 47 blog posts, five more than last year, and earned 12 beans on the Bean Counter. This is the second consecutive year in which Ian earned the maximum number of beans. |
|---|---|
| Chris | Authoring 48 posts, Chris exactly matched his 2018 post count and also earned 12 full beans for a second year in a row. |
| Kev | Despite the wider trend of increased Beans activity, Kev’s post count nosedived in 2019. He made just four posts, three fewer than in 2018. It is his poorest performance of any year since the New Beans began. However, he did strategically make two posts in the same month, earning him one bean and eleven nasty dried peas. |
In conclusion, Chris made the most posts and is therefore the winner of the Beans for a second year running. He wins this delightful selection of cheeses.
Ian is the runner up, and a member of my research team is now making their way towards Ian through the crowd to give him a special pat on the back and a thoroughly deserved post-it note reading “well done”. If you look around you will notice that Kev has already been removed from the meeting and, as we speak, is being made to sit on the naughty step in the rain. He will not get any dinner.
22 comments on “2020 State of the Beans Address”
Oi… Leave me alone… I can go by myself, you only have to ask… Get your hands off me…Fuckers.
Do you want some of my cheese?
I like how everything is wood and cheese. It’s the little things that keep me happy.
Not everything is wood and cheese. Some things are lemon curd. Much like life itself.
I don’t remember the last time I partook in lemon curd. It’s been out of my atmosphere for several years now. Perhaps I should take a train to the LC.
I think you need to climb aboard the curdcopter and take a flight to citrus city.
I’m going to look into a weekend away sometime in April along the banks of citrus city, I hear it’s beautiful at that time of year.
When was the last time you took a detour to Hash Brown City?
Hash Brown Town? It’s been too long. But I’m a regular caller at the Vanilla Villa.
I reckon you’re long overdue for a week-long stay on the Fried Food Bay, hit the hay with Hash Brown City Limits!
This is all a distraction from the important issue here, which is whether you’ve partaken of lemon curd yet.
No. I get paid tomorrow, perhaps I’ll have a splurge. Lemon curd splurge?
Yes. Get yourself to your nearest supermarket, present yourself to the customer information desk and announce in a loud voice that you urgently need a lemon curd splurge. Then count out £40 in used fivers onto the desk and they should take care of the rest.
Have you ever invited a lady to join you in a lemon curd splurge?
I have, yes, but she slapped me in the face and I haven’t seen her since. I miss her. That’s why I don’t splurge the curd any more.
You’re filthy. You kiss your girlfriend with that mouth? You swine!
Also, that sounds like it should be on a motivational poster. “You love the lemons? Don’t splurge the curd!”
No, I use my kissing mouth for that. It has a higher ratio of kissing within lips.
Still you are a filth beast and the world needs to know it, if not for this then the reference to your testicles in a previous post.
Now you’ve brought up my testicles while discussing splurging the curd. I’m not sure that you are any less a filth beast than I.
I is what I is and I is a mess.
Just like my testicles.
You and your louche testicles.
I’d like to confirm that I’ve now finished all the food on the cheese board I won, and it was delicious.