Classic photo

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.)

Podcast topics

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.

Herb roundup

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!

You and Your Northern Orb

So you’ve gone and got yourself an Orb. Congratulations!

There’s no looking back now that your family has grown by one and an Orb is in your midst. And what an Orb it is! Not just any old Orb, but a hardy Northern Orb, the type that is native to the lands north of the River Swale.

Now that your Orb is back home, swaddled in orblankets and making spherical gurgling noises, you are no doubt wondering what life has in store and what you should do next. Well, don’t worry: the Beans has your back. We’re here to help you through these magical, sleepless months of new Orbhood.

The first thing you will notice is that your Northern Orb is not wrapped in cellophane. You will be used to new things – especially ones that are genuinely new, unused and valuable – coming wrapped in cellophane, box-fresh from the factory. Perhaps on first picking up and holding your Orb you felt pangs of sadness, disappointment or even rage at the realisation that your Orb came with no packaging at all. But these feelings, and the lack of protective covering, are entirely normal. Try not to be disconcerted, and avoid trying to peel off any sort of outer film from your Orb, because it hasn’t got one. No. No, seriously. Stop it.

Your next question will be about what Orbs eat. Orbs in general eat all kinds of things, of course, but your Northern Orb has specific dietary needs that you will need to fulfil in order to give it a healthy, happy, globe-shaped life. Soft foods are best to begin with, so start with the filling of a Greggs cheese and bean melt. As your Orb grows, over the next week or two you can start introducing soft pastry – perhaps offer it a Greggs steak bake with the crispier corners cut off. Over time, your Orb will work its way on to Greggs tuna crunch baguettes and sausage rolls. Try to be led by your Orb’s tastes. They’ll tell you when they’re ready for more pastry.

You may also find that your Orb cries a lot. This is to do with their dawning realisation of the futility of existence and the relative brevity of our lifespans in the vastness of the universe. You can comfort them with nursery rhymes and lullabies. To soothe a Northern Orb, you might try singing “Fog on the Tyne” by Lindisfarne, “Big River” by Jimmy Nail or anything by Cheryl Cole.

Your journey with your Northern Orb is only just begininng and we’re excited to accompany you all the way, so we’ll be back with more amazing Orb tips soon. Until then just keep doing the things listed here over and over again and you’ll probably be fine. Good luck!

Newsboost – unused material (part two)

I think I deserve credit for not diving into this straight away after unleashing this hotch potch of box-ticking nostalgia bait. I waited a whole *checks* four months before phoning it in again. You’re welcome.

I also deserve a hearty pat on the back for writing a ‘quick post to earn a bean’ post nine days before the end of the month. I’m breaking all the rules of convention. What a trendsetter I am. You’re also welcome (God, this is exhausting).

We need some kind of awards ceremony to celebrate how great I am not just at being me but also being me in written form.

Anyway, enough of that. Let’s dive back into 2014 Ian to see what was going through his mind:

An apple a day keeps the cold-calling telemarketing away
Giant butt sea castle
Torch eyes tours
Dyslexic spelling error sky writer message
Nuclear fallout – beetles and lens solution
Learning to write with toothpaste is silly
Sugar cube igloo
Snake shoelaces. Worm shoelaces?
Bulldog clips rep is misguided (?)
Fruit tennis
Return of the icing sugar squirrels (this one still makes me laugh)
Napkins have feelings too, you know
Bog roll binoculars
Public trampolines
New type of screwdriver

The rest of the ideas from this page were so good they were used in the Twitter feed because they’re all crossed out.

What a great time was had by all.

Generosity (apples)

Blessed as we are to be alive in the year 2025 so that we can witness, ummm, the release of the Lego Gameboy after all this time. Praise be, we are blessed.

We’re also blessed for a number of reasons which I won’t go into here. That’s too boring. What isn’t boring is talking about apples, right?

Right?

Last year after we moved into the house, we noticed that one of our neighbours further down the street would regularly leave a box on a little table with a sign saying, ‘help yourself’ or, ‘free to a good home’. In said box were apples and sometimes pears. I took a couple home and they were delicious, all the more delicious because they were free.

Fast forward to a week ago and there’s a knock on the door. Our next door neighbour held a bag of apples in her hand, handed them to me and said, “if any pears from our tree happen to drop in your garden, take them. They may need a few days to ripen but otherwise they’re fine to eat.” Unbelievable generosity. I had ten free apples in my hand and carte blanche to gorge myself on pears. Pear gorge? Pear gorge.

Fast forward to Friday afternoon. I’m still making my way through the apples when there’s a knock on the door. The husband of the neighbour from the previous week hands me a black bin liner containing roughly twenty-five apples. Twenty-five! I have to ask.

“Does every house on this street have an apple tree apart from us?”

The neighbour laughs. “Possibly. Before the houses were built, this was an orchard. There are some houses that have plum trees, pear trees, cherry trees, all kinds of fruit.”

Out of all the fruit in the world, what did we get with our lovely house? A f*cking gooseberry bush. Nobody wants gooseberries. They’re about as versatile as a quince. I also now have to find some way of consuming twenty-five apples on my own because Vikki is more into strawberries and other berries. I’m not being ungrateful, I am super pleased to have free fruit in my fridge, and *somehow* I will chug my way through all dem apples. Look at me and be inspired.

Four Word Reviews: Classic Bruce Willis

Here in the Four Word Reviews auditorium, we are used to closing our eyes and listening, carefully and attentively, to two kinds of music. One is the album made in earnest that is unwittingly terrible. The other is the novelty album of knowingly substandard tunes. And then, every now and then, we get something else. Something that isn’t a novelty record, but perhaps isn’t a serious artist making a serious and earnest expression of their art either. Today we’re here to listen to one of those albums. Today we’re listening to “Classic Bruce Willis” by Bruce Willis.

I don’t know what this is.

Retirement thoughts

Now that we’re all middle-aged, there’s the lingering prospect of all the good stuff that you hear about but don’t get to experience until you reach a certain part of your life. Want some examples? How about pains in parts of your body that don’t make any sense (“I never use my little finger so why does it feel as though a lynx is trying to slash its way out of it?”), confusion when entering a room (“wait, wait… I was here to find the… banana, was it?”) or perhaps feeling out of touch in every possible way (“when did people stop using Netscape?”).

It’s inevitable. Though we may joke about being right on the fashions, it’s been some time since I was anywhere near the fashions; I’m barely in the same postcode let alone being right on them. Sigh. Can’t be helped.

There’s no time to sit and ruminate on how unnatural it feels looking through a Reddit post or ask why everyone dancing on Tiktok is going to destroy the human race, there’s so much to do before then. I’ve got to pay off the mortgage first, which means working until I’m probably in my 70’s given that the retirement age keeps going up. There’s also raising my second child (I’m reliably to blame for that one) which is about to begin any day now. Oh, and I still haven’t finished the garden. I think the gooseberry bush is dead.

When the weight of responsibility gets on top of me, I drive a hundred miles out of my way and stop to look at this view. Why? Because one day, I am going to buy it and build my dream home on it.

Now I know what you’re thinking and, you’re right, it is very small. Too small in fact. You have to think outside the box because otherwise your dreams will never come true. The Japanese have been getting by with very tiny pod or capsule hotels for years now. Here’s how it’s going to look:

The bedroom or, more accurately, the standing bed. I think it’s asking too much for the entire building my house will stacked against to turn 90 degrees to the right so that I can have a flat surface, so I will have to get used to sleeping standing up. I’ll nail the pillow to the wall and utilise a slim sleeping bag for maximum space efficiency.
The toilet or, more accurately, the cereal box in the corner. Nothing else will be able to fit in that space except perhaps an A5 lever arch file, and I can hardly three w’s in that now, can I? It’d go everywhere.
The sitting area or, more accurately, the only space left to do anything. I don’t know where all my video games are going to go. I guess I’ll have to put them in storage unless by the year 2055 I’ll have super cool VR goggles where I can play them all using my brain impulses so I can probably lie in my “bed” and play them there, leaving the sitting area for entertaining guests. A snug flat screen TV in the top left-hand corner, a kettle for hot bevs and a shoebox as a coffee table? It’s all coming together.

I’ve got it all planned out. It’s going to look incredible. The only problem is where Vikki and the baby are going to go. I guess I’ll have to purchase the flat on the other side so they can stay there.

That’ll work. For sure.

Pouring
Beans

Month: September 2025