A gift from past Chris

Past Chris has been kind to me this week.

On Thursday, at work, I spent the day installing some new equipment as part of a project we’re doing. The desks in our control room are full of ancient PCs that are long overdue for replacement and we’re now, finally, replacing them with new stuff. That means taking the old PCs out, untangling all the existing cables so they can be removed, and then running new cables to all the screens and stuff.

It takes about four hours to do a single desk if everything goes to plan, and at the end of it you have cuts and grazes all over your hands and your arms from the cable ties and the metalwork and the unexpected encounters with sharp corners as you rummage about.

One of the desks I did on Thursday four screens, plus one more that had been there for years but hadn’t got a PC attached to it. It was always meant to get a PC to support some other new stuff we’re installing which is why I’d put it there all those years ago. Thursday was the day it finally got wired up to something.

I ran a new video cable for it easily enough, but then I had to connect the touchscreen. The USB cable came out of the back of the screen, ran neatly down the monitor arm, and then vanished into the desk. Inside the desk was a rat’s nest of a million identical cables. I looked at this and then said some swear words.

Then I looked in the pod where the PCs live, because that’s where the cable would have to end up, and in there was a trailing USB cable. Attached to the cable was a green paper label. Written on the green paper label, in my handwriting, were the words “touchscreen USB for 5th PC”.

Thanks, Past Chris. You’re an absolute legend.

That would be enough good deeds, you’d think, but he did it again.

Just now I thought I’d better make a start on the Pouring Beans Calendar 2026. I opened the Pouring Beans folder on my laptop, and inside that I opened the Projects folder. (Kev may want to take notes on this example of a useful filing system for his work on the podcast.) I was going to make a new folder in there called Calendar 2026, but there already was one. That’s strange.

I opened it. Inside it I found this.

And when I opened that folder, I found this.

Inside those folders are 240 photographs, which are an extremely welcome sight when I have 315 blank calendar pages to fill.

He’s only bloody gone and done it again.

Thanks, Past Chris. If I ever get to use a time machine I’ll come back and return the favour.

The right way round?

I am at my best a pedant and at my worst a twat.

Have you ever been walking around a shop and something catches your eye for the wrong reason? With the Orb now here on planet Earth it means that any casual shopping either doesn’t exist or can only take place if the grandparents take him for the afternoon. I love my Orb but he’s not old enough to comprehend that sometimes boring chores need to happen. You get them out the way and breathe a sigh of relief. It’s all over. Game over, man. It takes so much longer with a trailing Orb. You take up way more space with a buggy or a pram.

There we were, looking for a new Christmas tree in every garden centre and kind of shop that would sell them. Once it’s done you have a tree that’ll last for a decade (no more flopping around trying to decide what size constitutes as “too high”) and you can get on with your life. Trying to get there can be a long and treacherous hike though; be sure to pack for all weather types.

I can feel my eyes glazing over underneath the artificial lights. My lizard brain screams, “get the one with the thing and the other thing and get outta there,” and I want to agree with it but there are so many options to consider that I shrug it off and carry on browsing. You can’t make a split second decision when fake trees can reach upwards of hundreds of pounds. What if we make the wrong one?

I’m walking past the lighting section in a particular store and I see it. “Wait, what? Nah that can’t be right. That has to be wrong, right?”

Shouldn’t it be ‘rechargeable octopus table lamp’? Why is the Natural History Museum collaborating with Dunelm? Who would buy such a thing and why do I care so much?

Does it really matter? Hardly. With Orb life being the only life there’s very little else going on. If you want thrilling stories and sexy adventures then you’ve come to the wrong place. I have nay nonny no nay none to my name. What I do have are questions about grammar on the boxes of table lamps.

Welcome to middle age. Population: us.

The world according to Tad Kensington

I am so busy right about now.

You don’t know how busy I am. I am literally the busiest I’ve ever been. When you two both have jobs and kids then you’ll know how busy one person can be; super busy cubed.

Anyway, I decided to leave all of that behind and go for lunch with my good friend, Tad Kensington. I hadn’t seen him for a while and I required some advice about work. I need to have more of a presence in the office, I need to stand out in a good way for once rather than having all that attention for giving everyone insulting and disgusting nicknames. In my defence, I paid for all those name tags myself, and when HR told me they weren’t going to reimburse me, throwing that table through the window was clearly “justified” despite what the judge said.

Tad Kensington knows a lot about “presence” and making a name for yourself. Over a very brief one hour lunch he gave me enough tidbits to set me up for life. I made a promise that I wouldn’t divulge everything, not just anyone can be Tad Kensington after all, however I don’t think he’d mind me passing on a few pearls of wisdom to those less fortunate.

Let me enlighten you. Let me show you the way:

Eat a banana whilst pissing at a urinal. It shows you have control and that you mean business.
Always keep an inch of coffee in the bottom of your cup and throw it on your rival whenever you see them. Hot or cold, it’s still humiliating.
Business cards are for wimps. Get your details printed on sharks and hand them out. Nobody will forget the guy with business sharks.
If you can’t be the tallest man in the room then be the widest.
Wear another pair of trousers underneath your regular trousers. Nobody will know except you, and that’s where the magic begins.
End every sentence with an ellipsis so no-one can interrupt you.
Set fire to a £5.00 note every day to remind yourself that burning money is stupid.
Ensure you only eat meals with capital letters, and do so loudly.
Ask maintenence to build a fake stud wall in your office so you can amaze people by punching your way through it at the end of the day. That’s a game changer.
If you can’t hear what people are seeing then you’ll never taste it.

I’ve practically guaranteed myself a promotion at work and I can’t wait to hear how you’re all thriving in your respective workplaces based on this guidance.

Also, you’re welcome.

Dog Botherers

Hey! Hey you! You with the dog!

Whatcha doing with that dog? Are you bothering it? Is it that awesome that you can’t help but bother it and want to spend time with it? If that’s true, then you need to join the ‘Dog Botherers’.

You shouldn’t feel ashamed about your behaviour. There are thousands of awesome dogs out there. They’re sat with their owners out in real life which is great but sometimes you can’t bother them because they’re doing their own thing. That’s upsetting.

At ‘Dog Botherers’, we don’t mind if you bother our dogs. Our weekly meetings are designed for people like you to bother dogs in a safe and friendly environment. Come meet like-minded individuals over a hot cup of friendship and a generous plate of fun biscuits.

If you like dogs, bothering your dogs and bothering other people’s dogs then ‘Dog Botherers’ is the place for you.

Book now! It’s no bother!