Steve Stevingtons is hittin’ the big

Last year, my flatmate Steve Stevingtons left his job.

“You’re crazy!”, I told him. “It’ll never work!”

Steve Stevingtons simply smiled to himself, an enigmatic look in his eye. My protests – delivered at full volume and more or less constantly whenever he was in earshot over the ensuing months – never seemed to sway him. “There’s no life out there!” I’d shout. “You’ll starve! You’ll waste away to nothing! You’ll end up on the streets!”

Steve would just shake his head, and go back to tending the little plants in his window box.

I was a fool, of course, but I didn’t know it back then. I should have guessed. Steve Stevingtons had a plan. Since that first day, and continuously soundtracked by my heckles and shouts from the other end of the flat, he’s crafted himself a business empire.

Now the whole world is chowing down on Steve’s Leaves. We’re all getting our fix of roughage and wholesome nutrients from Steve Stevingtons. His commercial dominance is starting to rival that of Big Frank. And believe me, I will never doubt him again.

Four Word Reviews: Voice of the Violin

Plan A for this month’s Four Word Review was Cher Lloyd, obviously. But there is no Cher Lloyd on the CD in that box. So, with some reluctance, I have had to change my plan. I couldn’t face Kavana. Not yet. So where else is there to turn? What might soothe my frayed nerves and calm me after this disconcerting change of plan? I turn back to the pile of dreadful CDs, once again growing at an alarming rate. I pass on Pete Waterman’s Motown collection. Ah yes, here we go. This guy. This guy will do nicely.

Cher Lloyd vs Coldplay

Awful CDs continue to land on my doormat with depressing regularity. Currently queued up for your Four Word Review enjoyment are “Voice of the Violin” by Joshua Bell, a collection of Motown covers produced by Pete Waterman, and the 1997 self-titled album by Kavana.

Lined up for this month’s review was “Sticks + Stones” by Cher Lloyd, a 2011 slice of Simon Cowell pop. But when I put the CD in and pressed play, something was wrong.

Can you see it? Yes, that’s right. The case says “Sticks + Stones” by Cher Lloyd, but the CD itself is actually another album from the same year, Coldplay’s “Mylo Xyloto”.

Obviously at that point I had to call a halt to the whole business. This is too much. Two albums I don’t want to hear in one.

Now I don’t know what to do. I might just have to listen to Kavana instead.

That might be the bleakest sentence I’ve ever written. If the best available course of action is listening to a whole album by Kavana, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.

Stickless

Well, we knew it would happen, but we didn’t think it would be this soon.

The Stick is gone.

We knew, of course, that The Stick had got itself a taste for adventure. We knew also that it had been deposited at the foot of the wrong kind of tree. So perhaps it’s no surprise that it has already started its next adventure. But we are, nonetheless, sad to see it go.

(By “we”, I mean anyone who agrees with me. You may wish to clarify your own position in the comments.)

It is my hope that The Stick has gone on to a new life playing fetch with an enthusiastic collie dog, or perhaps is now propping open a garage door somewhere. We can hope.

Tenniversary

It’s been ten years since one of the most important cultural events of our, or anyone else’s, lifetimes. The Papples’ debut album, Wasting my Life, was released in May 2009 to a largely indifferent public.

To celebrate this milestone, Ian and myself made a pilgrimage to a number of sites on the south coast where the photos for the album sleeve were taken. We then recreated as many as we could find to mark this seminal tenniversary event. Join us, now, as we take you through all of the photos we recreated, slowly, one by one, whether you want to see them or not, like a distant relative showing you some old holiday photos.

Pouring beans

If you Google “pouring beans”, we are number 3 in the listings. And rightly so. Bronze is a fitting medal considering the effort we put in here.

The top two results are both websites describing an activity called “pouring beans” which is a lesson used at Montessori day nurseries. Since we do very little bean pouring here, and the pouring of Montessori beans is clearly more popular than we are, I think it’s time we examined this practice. I also think that if we put the pouring beans activity on our Pouring Beans website we might get bumped up the listings.

Here is the full guide for you to try at home.

Age	2½ to 3 years
Materials	Two identical jugs, beans, tray, mat
Aim	To pour the beans from one jug to the other and then back
Learning outcomes	Concentration! Patience! Hand-eye co-ordination! Hand control! Eyes! Beans! Pouring the beans!
Instructions	You… I mean, you get the kid to pour beans from one jug to another. If you want to make it more complicated than that, there’s some more detailed instructions here, but I expect the kid will lose interest before you finish explaining it and go and run around for a bit instead.
Extending the activity	Use smaller grains. Use bigger grains. Use smaller jugs. Use bigger jugs. Do it without jugs. Do it without beans or jugs and just imagine it. Sit in silence and think about beans. Just sit in silence. Just be quiet. Why can’t you be quiet. Now go back to pouring beans.
Variations	Use different beans or rice or dice or something else.

I’ve spent the evening doing this and I can confirm three things.

It’s relaxing for the first two or three minutes.
After the first few minutes you start to get very bored, and then shortly after that you begin to lose your mind. After an hour I had named all the individual beans and was taking register while they tipped from one jug to the other.
The version of Pouring Beans that we’ve been doing, that is less directly bean-related and more about blogging, is far more enjoyable and deserves to be first in the Google search ranking.

Stick

It must be really boring to be a stick.

You spend decades pushing your way slowly out of the side of a tree, looking at the same view every day, sharing your life with the same branches and twigs.

Years later, a bit of wind dislodges you. For a few moments you enjoy the most thrilling episode of your life, as you fall to earth, but soon realise that you’ve ended up lying on the floor with much the same surroundings, only now you’re no longer growing, you’re just waiting to rot down into the ground.

We can’t save all sticks from the monotony of their existence, but we can make a difference to one stick. Ian chose The Stick. This is it.

The Stick spent its whole life on a tree near Royksopp Lido before falling off and lying on the ground for a bit. Thanks to us, though, it’s had a new lease of life.

A walk to a pub and then a night on the floor near the pub
A trip in a car to Brighton
Being thrown onto the bark chippings under the tree outside my flat

I’ll keep you updated on the progress of The Stick and its amazing new life. For now, though: you’re welcome.

Ian’s Otter Answers

Back in mid April I asked the Beans community to answer five simple questions about otters. It was extremely important.

One of our number, Ian “Hotter Otter” McIver, kept stalling until eventually a month later he asked to post his answers to me because “I don’t want anyone else to know”. I told him that if he posted them to me I would post them to the Beans. Kev pointed out that even if they appeared on the Beans there was a decent chance that nobody would look at them.

Ian’s answers have now arrived, handwritten, by post. I am now, therefore, posting them here, but I am doing so in as conspicuous a way as possible in the hope that at least some people will see them.

Here are Ian’s otter answers

How do you feel about otters?

I have always liked otters. They are very cheery and bring a smile to my viso/volto. My brother, John, is also obsessed with otttttttters. He has a weird statue thing outside his front door with three otters, possibly having a tea party (?)

Baby otters?

They’re very cute although they do have “Desperate Dan” chins and could easily be extras in a low budget British gangster film. Cockney otters? Yes please.

How about this otter, specifically?

What a chirpy little lad or lass! That’s the kind of picture you’d put in your bathroom, possibly framed with tiny flowers, and it would make any house guest tilt their head and squint with delight. It should be a famous otter; here, take my money!

Does this otter change how you feel?

No. I still love all the otters. It does scarily resemble the face I pull at work when the phone starts ringing(and when I recognise the number).

How many of these otters would you like? Note that I will fight you for the otters. I want the otters. How bad do you want them? I will fight you. You can’t have them.

I believe that the kind of person who creates a survey about how much they love otters has a love that cannot be beaten, whether physically of (of?) or emotionally. You win, sir. All the otters are yours.