Author: Chris5156

Avatar Newsboostnight

Newsboost is going to be 11 years old this year. I watched it again recently and I’m still pretty pleased with it now, but back when we made it, it’s fair to say it was the crowning achievement of my life.

Obviously we wanted to do another one, and for a while there was a short-lived plan to follow up the news bulletin Newsboost with a late night current affairs programme called Newsboostnight.

It was going to be a special programme looking in depth at a scandal surrounding The Papples. This was when the only Papples album was “Masterpiece”, and we’d realised that all the songs on that album basically had the same tune.

Since there’s nothing in my life at the moment, and I have nothing much to write about, I thought I’d post the three pages of script that were written for Newsboostnight so you can enjoy them.

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Avatar Ode to the North

We’re all trapped indoors these days, since the prime minister lost everybody’s house keys and we all found that the front door wouldn’t open any more. I’m sure that’ll all be sorted out soon, of course, and I’ll be able to take the bins out, but for the time being I’m not getting around much and neither is anyone else.

While I’m being kept inside, like a neglected dog, I find myself missing the north. I usually go north regularly and now I can’t, and it’s only when I can’t go that I suddenly find how important it is to me to immerse myself, on a regular basis, in its rich culture and its even richer gravies.

So, as a consolation in these difficult times, I’ve created this moving ode to the north. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and that your cockles are warmed.

Thank you, or as they say in the north, ta.

Avatar Four Word Reviews: 3 Words

Are you a fan of Our Cheryl? I have to admit I didn’t know much about her before 3 Words, her debut solo album from 2009, plopped onto my doormat in a padded envelope. Cheryl Cole (previously Cheryl Tweedy, now Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, future changes of surname TBC) started out in Girls Aloud, a band created by the ITV series “Popstars”. She then went solo and is now an X Factor judge.

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Avatar Jolly Good: free gingerbread

In these trying times, we’re all hearing more than enough that worries, frightens or discombobulates us. To ease your worries, calm your nerves and recombobulate your addled mind, I’ve decided to make a regular habit of posting good news.

Here’s the first hit of happy headlines. Strap in.

I was in Greggs this morning to get some breakfast, having spent the night away from home. After I placed my order, the barista (being from London I assume the people behind the counter are baristas, like in Cafe Nero) asked me “do you like gingerbread?”

That’s not a difficult question. “I do”, I replied.

He put a gingerbread man in a little bag and put it on the counter with my order. “Here you go,” he said. “That’s free.”

When I asked about this gingerbread generosity, he explained that head office had – for no reason he could see – sent him about 200 extra gingerbread men and he’d never be able to sell them all. So he was just handing them out to anyone who wanted one.

Admittedly my free gingerbread man has distressingly fat legs, and has been given icing and smarties in a particularly slapdash way, almost as though the person adding his buttons had 200 of them to do and thought they might all end up in the bin, but all in all this is an absolute win. Hurrah!

Avatar The outer limits of burger

Big news in the world of culinary foods! Doctor Burger, senior lecturer in Burgerology at the University of Hamburg, has just published the results of a major new study into the phenomenon of burgertude, sometimes known as the “essence of burger”. His work has helped to map the outer limits of burgerosity.

Dr. Burger has now developed a linear scale on which beefy bundles can be objectively scored. A 99p McDonalds Saver Menu hamburger scores 3 on the burger scale, for example. A pub menu cheeseburger like this one scores a 6.

Salad (with burger and chips on the side)

What, then, is at the far end of the scale, the furthest extent to which it’s possible to push the concept of burgertude?

Dr. Burger would like to present you with his findings. Scoring an unprecedented 18.3 on the burger scale is this mammoth construction.

It contains two hash browns, a whole taco, multiple jalapeno chilis and a full litre of cheesy sauce. It is approximately one metre in height.

Having visited Dr. Burger’s laboratory, I was able to sample this grotesque meal, and I declare it delicious. Afterwards I was so thoroughly coated in grease and cheesy spicy sauce that I had to have a shower and burn my clothes.

I have no regrets.

Avatar Flexible workspace

We’re all on the lookout for a flexible workspace these days. Somewhere you can just sit down, maybe order a latte, open your laptop and, I don’t know, edit a podcast or grow a hipster beard or something.

The other day, while exploring an area I hadn’t visited before down in the sub-basement of the 1930s part of the building at work, I found an excellent flexible workspace and wanted to share my find with you. Here it is.

As you can see, it’s pleasingly raised above the general floor level, offering a sense of superiority and a view over all the people working nearby (or water heating machinery; I think it was mostly water heating machinery and sewage pipes you could see from here). It also has many useful features:

  • A light, so the workspace has excellent all-over lighting levels
  • A railing, so it’s very safe
  • A calming white/grey colour scheme
  • A red pipe

Obviously I’m claiming first dibs on this, and will be moving in there first thing Monday with my laptop to grow a podcast and edit my beard. But if you want to book a slot yourself, just get in touch.

Avatar Ditching the snifters

As close friends of mine, you’ll know I have been battling a devastating addiction for many years now. A horrible, destructive dependency on snifters, which has alienated my family, cost me my livelihood and brought me to the very brink of financial insolvency.

The good news is that I’m making progress on kicking this disgusting habit. Unfortunately, as every addict knows, weaning yourself off will only take you so far. Sooner or later you have to go cold turkey. But if I try that, I might just never breathe again. I need some other breathing aid to see me over the difficult transition to snifterlessness. I need snifter methodone.

The recommendation I got from a professional medical person was a saline sinus swasher (possibly not its official name, I can’t remember). I gave it a go yesterday. Let me tell you what it’s like.

  • The first thing that happens is you get some warm water in a squeezy bottle, and then you add the sachet of powdery stuff to it and give it a shake. Then you tip your head forward over the sink, plug the bottle up your nose, and give it a squeeze. A steady stream of warm water is shoved up your nosel.
  • The next thing that happens is that the sensation of the water heading up your breathing holes gives you the instinctive feeling that you might be drowning and you panic a bit. Then you swallow, which opens up the tubes between your nose and your ears, and all the warm liquid goes into your ears.
  • You stop squeezing the bottle and have a small coughing fit. The warm watery stuff is coming out of your nose and your mouth and your ears and probably your eyes. You can’t see. Everything is awful.
  • Deciding it can’t be all that bad, you compose yourself, stick the bottle up your other nosel, and have another squirt. The same thing happens, but in the other direction, and this time you resist the urge to swallow. Jets of warm, snotty water ooze from all areas of your face. You feel soiled.
  • Having done all of this you wipe yourself down and wait to see if the new treatment has rendered your nose breathable without resorting to the wicked temptation of the snifters.
  • You spend the next three hours barely able to breathe.

There are 60 sachets of weird powder stuff so I can use this thing several times a day, but so far, I haven’t yet had a second go. Ditching the snifters is going really well.