2020 State of the Beans AddressGood 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.
A lesson learnedYou know what you need to be careful with? Ian. You need to be careful with Ian.
You need to be careful because he’ll take something silly you say and he’ll see it through right the way to the end. Like – just for example – if you make a joke about wanting a bucket of Tunnock’s Teacakes for Christmas.
Like I say, be careful. Very careful. Otherwise the results could be devastating.
Four Word Reviews: Motown ManiaBack in about 2004, when I was at university, I attended a guest lecture by Pete Waterman. The university had given him an honorary doctorate, for reasons that were largely to do with the campus being in Warrington and Pete Waterman being about the only person of any note to come from Warrington who wasn’t Kerry Katona. Perhaps Chris Evans was busy.
He said he was often asked, after the many chart hits of Stock Aitken and Waterman, what was the secret formula for chart success. “There is no formula,” he proudly told us. You have to do what is right for the song and for the artist. Oddly, when discussing what was right for the song and the artist, he chose not to mention an album he’d put together four years previously called Motown Mania.
NoJust to say that I think I’ve found the worst object in the world.
Take care out there.
Where the things areYou know the things? Some of the old video things. And the old audio things. Not the finished things, we’ve got those, but the footage we shot when we were making the things? Those.
And some pictures. Those things too. And documents and writing and pictures and old websites. All those things.
Shall I show you where some of those things are? They used to be here:
But now they’re not there, because of brokenness and disaster. So now, I think they’re nowhere.
That’s where the things are. Or maybe, more accurately, that’s where the things aren’t.
How to cakeDo you need to cake? If your loved one is celebrating a birthday, wedding, divorce or bar mitzvah, you might need to cake. Nobody – and this, I must remind you, is the law – can celebrate properly without cake.
What I’m saying is that you almost certainly need to cake. But how do you cake? Don’t worry. I will tell you.
BellsYou know what’s working bells? The phrase “that’s working bells, that is”. These days, it’s actually hard to find a phrase or idiom that hasn’t had the word “bells” inserted somewhere to get it right on the fashions.
In case you’re having trouble keeping up, here’s some of the most commonly-belled phrases around.
| Situation | What to say |
|---|---|
| Not wanting to talk about something | “We’ll ring that bell when we come to it.” |
| Something has happened suddenly | “That’s like a bell from the blue!” |
| Taking risks | “Fortune favours the bells.” |
| Blaming poor work on others | “It’s a poor workman who blames his bells.” |
| Understand the situation | “I know which way the wind is belling.” |
| A good thing that seemed bad at first | “That’s a belling in disguise.” |
| There’s a cost to doing something | “You can’t make an omelette without going bells.” |
| It’s up to you to take the next step | “The bell’s in your court!” |
| Something is unexpectedly positive | “That’s a belling in disguise.” |
| Not noticing how long something has lasted because you’re enjoying yourself | “Time flies when you’re going bells!” |
Four Word Reviews: KavanaSometimes, when a deplorable CD arrives in the post, you’ve never heard of the artist or the album and you’ve no idea what you’re in for. Other times they’re known to you in some way. This one immediately rang a bell: “Kavana”, the 1997 album by Kavana. I remember him. He did a cover of “I Can Make You Feel Good”, the Shalamar song. He was a late 90s pop star. Yes. Him. Great, I thought: maybe this will be an easy one. Maybe this will be like Suggs where I remembered one or two songs and the others were just a bit of a laugh.
