Beverage newsAre you tired of drinks that are grumpy, uncouth or simply downright rude? Do you long to quench your thirst with a liquid that’s polite and mild-mannered?
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Book newsAre you ready?
OK then, here it is.
The Book is finished.
I have finally, FINALLY, written the final page of the Book and the story is complete. I’m going to scan it in so you can read it to your children and share it with your friends, and you’ll have to wait until then to get hold of the thrilling finale. What will happen to Eric Bins? Will Dr. Rombobulous Combobulation succeed? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, I’ve typed it up so that we don’t have to read handwriting in the online version, and I can present you with some statistics.
The finished book is 34 pages long, which means we all did eleven pages and I did one extra at the end.
The first page of the book was written on 10 January 2009, and I finished writing the last one on Thursday, so it has taken us 3,226 days to write it, or exactly eight years and ten months. We have averaged one page every 94 days – less than four a year – or, if you prefer, two and a half words a day. I think we can all be proud of that.
The slideWhat’s the biggest slide you’ve ever been down? I am asking because I have definitely been down a bigger slide than you and I am planning to smugly win this.
I have been down THIS slide.
It’s part of the weird red metal lumpy thing that was built for the Limpety Pinpicks in 2012. It takes 40 seconds to go down it and I spent a fair amount of that time saying things like WHEEEEE and AAAAAARGH and WOOHOOOOO.
It drops a total height of over 100m, which is the equivalent of a slide going down to the ground from the 30th floor. It is bigger than the biggest slide you have ever been down. I win. Ha.
Mysterious lumpsI went for a walk yesterday and explored a park near me that I haven’t been to before. There’s a lot of places near me that I haven’t been to before, because I only recently moved to Royksopp.
It turns out the park contains normal park things (grass, trees, vandalised benches, bins mostly full of water from when it rained). It also contains four mysterious lumps. If I described them to you they’d sound like hills so I am including pictures here to make it clear that they are not hills, they are mysterious lumps, and there are four of them.
They are all different heights and they are perfectly circular, like weird pyramids. You can climb them all if you want to. Three are just grassy and you have to scramble up but one of them has a spiralling path to the top. It’s surprisingly tall – not that West London is particularly hilly, but it’s higher than all the other hills you can see and most of the buildings. You can see out to the countryside south of London, and to Canary Wharf, and to a little thing on the horizon called the Crystal Palace Transmitter which I have seen somewhere before.
The signs explain that, far from being lumps, they are actually mounds. I was very glad to have the mystery cleared up in this way.
Please use this thread to share stories of any intriguing lumps, mounds or protrudances you have witnessed lately.
The Stylish BullThe Stylish Bull looks down upon you, wearing his hat at a fashionably jaunty angle.
The Stylish Bull quizzically raises one eyebrow. No answer you give will meet his expectations.
The Stylish Bull silently judges you.
You leave, ashamed.
Report from ManchesterThis week I made a short visit to Manchester, a city in the north of England that can be found on any map by simply looking at the wrong side of the Pennines. It was there that a large group of people who like blue things had decided to have a big meeting, though it was a bit different to the other meetings I went to because the people who like blue things seemed pretty sure they were in charge of everyone else, no matter what colour anyone else liked best. They spent a lot of time talking about how only old people like blue things and whether there was a way to convince young people that blue things are best. Outside the conference there were lots of noisy people who had big blue flags with little yellow stars on them, but strangely, none of the people who like blue things seemed to like the people with big blue flags even though the big blue flags were almost entirely blue.
Having had this experience, it is now traditional that I should share what I learned with the Beans.
The first thing I learned is that it rains in Manchester. I arrived under grey skies but it was dry. I walked ten minutes to the hotel. I checked into the hotel. I emerged again from the hotel, on my way to work, to find that it had started doing something that I can only describe as “rain”, though “rain” does not adequately describe the volume of water coming down from the sky. It rained for almost the whole of the rest of my stay.
My shoes were not waterproof. There are holes. They need replacing. They should, I now see, have been replaced some time ago. I spent the day with waterlogged feet. They did not dry for three days. I think I have trench foot.
The second thing I learned is that Manchester doesn’t like people who like blue things. There were a lot of Manchester people shouting at the people who like blue things and someone hung a big banner on a bridge that said HANG THE PEOPLE WHO LIKE BLUE THINGS. Maybe they distrust blue things because the sky is blue when it’s not raining and it’s always raining in Manchester.
The third thing I learned is that Manchester is bad at breakfast. The coffee was bad and the toast was bad and the bacon was bad and the only fruit was melon, cut up four different ways in four different bowls to make it look like there was lots of fruit, and worst of all, there was no jam. No jam at all.
There was also the saddest breakfast table in the world.
I mean look at that. There were two sad little stools under what appears to be a coffee table. Nobody was sitting there. Nobody would ever sit there. It’s a stupid place to have breakfast. Just like Manchester.
PizzaOn 16 September, Ian wrote:
“I think the only thing you can do then is upload a video of you eating a pizza as though it is the first time you’ve ever done it.”
I am not a man to deny the people their wish.
Report from BrightonThis week I have been to Brighton, another seaside town, where large numbers of people who like red things best have gathered for a conference about what it would be like if people who like red things are in charge of everybody. Some of them seem to be under the impression that they already are. Others are arguing about what sort of people who like red things should be in charge of the people who like red things and whether some of the people who like red things like red things more than some of the other people.
As before, I have decided that it’s important I should share my findings of this place with the magnificent readership of the Beans. I learned three things in Brighton.
First, I learned that sand can be really big. Brighton beach is made of sand so big that it’s basically pebbles. Like, each grain is properly pebble sized. I’ve heard it said that they actually are pebbles, but that’s clearly silly because beaches are made of sand.
Second, Brighton is full of very attractive people. Everyone in Brighton is not just beautiful but also very cool, in a sort of unintimidating and effortless way. I feared that I would not fit in with this sort of demographic and feared being rounded up by the police and removed from the town on account of my decidedly ordinary appearance. In the end my boss cut my trip short and redeployed me back to London two days early, which I think was just a cover for the fact that he’d got word from the authorities that I would be exiled if I didn’t leave of my own accord.
The third thing I learned is that you can get a machine that automatically makes pancakes at the push of a button. I know because there was one at breakfast in my hotel.
I was so amazed that I made a video of it, which I have presented here for your enjoyment. The video is soundtracked with an excerpt from the 1996 hit song “Coco Jambo” by Mr President.
You’re welcome.