Author: Chris5156

Avatar Christening: Order of Service

The Christening of
Changlet Christopher Ian Paul McIver Hill
led by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu

Order of Service

York Minster, Deangate, York, YO8 7HH – Monday 18 April 2016

Cross and Dove

Hymn: O Lord You Are Definitely Real And We Believe In You

The Archbishop of York to read from the Book of Revelations, chapter 12 verse 18, “The Unwavering Faith of the Hills”

Hymn: Let This Child Be Raised Unto God

oOo

Bible reading by the father of the child, Mr Chang, from the Book of Lego, chapter 8 verse 66, “Silence Thee Atheist Scum, for Jesus is my Wingman”

Deployment of Changlet into the font for the Solemn Holy Dunking

Hymn: Take Thee This Freshly Moistened Child And Send Him To Sunday School

Sermon by the Archbishop of York: the tribulations of St. Menendez The Faithful in the Replacement of the Taps

oOo

Prayer, led by Changlet himself, who has been provided with a text-to-speech system and a loudspeaker.
Changlet: We Need Three
Congregation: We Are Three
All: Amen

Hymn: I Just Got My Scout Badge For Praying Lots

Organ recital of Handel’s “Heretic Waltz” as congregation departs

oOo

Sausage rolls and Vimto will be served in the Pig and Whistle function room from 15:00.

Avatar Turning back the clock

This week I’ve left behind the glamorous world I have occupied for the last year and returned to my old job. Those of you with long memories will recall that it principally involves pushing buttons when foreign people point at me.

There have been several effects as a result of this change.

I find myself catapulted back into a life I last inhabited in January 2015. We all remember that month and everything that happened in it. For me, Uptown Funk is still at the top of the charts and Lithuania has only just adopted the Euro. I won’t actually buy the blue and green striped jumper I’m currently wearing for another ten months. I am living in the past.

I am left with a sense of malaise, which comes from the feeling that my career is moving backwards and not forward, and from the changes that have happened to my old job in my absence. I am also getting re-acquainted with many of my old colleagues which involves talking to people. I don’t like talking to people.

Others have been affected too. My beloved Crab Mug, once the darling of a major broadcaster’s master control room, has returned to my flat, where it feels deflated and redundant, but conversely my white coffee cup (ceramic with silicone lid and grip, in a design that makes it look like a disposable cup from a coffee shop) has been liberated from my locker, which had been shut for the last 14 months, and is enjoying something of a renaissance.

This has been a difficult transition for me, one whose effects will be felt through my life, like aftershocks from some sort of career-based earthquake, for months to come. Some of the results are positive and others are negative.

But one thing is for sure. Everyone I know will have to put up with me complaining about it for the forseeable future, and in that sense, they may be the real losers here.

Avatar Things Euston Square Station is not, No. 71: a badger

If you’ve been keeping up with the news lately, you’ll have seen that (despite the previous 70 episodes in this informative series) there is still huge uncertainty among the British public about whether Euston Square Station is or is not certain things.

We have, of course, ruled out a range of things that Euston Square Station might have been in previous episodes, including a tray of condiments and relishes, Weston-Super-Mare, a pencil sharpener and a slightly aggravated North American Peregrine Falcon. But one question continues to vex the nation: is Euston Square Station a badger?

Thankfully, we are able to put this question to rest once and for all. A visit to the station itself, and close inspection of the station sign, reveals the answer.

Euston Square Station is not a badger.

If you’re unsure whether or not Euston Square Station is or is not something, you can write to this address for a factsheet:

Things Euston Square Station Is Not
Room 4000
PBP Television Centre
Pouring Beans
The Internet

Avatar Things! Ep. 3 – Omnibox

Sometimes it takes a single person of extraordinary vision to show the world what it has been lacking, and in a single moment, change everything. Sometimes that unique talent is a leader, who brings peace and harmony to a divided people; sometimes it is a businessman who can build a global corporation based on benevolence and the improvement of human lives.

Sometimes it’s a man called Henry from Oxfordshire who has invented a box that can do, literally, everything.

In the third episode of Things!, Alan Rudge meets that man and his amazing box.

Avatar Security

These are dangerous times. Terrorism is literally everywhere. Just yesterday I had to take the bins out when the bin bags were only half full because they had terrorists hiding in them. Last Thursday, I went back to a tub of half-eaten strawberry yogurt in the fridge and found that terrorists had eaten the rest of it.

To the untrained eye, everything is normal here in the safe, fairytale world of The Beans. Posts keep appearing, obscure in-jokes keep being mentioned, and everything seems normal.

But everything is not normal.

If you look closely at the most recent comments, you’ll see a theme. You’ll see that they are all by me and Ian. Why? Where is Kev?

The only sensible conclusion is that Kev’s login details have been hacked by terrorists and are now being used to terrorise innocent people. It’s possible that Kev himself has now been infiltrated, and is being used to spread fear and terror. Who knows – it might have been Kev who broke into my fridge and ate my yogurt. I think it probably was. The bastard.

This must stop, and I propose a two-step plan.

The first step is that we must improve our security systems, and for this reason both Ian and myself are being issued with black briefcases containing complicated equipment and wires and flashing LED displays with numbers on them. These form part of a new high-security login system to make sure that our login details are never compromised by the forces of terror, and also look really cool like we’re in a film.

The second step is that we will destroy Kev in a controlled explosion in a field near Bracknell this Friday afternoon. I know this will not be popular, particularly with Kev himself, but I think he would have to agree that it is for the good of the nation.

All those in favour, please raise your hand in the comments section.

Avatar It’s Time: Four Word Reviews

Shoddy CDs seem to keep landing on my doormat, so it falls to me to write some more four word reviews. This time, it’s the album “It’s Time…” by Clock, widely regarded as an album nobody remembers from 1995.

If you read the sleeve notes you’ll see that Clock are “ODC MC” and “Tinka”. It was the nineties, you see, so every house band needed a rapper and a sexy dancing woman who did a bit of singing now and then. Clock were actually some blokes from Manchester who churned out house music, and drafted in the two people on the CD to sing the lyrics and be in the promotional material. That’s understandable. If I’d made this album I wouldn’t want my name associated with it either.

It's Time by Clock

Read More: It’s Time: Four Word Reviews »

Avatar Baby advice

Many of us will be aware that Mr Chang, one of the regular Beans dwellers (you may take “regular” to be a fairly loose term in this case), has recently made a baby. At this early stage we should assume its name is “Changlet” until there is firm evidence to the contrary.

I have never made a baby, or looked after one for any significant length of time, so I am ideally placed to dish out some useful advice on the upkeep and maintenance of this new baby.

  1. Try to keep the baby upright. Babies held upside-down for long periods can begin to leak and will not fit baby seats properly. The correct end to keep at the top is the one that makes most of the noise.
  2. Feed your baby regularly. New babies do not come with skills for foraging, hunting or microwaving pre-installed. Until your baby reaches an age where it becomes compatible with these modules you will need to manually carry out these tedious tasks.
  3. Involve your baby in family life. Babies are small and warm and it is tempting to use them in place of a hot water bottle or book-end. As much as this may seem a good idea, it can cause your baby to get the wrong ideas in later life, and nobody wants an adult man trying to climb into their bookshelves in thirty years’ time.
  4. Do not offer your baby hot drinks. Most people in your household will appreciate the polite and civilised question “tea or coffee?” when they are ready for a drink. However, babies will not develop a taste for the finer things in life for the first fifteen or twenty years, and offering a baby a hot drink in this manner may cause offence.
  5. Buy elastic clothes for your baby. Babies are famously indecisive about their size and will change their physical proportions almost continuously. Procuring clothes of a fixed size will, therefore, be a costly mistake and a source of regret and bitterness for years to come. A stretchy but stylish Lycra garment that will fit your baby now, and when it is a fully grown adult, will avoid that problem.
  6. Do not overestimate the taste of modern children. Your baby probably passed most of its time before it was born playing with a tablet computer or games console. Today’s children are seldom interested in old-fashioned toys that do not have touchscreen interfaces and copious simulated bloodshed. Do not waste your money buying toys such as Lego for your baby – they will not appreciate it. Keep these toys for yourself instead. 

I believe that’s more or less everything there is to know about babies, but in case I’ve missed anything out, I’d like to invite other Beans contributors to suggest their own baby maintenance tips below. 

Avatar Things! Ep. 2 – Poodle Euthanasia

After we premiered the first episode of Things! last month, it’s starting to look like this series might be the hot new TV property for 2016. Already we’ve had enquiries from prestigious TV stations in Yemen and Herzegovina about buying this lucrative format.

For those of you wishing to see the series in English, here’s episode 2, in which Dougie McLaughten meets a shy and retiring man who has solved a very particular problem.