One from the Archives – ‘You Don’t Weep’

(A cynical young man sits at a table judging, that’s you (Kevin), and two men walk past).

Chris: Look at that cynical young man there.
Ian: What’s he doing?

(Intense close-up of your (Kevin’s) face)

Chris: He’s judging fruit because even though it carries qualities that can assist with a sexy, varied diet, too much can still mess with your face podge.
Ian: Oh, THAT!
Chris: STOP JUDGING FRUIT, INFANT!
Kev: Leave me alone, let me judge in peace.
Ian: But don’t you realise that fruit doesn’t mean you any harm? It doesn’t have a hidden agenda.
Chris: It’s not out to get you.
Kev: I don’t care! Not enough people *cannot read what the bottom line says due to bad photocopying*
Ian: Look at the beauty of that lemon! It’s perfectly cylindrical, it’s smoothness, it’s balance of danger and sweetness. Doesn’t it make you want to…
Kev: CRY? No. NEVER!
Chris: Surely it must, sir. You are no golem.
Kev: No. I never cry.

(Shock horror: SEVERE GASP)

Ian: He doesn’t cry.
Chris: This imbalance will be bad, awful, awful bad.
Ian: Care to explain with the use of this delicate pulley system?
Chris: No. Follow me.

(Ian and Chris walk offscreen to a white board)

*Presumably Chris is talking* Man. Man doesn’t want to cry but he does. He has to or this happens.

(An explosion goes off)

Ian: What was that?
Chris: That’s what happens when you try to fuck with nature.
Ian: Oooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Chris: To put it like this, if man does not cry, the emotional chumblies vibrate and vibrate. If liquid is not spilt then they catch fire and the whole body explodes.
Ian: Science is mean!
Chris: It sure is, Timmy.
Ian: It’s Ian.
Chris: Okay.

(Back to Kevin) (?)

Ian: So this man needs to cry.
Chris: Exactly.
Ian: So how do we do that?
Chris: If science can cause a perfectly healthy individual to explode then science can also be harnessed for good.
Ian: Holy pickles!
Chris: What we need is…

(Quick shots: plunger, onions, copy of the film ‘Steel Magnolias’)

Then all we need to do is…

(Chris plungers the side of Kev’s head, then he rubs onions into his eyes, lastly he shows him a copy of ‘Steel Magnolias’ on the telly)

Ian: It sounds easy.
Chris: It’s already done (close up of Chris) Romeo Dunne.

(The cynical man is sat crying at his table)

Chris: Oh dear.
Ian: What’s wrong with him?
Chris: It appears as though the science was too much for him. He’s been turned into a jibbering idiot.
Ian: Is that why he’s sat crying over some knives?
Kev: (between sobs) They just… don’t get the same respect… as forks. It’s so upsetting.
Chris: We may need to think about this some more. He’s gone from one extreme to the other. I expect if you hold anything up in front of him he’ll cry even harder.

(Ian holds up a yo-yo, Kev weeps harder)

Ian You were right.
Chris: We need MORE SCIENCE!

(Quick shots: plunger, iron pipes, a copy of ‘Universal Solider’)

Chris plungers back tough back (?) into Kevin’s head, sticks the pipes down his back).

Chris: Not too much ‘Universal Solider’, Timmy, we don’t want him as cynical as he was before.
Ian: Ten four.

(Kev sits at a table)

Ian: How do you feel?
Kev: I’m not sure. I’m a little teary (pulls a face) but I’m also extremely pissed off at this Kinder Egg. The toy on it is crap.
Ian: Is that a result?
Chris: I guess it’ll have to do!

(Both Ian and Chris freeze in mid-hearty chuckle. Kev falls off his chair)

EPILOGUE

Chris: Crying is perfectly natural. Everyone does it, even pigeons and wolverines. They don’t do it in public but hidden behind those bushes and up on those high buildings they are bawling like bitches.
Ian: Here’s a tip, cry into a towel. It muffles the noise and catches the excess, thus removing the need for tissues.
Chris: Thank you, Timmy.
Ian: How often do you cry, sir?

(close-up of Chris’ face)

Chris: TWICE A DAY. THAT’S WHAT I SAY!

END!

Newsboost – Livin’ La Vida Liar

Shock news today as female inspiration for hit single by Ricky Martin reveals that a lot of the information contained in the song is, “factually incorrect”.

Bernadette ‘Bernie’ Wendell of Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, held a press conference in her home town earlier on today to set the record straight.

She was completely unaware that the song was about her for twenty-five years and it was only when a friend recently played it to her that she recognised some of the key characteristics of the woman in the song as relating to her.

“I was completely taken aback when I realised the song was about me. I had relocated to Thailand for a few years because of work so when it was first released in 1999 I never got to hear it. Latin American pop music wasn’t really their kind of thing over in that side of the world. When Doris, my neighbour, was playing the song during a recent barbeque, you know, when the weather was briefly nice on that weekend, you know the one, I hear the lyrics and BOOM I knew it was about me.”

Mrs Wendell, now married with three children, was asked how she came to meet Mr Martin given the distance between Grimsby and Puerto Rico, where the singer was living at the time. “Enrique was here doing some promo work. You know that transition period between when he was singing in Spanish and thinking about moving to English? He was over ‘ere working the clubs, trying out some new material. Me and him had a bit of a brief spark and we dated for a few weeks when he was in the area. He did love a bit of Yellowbelly cheese I can tell you.”

Mrs Wendell then went on to explain the inconsistencies with the song lyrics.

“He’s such an exaggerator. One time he came over to mine soaking wet so I told him to take his clothes off so I could put them through the drier. Whilst the cycle was on, my favourite song came on the radio and we danced outside in the back garden. The neighbours thought we were mental but that was the kind of thing you did in the late 90’s. Nobody gave a flying fuck. All that sorcery nonsense? I didn’t like walking under ladders, I hardly think that makes me “into” superstitions.”

One of the lowly journalists towards the back of the room then asked if she was also guilty of having, “a new addiction every day and night,” and whether she’d ever slipped drugs into Mr Martin’s drinks. “If anything, it’s the other way round. One time I felt awful, had the squits for a few days. I asked him to buy me some Immodium from the chemist on the way to mine. What did he do? He bought Dulcolax ‘cos he got confused and wasn’t sure. I didn’t check the bottle, took one and it was like a brown wave all night. Horrendous!”

The times and dates of Mrs Wendell’s account seem to match up with Mr Martin’s work schedule at the time, at least according to what little information we have to hand. Mr Martin and his publicist are yet to comment.

Bit of a fail

I had big plans, huge plans. These plans were colossal and they were monstrous.

If you tried to eat them then you’d either break your jaw trying to fit them in your mouth or you’d have to stop maybe halfway through because you couldn’t have anymore, you were stuffed to the max. They were gigantic.

My marvellous post will have to wait for another time. Until then, feast your eyes on this quiche that my brother served us the last time we were in Leeds. He kept bigging it up (no pun intended), saying how epic it was, how it dwarfed a regular sized quiche and…

Well, it is slightly larger than your average quiche and that’s about it. When you compare it to the Duplo brick though it looks humongous.

Obligations

I’m a man of my word and let nobody say otherwise (unless it’s me stating I’m going to get new tyres for my car because I keep saying it and I still haven’t done it yet). It’s this simple principle that I stick to in order for people to believe and trust me as their brother, boyfriend, friend or tree surgeon.

When I recently returned home to visit family, my brother surprised me with the admission that they had been round the charity shops and my nieces had bought some video games for me. A lovely gesture, or course, and one which didn’t initially fill me with a sense of dread. It was only when I remembered the quality of video games available in charity shops that my stomach turned upside-down and inside-out: previous years FIFA games, cricket and other lame sports titles, shovelware Nintendo Wii games where the quality is the same as my arse.

I was handed four Nintendo DS titles and, boy, am I a lucky person. Four excellent condition clangers for my collection. I am not a snob, dear reader, for as the keen chef can tell the good fruit from the bad fruit I can let you know mostly what a good game is and what isn’t. This stack was given to me to review by my brother and that is exactly what I am going to do. I certainly don’t want to play them and you certainly don’t want to read what I have to say, yet this is how it’s going down.

It was either that or trade them in for 40p.

Late Night Beans with Tad Kensington

WHOOSH!

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another edition of Late Night Beans. Now I know what you’re all thinking, “what are you still doing here, Tad Kensington, when your Netflix special is still in the number one spot and you’ve got business talks planned through most of the UK for the rest of the year?” Firstly, that’s a long thought, and secondly, you need to get out more!

(Audience laughs)

I say it, but I don’t mean it!

(Audience laughs a little louder)

Nah, I love being here with all of you. I really look forward to getting up each day and getting out to where the heart of the people is; every evening right here in front of all of you, unlike where the heart of the people is around 4pm which is everyone counting down the last hour before going home, am I right?

(Cheers and laughter from the audience)

The news has been awful this week, just plain awful. I woke up on Tuesday morning and apparently there are far too many lampposts in the UK. Local authorities are making plans to tear down at least 30% of them in order to cutback on energy costs. This of course follows the recent court case where Jacob Brantford sued Brentford Council because he walked into a lamppost when stumbling home after a night on the lash and claimed it violated his civil rights. I don’t think we can say the future looks brighter with idiots like this in charge.

(A few loud, “yeahs!” and a ripple of applause from the audience)

We have a lot to get through today. This evening is well stacked like the start of a game of Jenga. We have lifestyle specialist and all round good egg Jemima Armspace to tell you where you might be going wrong with your diet and why eating figs may prove to be the key to success. Joseph Puccini is out promoting his latest blockbuster film, ‘Lazerblade 2: the reprisal’, which has already received rave reviews despite filming only starting last week. Margot Linchpin wants you to get involved with her social media awareness campaign about the dangers of chin biscuits and we have local band The Brainfillers to end the show with their new single ‘I want your kidneys’.

(Audience applauds)

I know, I know, I told you we had a lot to get through! I wasn’t lying! You love it though and I love bringing it here for you which is why this is the perfect relationship but buy me dinner first before we get too intimate.

(Audience laughs)

Right onto our first guest!

Bringing order to the chaos

What do you mean you don’t want more boring, mundane posts about things done in and around my flat? Cheeky scamp! Wind your neck in.

For a very long time, my cutlery drawer was like the wild West: unruly, brutal, unfeeling and packed full of horses. I threw everything back in when it was clean and dry, not caring where it went. You would need to rummage round to find what you were looking for and there was no guarantee you’d find it / that it was hiding in there. I even still had teaspoons Reuben had individually wrapped up for a laugh a few Christmases ago lurking about, the red, white and green paper mocking me from the back of the drawer. What a shambles.

These days I’m a new man. I’ve got a fresh ‘chude. The organiser serves as both a solution to and a continuation of the same problem; everything is neatly organised… IF it can fit in the cutlery holder. Some of the longer knives don’t and have to loosely spam about in a second drawer on the other side of the kitchen.

I also still have a lot of spoons.

Record covers

I was all set for writing a wonderful piece about the similarities between the symbolism of ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ by Mark Twain and brutal French cinema classic ‘La Haine’ when it dawned on me that I’ve had a pretty busy month and that perhaps I should take it easy for this last post.

I was tidying up the living room and came across a collection of 1000 record covers Mr. Merry gave me about 5 years ago. You know the type, a coffee table book with very little merit other than something to flick through when you’re waiting for a takeaway or someone to drop round. I had previously gone through it and put bookmarks in on certain pages, no doubt some genius plan to make a post in the future, so I did what I always do and made a collage to wow you all with.

The curious thing about ‘Last Kiss’ is that on the first pressing the girl had fake blood dripping from the girl’s face but there must have been some controversy about that and it was removed. So the rumour goes anyway.

I still can’t understand the logistics of Bobby Bland’s hair.

I can’t fathom why Hall and Oats would choose to call their album ‘Abandoned Luncheonette’.

Fanny. Americans, eh? When will they learn?

Growing on

Guys, there comes a time when it’s time to move on. It’s time to grow up. You have a choice: you can grow up, move on, move up or you can grow on. I have chosen to grow on.

During lockdown 1.0, to keep my spirits up and add a little structure to the meaningless days of worrying where i would buy rice, pasta and toilet paper from, I drew a drawing of something every day. It was usually some cartoon from my childhood or things Reuben and I would watch when he was younger. It was fun to begin with, I would put some music on and spend an hour drafting whatever that came to mind.

Four years have now passed. Whilst I am proud of my graphical efforts, some of the corners have started curling and the ones closest to the windows have faded due to sun damage. They’re not the vibrant illustrations they once were. I keep noticing the errors I made too, such as the extra line on the side of Dangermouse’s face, the awful hands of Steven Universe’s dad and the terrible pencil effects for Kermit the Frog. It is time to take them down and send them to the great recycling unit in the sky.

I will be keeping some of my favourites. The rest will be on sale at Sotheby’s in May. Bidding for each starts at £30,000 and plenty of interest has already been noted so you may want to register your own as soon as you can. Each one will be personally signed and framed by myself, and come with a free signed first edition of my new book, ‘Mind sorting: are you the you-est you that ever was?’ Available in stores now.

Pouring
Beans

Author: Ian “Air Travel Regulations” McIver