Author: Ian “Air Travel Regulations” McIver

Avatar Dear Beans… Furious Locker Fetish Frenzy

I have been meaning to make a confession for some time now because it’s happened again and it happened right under my nose. I didn’t mean it to happen and it did. Oh, what a fragile and tragic series of events it was!

Some years ago I “purchased” a locker from a local art gallery. By “purchase” I mean I paid the £1.00 to use the locker and then kept on using it. It was practically a purchase after all because money changed hands, they got something and I got something. I would return to the locker to store things inside, hiding them away like a squirrel burying nuts for the winter. After several months of this I returned to a sign telling me that my purchase had been rescinded and the art gallery had taken the locker back by force. This was completely unacceptable and in my outrage I fled the scene and never returned. I didn’t agreed to these terms and yet I was being forced to comply with them. Absolute b*stards.

All those lovely trinkets of mine were lost. I had several diamond necklaces, a couple of Monets (rolled up very tightly and very carefully of course), a wallet full of oil and a Chinese urn signed by every member of the Ming dynasty amongst other things. Priceless.

In my new place of work I was assigned a locker. Actually, it’s less a locker and more lockable filing cabinet. It’s mine though and I keep only the essentials in there in case it gets taken away from me again. It’s a very busy office so the majority of the lockers are already taken by other members of staff however a few nights ago I was walking through and noticed that I was making a mental note of the odd ones that were still free. I had previously borrowed one to keep my gym items in until I worked out how to use the lockers at the gym (that’s another story in itself). When I returned to my locker the next day though I realised that the one adjacent to it was free. How had I not realised this before? Why was this only being brought to my attention now?

I took the key and kept it. Obviously the idea of knocking through the wall to make it a double locker is not permittable but it’s still good to have a spare. Is it though? Am I only coveting the locker because I can and because of what happened previously? Am I destined to continue to take lockers that don’t belong to me? I don’t need it and yet I keep it as mine.

I need some advice so please help in any way you can.

Yours stealingly

Fencepost Nundidge

Avatar Look at him (but don’t be inspired)

What’s going on here exactly?

Look at this berk. I took screenshots of this from some Twitter advert because it looked ridiculous. This guy is doing all these different kinds of exercises as though it’s supposed to inspire you to “reach goals easily” and “no gym, no problem”. What a waste of time.

I wouldn’t mind so much but for the last month or so this has popped up every other day. This guy needs to take a hint and get outta my viso/volto. My viewing eyes don’t need this kind of visual fungus. I don’t care if you can track progress and keep motivated, I don’t care if you can see visible results in four weeks and don’t think you can tempt me with silly muscular arm emojis.

What worries me most is the disclaimer at the bottom of the video: “The stunts in this video were performed by a trained professional. DO NOT ATTEMPT IT.” Stunts? It? They seem to have such a poor grasp of English that even if I wanted to “hit every single muscle” I wouldn’t trust them to do it given that they can’t even word a disclaimer properly.

I expect you may have already seen it but I wanted to spread the word regardless.

Also, Chris, get a real f*cking job, mate.

Avatar Blurrd

Last weekend, some people hopped in a car and drove over six hours out of their way to go and see some men with musical wooden sticks on a big stage.

The sticks were played well. The musical men did good. It did not rain which is good because the people were outside and not wearing coats.

The less said about the toilets the better.

As the big ball of flaming gas disappeared from the sky, the stone structure on the hill looked pretty and made everything better.

That said, if you wanted a bottle of cold liquid you had to part with 300 pennies. A cone of frozen milk cost over 600 pennies. Huge posters telling you to keep hydrated was a piss take by all accounts.

Overall if I could have scooped out the men with music sticks and moved them somewhere else I would have done. Highly recommended.

Avatar Newsboost – Marauding mash mutilation mandate

Conservative politician Tub Barsley unexpectedly hit out at mash today in an unprovoked attach critics are calling, “spineless”.

In this morning’s edition of the ‘Daily Porker’, in conversation with political correspondent Felicia Nonstop, Mr Barsley steered very clear of the fence and sat on a rock at least a hundred miles away when expressing his overwhelming disdain for the squashed potato wonderstuff.

“Mash is nobody’s first choice at a pub or restaurant,” explained Mr Barsley, “if you’re given the options you’ll always go with chips because they’re infinitely better. If you’re choosing mash then you need to get your head examined.” It should be pointed out that later on in the article he also compared the act of mashing a potato with dusting your living room in that both activities are completely pointless. Barsley has never been one to mince his words especially when it concerns either food or politics; we all remember his controversial housing plan from September 2020 which was universally panned and vetoed by the House of Commons.

Second in command at the British Mash Council, Christopher Marshall, fought back after reading the egregious comments.

“What kind of a world do we live in when people are allowed to say fragrant lies in the press? I personally have nothing against Tub Barsley,” quipped Mr Marshall, “but he needs to keep his attitude in check. Mash is a beloved addition to any meal and we have statistical data to show that it is a clear 50/50 split between chips and mash at the dinner table. We are hoping that this will slide in our favour given the recent advertising campaign however we are quite happy with where we are right now. Damaging, childish words should be kept under wraps and if Mr Barsley continues with this line then we will be forced to take legal action.”

Tub Barsley, who once set fire to his own mother when lighting candles on her 60th birthday cake, has not commented any further.

Avatar Box lid

Recently I was shuffling some nonsense around and stuffing more boxes into the solitary cupboard at my flat in the hope of creating a little more space.

As I was tearing up some old cardboard I found that a young Reuben had doodled on the inside of one of the smaller boxes.

For those whose eyesight is not as good as it used to be, the top has ‘secret files’ and several incriminating piece of information about walruses. Roy Orbortron (the robotic version of Roy Orbison who was created to carry on his musical legacy) is a walrus for some reason and he has changed the words of the classic song ‘Pretty Woman’ to ‘Pretty Walrus’. This may have been done in the hopes of attracting a mate although nobody can doubt the controversial nature of this switch.

But wait! There’s more!

Roy Orbotron (different spelling) also orbits the planet Venus as a disgusting Transformers-esque robot walrus meaning that he must split his time equally between serenading female walruses with his back catalogue and flying around the second nearest planet to the sun. Thankfully he didn’t choose a planet that was further away otherwise he’d never have enough time between the two feats to organise, I don’t know, a summer holiday. Quite why he is orbiting Venus is not explained in the document.

If you have any clearer answers then do let us know. For now, watch out for any suspicious walruses or walrus-based robots who may or may not be flying through the sky and/or playing the guitar (boy this post is exhausting to write).

Avatar Dogventure

Sunday has been a funny ole’ sod.

After a week lying about and not doing much in the Lake District, we had to come back and face the reality of everything once again. This happened on Friday and after catching up on chores and putting some food back into the fridge I decided to go back over to Vikki’s house so we could collectively bury our heads in the sand together and pretend Monday wasn’t coming our way.

We opted for a local walk nearby rather than driving somewhere. About ten minutes in we were going past a secondary school when we noticed the shape of an animal shuffling in the distance. At first it looked like a cat but it was too big for that. It was a dog. A car turned around at the end of the street and then drove back in our direction. Once this distraction was out the way the dog looked at us, gave a friendly bark and started lolloping towards us.

What do you do with what appears to be a stray dog? I didn’t know and neither did Vikki so I looked up some websites and they advised to contact the Council. The Council, yeah, the ones that don’t operate on a weekend because they’re closed. They claimed to have a 24 hour line to call but I couldn’t find a number to call. With nothing left to do we gently coaxed the dog to come back with us so we could formulate a plan.

The dog was very domesticated and seemed quite old. She would follow and stop at the side of the road when necessary. She was naturally curious as all dogs are but not to the degree where she would run off to the nearest interesting smell or run into someone’s garden to take a pee. Walking a dog without a lead is risky. Walking an unknown dog without a lead is madness and not something I would recommend to anyone.

After some food, water and a bath, Eloise, a name I gave her, seemed a lot happier. We tried taking her round to Vikki’s parent’s house because they have a bigger garden however they were going away that afternoon so her mum put some photos up on FacePlace in the hope of finding the owner through the local dog pages (see, “locco doggo paggo”). There was nothing much else we could do so I said my goodbyes and headed on my way. As I got in my car I noticed a truck that didn’t look like it belonged to any of the neighbours and saw the man heading round to the front. As I drove past, Vikki’s door was open and the man was talking to her. I knew what was happening so quickly parked and went over.

It would appear as though Eva, for ’twas her real name, a mere thirteen years old, had managed to uncharacteristically escape from the garden and got a bit lost. Their house was down the road from where we had found her. The owner was very pleased to know she was okay after seeing the pictures Vikki’s mum had posted and rushing over as soon as they found out. Eva said goodbye and thus ended the dogventure.

Avatar Let’s take a test

Hey you, over there! Stop chugging that chutney and come over here.

You look spritely and young on the outside but how does that compare with your disgusting insides? How can we know that the you within reflects the you without… withunder… outside? That’s right. The only way that you can know how you you are is by taking this short and pointless test.

Aging is compulsory. There is no way round it no matter how many cups of water you drink, how many creams you smear on your face, how many plastic sur’gries you undertake and how many virgins you kill on the first full moon of the month. For each of the below that applies to you add one point to your score and then check your total at the bottom:

  • Getting into / out of a chair emits a noise you didn’t know was possible and you’ve never heard it before.
  • You can’t sit on the floor anymore without struggling to get up.
  • Your neck isn’t comfortable in any position and sounds like a cement mixer when you change angles too quickly.
  • If you sit too long, you feel tired. If you walk too much, you feel tired. If you get the right balance of both, you still feel tired.
  • Trying to step over a moderately-sized fence is akin to trying to push a buffalo into a milk bottle.
  • Drinking any liquids after a certain point in the evening means at least half a dozen trips to the bog in the night.
  • You’ve got more lines on your face that your average Hollywood script.
  • Your hair is more a memory than anything else.
  • People around you at work weren’t born when you were still in Sixth Form.
  • When you hear a song on the radio you like and realise you accidentally put on ‘Smooth’.
  • You now have to check the length of the hair in your ears and nostrils before you leave the house in case they need clipping.

For 0 to 3 points – You’re young, look at you, with your big shoes and your shiny eyes. Get out of my sight, you sicken me!

For 4 to 6 points – So you’re not quite as youthful as you thought you were but hey, we’ve all been there. It could be much, much worse (see below).

For 7 to 9 points – Oh dear, looks as though adult-sized nappies and 7pm bedtimes are on the horizon. Don’t make any long-term plans.

For anything 10 and over – We both knew this from the start. Get your slippers on, grandad, it’s time for your cod liver oil.

Avatar Birds of a feather

A spontaneous or random act of nonsense, that’s what this is.

Whatever I say is clearly not aimed at anyone in particular but there are some important factors that need to be considered such as geography, prior criminal activity, geography and that someone was emailing erroneous and bogus claims to me but a few weeks ago which he still hasn’t apologised for.

It seems as though someone else has been embracing the ideals of Office 2: the return of the killer office and carrying them forward into the 21st century. For those that don’t remember, Office 2 was located on the fourth floor of what is now The Core Shopping Centre in Leeds off the Headrow. It was the singular level next to the lifts that only had a very small space, big enough for two idiots and some food from Greggs. We would hang about and mock the onion hags for coming up to the fourth floor when really they wanted the third for the shops. You could argue, however, that it is the principles of Office 3, AKA locker 29, the locker that I kept putting arbitrary objects into which was located in the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. I “bought” it for a pound and repeatedly filled it with whatever I felt like because it was mine and the fact that it was all confiscated still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Mine.

Anyway, it seems as though someone has been keeping a copy of the film ‘Hellraiser’ on VHS perched on the top of a bus stop in South London for almost a decade. I took the following screenshot from Twitter because it spoke to me. This is the kind of ongoing “joke” that people like us have been perpetuating and it should be celebrated in all its glory. I only wish that there was some anonymous PO Box number that I could forward a copy to in case the person or persons carrying this huge task are running low on copies.

Also it’s clearly Chris because he lives in France which is near London.

Thank you! Good night!