Author: Ian “Air Travel Regulations” McIver

Avatar What’s New and what’s Shrew – Mackers

Hello

So now that we’ve hit the big cheese January shake-up, who is clamming for their next head-dunk into the world of greatness? As I am still assuming the role of Sherpa for you ingrates let me rustle up a steaming batch of hot sauce to keep you in the good books:

  • Fashion – light up your eye bulbs with this. So everyone thinks that lemonade sink holes are worth pursuing? Yeah, like a dog with cramp. Ditch that has-been and opt for Serlo Pumps, the best kind of shoes straight from Bulgaria. They’re sorted, they’re sassy and they’re climbing up your drainpipe for a little sweetness. Don’t close the window yet. If you’re ever gonna out-do Amelia Jossdon, with her pencil skirt and jam sandwiches, you need to plump up for pointed jodhpurs. That will make everyone scream like Mr Sheen.
  • TV – can you believe that they made eight seasons of Desperate Housewives? I gave up many, many moons ago yet for some reason and haven’t been back since. I expect it was because the smug voice-over put me into a coma every time an episode started. Russian export ‘Boots to the Roots’ is the latest new thing where famous people trace their family history, find distant relatives they’ve never met then turn up and kick the merry shit out of them. Australian docu-drama ‘Wazzock Paddock’ is also turning up the heat on both sides of the world. In it, a select group of idiots are kidnapped and thrown into a large paddock where they are asked questions to try and change their sexist / racist / misogynistic views, and if they don’t an angry kangaroo is lowered in. 
  • Art – can beans be an art? Yes, they can. In honour of the wonderful food and snack Barry Wombfoot has enlisted the help of 100 people to create a massive hill of beans at the bottom of Ben Nevis in Scotland. Once it has been erected, Barry will use brown sauce to draw a picture of Phillip Schofield 200ft in the air whilst being suspended from a helicopter. To slightly more mundane activities where young artist Lilo Peel has knocked down her parent’s home in Dagenham, Essex and will build a new house entirely out of office supplies she has been stealing for the last two years from her place of work. The piece will be called ‘Self Eviction’ and has been both condoned by the Local Council and lauded by industrial showbiz wonderbot, Gary Wilmot. 
  • Film – it’s a bit slow this time of year what with everyone gearing up for the awards season. That still hasn’t stopped the previously banned trilogy of films by Winky Bowson from sneaking into select cinemas in London. ‘Chop Chop’, ‘Chop Again’ and ‘Chop Chop Away’ have received the remastered treatment and for the cost of one sandwich in London (£365.17) you can catch all three in a special midnight screening in Camden Town. I won’t tell you why they were banned but let’s just say that you can’t do sit-ups that way anymore, times have changed and you shouldn’t use banana yoghurt in that capacity.

So there you go. You can waltz off into the night, safe in the knowledge that your level of cool is still off the chart. I’m running down to Doncaster for a nice sherry.

Avatar Mandolin – A Song

Let’s crack off 2019 with something that I should have done in 2018.

I set myself a challenge whereby I was to write and record a song about a Mandolin (the chocolate bar, not the musical instrument) using a Mandolin. I wrote the song words, or lyrics as they are commonly known, and even worked out a basic rhythm with which to astound the listeners with. Sadly, when I tried to record it all on my very primitive phone, it was not good enough. I did expect this to happen, as I don’t own any proper recording equipment like everyone else does, so the project was duly shelved. That said, I do not want to deny the public what is a very beautiful song. Here we are then. Make up your own tune. It’s yours for the taking:

“Hit me, mandolin,
You don’t think that I can handle him so
Hit me, mandolin.
My arms bent over like a pangolin so
Hit me, mandolin.
You see that growing? It’s a dorsal fin!
That’s right, yeah, mandolin,
It’s much, much bigger than a phantom limb.

Oh, trick me, mandolin,
Writing my way to the loony bin.
So strict, yeah, mandolin,
The nurse on hold for my next of kin.
I left my mandolin,
Picking up pieces of a mandarin.
You’re on me, mandolin,
Hiding in shadows like a mannequin.
So leave me, mandolin,
I’m sick an’ tired of ya panderin’.
You heard me, mandolin,
I’m done, it’s over, time fo’ finishin'”

If Pharrell Williams or Dr. Dre are listening, I am free in March to collaborate on any future projects you may have.



Avatar Hot Beans (TM)

This is my last post of 2018.

It hasn’t been the best of years for me personally however 2018 needs to end on a positive note. We must all remember that a new year means new possibilities and opportunities, and we must not dwell too much on the past. Try not to worry, this is not going to dip into one of those emotional, conscientious posts (did we ever have those?). Far from it. 2019 is going to be the year of…

HOT BEANS!

Our demographic has been severely limited to say the least. We need to start attracting a crowd guaranteed to be scouring the internet at least 24/7. And who likes the internet? Everyone. Why? Because porn. Yes, starting next year we will be incorporating the best of adult entertainment into the already racy strands of Pouring Beans.

I can already tell you are salivating at the prospect of nudie pictures and hot videos of, erm, someone on someone action. And quite rightly so. We may be British but we can still rock it and shove it up the right place like the best of them.

So stay tuned for all of this and much, much more. Hot Beans (TM). 2019, baby.

Avatar Potato Nostalgia

Around this time of year a lot of people get nostalgic. They remember years gone by, people who have left us and happy memories sitting next to your toxic gas fire, using the flames to make toast, rather than getting up and using the grill, like the little fat bastard you are (or I was).

Whilst I was rummaging around in some old papers I came across this little gem:

A single tear flew from my eyelid and hit the ground, no doubt causing a tsunami half a world away.

Pots Tatoas were my very convoluted and confusing way of asking Chris if he wanted to get a baked potato for lunch way, way, way back in the dim and distant past when we both worked in Leeds city centre.

Sadly we all missed Pots Tatoas Day this year but I hope that everyone puts it in their diary so we can rally round and stoke the oven (?) in time to enjoy its merits next year.

Avatar Tom’s Sausage Lion

“What is this?” you may ask yourself, whilst sitting next to a roaring fire with a brandy in the your hand. I know that this is the way that Chris normally spends his evening and, thus, I assume everyone does the same. What you are staring at is a book, one of those things with words in that people store on shelves to look intelligent. It’s a book by a man and it was written some time ago. You can tell that because the picture on the front looks like it was from the 1970’s (although according to Wikipedia it was written in 1986).

Now it’s not that it is a bad story. It’s a very short story and interesting enough to keep your attention for the hour or so you will spend reading it. It is, however, not worth reading a second time. Here’s the plot:

Tom is a boy. One evening he comes across a lion eating sausages in his back garden. Nobody believes him (a la The Boy who Cried Wolf) and so he tries to track the lion down so that he can prove everyone, including his parents, his peers and the teachers at his school, that he is telling the truth. The lengths that Tom goes to to prove this are quite remarkable; in this most modern of nows right now, as in now 2018, he would have given up and gone back to playing Puzzle Blox or whatever bollocks was currently trending at the time on his I-Pad. That said, the ending is pretty flaccid. Despite what a comment on the back of the book says (hilariously “the climax is breathtaking!”) he finds the lion, parades it around in front of everyone to show he isn’t a liar and then the owner turns up to take it back. That’s it, about seventy odd pages. It is a kid’s book so nobody expected it to be the length of ‘The Stand’ by Stephen King.

The reason Kev bought it for me was due to the ridiculous title. It would be easy to think that it was some kind of porno without the picture of the child trying to entice a lion, tucking away on a string of sausages. I read this while I was donating platelets at the blood clinic. The nurse who was keeping an eye on me couldn’t believe that such a book did exist and, as I pointed out to her also, I did not know it existed until it arrived in a padded envelope through my front door.

Would I recommend it? No. Would I read it again? No. Would I say it’s a bad book? No. I give it a hearty two stars out of five; it loses a third star for not including a lion made of sausages. The title is very misleading. One of these days I may write a book called Tom’s Sausage Lion which will include a lion made of sausages. It’s a work in progress.

Avatar ‘Janu-Hairy’

What does winter bring you? Christmas? Inner peace? Chilblains and a bad case of the sniffles? Whatever it does bring you, you can guarantee it doesn’t bring you respect.

Winter does not respect you. It will blow you over, blow you down, freeze your chinchillas off and then demand a thousand pounds. Try as you might, there is no easy way to appease winter unless you’re hiding indoors under a blanket hoping it goes away. Wouldn’t you like to give the harshest of seasons what for? Don’t you want to stick twos up at winter and laugh in its cold, dank face?

Look at you; you’re covered in hair. What you need to do is get more of it. ‘Janu-Hairy’ is the newest thing to ever be a thing. In line with other charity-based events, such as ‘Movember’ and ‘Decembeard’, ‘Janu-Hairy’ plans to raise money for people who don’t have hair. Wigs and hairpieces will be distributed amongst those in need, like a wiggy Santa Claus.

How does one help then? By being sponsored to grow as much hair as possible between 1st and 31st January. It’s the easiest thing to do because your body does it anyway, and the more unnecessary hair growth in all your sick and disturbing places the better. That means more cha ching for worthy causes.

Being Hairy on the go, of course I will be participating because I’ve got more hair than all three of the Beans Team put together. I will grow the shit out of my hair for thirty one days in the name of good will toward men and women, whomever needs my hair.

It would be nice if we could use seminal Papples classic ‘January’ as the theme for the event, possibly changing some of the words to fit the occasion. It’s playing in my head now and it’s still lovely.

If you would like to participate then do let me know.