Stepping Up The Beans – Kevindo Menendez Style

New year. New style. New everything.

That’s the Kevindo Menendez way. When you’ve worked in the bean industry as long as Mr Menendez you know when it’s best to stick to your guns and when to branch out into new territory. While his competitors will be falling back on traditional recipes and boring, predictable flavours in 2017, he looks to the future with a flashy star in his eye and an idea that will break your heart.

Milky beans! All the goodness of milk mixed together with beans for a cockle-warmingly good time. You will get your daily portion of dairy and fibre from one single tin of ‘Kevindo Menendez’s Milky Beans’.

Even though his established, award-winning bean labels went for a more cartoony and playful look, Milky Beans takes that approach and dunks it in a tin of geese. Nothing says glim glam gloop like the Menendez one hundred billion dollar smile. Take a look at those pearly whites!

No more queuing for hours to buy six pints of milk. No more waiting by cows for that perfect moment to strike. No more mixing tomatoes in with your cereal in the hope that it “works”. Milky beans have got your back.

They’re…. reasonable!

Things On My Desk: 2016 edition

Over the years, the Beans Massive have been careful and diligent in keeping each other informed about items on their respective desks. In 2008, Kev produced an inventory of items on his desk, which was turned into an informative pie chart, and then in 2011 I itemised the objects on my work surface.

More than five years have elapsed since the last update, so it is high time we found out what is now on my desk.

As of 13:57 BST today, the following list is accurate:

Two phones and two mobile telephones
A massive old fashioned sellotape dispenser that weighs a ton
A desk tidy, containing seven biros, three orphaned biro lids, four pairs of scissors and a hoop of white rubber foam with no known purpose
A cafetière, with damp coffee grounds at the bottom
A dispensing tub of antibacterial Azowipes
A remote control with a bit of paper sellotaped to it that reads “RR”
A blue folder containing lots of disorganised bits of paper, open at a page with today’s date on and a note that says “TOMORROW aft ed no” and another one that says “Matt regions”.
A dirty sheet of paper with lots of small writing, titled “Thirteen years and not so unlucky”
A red whiteboard marker
A manual for a laminating machine
A roll of sticky paper tape
My sleeves

Flat Kitty – Presidential Candidate

On the eve of the US presidential election, some might say that attempting to put yourself forward as a candidate now would be a foolish exercise.

Such tomfoolery, however, has never been too far outside the realms of the Beans though. One who is strong of heart and stout of mind can achieve great things even with very little time to do so. It is with this in mind then that my fellow flatmate, Flat Kitty, would like to offer herself for this very prestigious of positions.

Why would she be the right person or squashed fabric soft toy for the job? What qualities does she possess that make her better than Clinton or Trump? I’m glad you asked because I have the bullet points directly below to answer those questions:

She has an honest face;
She is an ex-celebrity following the success of her Bosnian Herzegovinian smash hit of a television series with millions of fans;
Though she may not have an actual voice, she has a “voice” that can empower the smallest of people and inspire the brightest of voters;
There is nothing that she is not willing to do to get your vote;
She once popped a wheelie at the Royal Variety Performance (sources still waiting to be confirmed at this point).

As you can see, there is enough scrabbled together here to convince even the most sternest of individuals that Flat Kitty is a candidate that you can trust and is, ultimately, whom America is crying out for to lead them to a three dimensional multi-faceted glowing shoebox of tomorrow.

That and she makes a mean salad nicoise.

The Overwhelmingly Shit Chris Tarrant Impression Hotline

Do you remember a time when Chris Tarrant was everywhere? He was just wherever you looked. You could not glance towards a lady with the hope of stealing a gaze without his mug smearing into your line of sight. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, far from it. Everyone welcomed his enthusiastic noises and laughter, whether winning a million pounds on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ or throwing a bucket of cold gunge over Lenny Henry’s head on ‘Tiswas’.

Come 2016 though and it is a different landscape. Your only chance of seeing his viso/volto is either from repeats on long-forgotten television channels or those lotto adverts that air at bizarre times.

What you need is more Tarrant in your life. What you need is our dedicated service: The Overwhelming Shit Chris Tarrant Impression Hotline!

Call our hotline 24 hours a day and be greeted with tedious and unrealistic impersonations the likes of which you have never heard before.

LISTEN… for all those confusing Tarrant-esque noises missing from you life.

SMILE… as you hear your favourite Tarrant catchphrases such as, “… but we don’t wanna give you that”, “take your time” and, “is that your final answer?’.

CRINGE… at the poor quality of the service you’ve received.

We have dedicated centres based in Leeds, London and Newcastle so you are guaranteed to find one close to you. As well internet services, part of our expansion plans will also incorporate a drive-thru and the experimental ‘Street Tarrant’ which will see droves of men and woman flood city centres to give bite-sized taster teasers to the general public.

You don’t need to suffer in silence anymore. You don’t need to handle that difficult interview without someone at your side. You don’t need to go on that first date all on your lonesome. Here at the Overwhelmingly Shit Chris Tarrant Impression Hotline we are here to help you in any way we can, as long as it involves crude vocal representations of Reading’s favourite son.

Call now!

Modern technology

What is the one area of your life that modern technology has yet to change? Which of your household appliances has so far failed to make its way to the twenty first century?

We all know what the answer is, and thankfully Pouring Beans Technology Division is here with the solution. Yes – what you need is a ToiletPhone™.

For the times you run out of toilet roll
For the times the lock on the bathroom door gets stuck
For the times you get lonely while doing a really long wee
For the times you want to call your significant other with a live update on your child’s potty training progress
For the times you need to call your toilet’s technical support line

It’s the new appliance every home needs, and Pouring Beans will deliver and install it for just £996.95.

Call today!

This Way Up: episode 5

Traditionally in the UK, groundbreaking comedy has always been commissioned in series of six episodes. So it was for “Fawlty Towers”, so it was for “The Fast Show”, so it was for the revolutionary “Keeping Up Appearances”.

This is how we know that we have another world-changing format on our hands. “This Way Up”, the incredible sketch comedy from Newcastle-based comedy chumps Ian and Roo, reaches its fifth episode and the fans must surely be feeling just a little anxious that there is only one episode to go before it vanishes from the airwaves forever.

For now, though, let’s just be grateful for what we have, as we listen in to episode 5 of This Way Up, featuring the incredible sound of Ian rapping.

If listening is not enough, and you simply must own it for yourself, you can also download it.

Snippets of Flim-Flam – Work Edition

In work as in the rest of life there is much flim-flam, here are some snippets of it:

…and all seems well, however we’ve still got a lot of accounts which don’t have …

…Robert was the person that cleared the log files back in April I am not 100% sure which ones he cleared but that being said…

…change the theme back from a new electric theme to the current one. I changed it against the system admin account by accident…

…regarding the prices…

…stated on that page. In the near future we will need to reconsider that as it wasn’t possible …

…to demonstrate that staff have received proportionate and reasonable training…

Thrilling I’m sure you’ll agree.

BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2016 Awards

Good Evening and welcome to the very exciting but very poorly worded ‘BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2016 Awards’. We are judging the suggestions for sitcoms provided by you, the general public, and we are down to the last three.

There will, of course, be a very extensive and elaborate voting process which will commence once the three entries have been revealed. All you need to do is press one of the conveniently-placed buttons on your remote control to vote for your favourite.

Here are the final three entries for your consideration:

BookChop

Deirdre Hanginglass has a dream. Her dream is to own her very own bookshop in the centre of Ipswich. After gaining a wealth of knowledge following her stint in other shops, and with a hefty loan from the bank, she thinks she has found the ideal place. The only problem is that she can only afford half the rent.

Enter Leanne Pandonberry. Leanne is an aspiring butcher who has worked her way through butcher college to gain the qualifications needed. After her Auntie Maeve passed away, leaving a handsome gift, Leanne too seeks shelter within the confines of Ipswich city centre only to find prices just a little too much. Deirdre and Leanne decide to join forces and open the UK’s very first joint butcher book shop.

How can they possibly hope to cope working in opposite ends of the work spectrum? Can uptight Leanne ever hope to mesh with the laid-back antics of Deirdre? And who owns the mysterious milk crate in the back alley?

Dracu-later

Dracula is dead; killed by Jonathan Harker, crumbled to dust. Only he’s not. It was all an act to make everyone go away and leave him alone.

The outside world just wasn’t made for the Count and his crazy hoardes. All he wanted was to suck a couple of necks and nothing more. And with this in mind, he disappears into the shadowy forests surrounding his castle.

That is until he returns. The year is 1987 and life has moved on. The relatives of Van Helsing live on, unaware of Dracula’s continued life. The Count has met a most fortunate woman, Mabel, and following a successful romance moved in with her in a comfy semi-detached hovel in Middlesbrough. The house next door is up for sale and following a successful bid at a local auction the property is sold to… Milo and Janice Van Helsing!

Dracula now not only has to struggle with living in suburbia, and keep his job at Rumbelows, but also keep his true identity hidden from his new neighbours. Can he maintain his begonias and stop himself from sucking the local cats dry?

It would appear as though our final entry, ‘Apple Jews’, about a group of sexy young Jewish men and women working in an Apple store, has had to be disqualified for blatant product placement.

That therefore leaves only two entries in the running.

If you would like to vote for ‘BookChop’ please press the ‘slow’ button on your remote. If you would prefer to opt for ‘Dracu-later’ then please caress the button that looks like a meteor crashing into the sea.