Category: Charming Pastimes

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.

Avatar Flimsy Floppy Bendy Batman

Everyone needs a mascot, everyone needs a prop. When you’re doing things with people (waaaaaaaaay!) it’s always good to have one particular item that everyone can focus on or channel their thoughts into when times are hard. The best example of this would have to be Dr Who, whose exploits of an eccentric flopping through dull science fiction stories would be even more boring had he/she been doing it on their own.

Heading down to Didsbury for a large selection of pints with scale perfect philanthropic Mexican-Chinese genius Kevin and grey-haired family man and insurance savage Tom, I decided that we needed something to drag along for our adventure. I already had a wealth of junk in my pockets (because that’s who I am) so I was immediately drawn to Lego Santa Claus. Yes, he’s small and likely to get lost however he’s made of the firm stuff: he can take twelve hours of drinking, easy to transport, brimming in playful colours and millions know who he is.

Cut to Tom’s wife Claire practically handing me an item that she is done with. “I don’t want to see it again, I don’t want it back. Please take it with you.” It’s a kid’s toy; Stretch Armstrong but it’s Batman. Bendy Batman. What possible harm could this have done to Claire? What evil lies within this rubbery realm of innocent fun? It didn’t occur to me, I placed him in my coat pocket and we left.

As it happens, even with my poor memory, I struggle to remember most of that Saturday. The tweets I made are baffling even by my standards. Photos are non-existent. Vague, sepia-tinged memories of being too drunk to go in the Slug and Lettuce, someone needing a jump start for their car outside a restaurant and pretending to care about football in the most crowded pub on the whole street are all that remain. Floppy Batman was there for all of it. He survived the night and came back in one piece, like a boss. There is a lot to admire.

As it happens, a few weeks later, I’m driving home from work and what do I see? An advert for Very.co.uk virtually on every single bus stop showing, in all his glory, Floppy Batman. It could have been another Batman toy, as there’s many many out there, but no, it’s him, the one and the same. Now he’s whoring himself out for Christmas everyone is going to have one soon. He’ll be accompanying other goons on other alcohol-fuelled Saturday evenings. It’ll take away the magic once the world is doing it. The tart.

I should have stuck with Lego Santa.

Avatar Pie Shaver

Don’t you sometimes want to do something a little unorthodox? Don’t you want to live life on the edge? When someone points the finger at you, accusing you of being a boring old fart, don’t you want to hold something up and tell them that they’re wrong?

Don’t you sometimes want to shave a pie?

Behold!

Reuben and I did. It was a marvellous occasion for all, except the pie, which everyone forgot about and had to be thrown out.

Avatar The Kitty Committee – update

“Brothers and sisters…

… When I woke up one morning, the sun’s rays met my whiskers and gave me a smile that could not be broken. When I awoke another morning, I felt these joys amplified because another one of our lost brothers has been found. Another kitty has been returned to the fold. Though he may flop more than the others, though he may not be as robust as those who sit above me, he is still one of us.

May you take this moment to love and understand the newest member of the Kitty Committee. May you speak fondly of him to your closest work colleagues and occasionally send him fan mail.

As always, we are always recruiting so if you wish to join for the pursuit of naps and purrs do get in touch.”

Avatar Lemon’s Day Out

What makes a great day out? Smashing weather? A choice picnic? Celebrity endorsements? Whatever you think is right is probably wrong. The thing that makes a great day out is lemons.

There is nothing more satisfying than chucking a lemon up into the air and catching it. There is nothing better than taking a photo of a lemon doing something a lemon should not be doing (waaaaaaaaaaaaay!). Wherever you look there are millions of people out enjoying their summer holidays yet they’re doing it without the benefit of lemons. Our scientists predict that holiday satisfaction levels would increase sevenfold should people choose to include a lemon, or multiple lemons, in their activities.

As a test run I recently took a lemon into town when my sister came to visit. My lemon joy levels peaked higher than previous lemon levels have ever reached. It was quite a day. Given how cost-effective lemons are, I am hoping to start a kickstarter campaign to supply lemons to the poorer regions of the UK IN THE HOPE OF… sorry, in the hope of upping the ante in the lemon department, which sounds like it should be rude but it’s not.

When is the last time you took a lemon out? Respond below and share the joy of the citrus fruit that is… Lemons!*

*has clearly said the word far too much and thus attempts to remove it from his vocabulary

Avatar Monty Don – Petition Update

Hi Guys

So, I believe that we are all in receipt of the petition, and when I say “the petition” you know fine well which petition I mean. Yes, it’s the one to get my main man Monty Don back up onstage with a microphone in his hand to rip the world in two with some phat beats.

The only way we are going to get this up and running is with the backing of the people. I know that all of his fans have been crying out for this for years and it was only recently that some brainiac had the right idea to start a petition, and get the ball rolling. We need to roll that ball quick and hard, like the effort needed to stretch a weasel. We have to put that weasel right in there, no pre-stretching or pre-preparation at all, and get it stretched like there’s no tomorrow. If that weasel is going, it’s going and there’s no going back. If that ball rolls back then we need to smash it into next week, whether using the weasel or not.

So, like the weasel, and maybe the ball, we need to get the word out to everyone. I want to see Twitters, people, I want to see a rip curl of emotion driving this down the throats of every single name in your list of followers. I want to see Facebook posts, Instagram instas, Linked-In sausage link notifications and postcards sent to a PO Box address that doesn’t exist.

I have never felt so strongly about anything in my entire life. I feel as though I was put on this earth to make this happen, and the only way it can happen is with the support of people like you. Without you there would be no you, so keep you-ing and I will keep me-ing, and with any luck by the end of the summer we will have achieved our goal.

All of my eyes, and I do mean all of them, are on you to sort this mother out. Bless you and all your tiny hand socks of joy (what?).