Newsboost – Chris catastrophe continues

News just in! Reports are claiming that, after the Chris Marshall / Mecha Godzilla collaboration in August, a new concoction has been sighted in an industrial estate in the South of England.

Some bright spark decided that it was time to splice the Chris DNA with children’s 80s stop motion animated favourite Bertha, resulting in a sight that will either warm your heart or frighten you to within an inch of your life.

The Chris Bertha (or the awkwardly-named Chrertha) was spotted churning out items earlier on this week. The types of items varied greatly from garden gnomes and beach balls to jumping kangaroos and inflatable plastic bears. Once the Chris DNA had properly taken over however it decided to make a hugely illustrated and highly detailed map of the A282 as well as some interesting recipes involving avocados.

“This is the worst news I’ve ever heard,” spat news correspondent Harsh Blenchley, “you don’t see it? You don’t see the monumental disaster on the horizon? Do I need to spell it out to you? Do you even English, my friend?”

After ten minutes of this, she finally explained herself.

“Everyone knows that Bertha is capable of manufacturing anything in the world. She was the original 3D printer. A complete original. That kind of power mixed with the monstrous C-Marshall DNA could easily be used to disastrous effect. If you installed a time machine and a matter transporter into Bertha then she’d be able to go anywhere, at any point in time and make anything she wanted. The world would be on its knees.”

Ms Blenchley could see the big picture even if the rest of us couldn’t.

After the information was reported to the local police, a raid was planned on Tuesday morning. Officers burst into the premises only to find a few empty boxes and a windmill money box.

There were rumours that the C-Marshall strain of DNA was being used in some unscrupulous experiments in Korea and China, although they have remained unsubstantiated until now.

Needless to say, if the Chris Bertha has been moved to a new site, and a time machine and matter transporter been added to it, then we’re all doomed. Stay tuned for more details.

ABOFB 40: Slogans

Continuing our ‘peek-behind-the-curtain’ theme, this week we let you in on our discussions as to whether the podcast needs a slogan. After 25 episodes we finally named the podcast and 15 episodes later, in this 40th and final episode of series 4, we actually use it for the first time. In this episode we…

Bounce around some terrible slogan suggestions
Have some practice starts to try them out
Get distracted by Tigers
Fail to come up with a slogan

Newsboost – Mecha Chris attacks!

News just in! Tokyo has reported a mechanical monster on the outskirts of the city. When questioned as to what it looked like, experts merely shrugged and mumbled something about some berk from France.

Mecha Chris appears to be the combination of a giant 100ft machine and our very own Christopher Marshall who unwisely posted the details of his genes on the website. Seemingly innocent, this has caused most of the dark web to steal his DNA and weave it into a multitude of diabolical projects. We’ve also heard rumours of a giant octopus off the coast of Italy sporting his viso/volto and a hive of bees in Washington DC, buzzing about roadworks and a string of road closures on the A47 in Norfolk over the summer holidays.

“It must be a synthetic mesh of man and machine,” gushed monster expert, Dylan Stretcher, “DNA on its own is useless, you’ve gotta mix it in with a bunch of other goo to make life. If you then take that goo and stick it in a humongous robot then we’re all doomed. I’m surprised Eamonn Holmes didn’t think of it sooner. Science is a cruel mistress.”

Recently qualified Kevin Hill, science master, was unavailable for comment, possibly due to laziness and things.

Though jovial in his appearance, Mecha Chris has already crushed several sandcastles, one ice cream van and a sushi hut as he emerged from the sea. People have been unable to buy overpriced iced lollies for over an hour. If he continues along the same path, he is expected to crush most of Tokyo by 6pm today.

We can only hope that some equally large competitor can emerge to stop the menace before it spreads to the rest of the world.

What else will happen now that the world has access to his life pulp? Will Chris ever learn from his mistakes? Can we expect to see dozens of clones of him running security at a Spice Girls tribute act? Only time will tell how long this joke will go on.

ABOFB 39: An Oral History of Pouring Beans (ish)

In a slight change to the usual episodes, today we have a self aggrandising look back over our voluminous body of online work under the Pouring Beans name. Everyone does these thing on nice round numbers or important dates usually, but not us. No Sir. Basically we read our own stuff back to ourselves. We discuss:

Why is it called that?
How did it begin
Some McIver poetry
Remembering is fun

Open source Chris

Here I am with a microscope. But what can I see?

I’d just taken a swab from my cheek and under the ‘scope was a sample of my own facial cells (or “facells”, as biologists call them). And once I’d managed to zoom in enough, I saw this.

It’s my DNA.

There it is in all its glory, all those chains of genetic information that make me so brilliantly unique. And now that I’ve put it online, it’s open source, free for anyone else to come along and use it, remix it and build on it. Feel free to take a screenshot and use it for your own biological experiments.

I’m hopeful that this is the beginning of an amazing new age where there are millions of clones of me running around everywhere. A world of genetically engineered Chrises wherever you look.

What will you do with my DNA? Let me know in the comments.

ABOFB 38: Depressing Food

Ey up Beans fans, we’re back again, right on time, like Black Box but spelled right. This time Chris asks us about the most depressing foods we’ve eaten, we discuss…

Generic Fried Chicken
Headrow Shopping Centre Food Court Pies
Not Roast Potatoes
Bad Burgers

Last minute rush

“… so nobody eat the mushroom cake because you could come out in a rash.

Moving onto our last race of the month, we see the “young” McIver slapping together whatever nonsense that could constitute as a post in order to fill his quota of four. It’ll probably have numerous spelling errors, make very little sense and be as disposable as any film created and released by Netflix.

Chris “Consider Me” Marshall, once the dark horse of the beans collective, now demoted to digging holes in his back garden and filling them with water just to get some attention. It’s a shameful practice and hopefully one that will eventually peter out because what the crowds want is more bathroom art and weird things he sees on the train to work posts. They ALWAYS go down a storm.

We finish, if you can call it a finish due to the unpredictable nature of the man, with the scant offerings of Kevin “Podcast pirate” Hill. Will he slide in with another podcast shortly before the end whistle? Will he be too tired to edit and post one? Does he have enough thumbs for the process after whittling so many wooden spoons? Only time will tell.

It’s going to be a scrabble however you look at it. Still we should all be grateful that these titans of men, these pillars of hope keep generating enough content to fill a website. Where others have fallen, they continue to get back up. I know I never get sick of reading it.

Anyway, onto Purdy’s prediction corner!”

ABOFB 37: This is Your Life (Movie)

A Breath of Fresh Beans returns from the loo, with a lovely ponderance from Ian about who would play each of us in the move adaption of our life stories. We discuss…

Kev’s manly physique
Chris becomes arousing
The many stages of Ian
Alternative castings… No Crossovers!