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.

Socks

Socks!

Pouring Beans, as usual, has its finger on the pulse of popular culture and, like everyone else, socks have become our number one topic of conversation this week. Everyone loves socks, and nobody can stop talking about them. So the question is – what’s your favourite kind of sock?

Choose now.

If you are having difficulty thinking of types of sock, here are some ideas:

Long socks with stripes
Short socks with heels and toes in a different colour to the other parts of the sock
Plain grey socks
Thick socks with that sort of ribbed pattern for hiking or rambling perhaps
Little trainer socks that always feel a bit too short
Hand socks (“gloves”)

Spread the Word

From the recent statistical analysis, and customer satisfaction questionnaire, carried out earlier on this year it is quite clear that the average number of visitors to the Beans on a weekly basis has reached it’s highest numbers since the ‘zorse years’. It is estimated that approximately six people, including Kev, come to read and sometimes share their thoughts with the Beans collective. Now I’ve never been known to shunt a positive acumen up the ajax but with winter fast approaching and nobody having suggested any zany ideas for a while I feel we need to double or possibly triple those numbers in order to justify the size of Chris’ dance studio and Kevin’s virtual poodle bar.

Having briefly glanced through a list of possible ideas with which to boost the visitors to the site, it has been decided that I should venture forth to the small village of Ivalo in Finland in the hope to gaining their sponsorship and their patronage.

Ivalo is a village in dense region of Inari, Lapland. It currently has a population of just less than four thousand and, as of 2003, includes the benefit of a small airport. It is this very airport I am hoping to fly to in order to encourage the mayor of Ivalo to seal a deal in a wigwam and have hundreds of Finnish tourists knock knock knocking at the doors of the Beans. All I will need is a small contribution from the kitty and I’ll be on my way.

I’ll meet you in the first class lounge on C deck.

Swings and roundabouts

Be honest. When you see a playground full of children, you wish the children weren’t there so you could have a go on it, don’t you? Research has shown that adults appreciate playgrounds 63% more than children do and children should be banned from them because they’re too busy crying and pushing each other and generally not making the most of them.

A close encounter

So, the other day at work, I was being at work and doing work stuff in one of our little glass boxes, when I became aware of some sort of kerfuffle or brouhaha taking place just outside.

I turned to see a whole crowd of people from around the office floor all trying to take pictures on their phones. In the midst of them was a camera crew trying to set up to film a TV interview.

With them – dressed all in white from head to toe, and wearing the most tasteless crown imaginable – was Miss World.

Virtually every man on the entire floor queued up for a picture with Miss World (none of the women seemed interested), but because I was working in my little glass box, working and doing work, I didn’t actually meet her or get a picture to prove this happened. But what I DID get were these two incredible pictures taken through the glass that clearly show the close encounter I had with someone who is, according to an unassailably democratic process, officially the most beautiful woman in the world, apparently. And that is basically just as good.