Category: Historical

Avatar Mind your step

There’s a restaurant near us that we sometimes go to, which is in an old building. You’ve been in places like this before: it was an ancient thing to begin with, all wooden beams and low ceilings and big oak beams everywhere, but then it’s been extended by knocking through into bits of other buildings and there’s more bits taking it through the back into what used to be an outhouse of some kind. Now it’s a rambling maze on the inside, full of little rooms and cosy nooks. It’s nice.

Anyway, there’s one table tucked away in a little space of its own, surrounded by oak beam walls and artfully exposed ancient masonry, and whenever people go to sit there, they find themselves having to go up two steps and then go back down one step again. It’s like a little barrier on the way in that is a positive invitation to trip up and go headlong into a table full of unsuspecting diners. The floor level on both sides is barely any different, so it’s just in the way.

Anyway, I’ve noticed this several times and always thought it was odd. Turns out they must get asked about it a lot, so they’ve put a sign on the step to explain why there is a step in this eminently stupid place.

Avatar Emergency Bean Grab: the fairytale comic

Back in February, you might remember I found myself in a terrible situation, and had to make three posts in a day. To warn everyone about this daring and hazardous act, I posted an Emergency Bean Grab Warning. It was only fair.

Ian was unimpressed, telling me in the comments that it was the worst fairytale he’d ever heard. But I took his criticism on board, and together we workshopped a much better fairytale about my February bean. He then insisted that I draw some pictures so we could get it published and make our fortune.

While I haven’t yet started negotiations with publishers, I am now pleased to share the finished artwork, which includes everything in Ian’s fairytale wish list: Medieval Europe, savagery, a misogynistic male Prince character, a plucky young sidekick named Ian, reaction shots of Ian, a friendly animal helper, bad weather, and some sort of woman.

I present to you Crich5156’s February Bean Grab: The Fairytale: The Graphic Novel.

Avatar Paging Lord Winklebottom

Excitement! Isn’t it exciting?

That tingle of anticipation that courses through your body when something is going to happen. Modern life hasn’t given us a lot to be excited about (yes I would like to pay more for my weekly food shop, yes I do love it when trains I’m about to get on are cancelled for no apparent reason, it’s probably for the best there’s a shortage of ‘X’ because I was enjoying it far too much and needed a bit of a break) so you have to grab hold of these moments whenever you can and cling them to your bosom.

Sometimes it doesn’t even take that much to be excited. For me, it was three words in an email and I was sent into a wide-eyed frenzy of sorts. “Lord Winklebottom Investigates” said the email, “coming soon”. That technically is five words but I wasn’t focusing on the last two so much. ‘Lord Winklebottom Investigates’. Beautiful. Simple.

It’s so ridiculous and so ‘me’ that I had to know more. It is a 1920’s murder mystery, point and click adventure (inspired by Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie) featuring a dashing giraffe detective. It has full English voice acting (with everyone probably sounding posher than a Duke with an afternoon tea set shoved up his backside) and an original 1920’s inspired soundtrack. Given that I have an anthropomorphic badger tattooed on my left arm it’s not too surprising that this has tickled my fancy. I have also played a game called ‘Chicken Police’. I am not an adult.

It is already out and available digitally on Steam, PS4, X-Box 1 and Switch so you can all play this now if you wanted to, however I am waiting for the physical version to come out so I can proudly display the game for all to see, possibly next to ‘Chicken Police’. I want Lord Winklebottom on my shelf so people know just how ridiculous one person can be although deep down I expect they are already aware of this.

Get excited. Be excited.

Avatar Interlude

This month hasn’t been a great month for posting stuff, but luckily I had some stuff in mind so I’m just spamming the Beans with it tonight. The next one is some genuinely good content, but before we get to that, here’s something from a musical project we’ve all been trying to forget.

I still have hours and hours of this that we never even watched, let alone turned into something. Maybe this year I’ll do something with it all.

Avatar The ‘Ianiest’ thing

We’ve crept into 2023. I side-stepped in a few days ago, crimsonly of course, and it looks and feels very much like 2022. There’s a distinct 2022 sheen over the whole thing. I expect this is how most years will be now, a smear of what happened previously, everything looking awfully familiar with only a few choice moments to differentiate the two. Yes, I know that does sound awfully bleak for the first post of the year. I’m fine with it and you should be too, so deal with it.

The good news is that based on the comments from my last post it seems like a great time for a poll;

What is the most ‘Ianiest’ thing ever?

We all know that the years have been littered with a lot of ‘Ian’ stuff from things that I’ve said to things that I’ve done or even things that I said I would do. Here’s a few that immediately come to mind:

  • The time I decided to eat a raw red onion and asked Reuben to film me doing it. It took about four attempts because of the strength of the onion. I couldn’t taste anything else for the next three days.
  • Sending letters out as audio tapes on a Dictaphone (aka ‘the Mackford Files’).
  • The time you were both visiting and we took Reuben out to the park. When it started raining (I hate this, why did I do this?) I took off my t-shirt and used it to dry the slide so Reuben wouldn’t get wet.
  • After a night out, standing in the queue for the takeaway behind some policemen, throwing up quietly into a plastic cup because I’d drank too much.
  • Trying to bring back the “finger wiggle dance” from the 1920’s and 1930’s to the 21st century with very little success (which, after a very brief look on the internet, may be called ‘Truckin’ – “The right hand is held up (as in a right turn signal) with the index finger extended and wagging.”) I’m still working on the Lindy Hop.
  • Getting half-cut off three pints, catching an Uber home, cooking Reuben’s tea, doing the washing up and then hopping on a bus back to town for more drinks.

Given that our subscription numbers are decidedly low, it will not be a vote and instead all submissions will be judged by myself and assembled into a numerical list in a future post. I will have the final say on what is the ‘Ianiest’ of all time although I will allow some general input once the top five (or three, or two if the cupboards are running dry) has been compiled. This therefore guarantees me a future post which is a win in my book.

I’ve done too many things to remember so I need your help to recollect because, as we all know, “Remembering is fun”.

We definitely need to copyright that at some point.

Avatar Five Novembers ago

We bought our house from people who thought they’d be living there forever. They didn’t, because we sent them away so that we could have it all for ourselves. I regret nothing.

Anyway, last week we pulled all the wallpaper off the walls in what had been their baby room, and found a charming memento painted behind it that had presumably been intended to last for many years.

It lasted five years and we’ve painted over it. But here it is, a message from five Novembers ago, just to prove it once existed.

Avatar You can spell that word…

For years now the scholars behind the scenes at beans HQ have been trying to work out how to spell two of the English languages’ favourite spoken words but without success. We are talking of course about casj/cazsh/caj and the ever lovely (to quote Ian)  “jush… juxch… jgusssh”.

Well the time has come to make an announcement, this has been researched, checked and casually googled at least twice, and we can now confidently write down those two words correctly for the first time in history…..

Read More: You can spell that word… »

Avatar Shatwell

Look at you with your eyes, your face and your hair. All of that came from someone else, passed onto you like a terrible family heirloom. What you see when you look in the mirror is the equivalent of one of those badly designed porcelain figures that nobody has had the heart to throw away because it’s been in the family for generations. We’re so glad you’re here.

Good news though. The way family trees are these days they stretch far and wide; you may be fortunate enough to have a ‘Shatwell’ in your family.

What is a ‘Shatwell’? I’ve been doing a bit of research because I knew you’d be full of questions:

Belonging to Shatwell [Old English w(i)ella, a spring, the first element may be either old English sceat, a corner, projection or Old English sceatt, a payment, a penny.

I’m none the wiser either.

What if you were walking around the turn of the previous century and you wanted to find a Shatwell? Where would it be best to go? Around this time, you’d be likely to bump into a Shatwell in Cheshire. Remember that the next time you’re time-travelling. Watch out though as according to documentation, 20 of them were found to have criminal records. Make sure you keep a close eye on your pocket watch.

You came here for cold hard facts. Let me hit you with these:

  • In the United States, it was the 108,734th most popular name in *checks records* 2010. Wow.
  • It is the 544,093rd most common surname in the world.
  • Shatwell is also one of the most unique last names recorded. That feels a bit like hyperbole though, must be some Shatwells trying to drum up support for themselves.
  • (this is an actual “fun fact” on a website) The name spelled backwards is ‘Llewtahs’. A random rearrangement of the letters in the name (anagram) will give Leatslwh. How do you pronounce that?

????????????

Exactly. If you are lucky enough to have a ‘Shatwell’ in your family then please ask them to start their own website and collate proper and up-to-date information about their name because it seems as though the internet is quite a ways behind.