Scientist needed

Where’s a good scientist when you need one?

In my many travels as orb parent (and by “travels” I mean walking us both to the local Co-op and back), I keep my eyes open for anything that can be used as a Beans post. Anything. With not much going on apart from feeding, nappies and vomiting, and most of that can be attributed to me, I need a little inspiration in order to keep the raw gold coming from my fingers.

As I was preparing to tidy up the kitchen, I clocked the back of a plastic bottle waiting to be washed out before being recycled. It was then that my peepers saw this:

You what?

Partially inverted sugar syrup? Partially inverted?!

Do they need to twist the space time continuum in order to make sure my porridge tastes great?

I need someone with some kind of degree and a knack for science to explain to me what this means. I refuse to Google this like everyone else.

Never mind Ian, am I losing MY mind?

Most days, when I’m not at work, I take the dog for a walk, and most of the time we go to the same place, which is some woods near us. I’ve written about them before – I like walking in woods, the dog likes having lots of space to run around and bark at squirrels, and they are full of intriguing military wreckage.

A couple of weeks ago I suddenly stopped in my tracks. Following a path through the trees that I follow every single time I go there – let’s say every other day of my life, on average – I saw something I had never noticed before. Can you see it?

About fifteen feet to the left of me, fifteen feet away from a place I walk over a hundred times a year with my eyes wide open, was something I had literally never seen before. A whacking great big concrete pylon.

You literally can’t miss it. It’s huge. I suppose it’s the same colour as a tree and about the same size as the tree trunks around here, but even so, I might miss it once but I don’t see how I’ve missed it every day since 2023.

It looks like it’s been there for decades. It looks like something from the 1940s that’s been disused since before I was born, slowly being forgotten in the depths of the woods.

But I can’t help wondering if that’s true. Has it really been there all along? Or has someone just put it there in the last month or so? Are they trying to mess with my head? Is it me they’re targeting? Is this something I have genuinely never noticed in all this time? Can it be true? Am I losing my mind?

Poetry corner – Guzzle

Hey, all you hip cats and righteous moonbeams, it’s time for a little lyrical medicine courtesy of Poetry Corner.

If you’re looking to let off some steam then this is the place you for. Take a load off.

Here with a creamy piece of beatnik bebop is Trancient Prozac and his poem

Guzzle

I guzzle. I am the guzzler. You can’t stop me.

When I guzzle down my perilous maw,

You really don’t know, you can’t be sure

If it’s ever coming back because of how black

The back of my maw can be.

When I guzzle, you’ll think I need a muzzle,

It goes all over my mouth and hands.

I’m drinking too much like it’s going out of fashion,

A red burping cannon, taking all yo fresh rations,

Right down my maw of tranquility.

Gasp at the gastro intestinal puzzle

That forms the basis of my sweet guzzle.

You don’t need a degree in food expertise

To squeeze the kind of wheeze from these balconies,

But if you can embrace the nurturing bustle

Of a pint of gravy right down to the nuzzle,

I’m sure that with practice you too can hack this

And be one with the almighty guzzle.

Work snacks

You know how this works. Someone in your team goes away somewhere nice on holiday, and they bring back some sweets or something for everyone else. Sometimes it’s just a nice bag of fruity chewy things they picked up at the airport, but there are people who take pleasure in bringing back something unusual that divides opinion.

In our team we have a side table where people sometimes put biscuits and other things to share. (We call it the calorie counter.) This week I came in to work after a few days off to discover it had several interesting things on it. But one of the oddities of working in a department where we all do shifts is that different people are in on different days, and by the time I arrived, there was nobody on shift who had any idea where this stuff had come from.

So I was left to examine it and see if I could work out what it all was. Here is what I found.

A tasty treat

What are you in the mood for? You fancy something to eat? A snack perhaps? I’ve got the goods. Sit down and put your feet up. Leave it to me, I’ve got this.

It’s important to have a balanced diet but it’s also good to live a little and treat yourself every so often. I know I do.

Wait, what are you doing? Why’d you spit it out all over the floor? Do you know how long it took for me to make that? What? I can’t hear you with all that bread in your mouth. Come on now, we’re all adults here so let’s act like them.

If you’re going to insult my cooking then at least have the decency to do over the Internet like a coward. Send me a message slagging me off. Tweet me some rubbish about my ineffective kneading skills.

Look, it’s not my fault you’re so squeamish. I also didn’t name the damn thing. Fadge is the name given to potato bread and is used mainly, but not exclusively, in Northern Ireland and in parts of Northern England. Every part of the British Isles and Ireland have their own version of fadge. It’s not dissimilar to the tattie scone and delicious served as part of a full Irish breakfast.

It’s quick and easy to make. Serve as part of your full breakfast, but fadge also makes a delicious potato bread to eat any time. Lovely when still warm and spread with butter.

New: Plunge Digital Yoghurt

Hi, Kevin here from Plunge Networks. Following our recent buyout of Skype, we’ve thought for literally minutes about what to do with the former biggest brand in consumer digital communications, and you know what we thought? That’s right, yoghurt!

Introducing Plunge Digital Yoghurt: the next evolution in snack technology. Upgrade your taste buds. Upgrade your lunch. Plunge Digital Yoghurt, where flavour meets innovation! Launching soon in two great flavours, combining everything you’ve come to know and love about Plunge Communications Networks Inc.

Fruity Mango: A smooth, tropical connection to your inner island. Enjoy a burst of tropical delight with every spoonful. Real mango bits, swirled into creamy, futuristic perfection.

Spicy WiFi: It’s tangy. It’s zesty. It pings your senses. This yoghurt packs a kick as electrifying as your internet connection. Can you handle the heat?

Whether you’re buffering between meetings or uploading flavour to your lunch break, Plunge Digital Yoghurt keeps you connected… deliciously.

Log on. Plunge in.

The what spray!?

Having a stroll through the middle of Lidl, like any good 40 year old man does, I came across some sprays.

Nothing too remarkable about that. These ones were a set of liquids intended to be aerosolled into various bits of a car engine…

Engine Starter Spray: Fair enough. I’ve never needed such a thing, but I can understand why it exists.

V-Belt Spray: Again, I’ve never needed such stuff but its existence makes sense to me.

Anti-??? Spray: It protects your leads and cables, apparently you need to do this. It has “Excellent adhesion” and “Lasting protection”. But from what?

Competitions seem to be all the rage on the Beans lately, so what do you think? What common engine based malaise is this spray protecting from?

Cracking the code

In the last few years, whenever there are renovations to some part of the building where I work, there have been some common design elements. They’re always more colourful for a start, which is nice because the building’s original colour scheme was mainly shades of grey. They also involve little holes or indents in otherwise blank panels that spell things in morse code.

In reception, for example, there are large dark coloured panels with a repeating pattern in morse code that’s lit from behind, which spells out the name of the building over and over again. It’s like a little interior design Easter egg.

Lately, a shared kitchen area near our room was refitted and gained new green cupboard doors. One of them just covers the equipment for the instant hot water tap. It has a pattern of holes that form a vent so the cupboard has some air circulation, and the holes are in morse code.

Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I looked up a morse code translator to see what the vent spells.

It says VENT VENT.

Pouring
Beans

Category: Lumpy and/or mysterious