Future prospects

When I was a kid, I was surrounded by computers. My dad and brother were obsessed with them, so much so that the latter’s attic bedroom had about a third of it taken up with a desk where two or three computers would permanently sit. We had the good ole BBC, the Archimedes, and sometimes on special occasions the ZX Spectrum would make an appearance.

All I wanted to do was play games. I would make my brother load up something on the BBC and I would play for five minutes until my character inevitably died, then insist on another game. I was never interested in anything to do with programming. I do remember seeing screens of random numbers and wondering what it all meant. Little baby Ian clearly was more concerned with Frogger crossing the road.

I did, however, teach myself to type. Not proper touch typing, I learned to wing it and give myself enough to get by. It is one of the things I’m glad I did practise so as not to be one of those people who must type each letter individually and it takes them 800 years to write a single email. I gave up on the instrument from primary school music class (might have been a French horn, memory is fuzzy) but not typing.

On occasion I see something that makes me want to take a step further, to better myself in the unsure landscape that is the 21st century. Could I do better? Of course I could, I could be like Kev with all his wireless abbababs, throwing them at fictional servers or whatever it is he does all day. If I could really get into something IT-based then it would need to be something important. It would need to be something that would help to make the world a better place. It would have to be what everyone needs and not enough people have.

Then I saw it. I saw it and I had to have it. A new day is dawning.

Plopping into 2025

It’s a cold and windy night.

A lot of people may be cancelling their plans. A lot of people may double down and go out regardless because when you’re drunk on New Year’s Eve you don’t really care about much except where your next drink is coming from.

I am choosing to have a quiet one. My rowdy days are way behind me and I would much prefer sitting at home to anything outside.

There were several photos that I was considering to upload as my last post of the year but this one stood out the most. It speaks to all of us on some level, offering advice and guidance. It also points to the future like a bright beacon illuminating the darkness.

I don’t think I need to add anything else.

Smell well, boys, smell well.

Jeans

You know what’s mad? The world of jeans, specifically women’s jeans. Sure, you could easily say the world of cheese (“let’s roll huge wheels of it down a steep hill and let people chase after them,”) or the world of imaginary policemen made of earwax are equally bizarre, and you’d be completely right. The difference though is that I can take law enforcers made of cerumen (it’s a medical term, I looked it up), what I can’t take is wandering into a supermarket and seeing rum and pineapple mixed in with my cheddar. MY cheddar. No. Stop that. None of that.

The world of jeans was so straightforward for me until a recent trip to Marks and Spencer looking for Christmas things brought forward this oddity:

“Mom ankle grazer; what the deuce is that?”

It was then casually explained to me by Vikki that women’s jeans all have these wild and crazy names. How sheltered I must have been to have not realised this sooner. Not that I go wandering around the women’s section in clothes shops (despite what the British press continue to write about me, all of them made up and, no comment, you can get one from my solicitor). I then immediately looked up more details on the M & S website.

Blimey. Was this always the case? Are men’s jeans the same? Not in the slightest. What we have is very basic: loose fit, straight fit, straight let, slim fit, blue, black, grey, tapered. Nothing remotely interesting. It’s nice that everything is so much more playful in the world of women’s jeans. Perhaps it wasn’t always the case and fifty years ago slightly muddled women formed queues around the building for dull, lifeless articles of clothing with names like ‘big’, ‘small’, ‘stocky’ and ‘no’. That said, I wouldn’t fancy wandering into a shop and asking if they have anything in Magic Shaping High Waisted Flare or a Harper Supersoft Cigarette Jeans. Throw in a few more vowels and you may as well be reading Harry Potter spells.

This means that men’s jeans need a radical overhaul and given my vast, rich experience dealing with many different lines of work, I believe I am the right person for the job. This is what I’ve been working on:

Stretch fit changed to Elephant Limo Garrison
Slim fit changed to Furious Corner Pop-up Shop
Straight fit changed to Nothing Flouncy Sunshine
Straight leg changed to Recess Chimney Warrant
Loose fit changed to Barnacle Profit Tax
Tapered changed to Wounded Poison Ranch Dressing

All it took was a little time and a little thought and now everything is so much better. You’ll thank me next time you’re walking around Asda and notice that they have a pair of Furious Corner Pop-up Shop in your size. Yes, you will.

Shoe ‘n’ the Bin

Shoe: … left to relieve himself behind the back of Dixons.

Bin: Words to live by surely.

Shoe: It’s coming up tooooooooooo 14:04 this Tuesday afternoon. We’ve been on air since midday…

Bin: Hey, we’ve been broadcasting longer than that.

Shoe: Snappy as always, Bin. Ten years next July, isn’t it?

Bin: I’m afraid so. We’ve been inflicting these people for almost a decade, poisoning even.

Shoe: A decade of Shoe ‘n’ the Bin. Any highlights?

Bin: Nah!

Shoe: Insightful as ever. 14:05 and we’ve already taken you to the dizzy heights of ‘Since You Bin Gone’ by Rainbow and even though he really wanted to, I had to veto Bin from playing Rainbow and Kelly Clarkson back-to-back.

Bin: It’s two songs with the same name! How can you veto entertainment like that?

Shoe: It would be as ker-azy as playing Jennifer Rush, Frankie goes to Hollywood and Huey Lewis and the News one after another.

Bin: I don’t know what you’re referring to.

*honking horn noise in the background*

Shoe: This is why I’m in charge and you’re not.

*sound of applause*

Bin: Can you believe this? Recount! Recount! Après vous!

Shoe: In the next hour you can expect to hear the delights of Otis Redding with ‘I’ve Bin Loving You Too Long’, Charlene’s ‘I’ve Never Bin To Me’.

Bin: I’ve never been to her either. That’s a weird song.

Shoe: It is a weird song, yeah. Ending shortly before the half past news with the succulent sounds of Roxette and ‘It Must Have Bin Love’.

Bin: I tried to find her on a map once, spent hours looking for her, thought I clocked her in Leicestershire but it was Charnwood instead.

Shoe: The lovely government district borough of Charnwood. Shout out to anyone listening in Charnwood. Actually shout out to anyone listening.

*slide whistle noise*

Bin: Once that’s bin and done, we’ll be hitting 3pm with a bang because it’s SHOE HOUR!

*sound of an explosion*

Shoe: Never get tired of that, can shoe believe it? I’m not one to tease but if shoe were hoping to hear the Kinks, Rick Astley and Queen…

Bin: ‘Shoe Really Got Me’, ‘Never Gonna Give Shoe Up’, and ‘We Will Rock Shoe’ respectively…

Shoe: Then you’d best keep tuned in to the best radio show shoe’ve ever heard.

Bin: We’re here every day whether we like it or not.

Shoe: I need to confess something before we move on. I used to be a criminal, but I have since reformed my ways.

Bin: You never told me this!

Shoe: All true, all true. I would have carried on as well however after I had ‘Bin Caught Stealing’ I stopped and thankfully Jane’s Addiction set me on the straight and narrow. Take it away…

‘Skon På Papperskorgen’

The new film by acclaimed Swedish film director, Sherburt Bergmun.

‘Skon På Papperskorgen’ (‘The Shoe on the Bin’). What begins as a seemingly innocent piece of footwear dangling on top of a waste receptacle soon turns into the calling card of a madman.

Police inspector Kalle Alexander is called to the scene of a crime where the body of a young man lies dead. Nearby a note attached to one singular shoe atop a bin speaks of cataclysmic actions and further deaths in the future. He has very little to go on but after ten years in the job, he’s more than ready and prepared to get started.

He has a drinking problem, he smokes too much, he can’t make connections with anyone and leads a solitary life since his wife ran off with the local chemist. There’s a cat from a neighbouring flat who may well be his only friend.

When you’re faced with life and death though, friends are the last thing that you need. Kalle will find himself both in the firing line and gripping the trigger as he chases leads down in the most disgusting and darkest recesses of the city: he’ll scour every shoe shop, browse every Etsy listing in the surrounding area and he’ll even make his explosive presence known at the shoe factory downtown.

Alfred Binko (the award-winning actor of ‘Get up, Get off’ and ‘The Room around the Curtains’) stars in a career-defining role alongside veteran character actors Klaudia Shinn (‘Carry on, Mr. Scrappenberg’), Veronika Graaten (‘Solitary Mammals’) and Dhillon Ratiz (‘A Man for Many Flowers’). Ably abetted by the deft and kinetic cinematography of Shalein Tracker and a plump orchestral score by Gérard Picko, ‘The Shoe on the Bin’ is a modern Scandinavian classic that will show you the heart of darkness that can lie within the wonderland of everyday menace.

Suggested new slogan

Ten years ago, when the New Beans was still new, we had a discussion about a marketing slogan for the website. Eventually we settled on Pouring Beans: The Thinking Man’s Casserole which adorns all of our advertising to this day.

Since then a whole decade has gone by, and I wonder if it’s time for a new slogan to appeal to the world of 2024. Until recently I wasn’t sure what I could ever suggest that would beat the current one, but a visit to a coffee shop bathroom in London last week gave me the answer.

One Team. One Pream. We.

Subscribe to Beans Premium

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Late Night Beans with Tad Kensington

WHOOSH!

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another edition of Late Night Beans. Now I know what you’re all thinking, “what are you still doing here, Tad Kensington, when your Netflix special is still in the number one spot and you’ve got business talks planned through most of the UK for the rest of the year?” Firstly, that’s a long thought, and secondly, you need to get out more!

(Audience laughs)

I say it, but I don’t mean it!

(Audience laughs a little louder)

Nah, I love being here with all of you. I really look forward to getting up each day and getting out to where the heart of the people is; every evening right here in front of all of you, unlike where the heart of the people is around 4pm which is everyone counting down the last hour before going home, am I right?

(Cheers and laughter from the audience)

The news has been awful this week, just plain awful. I woke up on Tuesday morning and apparently there are far too many lampposts in the UK. Local authorities are making plans to tear down at least 30% of them in order to cutback on energy costs. This of course follows the recent court case where Jacob Brantford sued Brentford Council because he walked into a lamppost when stumbling home after a night on the lash and claimed it violated his civil rights. I don’t think we can say the future looks brighter with idiots like this in charge.

(A few loud, “yeahs!” and a ripple of applause from the audience)

We have a lot to get through today. This evening is well stacked like the start of a game of Jenga. We have lifestyle specialist and all round good egg Jemima Armspace to tell you where you might be going wrong with your diet and why eating figs may prove to be the key to success. Joseph Puccini is out promoting his latest blockbuster film, ‘Lazerblade 2: the reprisal’, which has already received rave reviews despite filming only starting last week. Margot Linchpin wants you to get involved with her social media awareness campaign about the dangers of chin biscuits and we have local band The Brainfillers to end the show with their new single ‘I want your kidneys’.

(Audience applauds)

I know, I know, I told you we had a lot to get through! I wasn’t lying! You love it though and I love bringing it here for you which is why this is the perfect relationship but buy me dinner first before we get too intimate.

(Audience laughs)

Right onto our first guest!