My Chair Story

So here is a story I have been meaning to tell for a while. It is a story about my chair, a chair story if you will. The entire story is about a chair so if you’re looking for a tale about something else then I would advise you to jog on, like a couple of sea lions, because it ain’t happening sunshine.

Once I was a person without a chair and without some level of warning I became a one people with a chair. How chairs come into your life I cannot say. Sometimes you get given them, sometimes you find them in shops and they’re the right kind of sitting device, that perfectly compliment your own particular exterior, that you have to buy them or regret it for the rest of your life. So there I was, a young man with a chair, sitting like a sitting person should. It dawned on me though that despite the right level of comfort and chair-intensity that there was something missing.

Typical, right? “Oh the problem with your generation is that you are never satisfied. Look at everything you have and it is still not enough.” Whilst that is true, no matter what I did there was something gnawing at the back of my ears that I could not put my finger on. What was it that I needed? A god damn foot stool, that is what I needed. This chair needed the perfect companion though, I could not settle for any old Johnny two foot-putter.

Fast forward eight hundred years later. After developing the ability to not only halt my ageing process but also travel to the far reaches of space in my custom-built Grimmy 101 Space Hulk Meat Vestibule, I stopped getting older and flew to the end of the galaxy. It took a while, hence the 800 years. When I got there though I was vastly disappointed. Despite plenty of signs boasting about this and that there were absolutely no furniture shops, not even a charity shop with thirty copies of ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ stacked up in the corner. My chair looked even more glum that my poor viso/volto did. I was about to flip the spinsh retractor into reverse when I noticed a rubbish tip at the end of the street. I had nothing to lose so I walked over, fearing the worst yet secretly hoping for the best.

There it was. It was staring me in the eyes (which pair of eyes I cannot recall), a footstool I could not recall every seeing in my extended life. Sure, it had taken 834 years to find it and it was worth waiting for. This the story of me and my chair, my chair story, and it’s also a little bit about a footstool. It’s my chair footstool science-fiction search story. I hope you enjoyed it.

Dear Beans… Crimson Colour Catastrophe

Dear Beans,

It has recently been brought to my attention that the world is not black and white anymore. It is a vibrant, colourful, smorgasbord of everything. I say everything because there are a lot of things now. I do miss the days when there were less things although I am quite happy talking to the small black disc in the corner of the room, especially when she plays me Captain and Tenille songs.

What disappoints me though is that there are no new colours. I want someone to come on the television and announce to the world, “Hey people! If you mix this and that you get a brand new shade! I’m calling it quotium brown!” I would prefer brighter colours though. There must be a new red or orange that somebody can rustle up like cookies from the cooker. We can’t have all the colours now that we’re only ever going to have. Forever. Forever and ever. People get so bored these days that they need new and stimulating things in order to keep them from going mad.

Do you think they are holding back on us? Are there scientists lurking within mountains, swirling ominous solutions in test tubes in the hope of squeezing out a new green?

If not, is there any chance one of you could invent a new colour and send it to me in the post?

Yours faithfully

Portia Cummerbund-Beige

Soggy Hula Hoop – A Poem

Just because I am about to ruin everything by injecting a healthy dose of sleaze into the Beans doesn’t mean that I still cannot occasionally touch upon things of a more mature calibre. Last year I was out on a wander and I came across such a beautiful image that, as well as engraining it deep within my soul, I took a picture to capture the elegance.

It is so wonderful that I am hoping to submit it in the CEWE Photo Award 2019. Why should I keep it all to myself when this kind of gift should be shared with the world?

So, musing on all of this, I concocted a poem to express how I feel. It will never come close to truly expressing the warmth and pulchritude of it all but I hope to appeases all of you (i.e. Chris) for now:

Soggy hoop, fragile loop,
Can you feel the rain?
Moistened crisp, kissed with this,
Are you still the same?
Hold you near, disappear,
Never to exist.
Gone are you, gone anew,
Seasoned in the mist.

Potato Nostalgia

Around this time of year a lot of people get nostalgic. They remember years gone by, people who have left us and happy memories sitting next to your toxic gas fire, using the flames to make toast, rather than getting up and using the grill, like the little fat bastard you are (or I was).

Whilst I was rummaging around in some old papers I came across this little gem:

A single tear flew from my eyelid and hit the ground, no doubt causing a tsunami half a world away.

Pots Tatoas were my very convoluted and confusing way of asking Chris if he wanted to get a baked potato for lunch way, way, way back in the dim and distant past when we both worked in Leeds city centre.

Sadly we all missed Pots Tatoas Day this year but I hope that everyone puts it in their diary so we can rally round and stoke the oven (?) in time to enjoy its merits next year.

Teapipes

Things are complicated now, aren’t they? There’s a lot going on.

I can’t fix that, but I can give you a ninety second holiday from all the complicated stuff in the world of 2018 by taking you back in time to 2012, an innocent age when anything seemed possible, and three handsome young men asked themselves the question: why should a man only be able to drink one cup of tea at once?

OK. That’s all there is. Now get back to your stupid complicated life.

The Best of the Papples

Minutes of the initial scoping meeting for the recently proposed “Best of the Papples” album project, held at Pouring Beans Records Inc. head office, as recorded on a tiny piece of kitchen roll.

A celebration of the many Kevs

I was rummaging in the extensive Beans Archive today, looking for inspiration, when I stumbled across this post, made ten years ago today. It marks the occasion on which Mr. Kevin Head turned 24 years old. Well, as you can imagine, I immediately got my calculator out, and blow me if that doesn’t mean that today is very likely to be Mr. Kevin Head’s birthday again. He will be older than 24 today, though I’m not entirely sure by how much.

What better day, then, to celebrate our acquaintance with the Beans’ resident DIY expert and master Giant Magical Computer Appeaser, Kevin “Kevindo Menendez” Menendez?

2005 calling

It’s now thirteen years since I first had a phone with a camera built into it and decided that I wanted all my phone contacts to be associated with photos of that person on the phone, so when my phone rang it looked like I could see them on the phone.

Since I didn’t get pictures of anyone hanging up, I can only assume these sad, lonely ghosts of 2005 are still on the line, listening to an engaged signal, patiently waiting to talk to me.

I will not answer you, ghosts of the past. Stop calling me.