Dear Beans… hot groin action

Dear Beans,

Monday seemed like a regular day. I had woken up, gone to work, come home and eaten a hearty meal of mince, mince and mince. It was a good day.

It was a good day apart from the weather. It was freezing. I couldn’t feel my hands and feet, I clearly needed to do something to warm my flat up. But what can a regular Joe do in these awful times? Modern life is so expensive and there was no way I was turning the heating on for anything less than a blizzard. We were still several hundred flakes away a blizzard.

I therefore turned to my old friend, the hot water bottle. It has saved me from the cold on so many occasions and after a period of ten years was still going strong. I boiled the kettle and filled it up, and got comfy on the sofa with it positioned on my lap. I could feel the heat and it was so nice. I warmed my hands up on it then moved it to my back when it got a bit too much for my stomach. That’s the best thing to do with a hot water bottle, give it five minutes somewhere and then move it on. You have a whole body to warm up and there’s only so much one little HWB can do. Perhaps someone should invent a device that moves it round for you so you don’t have to?

I was sat in front of the TV watching a film with the HWB on my lap again when I noticed something was amiss. A searing kind of shock suddenly sprung forth between my legs. I’ve never set my testicles on fire however I would imagine the uncomfortable feeling I felt that day was very much akin to that. I pulled the hot water bottle from my lap to stop whatever was happening. Then heat turned to wetness, I could feel a wet sensation which confused the hell out of me. “What on earth is going on?” asked my prehistoric brain still trying to catch up with everything.

It was then after some close examination that I saw it; a little cut at the neck of the hot water bottle. Something (or someone) had cut a little slither meaning that any pressure applied to the bottom would force the water to come spurting out. I had accidentally burned myself with my own salvation during this chilly evening. Oh the shame I felt. Oh the humanity of it all! Who could have done such a thing to me, of all people?

My question therefore is what is the most embarrassing thing you have ever done to yourself either on your own or in public? I await your responses.

Yours painfully

Socket Mephistopheles

Do the splits

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the age of forty. After an uphill struggle through some difficult times you’ve made it and you’ve made it in one piece. Now all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the view through these novelty binoculars.

It seems as though I can’t go a few weeks without making a fool of myself. Last week I got lost driving back through Gateshead and almost drove into an industrial estate and then accidentally drove through a bus lane. That was fun. I don’t really have much of a defence other than it was dark and I was hungry so my hunger caused me to drive the wrong way. That’s what I’m going to write to Gateshead Council when they send me a letter asking to pay a fine for driving like a clown.

Let’s do something a little more contemporary though to really illustrate the fact that I’m potentially getting worse. Subjectively. Gingerly. Crimsonly.

It’s the end of the day and I am striding to my car. I don’t walk anymore you see I stride. I’ve got the prestigious job and the happy life so I take a manly stride to get me around places now. As I approach my car I see that the car next to me has parked a little too close because everyone is terrible at parking. I can open the driver door however it requires a bit of manoeuvring (I can never spell that word) to hold the door so I don’t smash it into the other car but also leave enough space to get my sorry ass into the seat. I manage to get my left leg in and I hear it, the sound that I have heard a few times before. I don’t feel as though I have lunged too far however by the sounds of things I have crossed a line and one that once crossed cannot be undone. I may as well have put my foot in the footwell of the adjacent car for what it’s worth.

I know the sound because it happened to me about a year or two ago. That is the sound of my jeans splitting. That is the cold air reaching my bare skin which up until recently was covered by my jeans. The material could clearly not take the isometric shapes my legs were making whilst trying to get into the car and now it’s all over. I still have to pick up some food on the way home and luckily I have some jogging bottoms in my gym bag, which is stashed on the back seat. In Asda car park I hide momentarily behind my door and pull them on over my now sagging jeans. Nothing left to do but stride around picking up what I need and head home like a grown-up, a grown-up wearing two pairs of trousers.

Excuse me!

Typical. You need to use the payphone and some idiot decides to jam a collection of old storage boxes folded into the tight space along with packing material thus taking up all the area I need in order to make my phone call. I mean I can hardly use the phone on the street, everyone will hear my conversation.

I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me.

Sad Viennetta

The last time my sister visited from Sweden we went round to my brother’s house, as we always do whenever there’s a family gathering because he has the biggest house. We all brought food and had a general chit-chat. It was the same as it ever was.

It was, that is, apart from Sarah had a mild fascination with eating food from the 1980’s and kept bring it up in conversation. This continued for a while and when the desserts were brought out this included a very sad-looking Viennetta.

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

“Oh nothing really,” said Sarah, “it’s been in mum’s freezer for a while but other than that it’s fine.”

“Oh. Could I have a bit more information about that? Only the last time we emptied mum’s kitchen cupboards we found food and spices from Safeway which was very disconcerting given that it hasn’t existed since 2005.”

Sarah goes back into the kitchen to check the box which is still lying on the kitchen counter.

“It says…. 2019. But it’s sugar, right? Nothing is going to happen to sugar. You won’t get poisoned or anything.”

Yes, my sister, the doctor, ladies and gentlemen. I did have a small slice out of curiosity and it did taste a bit funky however it was in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The flavour was there, the ice cream, the wafer-thin chocolate bits, all were present. Still this lingering feeling of uncertainty kept me, and everyone else insane enough to have a bit, from fully enjoying it.

It also had some freezer burn and had to stand for a while before it all fell off.

Mmmmmmm!

Let’s take a test

Hey you, over there! Stop chugging that chutney and come over here.

You look spritely and young on the outside but how does that compare with your disgusting insides? How can we know that the you within reflects the you without… withunder… outside? That’s right. The only way that you can know how you you are is by taking this short and pointless test.

Aging is compulsory. There is no way round it no matter how many cups of water you drink, how many creams you smear on your face, how many plastic sur’gries you undertake and how many virgins you kill on the first full moon of the month. For each of the below that applies to you add one point to your score and then check your total at the bottom:

Getting into / out of a chair emits a noise you didn’t know was possible and you’ve never heard it before.
You can’t sit on the floor anymore without struggling to get up.
Your neck isn’t comfortable in any position and sounds like a cement mixer when you change angles too quickly.
If you sit too long, you feel tired. If you walk too much, you feel tired. If you get the right balance of both, you still feel tired.
Trying to step over a moderately-sized fence is akin to trying to push a buffalo into a milk bottle.
Drinking any liquids after a certain point in the evening means at least half a dozen trips to the bog in the night.
You’ve got more lines on your face that your average Hollywood script.
Your hair is more a memory than anything else.
People around you at work weren’t born when you were still in Sixth Form.
When you hear a song on the radio you like and realise you accidentally put on ‘Smooth’.
You now have to check the length of the hair in your ears and nostrils before you leave the house in case they need clipping.

For 0 to 3 points – You’re young, look at you, with your big shoes and your shiny eyes. Get out of my sight, you sicken me!

For 4 to 6 points – So you’re not quite as youthful as you thought you were but hey, we’ve all been there. It could be much, much worse (see below).

For 7 to 9 points – Oh dear, looks as though adult-sized nappies and 7pm bedtimes are on the horizon. Don’t make any long-term plans.

For anything 10 and over – We both knew this from the start. Get your slippers on, grandad, it’s time for your cod liver oil.

Dave Lister Egg

I know what you’re going to say so let me get my excuses out the way first.

Some time ago, in some post or re-post by Chris, I was given the task of trying to draw Craig Charles’ lovely viso/volto on an egg. How did this come about? Who can remember. I decided that now, on the last day of the month, was the time to act.

Perhaps the time wasn’t the best though. The actual time as in half past ten at night. I stupidly didn’t take the egg out of the fridge so that it could acclimatise to the temperature in the living room. It was an ice cold egg in a mostly tepid part of the flat. So, with pen in hand, I watched in horror as many efforts turned into one big fish face smudge fest.

The poor lad looks like fetid potato. Do you remember ‘Biker Mice from Mars’? Kind of like the main villain, Lawrence Limburger.

I have socially soiled myself so I’m going to wince away solemnly…

Mrs Miggins is up to no good

Back in April, we learned that Mrs Miggins was redeveloping the heart of her enormous property empire. 75 Farringdon Road, the fine property where either Ian or I fell head over heels in love with the lucrative old crone, had the builders in.

I’ve been back to see what she’s done with the place, and I have to say I’m shocked. Take a look for yourself.

A respectable office building, you think to yourself. A fine example of the tasteful architecture and prime locations that have made Mrs Miggins the property magnate she is today.

I thought so too. But then I noticed something. Have you seen it? Look closer.

There it is. Miggins has handed her shiny new building over to Richard Sisskind of the Crossland Otter Hunt – the only UK hunt that chases otters across land and, presumably, then kills them in horrible ways.

Otters don’t deserve this. Otters are lovely. And I demand to know why Mrs Miggins – once the love of my, or maybe Ian’s, life – has taken on this brutal new pastime.

One thing is for sure. We will not be moving the Pouring Beans office to 75 Farringdon Road. No need to send me those fivers.

The More You Know – The Chris Explosion

It’s been floated around for some time now and there’s been an awful lot of confusion as to what happens. You know what I’m referring to; that urban myth that has been haunting this website for as long as I or anyone else can remember. Legend says that if Chris Marshall watches a film, any movie whether short, black and white, foreign or animated, he will explode.

You may laugh at such a premise but it is true. A genuine medical condition that only affects one in twenty million, ‘Brewster Explodius’ came to light during the middle of the twentieth century. The first recorded case was a Clarice Mucklesniff, a 26 year old waitress from North Dakota. She was going to the movies with her boyfriend and less than five minutes into the opening credits she exploded. Her bits were catapulted across the theatre, landing mostly in the aisles bar her arms which landed in the lap of an elderly couple towards the front. Since then there have been multiple cases all over the world of this unfortunate illness.

So we move to our current case, Christopher “Christopheles” “Sausage and Cheese Isosceles” Jimmy Jam-Jam Marshall. Poor Chris has been living with this for most of his life. It was lucky that a friend of the family, who is au fait with these kinds of medical conditions, was able to diagnose him before the worst could happen. In order for us to understand more, we need a hypothetical situation:

A HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION:

Chris has had a hard day at work. He’s taken off his feather boa and decides to relax on the sofa before making some food. As he picks up the remote to browse some channels, the TV opens on that bit in ‘Cocoon’ where the old people get in the pool with the aliens and have a pool party.

His eyes witness the film on the screen. The retinal pools record the information and turns it into some weird shapes and colours, possibly resembling cats. This makes it easier to send it up the pipe shaft.
The information travels up the pipe shaft, past the nosal tubes, towards the front part of the brain, more commonly known as the Gluco-chaffinch. Here it is split into several nixtoglands and sent to the seven corners of the human mind.
For a normal person this would be fine; the nixtoglands would reach their destination and everyone would feel great. Several people would do backflips. For Chris though this is the beginning of the end. When the seven corners are activated it causes the multo peak in the glorbo cells to light up.
Now it is only a matter of time. The blood pumps up into his face muscles which only accelerates the process. The glorbo cells chat to the peanuke rittles causing a chain reaction between the two, meaning a complex chemical implosion that reverses around the maypole and turns back into an explosion.
It goes off. His head catapults to the ceiling. His noses fires off into the kitchen. The eyes don’t make it that far and the ears flop to the floor. The body doesn’t move from the position, it’s still enjoying the film.

I don’t need to tell you that this cannot happen, ever, mainly for my sake because then it’ll mean I’ll be down one friend and will need to hold auditions for a new one to fill the position. Do you know how long that’ll take? Far too long. Please keep my friend safe and never show him any films.