It’s been ten years since I first reported the discovery of the toilet phone. In that time, the popularity of this device has spread widely. After two weeks in South America I can report that no hotel is without one – every hotel bathroom we’ve visited has come complete with communications apparatus conveniently located beside the throne.
Category: Trekkin’ Abroad
Airport review: Bogotá
I may be away for a while, but I still have a commitment to do four posts a month here on the Beans, so I’ve decided to exploit something I’ll be doing a lot, which is visiting airports. Please enjoy this first in a thrilling series of airport reviews.
El Dorado International Airport, Bogotá, Colombia
We spent about four hours here in between flights, arriving at about 3.30am and leaving shortly before 8am.
Despite it being a stupid time of the morning, most shops were open, staffed by people who looked like they wished they didn’t have to man a souvenir shop at 3am. As a result we had the option to buy any amount of slightly tacky Colombia-branded tourist tat. We did not bother with this.
Airport seating was plentiful, with banks of seats everywhere and no shortage of places to sit even when the gate started filling up with passengers. However the seats were hard and upright and I did not enjoy sitting on them for nearly four hours. I give the seating 6/10.
Apart from buying some breakfast, which took 25 minutes to arrive even though there was nobody else waiting, my only interaction with the locals was to meet this charming Colombian lady who had a cargo of bananas and knew how to use them. Kate didn’t like her as much as I did.
Overall this was not a bad place to spend four hours in the middle of the night and my impression of Colombia, having only seen the inside of the airport, was broadly positive.
I award El Dorado International Airport 7 planes out of 10.
Newsboost – Mecha Chris attacks!
News just in! Tokyo has reported a mechanical monster on the outskirts of the city. When questioned as to what it looked like, experts merely shrugged and mumbled something about some berk from France.
Mecha Chris appears to be the combination of a giant 100ft machine and our very own Christopher Marshall who unwisely posted the details of his genes on the website. Seemingly innocent, this has caused most of the dark web to steal his DNA and weave it into a multitude of diabolical projects. We’ve also heard rumours of a giant octopus off the coast of Italy sporting his viso/volto and a hive of bees in Washington DC, buzzing about roadworks and a string of road closures on the A47 in Norfolk over the summer holidays.
“It must be a synthetic mesh of man and machine,” gushed monster expert, Dylan Stretcher, “DNA on its own is useless, you’ve gotta mix it in with a bunch of other goo to make life. If you then take that goo and stick it in a humongous robot then we’re all doomed. I’m surprised Eamonn Holmes didn’t think of it sooner. Science is a cruel mistress.”
Recently qualified Kevin Hill, science master, was unavailable for comment, possibly due to laziness and things.
Though jovial in his appearance, Mecha Chris has already crushed several sandcastles, one ice cream van and a sushi hut as he emerged from the sea. People have been unable to buy overpriced iced lollies for over an hour. If he continues along the same path, he is expected to crush most of Tokyo by 6pm today.
We can only hope that some equally large competitor can emerge to stop the menace before it spreads to the rest of the world.
What else will happen now that the world has access to his life pulp? Will Chris ever learn from his mistakes? Can we expect to see dozens of clones of him running security at a Spice Girls tribute act? Only time will tell how long this joke will go on.
The return of…
As the ravages of time affect us all, I stare into the mirror and I am greeted by a face that looks both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. There are traces of the young boy who once flapped around gurgling nonsense about loins and chagrins mixed with those unavoidable lines and bags around and under the eyes. It’s always the eyes that give it away.
I am awash with melancholy. Has it been twenty years since Reuben was born? Almost twenty years since I moved to Newcastle? Coming up to twenty-three years since finishing sixth form? Where has the time gone?
I look back through the photos in my phone to make sense of the madness, to try and find a firm grip on the rockface of life. I must shackle myself to something tangible because I will go out of my mind if I do not. My most recent photos are of the Florida holiday: cheery blue skies, sunshine lollipop backpacks and rainbow cookie wonderlands. All of it warms my soul to see it once more like an old friend visiting. Then I see him:
SERIOUS IAN?!
He’s crept into one of the photos. He is pushing boundaries this time because, sat in a tiny car going around the Toy Story ride at Disney, shooting at aliens with lasers for points with his technicolour space gun, there he is. The irony is delicious. When did he turn up? I didn’t see him flipping through t-shirts trying to find one with Launchpad McQuack on. I didn’t witness him stuffing burgers into his grill and then finishing up with a strawberry milkshake, pretending that in a way it would count as a “balanced meal”. He must have snuck into my suitcase when I wasn’t looking.
About halfway through the holiday I caught what felt like a bad cold and needed to rest more. Was it me that woke up every time or have I been myself less and less? Could it be:
- Maybe he tiptoed out to watch the Superbowl at some aggressive masculine sports bar and put a huge wager on one of the teams to win, watching the TV with a pint and a grimace as he realises he’d backed the wrong side
- Maybe he walked around the vacant tourist trap landscape, shaking his head about the silly offers in the windows of souvenir shops, muttering to himself, “this country used to mean something.”
- Maybe he complained to the hotel because the swimming pool didn’t open early enough and that it should be available shortly after the time he usually awoke at 5.45am
- Maybe he told the family in front that they needed to calm down and that it wasn’t the “real” Mickey Mouse that they were waiting to greet.
I mean I’m not Fight Club so that probably didn’t happen but if he can creep out when I’m living it up abroad then it means he can appear anywhere. Literally anywhere? Literally anywhere. You’d best watch out.
Ian’s holiday snaps – #3
Do you feel like a mystery today? I think you’re looking for a mystery and I’ve got exactly what you need.
As I wandered the barren desolate wasteland of Florida, in the hopes of finding something worthy of my time (tad over dramatic, I know) I kept noticing these signs dotted around the place. I saw some on a highway as we drove to a mall one morning and there were also some lurking around the massive McDonalds.
Who keeps leaving these signs? What kind of website are they proposing? Why are there no details or pictures? Who would be insane enough to give money to a random stranger advertising on the corner of a McDonalds?
I kept imagining some sort of lummox on the other end of the phone and he would spin a wheel for every customer. Whatever the wheel would land on, that’s the website you got. You didn’t have a say in the matter and if you tried to he would send the “website boys” round for a little “chat”.
I’ll never get answers to my questions and, settling into my chair at home, thousands of miles away from website man / woman and their shady empire, I’m quite content to leave it that way.
Ian’s holiday snaps – #2
And so it continues.
In Florida there are a lot of gift shops. A LOT. They want all of your disposable income and they will do whatever it takes to get you in their store. A lot of them advertise ridiculous statements such as “gifts as low as $1.99” or “five t-shirts for $9.99” and it’s all lies. You’ll go in to be greeted by five kids t-shirts for $9.99 or the kinds of cheap mugs that not even an auntie with bad eyesight would pick up and consider. All lies.
Initially I ignored these places because I knew what would be inside. Later on I relented for a laugh and, you know what? I was right. Laden with plastics of all shapes and sizes, pirated Disney goods, the kind of nonsense every gift shop has. It was a treasure trove of bobbins.
What made me sit up and notice though were the buildings themselves. Nothing in Florida looks new, in fact everything has this worn out faded murky visage which you get used to after a while.
This shop made me laugh because you notice it straight away and every time I walked past I would think, “mwear!” to myself. The best mwear in all of town. Ladies love top of the line mwear; purchase one today for your gal, fellas!
I also keep saying it in a Matt Berry voice for maximum effect.
Ian’s holiday snaps – #1
The best part of being on holiday is taking photos of things that people have zero interest in and then forcing them to look at them once you get home. It’s a legitimate way of being annoying because they instinctively want to know about your time away and you can show them through 10,000 photos of a camel.
Not that I’m on holiday with a camel. Far from it, me ‘n’ the V have been sunning it in Florida for almost two weeks. We’ve done a lot of walking, I’ve drank dozens of watered down sodas and eaten my way through many burgers, tasty barbecue ribs and steaks.
I thought it best to ease you into the holiday snaps with a couple of posts, tossed off in my quieter moments, showing all the excitement of Orlando.
First up is this one. This is a fantastic photo of me emerging from the 7/11 with my Frosty blue ice thing. It was a hot day and I needed some cool refreshment. To my delight, this only cost a dollar for some reason (it was advertised as costing more) so I had to capitalise on the moment. I was on my way to pick up lunch from Subway, a blinding buy one footlong and get another free offer which we used several times. That was a good day.
Tea ‘n’ Tabasco
At last! Raise a bowl of coffee in celebration: “A Folk History of Dublin”, the official ceremonial record of our historic visit to Ireland, is now online.
It’s one of our biggest-ever efforts, running to an impressive 82 pages of words, drawings and stupid ideas, including…
- Ian’s breakfast journey
- Danny and Michael go to New York City
- The red hot spiky baton of anger
- Plinth people and façade folk
- The now-legendary Kev’s Reality Flowchart
- Mr Bread Adjacent Eggs
- The angels smiling on Kev’s plan
The later pages of this document will be a particular surprise to Kev, who left the country before they were finished.
All of this collected wisdom and artistry is now yours to enjoy in the Books section of the Beans, along with our other sacred texts.