Category: Uncategorized

Avatar 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. 

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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. 
  4. 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. 
  5. 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.

Avatar The Hall’s Wall Mince Movement

Look at you!

You need to be part of something. You need to be part of the Hall’s Wall Mince Movement.

If you join the Hall’s Wall Mince Movement (or HWMM as it is known amongst its members) then you will be given great rewards, sometimes of meat.

I cannot promise you excitement, I cannot promise you fame and glory. I cannot even promise you a refund on the extortionate subscription fees but I can promise you a couple of bowls of spaghetti bolognese every now and then.

Follow my shiny glitter twinkles and I will lead the way!

Avatar Behold! Ian’s books

We all know that Ian has turned out an awful lot of books in his lifetime, most of them lengthy and devoid of all interest; we also know that every copy that could be found has been systematically incinerated by the cleansing flames of justice.

Even though it is entirely right and proper that his books have all been consumed by fire, I have decided that we should preserve some record of them. We should do this by making sure there is an archive of their covers.

What I mean by that is this: I’ve been back through the whole of the Beans and found all ten books that Ian claims to have written, and I’ve made covers for them all.

Behold! Ian’s books.

Read More: Behold! Ian’s books »

Avatar Luck be a Musician Tonight

I am one of those people who secretly doesn’t know how lucky they are.

That’s a lie, actually.

I am one of those people who occasionally is convinced that luck completely passes them by but, in actuality, it washes up like waves on a beach more often than not. For every instance of not putting one of those new five pound notes in my wallet (everywhere else they jump out and I’m a fiver down) there is something else waiting round the corner, be it a clear run into work on a morning or a one in a mil find on eBay.

Let me tell you about the 23 June 2019.

I am invited by a friend to go to a gig in case someone drops out. I am officially on the ‘waiting’ list so to speak. The closer it gets to the gig it is quite clear that the other person is not coming so the ticket is offered to me, and despite my pleas it is given for free (no, I’m not spitting rhymes over a hot beat, the sentence came out that way). The gig in question is Nick Cave in Conversation at the Sage. I have dabbled in wor Nick and the Bad Seeds over the years with mixed results. This is not the kind of evening that you say no to; you grab it with your sweaty hands and you run away screaming like a frantic, happy loon.

So I turn up and meet the rest of the friends group, who are all rallied round drinking wine, and everyone seems really nice. The usual polite tidbits of conversation are floated round although that doesn’t last for very long because out of the corner of my eye I can see a man approaching. He is coming directly for us.

“How many are in your group?” he says. We all look at each other, we need someone to volunteer as spokesperson. I don’t remember who but a few people stumble up that there are six of us. “Great,” says the guy, “how would you fancy sitting on stage with Nick? You have to be by this door at exactly 7pm (11 minutes time!) and wear these special bands. I’ll run you through the rest of the rules when you’re led to your seats.”

We all look at each other again; what just happened there? There’s not much time to lose though so we all rush to the toilet and head to the door. More stagehands lead us right onto the stage: there are tables set aside with candles on, creating a kind of arc around the middle, which contains a beautiful piano and nothing more. The rules are pretty simple; shut the fuck up, don’t go near him and don’t bother him. Even I, with my primitive brain can handle this.

Nick Cave talks and plays music for almost three hours. He is roughly ten feet from where I am sitting. Nobody is allowed to take photos of him when he is performing meaning that the only memento I have, apart from the ticket and the special band, is a picture of an empty piano with no-one playing it taken about half an hour before it all started. He was amazing, a voice still raw and strong, a plethora of songs all hand-picked on the night, right there and then, whatever people suggest or he feels like playing is done. I have never seen anything like it and I doubt I will ever again.

Avatar A Deliberate Accident

So recently I was pondering a question that nobody has yet dared to answer. Everyone knows what an accident is but what if someone was to do one on purpose? You see it all the time in films, TV and books; people set it up so something bad will happen to an unsuspecting person. It’s a deliberate accident. So why is it that there isn’t a word for this?

Both Chris and Kev couldn’t help with this conundrum, so it was down to me to bring this puppy home. After musing for the best part of a week it finally hit me on the way to work this morning. Combine the best part of both words and what do you get? Delibadent – a deliberate accident. It’s so simple I don’t know what it never occurred to me sooner. Hell, it should have occurred to more intelligent people a lot earlier than 2019.

Thankfully this now means the world is a better place for having my word, no, our word. It is my gift to the world. Go forth everybody and watch out for delibadents.

Avatar Tributes and Insults – Christopher Marshall

Look at this big ol’ berk here:

Look at his massive face. Why does anyone need a face that big? What has he done to his face to make it that big? All of these questions need answering and the sad fact that it is unlikely that we will ever get the responses we need.

The worst part about knowing Chris is that he’s always calling on a regular basis asking how I am and letting me tell him all my problems. There I am, trying to sit in my puddle of self pity, and he’s on the phone for about an hour trying to cheer me up. That’s the worst, it really is, however it gets worse than that. There have been times when he has not only encouraged my questionable behaviour but he has also actively joined in, such as the time that we both wrote letters to each other and did it in weird, wonderful ways. I still have most of them in a box somewhere. The most enduring, and awkward, of the letters was the one written on one continuous single line of paper that stretches on for what seems like miles. I’m struggling for space as it is and to have to find somewhere for this is just plain selfish.

I mean I am done with all of this. There is only so much that one person can take and really I have reached my limit. I hope that he is taking note of all of this because it is very personal and I mean every vicious, scalding word of it. You can take your pleasant, jolly attitude and your helpful, endearing friendship and you can shove it right up the puffin pipe.

You utter wanker.

Avatar Vague Answer Hotline

Sometimes you need answers:

  • What time will the train arrive?
  • When does the film start?
  • What time are we meeting in Leeds?

When you need these answers, what do you do? You refer to the source of the knowledge; The train timetable, cinema website or person you intend to meet.

There are other times however, when you need information but no matter how many times you ask you’ll never get a straight answer:

  • When are you going to do that thing Kev?
  • When is Chris in Leeds?
  • Ian, do you want a drink?

On these occasions why not make use of my new service, The Vague Answer Hotline.

  • Cut out the increasingly bizarre excuses!
  • Cut out 37 text messages where one will do!
  • Cut out obscure references to ‘celebrities’ you’ve never heard of and never will again!

Bored Operatives

Our operatives are sat around bored out of their minds, just waiting to give you a generic vague answer that will be just as much use to you as the answer you’ll eventually get anyway.

Why not try it for yourself and give us a call today?