A Touching Message

Books, ah, books. Such curious, interesting things, aren’t they?

And if that was my post in its entirety then that would make for one boring entry in the Beans cannon. Let’s try again.

Books, ah, books. Weird lumps of shit, aren’t they? They are weird. They contain strange stories that come from people’s minds. Sometimes though stranger things can come forth from fiction. Take for example the messages people write in books; a lot of the time it’s a simple message such as, “Happy Birthday Sharon,” or, “Thanking you for your excellent pie, Dennis.” On occasion some people can take it a step too far.

I was browsing the vast and excellent selection of books in a local charity shop close to work when I picked a copy of ‘Wind in the Willows’ by chance. Inside was a message which must have made sense to someone at some point. My own viewpoint, some thirty years later however, left me wondering just who I was and what was going on. It was too good to miss, so here it is:

Barmy.

The most infuriating fruit

The survey results are in. The winner’s name is being carved onto the award. Pomegranate is the most infuriating fruit. It’s a fact. You know it’s true.

Its name is clearly pronounced “pom-e-gran-it” but for some reason it’s spelled with the letters “ate” at the end. Ridiculous.
The outer skin is designed to only come off in a thousand leathery flakes.
The edible bits are approximately one million tiny bloblets of fruit. Before you can eat them you have to excavate them all in a sort of miniature mining project. This takes absolutely forever.
When you eat the edible bits you find that the nice juicy tasty bit takes up only about half of it and the rest is a woody seed that gets stuck in your teeth.
The edible bits are actually called “arils” which is just pretentious. Gaaaaah. I hate it.

On the other hand they do taste nice.

Stationary Harassment

I was the victim of a crime, a crime that mostly goes unnoticed.

As I returned the trolley to the bay in Asda car park I was greeted by the following sight:

Was this dog doing anything wrong? Not really, he was protecting the car until his owner came back.

Was I doing anything wrong? No, because I was returning the trolley to where it belonged.

So why did the dog look at me as though I HAD done something wrong? Where was the justification for the judgement in his eyes?

I did test this by clocking him on the way past the first time and walking slower on the way back. His eyes burrowed deep into mine, never flinching, never blinking. It was the longest five seconds of my life I’d ever experienced in a car park.

There was the chance that I looked like someone else or perhaps he was hoping I’d open the door and set him free.

Or maybe, just maybe, he was hoping I’d come a little closer so he could bark the fuck out.

I’ll never know what I did to that dog and, quite frankly, I don’t think I want to know.

Beverage news

Are you tired of drinks that are grumpy, uncouth or simply downright rude? Do you long to quench your thirst with a liquid that’s polite and mild-mannered?

Then look no further.

At last, a drink with manners. A tipple fit for gentlemen. Courtesy Water will give you the refreshing taste of water and the full package of pleases and thank yous in a single 2-litre bottle.

Loudermilk

Loudermilk. Loudermilk. Is it a request? “This milk is a little quiet for my liking; could I have some Loudermilk please?”

Is it a company? A Finnish crime drama?

It’s none of these things. Loudermilk is a surname. I recently caught the beginning of an episode of what seems like an endless stream of Power Rangers series’. The newest is called something like Mega Team Force Pencil Schnapps Eyebrows. One of the actors is the brilliantly named John Mark Loudermilk.

Then, just to seal the deal in a wigwam, if you type it into Google something else completely different comes up.

‘Loudermilk’ is an American TV comedy series about a recovering alcohol and substance abuse councillor with a bad attitude.

This morning I was not even aware of the word and now I know two very differing kinds of Loudermilk. Could there be more? As I once told Eamonn Holmes, “there’s only one way to find out!”

Unfortunately the library is closed today so we will all have to wait.

This just continues the theory that everything that should be invented has already been invented. Had I been in charge, however, I would have preferred the name ‘Shoutymilk’, and Brian Blessed would have had top billing.

Book news

Are you ready?

OK then, here it is.

The Book is finished.

I have finally, FINALLY, written the final page of the Book and the story is complete. I’m going to scan it in so you can read it to your children and share it with your friends, and you’ll have to wait until then to get hold of the thrilling finale. What will happen to Eric Bins? Will Dr. Rombobulous Combobulation succeed? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I’ve typed it up so that we don’t have to read handwriting in the online version, and I can present you with some statistics.

The finished book is 34 pages long, which means we all did eleven pages and I did one extra at the end.

Ian wrote 2,563 words
Kev write 2,505 words
I wrote 3,220 words and am therefore the winner

The first page of the book was written on 10 January 2009, and I finished writing the last one on Thursday, so it has taken us 3,226 days to write it, or exactly eight years and ten months. We have averaged one page every 94 days – less than four a year – or, if you prefer, two and a half words a day. I think we can all be proud of that.

The slide

What’s the biggest slide you’ve ever been down? I am asking because I have definitely been down a bigger slide than you and I am planning to smugly win this.

I have been down THIS slide.

It’s part of the weird red metal lumpy thing that was built for the Limpety Pinpicks in 2012. It takes 40 seconds to go down it and I spent a fair amount of that time saying things like WHEEEEE and AAAAAARGH and WOOHOOOOO.

It drops a total height of over 100m, which is the equivalent of a slide going down to the ground from the 30th floor. It is bigger than the biggest slide you have ever been down. I win. Ha.

The Joy of Corners

Do you like corners? Do you need more corners in your life? Do you find it hard making very simple decisions?

What you need is Cornercopia!

Hi, I’m Conrad Bundleg and I own Cornercopia, the North-West’s largest supplier of corners in the UK.

We’ve been selling corners for the last twenty years so if you require corners you need to come to us.

We’ve got paper corners, cardboard corners, metal corners, futon corners. We’ve got black corners, yellow corners, blue corners, multi-coloured corners. We’ve got corners for your house, corners for your work, even corners… for your corners!

Someone else may have invented the corner but here at Cornercopia we’ve mastered it.

Cornercopia, on the Bluecoat roundabout just south of Blackpool. You can’t miss us!