How much stuff I own

Moving house is many things, principal among them a pain in the arse. But it is also a golden opportunity to put everything you own in one place and see how much of it there is.

On Friday, I took this van (with exciting tail lift on which I rode up and down a number of times):

I then inserted into it all my shite:

The amount of stuff I own is therefore precisely the amount of stuff you see above, plus the clothes I was wearing and a Peugeot 207.

I hope this has been as informative and satisfying for you as it has been for me.

Now Look Here

The first thing I want you to know is that, whatever the world may think, we are not judging you.

You may have chosen to leave your seafood sauce out in the hot August sun, why wouldn’t you? It’s your sauce. If your hob isn’t work properly then leaving it outside for nature to warm it up is a great idea. It saves money and is environmentally friendly. We admire what you’re doing and, boy, are we impressed!

The only questionable aspect of this whole affair though is that you may have left it out and forgotten about it, given that the sell-by date was several months ago. Perhaps you forgot where you left it and bought a replacement when you’re stomach started growling. Nobody is pointing fingers. We deal with facts here, not speculation.

We are not talking about you behind your back in hushed tones, far from it. Only, let’s have a little more foresight the next time you decide something is a good idea.

We’re only thinking about you. And your prawn crackers.

Dear Beans… Sandi Shandy Shocking Shenanigans

Dear Beans,

It has been several years now, what feels like decades, since I first encountered the love of my life. I met him quite by accident on a train and he captivated me from the beginning. At first I could not believe that I could fall for such a shambolic, messy, misanthropic miser yet how that changed. Through each encounter the more and more I fell until he was all I could think about.

We met up as often as possible. There was a fair amount of ramping, of course, however it was more than that. The ramping led to so much more, more than can be recounted on a half-baked blogging website such as this.

It ended as most things do, with one of us in tears and the other of stout and firm approach. I just wish he hadn’t wept into my purple tweed suit and blown his nose on my antique blanket. I had to end it because, well, when you’re a well-respected Danish lesbian you cannot be seen frolicking with a member of the opposite sex.

Recently I have been reminiscing about the good times and thoughts of him just keep coming back. Do you have any advice? Any coping mechanisms?

Yours uncannily

Sandi Toksvig

Trekkin’ Abroad: More France

I went to France again, this time for two actual weeks. I made a number of important discoveries to supplement the important knowledge I gained on my last visit.

France has almost no vegetables. Eating green things is considered suspicious and even ordering a “salad” in a restaurant will cause you to be served with a steak, a large portion of chips, a thick peppercorn sauce and a single leaf of curly lettuce. This is not a bad thing in itself, but I am concerned that the majority of the French population may be permanently constipated.
My skin, especially the skin on the top of my head which has only really been able to see daylight for the last year or two, is liable to burn even when protected by a hat and a layer of factor 30 suncream thick enough to dip crisps in.
I am suffering pastry withdrawal symptoms.
French kitties who live in flowerbeds in the street do not want to be your friend.
Forgetting to post to the Beans while away will cause you to lose one bean on the Bean Counter. The Bean Counter is unforgiving of holiday time.

I was hoping to gather more information over a two week period, but the French are a crafty people, and ensured I was plied with excellent beers, wines and artisanal ciders, so to be honest I don’t really remember much of it and the four points above are all I came away with.

Roll on with the Roll-On

Hey you, yes you, what’s up with you? Why do you smell so bad? It’s summer and you’ve got the sweats real bad. I could smell you from the other side of the room. So could all those other people who have now left because they couldn’t stand the smell.

I don’t mean to be completely judgemental but you need to sort yourself out and pretty quick. What you need is one of Kevindo Menendez’s new roll-ons:

The new range of roll-ons features fragrances and flavours not available on the current market, until now! You could very easily get one that smells like a dirty beach or a dank shower curtain but haven’t you always wanted to smell like a sausage roll? Or a spring roll? Or, for those with a sweet tooth, the confusingly titled roll-on jam roly-on poly-on? Kevindo Menendez has raised the bar when it comes to personal hygiene and you can be part of his roll-on revolution!

Get one now!

The Kevindo Menendez range features the following:

Sausage roll
Spring roll
Salmon spring roll
Jam roly poly
Bread rolls
And many more still to come…

In stores now. Kevindo Menendez; a family company.

Vincent “Hangman” Price

On a recent sojourn in Carlisle, I was browsing the shops like the pavement-walking, job-dodging, gum-chewing cad that I am. In one particularly well-known charity shop I came across this little curio:

I did an actual double take. I looked then had to look again. Is that… was that… THE Vincent Price on the front of a board game?

As it happens it is and I wasn’t just having a fever dream, although the fever dreams I have had never involved old horror movie stars.

This was the 1970’s and it seems as though someone thought it a good idea of turning a game you can play with a piece of paper and a pen for free into a game involving an elaborate piece of plastic and trying to charge punters for the benefit.

I couldn’t bring myself to part with the money just to own this tiny piece of history. Did Vincent Price love Hangman that much or was it all for the big, big, shiny cheque handed to him by MB Games? Who knows. The next time you’re trying to guess what the nine letter word is that has four s’s in, think about Vincent and his “classic American game for two”.

Kitty ownership question

The other day, I found a kitty on the street near my flat and stopped to stroke it. The kitty then followed me all the way home and was quite insistent that the stroking should continue. It was all set to follow me right into the flat and the only way I could stop it coming into the building with me was to distract it temporarily while I ran inside.

This is the kitty.

I have seen the kitty on one other occasion, when my family were visiting, and it seemed equally keen to spend time with all of them. We decided to name her Kevinetta.

My question is this. The kitty appeared to want to come and live with me, but I suspect someone else thinks the kitty lives with them. If I see the kitty again, can I keep it?

Northwards

We all knew it would happen one day, and now it has. I am moving to the North.

Not the North of England, of course. No. Don’t be silly. The commute would be interminable. No, “the North” clearly means “North London”, as anyone safely cushioned within London’s self-obsessed bubble will tell you.

This important change will bring a number of new and exciting features to my life.

I will be commuting to work on a London Tubular Train (described previously on the Beans here, in case you are not familiar with this novel mode of transport).
I will be living in a district of London known as “Ruislip”, which is a complete mystery to me apart from being the setting of every single domestic sitcom of the 1970s. I will therefore be mostly wearing beige flares and a pudding bowl haircut upon moving, and will likely make borderline racist double entendres towards my neighbours to a soundtrack of slide whistles and canned laughter.
I will be closer to the actual North of England than before and reaching me from the outside world will involve significantly less time hacking through the impenetrable jungle of London.
I will no longer have a toilet in every room. (This will be inconvenient but I will have to get used to it.)

I await your warm congratulations on this momentous news, but am realistic about the fact that the state of the Beans lately means I’m basically talking to myself here.