Brian May or Bryant May?

It’s a common occurrence. You go to pick up some matches from your local supermarket and accidentally end up trying to escort the guitarist from Queen from the premises who has just stopped by to pick up a crate of aubergines. When the police take you for questioning you explain the situation and all the charges are dropped. I mean who hasn’t confused the match maker ‘Bryant & May’ with perma-permed musician and astrophysicist Brian May? It’s not like mistaking Dave Benson Phillips for a tin of beans; that just wouldn’t happen.

When we peer a little closer though perhaps there’s something else to it. Bryant and May were a company created in the mid-nineteenth century specifically to make matches. Nothing else. People were suggesting various other pursuits, such as tailoring, monkey hampers and Louise cream, but they were all ignored for the single reason most of them didn’t exist. Matches were definitely the way forward. The company was made public in 1884. Brian May was born in 1947, exactly 63 years later. Surely that has to be something more of a coincidence.

Similarly Brian May was born in Hampton, Middlesex. The original Bryant & May factory was located in Bow, London. Only 22 miles or so between the two and, accordingly to Google Maps, it takes over an hour and a half to drive in current traffic conditions.

Why has nobody investigated these things beforehand? Is it a conspiracy that someone, possibly Roger Taylor also from Queen, tried to cover up?

The matter gets even weirder when you then take into consideration Arthur Bryant and John May, the two detectives created by Christopher Fowler for his series of crime fiction novels. They are primarily based in London. Bow is in London and Middlesex is but a stone’s throw away. One of them smokes a pipe which must have been lit by matches. It’s all coming together the more I think about it.

Also May is the fifth month of the year. There have been 15 Bryant and May detective novels, which is a multiple of five. Brian May has been an active guitarist since 1965. There are five letters in the name ‘Brian’. Somehow all three of them are connected in a way that is still yet to be fully deciphered. I think I’m up the challenge though, at least once I’ve finished my stint as a quarry sprayer. If I, or me, or maybe even myself can solve this puzzle then it will guarantee notoriety for the rest of my days.

This Way Up: episode 4

(Two posts in two days! Who does this guy think he is?)

Series 2 of This Way Up is on its way and Pouring Beans is proud to present you with the next episode of Britain’s most innovative radio sketch show, featuring the Sean Connery Accent Watch and slightly more cranial inflation than is technically permitted by Ofcom.

And if you wish to keep hold of this episode to treasure it forever, we suggest you download it.

A game of cards

There’s been a lot of talk around here lately. Lots of people saying things. I suppose that’s how these blogs tend to work, but I think it might be time for something different. So, just for a change, let’s have a game of cards.

We all get seven cards. Aces are high. Jokers are wild. Queens are saucy.

I will begin by playing the seven of clubs.

Your move.

Robert Koch – The Musical

I’m not very into musicals. The whole idea of spending two hours watching people burst into song every five minutes, quite frankly, gives me palpitations of a rocky and unnerving manner that no amount of marshmallows can settle. It seems as though a lot of subject matter has been turned into musicals, both in the theatre and also in cinema.

Even Spiderman has been turned into a musical. My friend Steve took a trip to New York a couple of years ago and paid a hefty price to watch ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’ which, apparently, has music and lyrics by U2’s Bono and The Edge. Which is just unbelievably crazy. I mean it is. Without even dwelling on it, that’s bonkers.

So what next? What will people look at and think that choruses and choreography can improve, that falsettos and furnishings can dazzle? It got me thinking though which, as most people will know, that’s generally a bad thing. Why not turn the spotlight on someone who I personally believe requires a bit more attention? One of those underdogs who never quite got the recognition that they deserve? Cast your mind back to Year 10 history, pull up a chair and listen to the story of good ol’ Bob Koch.

Robert Heinrich Herman Koch. Born 11 December 1843. The guy was so smart he taught himself to read and write before he started school. His research helped to identify the specific causative agents of tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax. I may be copying these details direct from certain wiki I mean certain websites but I deal in facts and not speculation. The man did a lot for medicine and microbiology and yet other than a statue in Berlin his name is relatively unknown.

Enter me. Amateur script writer and overall champion of the unappreciated. I think I’ve got the moxie to write a full play based on his life, with a dash of songs sprinkled generously over the three hour running time. I’ve been working on one this afternoon and I think you’ll agree that it has got something going on. I give you ‘Great Postulates!’:

Great Postulates!

It’s very simple, it’s on your tongue
I’ve got the recipe for an evening of fun
Down at the lab, test tube in hand
No time to dance, put down your jams

My report is imperative you see
It sets out what is necessary
To identify cultures, disease causing organisms
Those dark little things that mess with your rhythms
I’ve put pen to paper so read it loud
Something to make my country proud

Postulates!
I’ve established criteria
Postulates!
Erect your posterior
Postulates!
Cholera, tuberculosis
Postulates!
Here’s my prognosis…

I’m clearly onto a winner. If you would like to buy some shares in the production then please put some money in a brown paper bag and leave on my doorstep. Shares will be posted to you within 30 days.

Snippets of Flim-Flam – Work Edition

In work as in the rest of life there is much flim-flam, here are some snippets of it:

…and all seems well, however we’ve still got a lot of accounts which don’t have …

…Robert was the person that cleared the log files back in April I am not 100% sure which ones he cleared but that being said…

…change the theme back from a new electric theme to the current one. I changed it against the system admin account by accident…

…regarding the prices…

…stated on that page. In the near future we will need to reconsider that as it wasn’t possible …

…to demonstrate that staff have received proportionate and reasonable training…

Thrilling I’m sure you’ll agree.

BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2016 Awards

Good Evening and welcome to the very exciting but very poorly worded ‘BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2016 Awards’. We are judging the suggestions for sitcoms provided by you, the general public, and we are down to the last three.

There will, of course, be a very extensive and elaborate voting process which will commence once the three entries have been revealed. All you need to do is press one of the conveniently-placed buttons on your remote control to vote for your favourite.

Here are the final three entries for your consideration:

BookChop

Deirdre Hanginglass has a dream. Her dream is to own her very own bookshop in the centre of Ipswich. After gaining a wealth of knowledge following her stint in other shops, and with a hefty loan from the bank, she thinks she has found the ideal place. The only problem is that she can only afford half the rent.

Enter Leanne Pandonberry. Leanne is an aspiring butcher who has worked her way through butcher college to gain the qualifications needed. After her Auntie Maeve passed away, leaving a handsome gift, Leanne too seeks shelter within the confines of Ipswich city centre only to find prices just a little too much. Deirdre and Leanne decide to join forces and open the UK’s very first joint butcher book shop.

How can they possibly hope to cope working in opposite ends of the work spectrum? Can uptight Leanne ever hope to mesh with the laid-back antics of Deirdre? And who owns the mysterious milk crate in the back alley?

Dracu-later

Dracula is dead; killed by Jonathan Harker, crumbled to dust. Only he’s not. It was all an act to make everyone go away and leave him alone.

The outside world just wasn’t made for the Count and his crazy hoardes. All he wanted was to suck a couple of necks and nothing more. And with this in mind, he disappears into the shadowy forests surrounding his castle.

That is until he returns. The year is 1987 and life has moved on. The relatives of Van Helsing live on, unaware of Dracula’s continued life. The Count has met a most fortunate woman, Mabel, and following a successful romance moved in with her in a comfy semi-detached hovel in Middlesbrough. The house next door is up for sale and following a successful bid at a local auction the property is sold to… Milo and Janice Van Helsing!

Dracula now not only has to struggle with living in suburbia, and keep his job at Rumbelows, but also keep his true identity hidden from his new neighbours. Can he maintain his begonias and stop himself from sucking the local cats dry?

It would appear as though our final entry, ‘Apple Jews’, about a group of sexy young Jewish men and women working in an Apple store, has had to be disqualified for blatant product placement.

That therefore leaves only two entries in the running.

If you would like to vote for ‘BookChop’ please press the ‘slow’ button on your remote. If you would prefer to opt for ‘Dracu-later’ then please caress the button that looks like a meteor crashing into the sea.

A History of Westpoint

When we moved into our new flat, we were moving into one of several blocks of privately-owned flats set in landscaped grounds, which are all inside a gated compound. At the time we thought there was nothing special about it – until the Westpoint Resident Management Association Steering Committee posted a welcome pack through our front door. The welcome pack told us what day the bins were collected and some other practical information, but by far the most useful thing was the history of the flats.

So that we can all share in this learning experience, here is the history of the building in which I now live inside there.

144 million years BC

A 60-metre layer of impermeable Gault clay is deposited on earlier Paeleozoic rocks, forming the geological basis of the ground on which Shortlands now stands. It is this clay that continues to support Westpoint today and stops it being some 60 metres closer to the centre of the earth.

AD 862

Ethelbert, the king of Kent, grants land for a new manor to be called Bromleag. The manor becomes a prosperous market town over the following centuries, known as Bromley.

1858

Shortlands railway station is opened on the new railway line to Bromley. It is not called Shortlands yet and there are no houses nearby for it to serve. Nobody knows why a railway station was built here.

1974

Local building company Arkwright Masonry Erectors Ltd. purchase three handsome Victorian villas in extensive gardens and with fetching period detailing, and demolish them in order to build three big box-shaped blocks of flats and a car park.

1996

Arkwright Masonry Erectors Ltd. go bust when the owner is sued by his own daughter for embezzling company funds to construct a large fiberglass model of the Coliseum encasing her house. The residents of Westpoint buy out the freehold on the site and begin a new era in which there are no grown ups to tell them what to do. The Westpoint Resident Management Association Steering Committee is established as a not-for-profit commercial community joint enterprise partnership.

2002

The front doors to all buildings at Westpoint are carefully sanded down and coated with a slightly darker shade of varnish than before.

2015

Benches are installed in the grounds so that residents can sit outdoors at an uncomfortable slope and in close proximity to parked cars or the bins.

2016

Chris finds himself getting on a train at Shortlands with Chris Addison, stand-up comedian and star of The Thick of It, who apparently lives nearby and sometimes gets a train from the same station as Chris at about 9am.

A desperate plea

It has now been many months since we last saw The Book, and understandably all those of us who care deeply about it are becoming concerned for its safety.

Today, Pouring Beans launches a major publicity campaign to alert the British public to the plight of The Book in the hope of seeing it safely returned home. We are now less than ten pages from the end and with a concerted effort the whole damn thing could be finished and out of our lives by Christmas. Isn’t that something we all want to see?

MISSING

THE BOOK

Last seen: at Kev’s house, awaiting another page of the story

Age: Knocking on for eight bloody years old

Reward: An end to being nagged about it

If you have any information about the whereabouts of The Book, or if you can disclose the identity of the person who is currently detaining it, call the Beans Helpline on 0800-HURRY-UP-KEV.