Avatar Beans Flashback

There have been no posts to the Beans since the start of April, and it’s the 20th now. What does that tell us? Well, clearly, it indicates that there is nothing of any interest happening this month.

Instead, let us take this opportunity to look back at early 2007 and ask ourselves what was happening on this day in Beans History.

It was in April 2007 that Chris Industries International Ltd. was sold to Richard Branson and became Virgin Petcare. There was controversy over the choice of kestrel as word of the week. And the Saint King thrust himself upon a world that did not yet know his taste for underhanded deceit.

But April 2007 was rather a quiet month on the Beans, and that was because we were all still reeling from the release of a video that I thought I’d lost completely. It turns out I do still have one shoddy, over-compressed version that I am going to post here. Ladies and gentlemen, celebrating its tenth anniversary, I present Seeing Not Doing.

Avatar A fine view

We all know how wonderful it is to lay one’s eyes on a beautiful prospect. It can be a true balm for the soul. (Those of us with five or more pairs of eyes presumably get even more from the experience.)

As an avid looker at lovely things of every description, you can imagine my excitement when I came across this sign, promising riches beyond imagining.

The finest view in England, 450m

I was, of course, hoping for something truly breathtaking, like a city of dazzling bejewelled exotic domes and turrets glittering in the desert sun, or my own face hewn from solid rock in a rugged depiction occupying the whole side of a mountain. What I actually got, 450 metres later, was some countryside with some trees and that.

To say I was disappointed would barely hint at the extent to which this grand promise went unfulfilled. But I’m determined nobody else should suffer the same fate, so I am having the field boundaries adjusted across the whole of the parish so that, in future, others gazing upon the allegedly fine view see my face depicted therein, and they will know that they really have seen the finest view England has to offer.

You’re welcome.

Avatar What is a Pound Minute?

We may have invented wireless communications, put sailors on the moon and shortened the English language to within an inch of its life, but what is a Pound Minute?

The Pound Minute is a way of working out whether doing something is actually worth your while. It measures the cost received for the action being carried out and confirms whether you should or should not do it. The Pound Minute has been alive for several decades but is only now receiving the attention it so rightly deserves.

Say, for instance, you were asked to paint your friend’s fence. They provide you with the paint and overalls, and maybe even lunch if you play your cards right. The fence will take approximately three hours to paint, both front and back, and you have to apply at least two coats of paint for it to be considered a worthwhile job. Your friend will pay you £10.00 per hour of painting that you do.

If you choose to carry out the smallest amount of the painting required, which is six hours, you will earn £60.00. This equates to six Pound Minutes. This is a good use of your time but will make your friend think twice about asking for your services again.

If you choose to carry out the right amount of painting required, which is nine hours, you will earn £90.00. This equates to nine Pound Minutes. This is a bad use of your time, but it will make your friend think of you in a new light because you are going the extra mile to ensure that fence is gleaming like grandma’s keys.

Those of an indecisive nature can also utilise the ‘Wheel of Thrusting (TM)’. Future versions may be able to calculate Pound Minutes on your behalf.

Avatar The Face Update – All of my Eyes

Due to the relentless, phenomenal demand, not seen on this scale since the Papples last arena tour, I have decided to provide a face update so that everyone can finally see exactly how many pairs of eyes I have.

Your average human being will be quite satisfied with one pair, consisting of exactly two eyes. That, I am afraid, was not good enough for me. Settling for only two would be a joke as far as I am concerned so the boys in the lab took time out of their busy lunch breaks to knock up some spares which I have secreted about my person and only now reveal for your viewing pleasure (dad joke, strike the bell):

DSC_0211

  1. Original Eyes – the ones that I was blessed with upon my birth.
  2. Viewing Eyes – the ones used to viewing things up close.
  3. Peering Eyes – the ones used for peering at items from a distance.
  4. Seeing Eyes – the ones where you really want to see more than normal.
  5. Glimpsing Eyes – for when you don’t have time to take a good, firm look.
  6. Spotting Eyes – a back up for when my peering eyes aren’t working.
  7. Looking Eyes – for when you do have time to take a good, firm look.

It does require an awful lot of upper body strength to carry this many pairs of eyes with me at all times, yet I feel as though it is the best move. However you use your eyes no doubt there will come a time when you need an extra pair, and I always have at least seven spare pairs (bears) on me.

I am also very excited when the Perception Eyes (June 2017) and Notice Eyes (November 2017) will be available.

Avatar This is not breakfast

Most days I have breakfast at home before I go to work. I know how to do breakfast. Make some coffee, put some bread in the toaster. Some days there’s something more interesting like crumpets. Pour a glass of orange juice if there’s time. Any idiot can do breakfast.

Not, it turns out, the people who run the only food outlet in the building where I now work. No, as I descend the marble staircase into the atrium there are inviting smells coming from the cafe, but the company that runs the franchise don’t understand breakfast. The inviting smells will invite you to disaster.

During the day they sell health food. In the morning they sell insults.

Here’s their breakfast menu almost in its entirety:

  • Ham hock protein pot with poached egg, spinach and chia seeds: £2.35 [this is the size of a yogurt pot]
  • Scrambled egg protein pot with semi-dried tomato and marinated mushrooms: £3.70
  • Scrambled egg protein pot with chorizo and avocado: £3.95
  • Scrambled egg protein pot with Greek-style cheese, herbs and chilli: £3.70
  • Organic porridge with soya milk: £2.55
  • Coconut milk porridge with toasted seeds: £2.95
  • Cherry and pistachio yogurt pot: £2.99
  • Chia and almond bircher muesli: £2.99

That’s more or less it. There’s no bacon sandwich in there, no egg that is not scrambled, no porridge made with actual milk from a cow. (Fake milk from soya or a coconut does not actually make something that looks or tastes like porridge, it makes sloppy white soup with lumps in. I know because I tried it one hungry morning and it was worse than I could have imagined.) There isn’t anything bread-based, because bread contains wheat and wheat is not healthy. You can have a vegetable smoothie with your breakfast (including kale, cucumber and spinach) but you can’t have a slice of toast with butter.

There isn’t really any point to this beyond the fact that sometimes I get to work early and I want something to eat and when I go downstairs I find nothing but seeds and spinach. It just makes me very upset and very disappointed, and I don’t know how these people can do something like this to a fellow human being. That’s all.

Avatar The wisdom of Des’ree

Recently I was in the car and found myself listening to Life by Des’ree. This undoubtedly counts as one of the low points in an otherwise happy life.

This is a song of many profound and moving lyrics. Take this heartfelt couplet from the first verse, for example:

I’m afraid of the dark,
Especially when I’m in a park

And what about this jubilant ending?

I’ll take you up on a dare,
Anytime, anywhere
Name the place, I’ll be there,
Bungee jumping, I don’t care!

This song was, of course, the trigger for Des’ree’s family to get her a rhyming dictionary because she was clearly struggling for ideas. But the best lyric of them all has to be:

I don’t want to see a ghost,
It’s a sight that I fear most
I’d rather have a piece of toast
And watch the evening news

That makes a lot of sense to me. I like toast a lot and would rather have a piece of toast than do many other things.

What would you rather have a piece of toast than do?

Avatar Big Frank’s Global Domination – Boats and Boards

It would appear as though modes of transport feature prominently in Big Frank’s corporate takeover of everything. And why shouldn’t it? Without transportation the world would be a shuffling mass of high-waisted, thick legged, wind-encrusted bipedal animals. One cannot take lightly the invention of the steamroller, the tractor, the ice cream or hot dog cart and the penny farthing. I could not get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ and maybe sidle over to ‘E’ when I’m feeling funky unless I had my trusty one of them mentioned above.

And so we move on from my common ramblings to the business at hand:

Big Frank’s Outdoors

It would appear as though Frank is trying to reprimand the whole of the outside world, and what a feat that would be if he was successful. As well as this though his business, located in the shady realm of Maryville, Tennessee, does a broad deal in boats, boards and cycling equipment.

The blurb says that, “after enjoying a successfully 17 year career in sales with two national corporations, he decided it was time to follow his passion. His love of adventure and the great outdoors was calling and it was time to answer.  Frank started Big Frank’s Outdoors with the hopes of combining his business knowledge and his favourite hobbies biking, boarding, and boating.” This is clearly our Big Frank.

One of my first meetings with him was when I went round to see Chris. Big Frank was balanced on a boat, floating in the back garden, trying to pop a wheelie on a mountain bike. It was the most incredible thing I had seen that morning and a memory that will stay with me long after the curtains have closed on my sorry a*s. He does love his bike-balancing escapades.

I only wish his “Outdoors” was close enough for me to visit and share the love. It wouldn’t be global domination though if all his conquests were on my doorstep. In fact it would be fairly narrow-sighted and just a little big lacking if I walked outside of work to see Big Frank’s face across the road. No, it is obvious that in order to continue his empire he must spread like a soft cheese around the world.

I look forward to where he lands next.