Immortalised in stoneIt’s with great joy that I can now announce the unveiling of a statue to commemorate my life’s work and achievements. It has been carved from stone and then coloured exquisitely by a team of master craftsmen from Madame Tussaud’s in order to create a lifelike rendering of my own handsome and stylish body.
Please feel free to use the comments thread below this post to discuss all the wonderful things I have done and the many reasons you admire me.
Beans 2015 Customer Satisfaction SurveyHere at The Beans, the happiness of our readers and contributors is paramount to us. In fact, if you came to our prestigious penthouse offices, you’d see that we have a chart on our wall of all the things that are important to us. “The Happiness Of Our Readers And Contributors” is in big letters at the top, number one. (“Kev” is at number 16, just below “coordinating our socks with our underpants”.)
To help make sure we’re doing all we can, please complete this short survey about your experience here at The Beans.
The Wit and Wisdom of Big DaveAh, wisdom. Not everyone has it and those that do have it more often than not will refuse to share it. Not so Big Dave. Why, if wisdom was a pie he would be handing out slices every minute of the day. It would have to be an infinite or infinity pie to accommodate such a large selection of knowledge.
Having spent approximately four days in the Lake District with him last week I think it’s fair to say that I am currently the best placed person to pass on the wisdom to the rest of the world. Strap yourself in because your life will change dramatically as a result of reading the rest of this post:
(on trying to teach Reuben how to whistle) “Just imagine you’re kissing a girl with a very small mouth.”
“The pigeons are spooning! Spooning I say!”
“I’m itching… because I’m cold…”
“It’s a book about a man being a seagull… I think…”
“No, I don’t watch Brookside. It doesn’t appeal to me.”
It’s fair to say that Quack-dad, as he is sometimes known, has enriched our lives so much that things will never be the same again.
The fact that he tried to feed us mince for every meal should also go on record.
ShatnerlinkIn these tough financial times, we can’t expect our public services to run the way they always used to. The days of government subsidy are over. Hospitals, schools, old people, making George Osborne’s hair look like the plastic helmet hair of a Lego man: all these things cost money. There isn’t enough to go round.
That’s why, increasingly, public services are being run as public-private partnerships, where stakeholders outside the public sector are brought in to invest and improve our services. One of the latest examples of this, and the most innovative, has been the pairing of Manchester’s tram network with celebrity spaceman William Shatner.
Shatner has pledged to invest £2.3 billion in Manchester’s trams over the next fifteen years, renewing the vehicle fleet and upgrading passenger information services. In return, he gets a major boost to his profile, with his face adorning the new tram livery and his voice used for automated announcements. To complete the effect, his unique style of speech has also been replicated in writing.
The dawn of the Shatnerlink era is just the latest step in the long-running association between trams and space travel, and looks set to ensure that Manchester continues to have a world-class transport network and that William Shatner remains reasonably famous.
Eight Days a WeekThis week I’ve been working for eight days in a row. I started last Friday and I’ve been at work every day afterwards, including today. This has given me a unique perspective on the Beatles song, “Eight Days A Week”, which previously was a complete mystery to me.
Dear Beans… My Car Is Cursed!Dear Beans,
I have a problem I need your assistance with.
As previously mentioned in a previous post, I haven’t been driving very long. Even so I attempted to remember how to correctly to perform the reverse bay park manoeuvre and it kept me awake last night for at least 25 minutes. I think I got it in the end. That is not my concern though. What concerns me is the alarming rate of ambulances that I come across when driving in my car.
I don’t think I would be exaggerating by saying that every single journey to and from work I come across an ambulance, whether just driving around or pushing its way through traffic with its sirens blaring. In fact, it is a common occurrence that when driving with Reuben we are more inclined to see the latter, which brings us to the obvious conclusion that my car is in some way cursed. “How can it be cursed,” I hear you say, then I wonder how I can hear you when my hearing has been damaged for the last 16 years or so. The fact is I can’t hear what you say so I’m pretending that I can.
Do I have a cursed car? How else would you explain it? Whether or not my vehicle is directly affecting the mortality rate in the North East, it’s still particularly worrying that one is constantly in my rear view mirror. There are days when I ponder whether to take public transport instead to avoid the consequences of my actions. I don’t want to be responsible for accidents, for deaths, for common misdemeanours ending in tragedies. If all of this is on my head then what should I do? Would the same thing happen if I had a different car, or a different vehicle altogether?
Please offer your advice in a thrilling manner.
Kind regards
Ian “Mac Mac Mac Mac – Adam – Liam – Neil” McDougal
*** Caption Competition ***Good Evening ladies and gentlemen. It’s very simple; come up with the bestest and most funniest caption for this photo and you could win this magnificent mystery prize.
Good luck!
Terrible newsI don’t know how to tell you this. It’s too tragic for words.
In some ways we saw it coming, but still, when I walked down Church Road and saw what had happened, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Sexatronic has gone.
Once the home of Bum Chin Bollock Neck McGee, and then – gloriously immortalising the star of one of The Papples’ most inventive album tracks – home to Sexatronic herself, the stylish and cosmopolitan plywood sheeting has been removed after five years’ service and has been replaced with these unimaginative shop units.
We’ll never forget you, Sexatronic.