Box Memories

The human memory is an unreliable tool. Things that you think you remember can be twisted and exploited because people are unreliable and easily influenced. If, like me, you know how superbly atrocious your mind is you learn to record everything or at least as much as you can in the written form. This is starting to feel like a lecture…

And it’s not. The boxes in the corner of my room have bore witness to many a stimulating conversation over the years and sadly the pen and pencil work is starting to fade. Before all these “ideas” are lost to time I thought it best to record them for posterity here, of all places, so we can revel in their warm fuzziness. You may also be able to help remind me just what the fuck they mean. In no particular order I present ‘Box Memories’:

1. Women’s werewolf rights
2. No HAT, no HOLMES!
3. Jam flaps
4. Flip reverse my sandwich
5. Chris = Biggy Bam
6. Adjacent apples on the shelf of life
7. It’s not what we do, it’s the way we do it
8. Epic nonny
9. Steam hot prayers (that was Tom’s stag do, I remember that)
10. I say it, but I don’t mean it
11. I had big boots that day for sure
12. NEW PAPPLES ALBUM = 15% and rising
13. Anvil hands
14. I’m gonna hit you with the fist of gratitude. SLAP!
15. It was too lonny gone ago…
16. RED WINE = MAN WINE. ROSE = GIRL WINE
17. My moustache is off the scale!
18. Apples for thought
19. MAN LIKES HIS DRINK
20. I’d like a BIG FAT January
21. Gourmet = small and shafted
22. “Sock Lions”
23. … it will make your face bleed with smiles
24. Get your warranty out of my chude!
25. I dream of having a database of moods
26. I need a rocket
27. HAIRY ON THE GO!
28. Total toilet
29. 30 = dead (how nice)
30. Banh-kuok (rolled bread, french bread, bread)
31. Big nay
32. Plentingtons = plenty of things

There’s also a faded flame that appears to say ‘Uncle Now’ and of course the now infamous Michael Jackson test.

Question: Am I dead?

If your answer is yes, you are Michael Jackson
If your answer is no, you are someone else

Neil Armstrong gets a Time Machine (using a Time Machine)

Here at da beans we do like to consider everything before we make our minds up. There is absolutely no point in rushing in with an idea or an opinion unless it has been thought through with a considerable degree of certainty.

Still, this kind of logic is nothing when faced with the abstract mind of a child. Who’s child? My child.

This child does not obey the laws of anything other than what I tell him, and quite possibly his teacher. That said there is still a realm of “eh?”, a dark corner of his mind that does not allow anything in that refuses to conform to that happy rainbow of “surely not”. I bore witness to such a thing recently which was documented in my notebook, which was as follows:

“Neil Armstrong… gets a time machine (which he can only use once) to travel into the future to get a better time machine to make him famous. Then the world blows up.

Note: if you get a time machine go back in time and destroy him!”

I have looked at this page in my notebook on many occasions, and indeed I was there when he was talking about this, and still I am baffled as to what it actually means. Any help that anyone can throw my way would be very gratefully received.

Words I Hate, Part 2

It’s March, and time Marches on. Let’s steal a March on it by looking at another Word I Hate.

Knickers

Many undergarments have ordinary-sounding names. Even something intentionally sexy, like a teddy (which is, of course, short for “teddington”) can have an unsexy name. But knickers? Nothing about it suggests something I want to get involved with. Nothing about it says “here is a thing that might attractively adorn a love interest”. It is even worse than “panties”, which frankly sound like a children’s name for pants and which should not be allowed in any romantic context ever.

Knickers starts with a deadly “kn” letter combination, a piece of linguistic showjumping that automatically takes the pleasure out of a word and gives it an ungainly appearance. And after that the rest of the word is all clacking c’s and k’s and a harsh sibilant ending. No smooth sounds here, no silky suggestions of a soft undergarment concealing the downstairs pleasure gardens of a lover or casual acquaintance. No. Just hard noises and an offputting spelling.

Knickers to it, I say.

Newsboost – Toaster Terror Trauma

The world was plunged into confusion and terror today as it was revealed that a growing number of toasters are using desperately violent measures to make themselves known following a decline in toasted-based breakfasts.

The growth in the “healthy breakfast revolution”, which has seen people more inclined than ever to sprint to work with some sort of energetic biscuit soiling their mouth, has pushed the standard staples of breakfast, such as cereal and toast, to one side and off the edge into the bin. There is such a large range of yoghurts and seed bars, and with 2014 containing less time than ten years ago people just don’t have the time to sit down and heat up bread anymore. The result has seen toasters become not only redundant but sad and a little bit cranky.

Toast hasn’t been this unpopular since 1959, in the year that saw bread publicly state that it, “hated everyone” and that “the world would be better off without humans”. Bread retracted this statement some days later but it had a lasting effect that wouldn’t see toast recover until some years later. At least back then you could argue that this was self-inflicted; the modern world hasn’t been particularly kind to toast. So much so that a large group of toasters has organised an attack in the West Midlands.

Toasters from in and around the Birmingham area have barricaded themselves in a local Wetherspoons and are threatening to singe the ears of several cats caught earlier this week unless their demands are met. So far these appear to simple: more toast, less not toast, more crumpets and bread buns and perhaps a waffle here and there. An official spokesperson for the toasters is yet to comment, although we would imagine that what he has to say would be indecipherable.

The local police have had to call in a specialised Toaster Sheriff, Sherilyn Lucas, to enter into talks with the toasters to smooth over the tension and hopefully come to a satisfying, or snackisfying, conclusion without the need for burnt kitty ears. Let’s hope that it’s less toast fur and more toast her for doing a sufficient job. Only time will tell if these puns are actually funny.

Frog and Kitty

Let’s unpack March and screw it together with this important ethical dilemma.

Frog and Kitty are clearly comfortable with their unorthodox relationship. But what’s the basis of this? Does Frog really think Kitty is delicious? Or is there something else going on, something deeper?

Words to Live by…

Recently my life was shaken to its very foundations and then rebuilt around a piece of prose so profound that I had to take a good hard look at myself in the reflection on the back of a spoon.

The reflection was quite distorted and upside-down but I think we can all agree that this is truly inspirational…

Finally, Equality at the Royal Mail

For too long, posting letters and other items has been the preserve of the heterosexual. Outdated Victorian rules dictated that homosexual post carried a dangerous residue and it was too risky to allow it into the postal system.

Of course, science disproved that many years ago, and now the Royal Mail are catching up. New Gay Postboxes are springing up everywhere, allowing people of all sexual preferences to enjoy the sending of items nationwide.

Obsoletus Redundantus Technologus

Obsolete technology.

There, I said it. Obsolete technology is everywhere. The human race is such a wasteful set of single-minded simpletons, desperately trying to find the newest innovation to make life that little bit easier. You wake up one morning and someone has invented a quicker way for you to put your socks on. By the afternoon they’re wafting around a gizmo that brings eggs to you at work when you scan your debit card on a moist towelette. At sometime after 7pm your phone has a larger memory than you do and is more likely to be offered a loan by your local bank than anyone at your office.

I do feel sorry for obsolete technology. It sits around charity shops feeling very sorry for itself. The amount of times I’ve walked past the British Heart Foundation only to see an array of VHS video tapes pressing themselves against the window, like wonky pets at an animal shelter, lusting to be taken home and played. And I really want to. My generation was brought up on 3.5 inch floppy disks and video rental shops. Sure they invented the compact disc in 1983 but nobody cared about it until the nineties. Pressing a VHS into a video player and having that hearty clunk sound before the screen screamed into whatever nonsense you have chosen to borrow for the evening was a great sensation. Now all you get is a silent hand giving you the finger as your I-pod breathlessly plays one of six hundred billion albums you have downloaded onto it.

There’s nothing wrong with modern technology. Indeed I wouldn’t be able to type this post without the Mac on my lap. What needs addressing though is thoughtful ways of discarding things that aren’t really necessary anymore. For instance, floppy discs. Sturdy little fellows that they are; couldn’t they be used as coasters? I mean the coaster industry, if there is one, could surely allow a little space for recycling. In the place of tiny cardboard circles depicting pictures of hamsters rolling tobacco you would have small, sexy squares. House building companies could erect sheds made of Betamax tapes. They could unreel all the unsold cassettes of Steps singles and use the tape as loft insulation. Who says you can’t buy your wife a bunch of Nokia 3310s instead of a bunch of flowers for her birthday? They’re just as pretty.

The present is often overlooked for the future. I say we must look to the past in order to create the future. The present demands it, and so do I.