The Face Update – Round Four

Hello and welcome back to my face.

It has been almost six years since the last update on my face and a lot has happened since then.

Actually, that’s a bit of a lie. Other than finding more grey hairs, more wrinkles and some weird lines appearing to the sides of my cheeks, it’s pretty much business as usual. My face keeps going on and on, and there’s not much you can do to stop it.

The photo I took isn’t great and I’ll have to apologise for the lack of fidelity; those lines keep appearing on all my photos, must be something to do with the lens. Let’s catch up with my face:

Original Eyes – due to the recent addition of the Orb, they’re now running double, sometimes triple time. The strain is much more visible and in order to stay awake, more coffee has been input which results in bigger pupils and the chance of accidentally smashing a plate has increased sevenfold.
Looking (tired) Eyes – even the original Eyes need to take a break every now and then. The LTEs are there to make me look dazed and confused.
Confused Eyes – when even the most simple of tasks is way beyond me, such as finding a pen that works or opening a door without hitting myself with it.
Inexplicably Happy Eyes – used for when the Orb gets to spend some time with grandma and grandpa. You look all weepy as though it’s so difficult to leave him behind and then whip out the IHEs when you’re reversing out of the driveway at 30mph.
Spare Eyes – when all the other Eyes have been ran into the ground, I’m going to need a pair to get me back to the eye hospital to get more installed. They only last 24hrs but they’re worth it. You gotta have a spare.

I haven’t really felt the need to add any new pairs in ages. The fluctuations in the market, along with the ever-increasing price of eyes, has forced me to rely on most of the same ones from 2020. I do feel sorry for the Original Eyes who every day shoulder such a huge strain for the rest of the face. If I can find the time, I’ll send them away to a fancy spa for the weekend for rest and recuperation.

Thankfully there hasn’t been much need for eyes other than your day-to-day activities. If I was asked to, I don’t know, start planning a party for Dua Lipa I’d have to refuse; I don’t have the eyes to spare, Dua, ask someone else.

Jeez. Every Tuesday.

Good boy

Have you been a good boy? There’s one sure-fire way to find out.

I’m sure you know this, but all we have to do is look underneath the priority seating in coach 4 of the 21.53 South Western Railway service from Guildford to Farnham.

Let’s have a look now.

Yes, there we are. So, have you been a good boy?

You have! Well done.

Can we be serious, please?

I need you to all listen to me very carefully when I say this. I am deadly serious.

I need you to understand that there is a time for nonsense and there is also a time for being serious. I am the most serious I’ve ever been without crossing that line and turning into Serious Ian again (nobody wants that).

If we’re to start this new year fresh then you’re all going to have to give me enough time to eat my oranges.

I don’t want to hear your excuses. I don’t want you running into my house with whatever gibberish you need to tell me; it can wait. I need to take some time to eat my oranges.

Whatever you need to tell me, put a pin it in and try me the next day. Whatever job needs doing, you’re going to have to give me some extra time to get it finished. I’ve got oranges to eat and I won’t let anyone get in my way.

There. I’ve said it. Don’t get upset because I’m telling everyone the same thing. My oranges come first.

2026 State of the Beans Address

Good evening, and… can you hear me? Sorry, I thought I was muted. Good evening, and thank you for joining me via this video link. I am currently inside the crater of an active volcano and therefore unable to join you in person, but I trust that the pub function room is comfortable and that the buffet of assorted crisps and corn-based snack foods are going down well.

My name is His Holy Eminence The Right Honourable Lieutenant Colonel Professor Lord Sir Elbert Louche, QC (Retired), KBE (Retired, Reinstated), KVCO. It is my great pleasure to have the honour of presenting this, the twelfth annual State of the Beans Address.

Guide to the Genus Melocaeruledus: The Cave Fladger

2025 is almost done, and what better way to wecome in 2026 than with another terrifying creature? Yes, youve guessed it, its fladger time again! This time we head underground in search of one of the most unique melocaeruledi, the Cave Fladger…

Cave Fladger

Scientific Name: Melocaeruledus troglolucens (troglo = of caves, lucens = glowing or shining)

Common Names: The Cave Fladger, Ghost Fladger, Damp Gimp Wasp

Habitat: Limestone caves, subterranean rivers.

Description: The pallid, almost glassy skin of the Cave Fladger reveals an intricate network of grey veins. It appears to glow when hit with torchlight. Its huge, sensitive ears allow audible nagivation, granting it almost silent flight in utter darkness. The Cave Fladger’s diet consists chiefly of beetles, moths, and blind cave shrimp

Behaviour: The Cave Fladger is mostly timid in nature, and will try its best to hide from humans who find thier nests. They have been known to work as a pack in defence of thier homes or young, emmitting a high pitched squeel, similar to that of a human baby, to gather support from others.

Notes: Legends claim their appearance can predict misfortune, though this may be attributed to startled cavers falling to their demise upon being greeted by a pack of screaming translucent gimp wasps.

Newsboost – New Year’s Chris

As the Chris DNA continues to run amok in all parts of the modern 21st century, it was left to experts to predict just how bad it would be at the end or the year and what monstrosities we would have to face during the festive season.

Big money was riding on a couple of obvious options: Chris spliced into a mecha Santa, Chris spliced into one or all of Santa’s reindeers, some kind of I don’t know Raymond Briggs snowman Chris hybrid with bells on, and the ultimate horror of horrors, Mariah Chris-tified Carey belting, ‘All I want for Chris-mas is shoes’.

It was egg on all of our collective faces though when people in the street started to look and point at a familiar landmark in London which seemed to be undergoing a transformation. Behold!

Big Ben was no more. Big Chris with his big man work ethic had muscled in and now the capital city was doomed.

Ding dong, merrily on high. It’s only a matter of time before he captures what he needs and moves onto much more serious buildings like MI5, Scotland Yard, the British Museum, that Subway in York that almost didn’t serve me because I was pretty drunk, and anything owned by Noel Edmonds.

2026 will have to start with a shriek and a scream. Happy New Year, everyone.

Nearly New Year’s Eve honour list

In typical fashion, there needed to one of these.

Ending a year comes with all kinds of lists. Best this, worst that, how much money did that lose etc. I am no different. I am the best and worst of me, and I personally lost a ton of money at the box office. Over seven hundred million at my last count. Atrocious.

There are so many people and THINGS to thank that there isn’t enough time in the day to get through them all. There’s barely enough time to write this between bottle feeds and nappy changes, so here’s a brief list of thanks to those that deserve it most:

Vikki – though the majority of this list will be played for “laughs”, a heartfelt moment if you please. I couldn’t have gotten through this year without my better half. She’s the only person I know daft enough to get pregnant, then fly halfway round the world to Florida so she couldn’t go on any of the rides at Disney World. A true stalwart if ever I saw one.
My shoulders – me, as a whole, does not deserve to be on this list. I was clumsy before and have only gotten worse in these last few months. The MVP though goes to my shoulders who have rocked a little orb to sleep on a daily basis, sometimes carrying him for up to an hour. The other limbs were helping but without the shoulders they would never have gotten this far. I will be forever grateful.
Ice Cube – if you havent yet watched the sensational piss fire that is Amazon’s ‘War of the worlds’ then I recommend you put down this website and head straight to a device that can stream it. The most bizarre adaptation of HG Wells you’ve ever seen, it’s two hours of watching a man (ye man, Ice Cube) flounder at a computer screen in an un-ironic fashion AND a fully fledged advertisement for Amazon itself. You have to see it to believe something so purely wank can exist.
Support bands – wandering the outer echelons of my mind whilst trying to rock a tiny orb to sleep, I drifted far off into the ‘I’ll do anything to stay awake right now’ category and came across support bands. The amount I must have seen back in my 20s and 30s must be lots (there are no concrete numbers here, people). Mostly unseen and unappreciated, not all of them went onto bigger and better things. Still, they’re usually there playing to 5 people like they’re on Wembley stadium and to that I salute you, support bands, and your continued enthusiasm.
The Prep Machine – we started off with a kettle (about 30 mins), then we moved to portable formula feed kit (used incorrectly 12 mins, used correctly 2 to 3 mins) and lastly settled on a prep machine. Though I was skeptical at first, especially considering the price, it has reduced making a safe bottle of milk for the lad to around 90 seconds. It is one of the most useful pieces of kit you can have with a newborn orb. Convenience is a luxury and I am glad we have it instead of being screamed at constantly until the food is ready. Bless you.

All of those that didn’t make the list, don’t feel bad. Try harder next time. Do better, yeah?

Thank you one and all.

On this day

As the year draws to a close, your Pouring Beans Calendar 2025 is running out of pages. Luckily another one is on the way, and everybody should have their copy ready for the New Year.

This is going to be the sixth consecutive year I’ve had to find just over 310 things that we have said, done, drawn or written to fill the pages of a calendar, meaning I’ve had to find 1565 things already. In my quest for content I thought I would try something new. So in 2026, you can expect a lot of the pages to reference things that have happened on that specific day in the past.

The “on this day” thing proved to be a great way of coming up with things to fill a calendar, but to make it happen I needed to find out what has happened on each day of the year. Obviously I could find old photos and look at the day and time they were taken, which got me a few. But I needed something bigger. I needed nostalgia on an industrial scale. I needed an “on this day” machine.

So I made one, and now you can play with it as well if you like. It’s in a secret location on the Beans server here.

Give it a day of the year and it will find everything that has ever happened on the Beans that day. Every post, every comment, from both New Beans and Old. It will then list them all with the year they happened, from most recent at the top to most elderly at the bottom, and it will give you links to see them in their original homes.

It was just meant to be a means to fill a calendar, but I found it hugely enjoyable and thought you might like to play with it too, so there you are. Enjoy.