Literary Gold

I know what you’re both thinking and, no, it’s not another one of my much-loved, imitated and lauded best-selling novels. Calm down my precious fans, you haven’t missed a pre-order for another first edition that you can keep your families warm with over those long winter months. This is something completely different.

Prior to being hoisted back into clothes and into the general population by work, I was having yet another sort out in order to try and fit a large amount of THINGS into the same space they’ve been living in for six months now. This requires a meticulous amount of opening boxes, sighing loudly and then trying to squish something else into it in the hope that the top will still stay on once I’ve pushed a large rectangle into a tiny triangular slot. Most of the time it works. Soon I may have to invest in some more shelves and possibly some hammocks for the corners.

I unearthed yet another pile of gibberish, which is what I refer to anything I was scribbling in prior to this post. I have a lot of it, notebooks and notebooks of word guff hastily wangled around early attempts by post-modern hedonistic oober artist, Reuben. Sandwiched in-between my original lyrics for ’10 out of 10 out of 10 (out of 10 out of 10)’ and Reuben’s sketches for something called ‘Pirate Chicken and Son’ (spoiler: you don’t need pants to be cool), there was a couple of pages you may recognise:

It’s important for a number of reasons:

It features Chris’s disgusting scrodsack of change (or was it Kev’s?);
There are a number of facts including Marshall can sense mums with his crotch, that mushrooms come last and that I am an eager-maniac;
The original appearance of cult favourite Wexford and his cheese-polishing adventures;
The height chart to explain how tall Kevin is.

I would donate the entire thing to Chris’ archives but there some boring old Christmas lists and some other questionable songs I wrote that take up the majority of the book so it would be a fool’s errand. I may carefully rip the pages out and send them via special courier so that they reach you in one piece now that Steve “Steady on, now” Steveingtons has finally given up on his restraining order and let you back in your flat.

Episode 19: Kitchen Gadgets

In a podcast recorded at a point in time when we all clearly had pretty sore throats, we discuss the useless kitchen gadgets we all have in the back of that awkward corner cupboard.

The key points this month are:

Bacon
Nuts
Eggs
Kebabs
Eggs

A Tunnock’s tragedy

As you almost certainly know, last year I made the fatal error of joking to Ian that what I wanted for Christmas was a bucket of Tunnock’s Teacakes. For Christmas he got me a bucket of Tunnock’s Teacakes.

Despite eating a lot of Tunnock’s Teacakes – including, on more than one occasion, eating three of them as “breakfast dessert” – there were still some sitting in the bucket at the end of March.

At the end of March, of course, I was forced to abandon my usual residence on top of the exploding mattress emporium, and among the many belongings I left behind, I foolishly failed to cram a bucket of teacakes into my suitcase.

A couple of weeks ago my flatmate Steve “Stevey” Stevingtons was kind enough to fly overhead in a sort of psychedelic biplane and airdrop some of my belongings, including several t-shirts, a few bits of post that I would have been happy never to receive, and a bucket containing precisely five Tunnock’s Teacakes.

I ate one and I won’t be eating any more.

The passage of a further four months has caused them to deflate. Inside, the chocolate is now strange with white bits in it, and the marshmallow has turned sort of hard and chewy. The biscuit is virtually inedible.

The last four teacakes from that epic gift are now, as a result, in the bin. A sad end to a brilliant Christmas gift.

Happy Slick Voles Day!

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have woken up this morning, looked at your Pouring Beans Calendar 2020™, and been absolutely thrilled to see that today is Slick Voles Day.

Sometimes known as St. Vole’s Day (Scotland), Slick Vole Sunday (Australia and New Zealand), Voling Sunday (Canada) or even Slickvolesday Brought To You By CitiBank (USA and Argentina), this is the day when we join together to reflect upon and celebrate the life of St. Vole.

I’m sure you have your own plans to smother some voles in warm butter, so I don’t want to take up too much time when we should all really be with our loved voles, but I did want to take a moment to share with you my favourite Slick Voles Day Carol.

O Besainted Vole

O Besainted Vole
Thy dark eyes quick
And tail darting fa-ast
Hail to you, O Vole

Seek thee holy slickness
O Vole, slicken thine self
Slicken thy-y se-elf

From owl, hawk, falcon flee
From fox and racoon do go
With footness fleet and fur so slick
Evade coyote and bobcat

Seek thee holy slickness
O Vole, slicken thine self
Slicken thy-y se-elf

Of marten and bobcat do hide
Of snake and weasel take flight
In safe burrow revel in oils and butter
Slip thee from cat’s claw and lynx

Seek thee holy slickness
O Vole, slicken thine self
Slicken thy-y se-elf

Take thine golden teachings
Saint Vole, at the Lord’s right paw
Take thi-ine go-o-olden teachings
And slicken thine self

O Vole
O Vo-o-ole

Taking bets now

David Walliams has recently released his amazing new book ‘The World’s Worst Parents’ to probably universal acclaim. The world has stopped caring about his painful meanderings to try and become the new Roald Dahl and, I expect, given up. They’re letting him run through the wheat fields, spewing out chaff onto our shelves, without a care in the world. If they did still care then someone would have told him that books with titles such as ‘Bad Dad’, ‘Awful Auntie, ‘Slime’ and ‘Grandpa’s Great Escape’ need a re-think.

So now what next? What other depths could he plummet too literature-wise? I’ve seen keen and I can tell that you are all keen to get some red hot dough ray me monwa action on the go. I have been knocking heads with some bookies and we are happy to offer you the following odds on what could be the title of David Walliams next best-selling bogroll:

Drunkle Uncle – 5/1 – Luke can’t get along with his uncle Billy. He always turns up to his football games off his face and embarrasses himself. There is only one thing he can do and that’s take him to an AA meeting. Whilst there, uncle Billy meets an old friend who reminds him of a promise he made back during the Gulf War. It will mean travelling to the Middle-East where all sorts of adventures are going to happen.
Fuzzen Cousin – 10/1 – Harmony and Constance are cousins, and the absolute best of friends. Throughout their early teenage years they are inseparable, however one night Harmony wakes up and she has grown an unusual amount of pubic hair. Constance cannot believe the attention her cousin is now getting from all the boys at school. Something must be done and only the strongest of families, and friendships, will survive an adventure like this.
The Great Steamin’ Grandpa Adventure – 30/1 – Felicity found her grandpa oiling his plants in the back garden, another typical summer’s day. What she didn’t realise though is that this grandpa isn’t her grandpa, it’s a grandnah! He locks himself in his shed and refuses to come out. Grandpa doesn’t want to do anything ever again so Felicity must find a way to tempt him out and re-live all their wonderful memories together. Let’s hope that she can do so before the annual Coin Collector’s Ball needs their star attraction and key speaker.
Dead Shark – 3/1 – Robert finds a shark on the beach. It’s an ordinary dead shark with nothing exceptional about it… or is it? Now when Robert falls asleep he is taken to the magical dead shark dream realm where all your wishes can come true… or can they? Now he must try to work out what is real and what isn’t whilst holding back armies of clandestine crabs and soup knife prawns… or will he? How can Robert trust anything now that he knows a dead shark is never just a dead shark?

Scommuting

So, all the rules change. Your carefully ordered plan no longer works. You must adapt. You must find a new way. What do you do?

In my case, the rules meant that a half-hour walk had to be inserted into my commute to work. So I adapted in the only way I knew how, the only way that made sense to me.

I bought a scooter. I’m a scooter commuter!