Beanie record breakers and incredible art makers

With the news having been somewhat dominated of late by missing aeroplanes, the Ukraine crisis and various other doom and gloom items, it's quite easy to miss some of the lighter but no less important stories of the moment.

Last week for example, in the humble environs of Haddon Hall Baptist Church on Tower Bridge Road, comedian Rob Thomas broke the Guinness World Record for the number of baked beans eaten in three minutes with a cocktail stick.

Wearing a beanie hat for good luck, he set the new record at 159 beans eaten - just seven more than the previous record set in Jamaica some years ago, so it must have been a pretty nail-biting thing to watch. But did we hear anything about it in the main news, or even the local news? Not a sausage. It was only by chance I found out about it, and I just knew you'd all be very excited to hear the news too. Here's a video of the feat.

And, while we're on the subject of beans...here's an amazing timelapse video of artist Marcello Barenghi drawing an incredibly realistic tin of beans (and various other food and drink items).

So there you have it: two bean-related items of interest for the price of none - surely proof that it's not all doom and gloom, whatever the news night lead you to believe.

I-rish I'd had a bigger lunch

Ah,  St Patrick's Day -  a day on which, as tradition now dictates, people with little or no Irish heritage flock to their nearest watering hole and attempt to claim a free Guinness hat by consuming copious pints of the Emerald Isle's best known tipple.

I had no desire to join the throngs last Monday evening, instead opting to mark the occasion at home, with some traditional Irish fare. Or rather, a tin of Sainsbury's "basics" Irish Stew.

Jamaican' me hungry

Following on from the Winter Olympics, the Winter Paralympics are currently in full swing in Sochi. In a previous post I touched on some of the controversy surrounding the Games, but let’s cast all that aside for now. Both the Games have been hugely successful for Team GB with a record number of medals being won, but for me, even that pales into irrelevance. I will never be able to think about the Winter Olympics without the cinematic classic that is Cool Runnings coming to mind, charting the true-life trials and tribulations of the Jamaican bobsleigh team as they struggle to train, qualify and compete at their first Games in Calgary, 1988.

Partly in their honour (but mainly as I’d had the tins sitting in my cupboard  for ages) I decided it was time to try out that Jamaican classic, saltfish and ackees.