¶ Opening Chat
Henry's microphone used for KFC gig - "Hello kids, I'm the Colonel!" - not 'mega-massive', just a springboard. Contract doesn't allow for any besmirchment of chicken in general.
Chicken-leather one of the useful products. Mike's chicken-leather driving gloves with talons for gearstick purchase. Ben bought some chicken-leather trousers. Mike washed his chaps and ruined them. Chicken leather is alive but not sentient. Forty chickens to make 1 pair of chicken-leather trousers. Live chicken molecules will reject/clash/peck your dick off/go nuts if fox goes by - bust some fresh moves while wearing them. Mike has no fly on his chicken-leather trousers; he's got the chicken-leather braces with beak clasps at the waist. Ben has the classic chicken-head fly. Henry notes they are an investment piece for life. Mike's great-grandfather wore his as a Catholic missionary in Sub-Saharan Africa – breathability really helped. Chicken-leather trousers work for any eventuality. Dress them up or down. Devon's 14 million chicken hatching event just happened (only happens once every 17 years). Mike invites HP down for the next one. Mike got 4 pints of virgin leather to make into a piano case. Chicken diggers disgust the Beans; the leather's too gelatinous! Event launched by Lord Mayor of Cullompton (honorary role, currently Bruno Mars). Henry's chicken-leather wallet (coins dispensed via beak), only has 20,000 crows. Mike got a chicken-leather watch strap for his 40th birthday.
¶ Topic Chat
Anna is wondering how Ben makes his jingles... Is he a multi-instrumentalist like Phil Collins? List of Collins-played instruments in album liner notes. OG Collins only employs other people called Phil Collins. Big drop-off in Phil Collinses after age 35 because of 'big brass clanker balls' needed to name your kid Phil if you're Mr & Mrs Collins. Susan Morrison on keyboards under peer-pressure to get a 'nom de Phil Collins' for the album.
Prince as a dog and horse name.
Horses can't run because they don't have two legs. Henry defines what a run is (Eadweard Muybridge invoked). Illustrator bants down the Soho illustrator bars (e.g. The Pen and Graph Paper). Illustrator drawing technique insights from Henry, e.g. smoke to cover details in a fight/to cover the Queen taking a shit (need to show crown round her ankles so it's clear what she's doing while royal bowman launches an arrow once the shit is complete). Modern accountancy comes from the idea that when the monarch takes a shit someone is killed (one in / one out system).
What instruments do the Beans play? Henry worries that Mike's guitar talk would be "an absolutely boring-as-fuck guitar wormhole". Mike and Ben both played violin as small children. Miserable/moved to tears violin teacher; 10,000 hours needed to make an acceptable violin note. Suzuki method of learning from back of a motorcycle, repeatedly dropping bow, getting mashed by a truck, but off the bike, playing is a piece of piss.
Disco Beethoven's 5th is Henry's favourite. Mike's miserable piano teacher wouldn't let 8-year-old Mike go for a piss – had to piss down a clarinet according to Ben.
Henry decided to learn flute at age 8 or 9 because of popularity of James Galway – 'Annie's Song' was his mega-hit during the year everyone wore his t-shirts and followed him in a van to Galwaystock while flute-administered hashish caused many deaths. Henry still has the flute; can't just throw it away... Need to throw it into a volcano.
Famous flautists? Jethro Tull? Can't sing while playing but could operate a PowerPoint with your toes. Lizzo busts out flute solos during gigs.
Grades crush a child's will (Ben included). Henry thinks grades-equivalent system in sport is awful (competitiveness). Ben clattered by heavy accountant during 5-a-side session with Henry's friends in "mega-balls zone of male rage"/"testosterone arena". Ben not made for that world; instead made for gentle place (badminton?). Shuttlecock ripped apart if it falls in the football zone. Henry thinks he could have been an amazing drummer and demonstrates for the other Beans. Passing drum scout (Phil Collins) might invite Henry to be a new Phil Collins while driving Phil Collins to his home on the island of Phil Collins.
Bean Emergency Pompidou – catastrophic emergency calm voice on spaceship – Beans are in Quadrant 4 where blancmange creature from a different dimension is chewing the wires. Mike's face is melting off, Henry is vapourised, Ben is shrunk to an ice-cube size. Beans explain that they were having "electric" chat but Ben's recorder had turned off so only Mike/Henry accompaniment remains. Generic Ben could be added in ("Oooh"/"For God's sake, nooo"/"This is such a great conversation"/"Henry, what great insight"/"Mike, I don't think that's right"). Henry/Mike orchestra chat follows with Ben interjections ending in Henry/Mike mouth-musical moment. Ben's role is to laugh at the other Beans according to Sperbs anyway... Mike wonders if Sperbs has been in Ben's flat, unattended, disguised as fridge-fixing person... Perhaps he sabotaged BP's equipment?
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
Sammy Roussef (during main chat) wonders if Sperbs is Tony Blair because he does like to stick his oar in and he invited the Gallaghers and Silvio Berlusconi around.
Tom invites the Beans to imagine a scenario: monolith in Regent's Park, Henry gets co-ordinates burned into his mind, Beans blast off to co-ordinates, nothing there, come back, quarantine for 21 days. The Beans berate monolith. Front of it drops off, revealing Sperbs portrait, shirtless, flipping the double-bird. It's "the film that Kubrik didn't dare make". More like a Mike Leigh film "devastatingly real". When the Beans look upon Sperbs, he will have the Beans' faces as a composite
Cal has a sleep bastard in their life. Sleeps like he's strapped to a Catherine Wheel/a thrasher (Henry has a gap in his knowledge, he can't remember firework names).
Ethan listens to podcast while trying to get to sleep; "the voice of three middle-aged men fills the hole inside". Ethan slept through a fire alarm while listening to the podcast. Henry asks for story to be repeated; he was hungry and missed it. Mike had to edit out Henry's mutterings "so tired and so hungry" as well as chewing noises. Firefighters were the thing that made Ethan realise his house was on fire.
Emma remembers her dad shouting "17" in his sleep – formative age – Ben sings Edge of Seventeen. Henry thinks 'seventeen' is the easiest word to do in a New Zealand/Australian accent. Henry cast in a detective drama, telling DCI Dingo how many bodies are in the warehouse: "seven-fricken-teen" – every line in the drama would have to be framed as a question to which the answer is 17 – every TV detective has to have a hook.
¶ Jingles
- 31:21 - Bean Emergency
¶ Notable Quotes
- "My chicken leather driving gloves always turn heads, I find, on the A303"
- "Just look up! Look up! Get off your screens and look up, look at a chicken!"
- "If anyone could find musical Phil Collinses, Phil Collins could"
- "'Run' is a bipedal forward accelerant motion which involves inverse penduluming of the arms and legs"
- "Modern accountancy comes from that idea, that when the monarch has a shit, a first-born child is killed.
- "The disco Beethoven’s 5th is the best fucking piece of music ever written.
- "You can’t just throw away a flute, you have to throw it into a volcano to release the music; the same volcano from which it was smelted.
- "This absolute mega-balls zone of just, male rage.
- "Poor Ben, Ben, he wasn’t made for that world. He was made for the gentle place… badminton.
- "Hi, I’m Phil Collins, and so are you.
- "'Emergency in quadrant four.' And everyone’s on fire and their faces are melting off"
- "We’ve got about 20 seconds left where we can continue to talk about Catherine Wheels before you completely reset back to normal, back to your factory settings"