¶ Opening Chat
- Mike and Ben were talking teenage music before Henry joined the call. It's all about Survivor, Toto and Aerosmith now.
- Toto with the 70s name songs: Pamela, Rosanna. Are babies named Barbara anymore? Everyone has an Auntie Babs (it's de rigueur).
- Mike asks the listeners to report if they have access to the youngest Babs, like the last white rhinos with the Kalashnikov-wielding guard. Are the rhinos made in a lab?
- Rhinoplasty is so called because rhino horns grow perfect noses, thence to be sent to Courtney Cox for her wall (press the nose to save your life at a terrifying dinner party of death, similar to It's A Knockout). She has collected them from conquests, interns and fans. Mike apologises to the fans who have sent noses to the Beans, which they haven't yet sorted through. Currently being kept in Mike's larder.
- Youngest Babs to be protected could be a Barbara or a Barabbas.
- Henry imagines a novel entitled The BABZ Complex where they realise in the story that the BABZ Complex was literally Barbara Dickson, resulting in a 'we needn't have bothered' ending.
- Barbara, like banana, has a music to it. Henry sings his 'Barbara, I love you' song.
- Names take off after someone big in the culture has that name – e.g. Jude after the Euros – but who was the original Barbara? Was it Barbara of Anjou? Henry sings the Barbara song now with a fondue element. Barbara of Anjou tries to stab Henry with fondue forks after he makes his Anjou-génue joke.
- Barbaras and fondues are associated with one another because of The Good Life and Tom and Barbara. Chez Babs has the latest fondue set for entertaining. Is Barbara a de novo 20th century creation?
- Did Barbaras sack Rome? History was not written by Barbaras. Mike has a revelation: The Barbararians!
¶ Topic Chat
- Come On Down! It's a very Barbara topic.
- Prizes on old gameshows were more exciting: white goods and big leisure items. Have to drive the jetskis back to Derby and make sure you have insured them, then sell your prizes in Loot.
- Holiday prizes don't need to be good because it's before the review culture, apart from on Blind Date, when you'd hear back from the chosen couple. Barbara and Bob's cruise berth is above the engine room so they can get stoking. Or is the shovel given to them by Russ Abbot so that they can dig their own grave (at sea)?
- More sense economically to employ Russ Abbot to kill Bob and Barbara, get the jet ski back and give it to the next couple. He is completely amoral, which is better than immoral in this situation. A perverse incentive is created in the pre-regulation age of gameshows.
- Who Wants To Be A Millionaire changed everything cos they had the balls to put Chris Tarrant on a stool.
- The Millionaire quiz machine in pubs in the 90s/00s allowed you to freeze Tarrant's face in a range from smug to really smug.
- Tarrant replaced with Clarkson as they're so similar: middle-aged, right-wing, has a huge garden. Noel Edmonds has his own space programme.
- Who would be the Beans' 'Phone A Friend's? Ben would pick Tom or Gareth Gwynn but wouldn't listen to them because you have to live and die by your own sword. Mike would pick Matt, a quiz-maestro who is intelligent AND analytical.
- Ben's Beef and Dairy Network podcast was at the centre of a quizzing scandal involving AI. No human would think of it. It's very obscure but not very very obscure (Ben worked hard to knock off the first 'very') unlike OwlFuckerz. This guy was the Lance Armstrong of international quizzing but wasn't married (turns out they were just engaged) to the Sheryl Crow of international quizzing. Henry is confused by whether they were or weren't and that's why no one is calling him to be their Phone A Friend.
- Two big calls you get in life: jury duty/MI6 (also Sheryl Crow asking if you're single) and Call A Friend. Henry wonders how it works: is a professor sitting with them in the pre-Google days? Ben knows how it works because Osman explained it on The Rest is Entertainment. Doesn't involve laser cheese-wire and bits of your face slicing off if you move. Just a producer in a car outside your house.
- Ask The Audience is useless so now it's Ask Clarkson (bizarre). He splits the winnings with the production staff. That was actually a thing in Paul Ross's No Win, No Fee. Based on Win Beadle's Money. Beadles About moment with the alien prank was his best prank (better than the thousands of toads). Always involved taking off a false beard to reveal his true beard. Absolute minimum setup for the alien prank in someone's garden. The alien turned out to be Jeremy Irons: Beadle had himself been Beadled.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
- Tom and his wife had their first baby but it had no onion birthmark. The Beans suggest he name the baby Barbara. Not every child can be a Holy Onion Child. Perhaps this baby will be a Parsnip Child?
¶ Jingles
11:50 – Barbara, I Love You
13:10 – Bean Machine
35:35 – Emails
37:33 – Ubiquibollock
43:35 – Reflecto-bollock
44:05 – Bollocking Accepted
46:29 – Patreon
¶ Bollockings
- Ben proposes a new category: The Ubiquibollock (over 20 of the same bollock, a Zeitgbollock, like a bollock humming in the background that you only notice when it turns off).
- Henry said eggs only come in boxes of 6 or 12 (in Eggs) but a trillion emails have said you can buy them in 10s. Henry uses the Base 12 system (Babylonian Cubits). It's an AI hand that is affixing the feathers to a clod of shit in every seventh box.
- One bollocking on the egg topic came from The Policeman (Henry does a bit of satire about there pretty soon will only be one policeman in this country) who is amazed the Beans didn't talk about the US legal requirement to sell eggs washed vs. the UK requirement to sell them unwashed (hence the shitty feather). Henry doesn't see the point in washing, because it's only the inside that matters, like a banana.
- Henry rejects the ubiquibollock, going against the tide like Jesus, Marie Curie and James Joyce (publishers rejected Ulysses just like readers have). He insists you can't have a box of 10 eggs. He has a drawing to prove it (see Patreon content for the video of said drawing), and has also drawn Stephen Mulhern and a strawberry that shows they have the stack built in. He has drawn an 'egg sidecar' for the 10th egg. Ben invites Henry to imagine two rows of five but Henry declines the invitation. Reflecto-bollock!
- Miles the Cartographer bollocks Mike about Kaliningrad, which is not an enclave but a semi-exclave. David also bollocks Mike about this and gives an explanation for enclave vs exclave. Mike accepts the bollocking.
¶ Notable Quotes
- Courtney Cox and her wall of noses.
- It's actually my first time in Anjou. I made a little joke earlier that I'm a bit of an Anjou-génue.
- Of course, the sacking of Rome by the Barbaras!
- As soon as it comes off the presentation plinth, it loses 50% in value.
- Get stoking!
- That's not blood, it's punch!
- Bob laughed several of his teeth off.
- Being able to retain facts is just being a huge bucket.
- He's the Lance Armstrong of international quizzing, and I killed him.
- What am I talking about? Stop asking questions and then asking the question again!
- Will you be my Call A Friend... just in general... do you want to be a friend that I can call sometimes?
- He [Beadle] was the original prankster, if we're not counting Loki and Odin.
- Have you lost confidence in your bollock?
- Are you trying to show us that it's mathematically impossible to have box of ten eggs?
- Henry, I'm just inviting you to imagine two rows of five.
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
- Free Soil Night (20 patrons)
¶ Listener Theme Tune
- John from Bristol has sent a cordless drill version (with full spec listed for the Provincial Dads).