¶ Opening Chat
- Henry's glasses have only one arm, deducted by Ben with Sherlock-style powers along with the events of Henry's day up to that point (a poem read by 3-armed Triple Michael in Regent's Park and a paddle steamer to Rangoon). Giveaway was his 'I love RG' T-shirt, which could be for Rangoon or Richard Gere Con.
- Some things you don't notice even though they're always there, e.g. which of Henry's friends wears glasses. Ben and Mike take it all in, like Sherlock and Dr Woz-son.
- Henry is a 'late arrival' to glasses (not on publicity photos nor the Bean logo) and is open to hair replacement surgery (which has made a previous edit, which Henry would know if he had listened to the edit).
- With hair and glasses, Henry might look like Richard Osman or a makeup student's first go in their first term, or AC Grayling (depending on budget). Osman has a 50s look (cos he's in his 50s), a retro diner face.
- Mike has never had an eye test (is it arrogance?) but is noticing reading is getting more difficult, so time for half-moons? or pince-nez? Mike's friend forced him to do an improvised eye test. Does the world look like a Turner painting to Mike? Ben and Henry are handsome in soft focus. Henry looks like the sun setting on the Mersey Sound and Ben like a flaming galleon off the coast of Lizard Point.
- Henry has a deep head, like HR Giger's design for the Alien xenomorph, leading to buying three rows of seats, advertising speedboats and people behind him in theatres getting £5 off for restricted view. A long, slick, oily head, like the moist, oily alien xenomorph. Henry does have the small mouth that comes out of his mouth when very cross/stressed, e.g. when watching the Alien films (terrifying for those in the cinema with him).
- Most glasses have a tiny hinge with a tiny screw requiring perfect vision (a massive Catch 22) but Henry's are Japanese design and have no hinge/screw.
- German design/engineering means trust levels soar. Italian design also looks good. Those three countries: the Axis Powers.
- Homes in Ben's new-build estate had the option to have a German kitchen with a sausage tap and ice sausage cubes.
- Ben enjoys 'made in the USA', i.e. belt buckles, saddles, jeeps. Robust and huge.
- Swiss has a similar thing (national stereotypes is not something the Beans don't mind doing, or isn't it?). German for hoovers (Henry), Italian for specs (Ben), Italian for cars (Henry likes a Fiat), Italian for an ornate zester/juicer (Ben). Japan can go with anything. Norwegian-designed chinos would make Henry click through, like a Danish rucksack.
- British design is like the British Shorthair cat or a Brompton: chunky. Bluebell can be folded up and taken around a supermarket (someone will have her if you leave her outside), which Henry can do in 45 seconds (while cutting his shins).
¶ Topic Chat
- Henry sees mushrooms as the food of the future. They can replace all meat. Is Quorn a kind of mushrooms? Can you gambol through a field of Quorn? No, you can only hover over it in a bodycopter, monitoring the Quorn fields, exterminating pests.
- Can mushroom technology power self-driving cars? It has an intelligence network (not the Stasi) under the very earth, gossiping or communicating with trees. Ben thinks this fact might be or might not be bollocks.
- Henry imagines making music from blowing into fungus. Fungus cannot be understood in biological terms as other plants. No cortex or pith. Like in a human leg: tubes travelling the information (flowers or ideas or pubes) around like you'd see if you cut a terrapin in half (when you'd get soaps of all kinds, from economy to high-end (not Boots)). Henry imagines the markup on soap is huge. Aesop is the fanciest soap shop, so named because of the fable of The Terrapin and The Axe-Wielding Whale (moral: moisturise your blowhole).
- Most natural things are like desnse, gamey tube pies that you must cut with the grain (see sides of tubes), not against (see circles).
- Ben asks Mike an anatomy question: after an operation on the guts, how do they know which order to put everything back in (like unboxing and reboxing)? Henry compares it to putting the Christmas lights back in the box (use the index finger to elbow system).
- Ben thinks 90% of the dirt he has eaten was borne by mushrooms. Caked in filth in the supermarket, but it's just natural, just swapped polarities in the human tube of mouth to arse.
- Henry made a salad at a barbecue yesterday and had to bargain over the dirt on the crevice of the green runner beans (another tube, like a jumper). Henry makes sure to let the others know he was invited to this barbecue and wasn't a confusing salad-making serial killer who kills victims by not washing the veg properly.
- Henry asked what the host's policy was on cleaning food and was told they do do it, which put him in a dilemma, solved by a mental bargain: (1) boiling in water; (2) in medieval times, everything was fine; and (3) he'll just personally steer clear of the beans.
- Henry offers up a question of which 3 mushroom dishes would the others choose, and Ben raises the stakes by saying they have to eat that dish for every meal for the rest of their life (Henry's Q wasn't interesting enough). (1) Japanese mushrooms, (2) German mushrooms, (3) Italian mushrooms. Mike chooses Italian for breakfast and heavy German lunch, followed by a nap and a light supper with Japanese mushrooms, but Henry then tells him 'Italian mushrooms' was a boiling hot bucket of tripe. Henry would choose (1) Japanese out of trust and (2) Italian because of the use of tomato & garlic and (3) German doesn't sound good to him but Ben chooses German mushrooms as no. 1 because of a creamy sauce.
- Dutch mushrooms might feature on Panorama. Sounds like a euphemism. Might lose a year on Dutch mushrooms, marrying a goat and also Bryan Ferry.
- Glasgow in front of anything sounds violent, e.g. a 'Glasgow smoothie'. The victim has to be taught to wink again.
- Ben was in the middle of Lidl and was disgusted by dog beds because it has dog in front of it, like 'dog breath', 'dog face', 'Dogtanian', 'dog's life'. Cat in front of something is a step up, like 'cat burglar', 'cat nap' or 'cat burger' (more expensive than a normal burger). 'Cat flap' is better than a 'dog flap', which sounds like something you need to clean on the end of a dog's penis with your dog flap mittens made of breathable rubber.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
- More emails about a single topic than ever before: Lois's email is read out of the many – a cassowary is born in Birdland in the Cotswolds. The picture is cute but like the xenomorph, it will be full grown from the chest burst in hours, taking out the staff of Birdland. Henry wonders why there aren't a series of films with cassowaries taking the usual shark/alien role, e.g. in a space station or bullet train to Hokkaido. Henry posits that they are the ultimate weapon but forgets they can't fly (that's the whole point) unless they board a Boeing 747. Passport control only realise later that they've waived through an army of plastique-laden cassowaries. Henry is shocked to hear they've been trying to breed the birds in captivity for 25 years (the ultimate hubris) and imagines the goggle-wearing snogging celebrations being interrupted by a full-grown cassowary snapping goggles underfoot as it enters the events room wearing the skin of Dr Peterson before moving to its feeding grounds in Cirencester. It may look cute, but that's how it has developed (along with 70s starlet stockings and retrograde attitudes) to fool you. Its pulse would be in Ovaltine mode, like it's reading a cosy crime novel or watching Midsomer Murders, while it kills you. It may have seen the first mushroom, but ate the baby panda instead in a stroganoff.
- Beth emails about a dream wherein Henry appears to talk Beth through the nonsensical rules of a far-left collective. Her dream app's AI function has interpreted the dream as saying Henry is a figure of kindness and support amidst chaos, a stabilising force. The Beans warn Beth she is in real trouble, and not to build her house on Henry (physically or metaphorically). Perhaps a new Patreon tier? The id tier? The stabilising force she should be using is Monty Don (+ dog for a bit of fun) or Mishal Husain or perhaps a couple of Grenadier Guards at the corners. Henry could be spatchcocked as a weather vane at the top of the metaphorical house, but would wear an expression of rictus terror.
- Ed had a complicated wisdom tooth extraction followed by three days in bed listening to the whole Three Bean Salad back catalogue. There follows a 'pain and suffering' switcheroo which Henry saw coming a mile off but this is an acceptable trope of the switcheroo oeuvre, albeit a ballsy move. The Beans would like to see a switcheroo that is not at their expense. Ben gives it an 8. Ed's badge is in the mail (or is it?).
¶ Jingles
- America (Reagan version) (14:28)
- Bluebell (18:36)
- Bean Machine (20:17)
- Digestive Tract Talk (30:35)
- Emails (38:14)
- Flightless Bird Zone (39:14)
- The Old Switcheroo (51:42)
- Patreon (53:38)
¶ Notable Quotes
- Oh my god, he's the goose that laid the golden head.
- In the original script for Alien, most of it is Ripley going around putting antimacassars on the back of seats.
- You trust your family in that dishwasher.
- 100% German parmesan, from the floodplains of Hessen.
- The Scandinavians understand toggles in a way that we don't.
- Made in Sheffield, by bastards.
- Fungus is a bit like BT Openreach.
- Most natural things are basically a tube pie.
- Sandra! For the love of god, don't turn on that switch!
- Their skin will grip the sod.
- Mummy, that salad-making man's come round again. / Sandra, get my shovel!
- Did a Dutch mushroom as a student and basically lost a year of my life.
- Mrs Wozniak, I'm afraid we've had to do a procedure known as the Glasgow Dog Flap.
- Where's Dr Enzo? It's pecked through Dr Enzo!
- Birdland, Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire: who knew that's where the End of Days begins.
- Wait a minute, the cassowary is wearing Dr Peterson's skin!
- A creature whose pulse will not raise a jot as it pulls your spleen out of your arse.
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
- A smelly one: the old Bathing in Hot Squid Ink Contest (45 patrons)
¶ Listener Theme Tune
- Kitty's earmare, a Three Bean Ice Cream Theme (creepy ice cream van tune) #MonkeysBlood #Rumpelstiltscream