- Ben met a gangster yesterday - he has a sore throat (this is nothing to do with the gangster). He was in the big Waterstones on Piccadilly, which is where gangsters hang out (it's the only Waterstones with a cock-fighting ice rink).
- Piccadilly is a magical (if you're Henry) and crap (if you're Ben) place. Highlights include a huge advert for Sanyo, a Sports Direct, "London's least interesting statue" Eros (actually a gangster, real name "2 foot Archie Peterson"), and a two storey Boots where you have to cut your own floss from a roll.
- Paddington Underground has a biltong concession. Henry is the kind of person who buys biltong Underground - he is using it as a replacement for crisps and is taking part in "the protein revolution". Henry describes the size of a packet of crisps using a description of a deceased rat, squashed in a Breville. When you open biltong on the tube everyone knows, you get the "meat feast guff" ("Argentinian steakhouse guff" or the "Boxing Day guff"). It's a guff all generations can enjoy, rich in nostalgia, dewy eyes (or rather bloodshot eyes), you need to wear your rose-tinted goggles. It could quell civil unrest. Henry discusses eating biltong in a lift, because he was always eating crisps when going between A and B, it's his emotional crotch (sic). With biltong it's literally an emotional (goat) crotch that you're eating.
- Ben had his first jerky, from Lidl, last week. They were on the aisles near the tills, usually for mints / gum / treats / items "engorged" in chocolate in Marks and Spencer. In M&S they have treats dotted around the store, and by the tills, the aisle of temptation. Here they have things you didn't even think could be covered in chocolate (like Andrew Lloyd Webber's fingernails enrobed in salted caramel dark light milk chocolate). You have to keep moving because if you dawdle marshmallow will get piped up your arse.
- Ben found the jerky foul, like it was made of the last bits of meat. Legally, it can't be fed to hogs, but if a middle-aged man in Cardiff chooses to put it into their body that's legally sound. He was chewing on one bit (the Willy Wonka infini-jerky) for so long he felt nauseous. He was driving so spat it out into his hand and drove home with it in his hand. Ben needs to work on his "cowboy gut", sharpen his teeth. He could regurgitate it into the mouths of his young (strengthens them as a hunting pack). Mike is a big fan of biltong, he brought back a huge bag of biltong strips from Namibia for his father who was "like a pig in the proverbial".
- Back to London. Other entrance of Waterstones is from Jermyn Street, high-end clothing shops and "the world centre for oleaginous service". It's "extraordinarily obsequious" service from the staff who are either young or very old men (not sure what happens to those in the middle, maybe they are out in the battlefield), and who are masters of passive aggression. Ben went in one where both he and the staff knew he couldn't afford anything. In the back room there was this young man, like a little 18th century prince, wearing little velvet shoes and reclining on a chaise lounge. Ben may have seen the real King, but it was probably Daniel Radcliffe, and it was Rupert Grint (stinking of jerky) being pass agg to him.
- Ben was sitting in the cafe in Waterstones (due to close in 90 minutes but the machine was off), editing an episode of Three Bean Salad. He heard a bloke say "what, have they got you on CCTV? Aaahhh shit. Don't worry i'll sort it". Somebody is now presumably dead. Ben involuntarily looked at him, and possibly looked like the worst surveillance officer known to man, bugging him in plain sight. This could be the start of Ben's rise to the top of the mob - he could be in the back room of a shop in Jermyn Street being sewn into velvet.
- What pasta shape would the Beans be if they were anthrapomorphised into pasta for the latest Pixar mega-smash, "The Pasta Banter Boys"? It's a working title, like "Where is that little fishy fucker?" (Finding Nemo) and "Revenge of the Mega Pussy" (The Lion King). Are the Beans deciding which pasta shape they are physically or emotionally? Mike worries he would be a dry lasagne sheet.
- "Today on Three Bean FM we're talking what's your favourite pasta?". Penne is a quotidian pasta, in the cupboards but not the favourite. Mike is a recent convert to orzo - good for scattering on the floor if being chased by the mafia, and for being in a sausagey stew as a "spongy bulker" (that's what mafioso means).
- Discussion about donkey meat. When Ben was on holiday in Sicily he was staying next to a horse and donkey meat butchers. What is a mule? They can have sex but cannot reproduce (like Mick Jagger in his late 60s pomp), but no protection against equine herpes. The butcher would have a daily live price on a board outside. Henry does a terrible Italian accent and worries about stereotyping. Mike points out that Henry keeps worrying but still does it. Henry thinks that by saying he's worried he can "have his donkey meat and eat it". How do you value a donkey?
- Back to favourite pastas - Henry likes the shells as the sauce sticks in them. As a child he liked farfalle. Mike asks if gnocchi is a pasta and is put in the sin bin, not allowed to talk for 60 seconds, and he is released into the feral bull arena. On rejoining Mike has a choice - he can be contrite or he could be the bad boy - he chooses the latter, saying "something about egg noodles" and is back in the sin bin. Henry queries if they really need Mike.
- Henry has recently got into orichiette, which "gently cups" the sauce. Knowing the phrase al dente was only impressive in 1982.
- The day before the record, Ben went to an Uzbek restaurant. He didn't invite Henry (he did consider it) as he thought that they'd spent a lot of time together recently and that Henry would have had enough of him but feel obliged to come. Henry would have chosen kindness, as he respects old fashioned values like loyalty and duty. As Ben was on his own, the waiter kept talking to him (he needed fanjambo) and then asked him to play the banjo to him. Was the waiter Henry Paker in disguise? Ben declined, but could have got his meal for free.
- Back (again) to "what's your favourite pasta?". Henry - shells, Mike - orzo (a dick move), Ben - "big daddy" tagliatelle (aka "fat spaghetti").
- Hannah emails in saying that quorn is not a mushroom, it is a cultivated mould. It leaves her a sobbing, hallucinating fountain of vomit and diarrhoea because of a quorn allergy. Hannah might not be able to get into the bunker or the Three Bean spaceship.
- Tom in Worcester emails about the West Midlands Safari Park, where he used to work. At the end of a shift he had to close the enclosures that separated the animals (not worried about escape or consumption, just "interspecies lovemaking"). He slipped down a cattle grid and got stuck. Eventually he was freed by a maintenance man called Bruce and some lubricant used in the artificial insemination of elephants. Henry gets confused about the usage of lube and elephant semen.
- Daniel introduces the Beans to mettigel, a raw pork German party food. It looks like a hedgehog in a sauna with pickles for feet, with terror in its eyes.
- A person (who works for an insurance company) had previously emailed in saying they had seen a claim from someone who crashed their car whilst listening to Three Bean Salad. They have an update. At first the provider tried not to pay out, but this was overruled by a judge (the Bean magistrate?).
- 03.55 - Henry's Beefcake Journey
- 22.25 - Bean Machine
- 41.21 - Emails
- 53.08 - Patreon
- No bollockings this week.
- "it has this meaty generosity to it"
- "I just found it like an emotional crotch"
- "and if you dawdle for a moment you yourself are going to have marshmallow piped up your arse"
- "they could smell the Lidl biltong on you"
- "well turn it on then!"
- "where is that little fishy fucker?"
- "Barbara in Stanwick is saying I prefer rice"
- "you marry penne but you shag conchiglie"
- "Herpes by Herpes - the new fragrance"
- "Oh no the donkey markets have gone crazy!"
- "Mike is excluded from the banter for the next 60 seconds"
- "I'm being gored, I'm being gored! Aaarggh the goring!!!"
- "And sometimes they have al dente pasta al fresco"
- "I wasn't even as good as no-one?!"
- "Play for me!"
- "I've got spoons"
- "is that a horn on your face or are you just glad to see me?"
- "first will be brute force, second will be brute force plus vaseline"
- "they're using lube, not semen"
- "We're coming for you Tokyo!" "And we've got a man on the inside"
- "How Many Wasabi Peas Can You Carry" night
- Nick, currently in Japan (what work is he doing over there? Was he caught on CCTV?), has sent in a recording of a tune played on the metro train. Ben wonders how easy it is to sue somebody in Japan.