¶ Opening Chat
- Ben deoderises the night before so he's ready to go first thing, with a can of Fosters and a hot dog (with accompanying range of mayonnaises) in front of Remains of the Day. Mike would be completely done by this point in the morning if he followed Ben's '12-hours before everyone else' routine.
- Ben's podcast on how to beat the system from behind comes out at midnight, accompanied by a display of clocks from around the world with tired looking cuckoos coming out arse first. Henry believes Ben is in the slipstream (like a wind grappling hook), but Ben corrects him: everyone else is in his slipstream, he's 12 hours ahead. Henry admits to not doing the work of Ben's podcast: the journals, colouring books and protein shakes.
- 'Lunge' is active, taking control of lunch, grinding protein shakes in the car, eating the calf meat of any animal within lunging distance. Henry ordered Ben's protein powder but the insects were untreated, course-grained, faces intact in the insect face garnish bag. Henry confused the actual protein shake material for a foot rub.
- Lunch is the hinge point of the day. The one 12 hours from that point is just when the spiders come in your mouth (not that you swallow them, but that they come in your mouth).
- Henry is looking tanned because he has been in the Global South, in Sri Lanka. He has gone from metropolitan to organic, like the darkest colour egg in the box, the one with the arse feather on it. Sri Lankar is the opposite of Zone 1. Henry encountered both elephants and monkeys. No Prets. Oppressive heat.
- Henry consulted Ben pre-trip for packing tips. Ben advised to go light (but not so light that he just packed Martin Amises, even though they are a form of spiritual clothing), whereas Mike is a pack-heavy guy. Henry's flight was Friday evening so he packed on Friday lunchtime. Ben proselytised the pack-light agenda and so Henry didn't pack enough underpants. Mike's equation is n+1 for underpants (n = number of nights away) or 2n+1 if in a hot country whereas Ben's is more like n/2 (hope you don't shit yourself, mate).
- Ben washes next week's pants while wearing them, masssaging fabric softener into his legs while visiting the Acropolis. Three pairs of pants taken even for an unlimited holiday, which is what Mike would take for an evening out. Henry thinks this is mathematical madness but is reminded you can wash things (Mike: but do you wash things?).
- Henry took 4 pairs of pants, so was constantly dealing with washing admin (he can't see Sigiriya with his companions, he's doing laundry; should have washed in the shower and hung up) and the monkeys could not be made to gambol to order to help. He didn't crack his 6 pairs of socks once. He was double panting daily (can't get back in the pants after a mid-aft shower). Henry wore 100% cotton pants but Ben advises a 'wick away' material, like merino wool. Mike wonders if woolen pants are to atone for sins. Henry wonders if that is why animals are 'dressed' in wool rather than cotton, which is a plant (is he the next David Attenborough?); Mike warns not to pull that thread.
- Henry in the shoe shop on the Friday afternoon trying to find shoes for a hot country that is also moist. Shop worker wasn't indifferent, just angry. She advised against boots because fungus could be in play. Mike was advised last year to buy desert boots with thick woollen socks so that the moisture could escape into the desert itself (the man who advised him is watching him now through a sniper-scope).
- The middle-aged footwear Henry bought look like something an Aquabeast would wear in a Marvel movie – a level of pracitcality with zero aesthetics, almost medical shoe vibes. Ben checks his texts for what he said about the shoes (remembering not to read the little bit of banter about Mike): Henry questions how they can be waterproof with massive holes ("a water shoe"), then Ben's hurtful comment was "mosquitoes will love your sockless ankles". Henry gives then 15 stars out of 5; he loves them. He looks awful but can jump in puddles with joie de vivre.
Henry's holiday shoes
¶ Topic Chat
- Vampires is a good autumnal topic.
- Vampires myth comes from the thick central European forests. Who is that louche man (the Romanian Ryan Gosling)? They're big-time sexy, but was Vlad the Impaler sexy (mostly defined by his impaling/papier mache work)?
- Made-up rules about vampires, e.g. can't eat a Provençal stew (too garlicy). Do you die if bitten, or become one of them (it's fiddly, a grey area)?
- Ben went to Whitby on holiday, but that's not the same as reading Bram Stoker's Dracula. He thought to read the book while there, but just went on his phone. Mike and Ben have been there but Henry hasn't. It leans into being creepy. Even the Greggs is a creepy Greggs. A goth magnet.
- Going on a ghost walk is a con. It's not a ghost train. Like a sasquatch bike ride or paddleboarding with the kraken. Bloke in a leather cape and top hat took 25 people around the creepy streets with facts learned from GoOoOoogle (yes, he is on the sex offenders register). Ben went in December when it had an eerie bleakness, whereas Mike went in the summer when it's a pretty seaside town.
- How does a town like Whitby make the winter work for them when they can no longer sell off-colour, overly sexual postcards? Skiing on the flat in a car park (good for the hospital when you get injured as it's just classic car park injuries)? Converting ice cream vans to gluhwein vans? Winter carol service in the ruined abbey called off because of driving rain, but being called off is built-in, as 25% of people won't claim a refund, and this drives the winter economy.
- Ben has been to a room in Turkey where Vlad the Impaler was imprisoned (might be bollocks, but Henry will not have Ben beat himself up about it, despite his callous comment about Henry's ankles and mosquitoes above (talking about bloodsucking beasts: the LibDems (has Ed Davie ever looked at a crucifix or been covered in garlic))). In the Francis Ford Mondeo film, Gary Oldman wears red armour in the Vlad phase.
- Henry has read Dracula; Mike has read Dracula; Ben's been to Whitby. Mostly about an English gentleman's anxiety about courting and what he's had for breakfast. Reading with modern eyes, you're just looking for the Deadpool angle.
- Henry asks if the others have done a yoga class (Mike has done a family yoga class). Awkward. A weird energy.
- Why doesn't Dracula just turn into a bat and post himself to Whitby in a jiffy bag? Should be down as 'livestock' but just put him down as a greetings card or a toy to avoid the customs bullshit, and put 'worth' down as less than 12 pounds, even though it's hurtful. Pop a couple of dead flies in for the journey in case he gets hungry, or perhaps a virgin's neck.
- Dracula hears the guy has a fit girlfriend and decides to crate himself to Whitby but he should just try the local bars, or a long weekend in Bucharest. Being able to hover is a great icebreaker. Perhaps Whitby was like Capri in those days? Perhaps he just wants to go somewhere there's no chance of any garlic in the cooking.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
- Ben doesn't want to criticise, but... too many AI jingles being sent (15 at a time). He will never play those and finds them horrifying, but Henry wants to future-proof this ep so distances himself from Ben's comments. Henry offers himself to be grand emperor of the bots and is also willing to have a sixth finger grafted on (he already has the full-utility shoes and 3D-printable scalp). If that future doesn't pan out though, he will pledge allegiance to the Habsburgs, with their one truth and one chromosome that can be seen with the naked eye. Can't be a musical genius sending the 15 theme versions cos the Beans already have that in Conor.
- Ben's other email complaint (cos he is the one picking them, not Henry (illusions: shattered)) is about the number of emails with photos of men with moustaches saying "Is this Mike?". He's seen 1,000 but only 4 or so look like Mike, including one sent during the hiatus, of the 80s squash champion Jonah Barrington (see pic below). Henry's analogy about high jumping explains why all the other moustache emails were priming the Beans for when the Barringtom email arrived: got to get past the Pringles tube man to fully enjoy Jonah.
- Rick emails regarding online dating. He recommended the Beans to a new date, who listened on a drive to Telford (so romantic) but it wasn't up her street. She dumped Rick in the end but the Beans reckon she was probably a Joe Rogan fan so he dodged a bullet. Telford does have the Ironbridge museum in its favour as well as being the administrative centre of Telford and Wrekin borough, which Henry knows from memory. To attract a mate, what podcast is the most neutral? Owlfuckerzz? The Ted Grubenheim Podcast (sells loads of diet supplements, interviews Obama, Grubenheiming your life by getting up at 4am, interviewing Benjamin Partridge about living in the slipstream, bio-hacking, buying powder)? Official Three Bean Salad powder comes from a factory in Kazakhstan and is made of talcum powder, chalk and food colouring. Just need Henry to design the packaging. Tim Ferriss (not Ted) was recommended to Henry on his yoga retreat by a Scottish yoga guy – all about outsourcing your work to developing countries for pennies (dreadful, e.g. dropshipping, unlike the Beans' shop, based on the Isle of Wight).
- Sad email from Aaron about Thug the pygmy hippo at London Zoo who has sadly passed (1996–2024), but his poo is in the zoo's current exhibition. He was born in May 1996, perhaps conceived at Oasis Knebworth by a full-size hippo and Oasis' smallest roadie. RIP Thug.
- Abusive greetings card email from Lloyd from Bremen who found a card that caught his eye: "Happy Birthday, Grandpa, You Ancient Sack of Shit!". Because that generation are no longer the Greatest, just Boomers, anything goes. Ben challenges the listeners to find a worse one.
The squash game cover referred to in the Emails section.
¶ Jingles
- Lewd Content (5:34)
- Bean Machine (21:40)
- Emails (39:58)
- Pompidou (44:27)
- Patreon (57:52)
¶ Notable Quotes
- You're going to beat the system from behind it.
- Reverse Your Life, with Benjamin Partridge.
- 'Lunge', that's what I call lunch. That's how vital I am.
- I think you were trying to make a shake out of the garnish bag.
- I'm a 'pack light' evangelist.
- ∞n/3×shityourselfnever
- It's very hard to get them to gambol to order.
- You can move people from indifference to anger, can't you Henry?
- Where does it wick it to, though? A little pouch?
- Am I in the slipstream of David Attenborough? Me and him should do lunge.
- Are you washing your bod in Ariel?
- Welcome to horrific middle-aged footwear: the people you've seen on trains and sniggered at.
- Are you saying a leather cape and a top hat don't go together?
- I hope that when I die, I'll be able to be folded into a lunchbox. I'll be that flexible.
- While you're down in Romanian Ryman's having a really complicated conversation, I've already flown halfway there.
- Three men half remember Dracula. Welcome!
- [vampire voice] I vhant to go to a place where I say 'gazpacho' and people will literally not know vhat I'm talking about.
- Habsburgs: one family, one truth, one Europe, under one blood-soaked flag.
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
- Ben plugs the Patreon as per, including Film Corner, and recs the film 'Hundreds of Beavers'. Mike saw it at Exeter Picturehouse in a full cinema with his family and loved it.
- Throw an External Hard Drive As Far As You Can (36 patrons)
¶ Listener Theme Tune
- S sends in a Johnny Cash-inspired version.