- Mike (and Pam) found a squashed rat on the road, conferring city status upon Exeter. If the unter-bishop declares it a small beaver, Exeter will be reversed back to a village. International businesses such as Omnibank and United Biscuits will start HQing themselves in Exeter.
- Exeter's annual spring rat invasion. But who squashed it? Tyre or mallet?
- Rats sport a 'day after the Christmas party' look. Unkempt. Mice are more combed. The Beans would have been sad if it were a squashed mouse.
- The Illustrator's View: rat/mouse difference is all in the snout length and unkemptness. A rat could only get up the display pen outside Ryman's HQ. A rat's nose girth is key to the space it can fit into. A collapsable skeleton, much like grannies collapsing a trestle table who end up inside a Thermos. Make sure you check if there's a granny in there before pouring in the hot tea!
- A rat coming up through a toilet is a heinous thing Henry saw on the internet. Like Satan's party popper or Beelzebub's jack-in-the-box. Henry wonders why that person was video diarising their toilet opening.
- Ben watched a video compilation of truck near-misses. Why are they being filmed? The dashcam element/elephant in the room. Mike doesn't dashcam as he doesn't want to document when he's responsible. Sidling away on a dashcam looks worse.
- The ethics of CCTV was a big 90s talking point. The UK was top of the CCTV pops. Anti ID cards though but fine with being filmed at all times. ID cards ruined your French exchange kid's life ("the haunted look on Jean-Michel's face"). Henry wants to push a button and have universal CCTV: ratcam, Eggcam, Pamcam, Bonjocam... – Henry has nothing to hide (except Thursday 3–7:30).
- What about if you're trying to garrotte a supergrass/member of Supergrass (e.g. Bascon McGinty/Harry Bascombe/Gaz Coombes – same energy)?
- U2's silly names have clear memorability. Flea is the only memorable bassist. Henry doesn't know who Flea is and has to comfort himself with an "I'm having good times with my friends" safe-place song when Ben and Mike are incredulous at his Red Hot Chili Pepper (Pacesetters?) slander ("not a proper band" and "certainly no Steve Forbert"). Henry has had two (2!) messages of support about Steve Forbert (possibly from Steve Forbert).
- Being the drummer in U2 is the cheat code: as rich as Croesus but nobody knows who you are. Might as well be Jeremy Hunt (also mentioned in language last week) who loads of people have something bad to say about (but not Henry).
- Those who saw the Beans' live show in Bath will have seen the John Major book on the stage (along with "Chekhov's seagull"). This is a reference to Patreon episode crabsmajor which had not come out yet at the time of the Bath shows. The book was a jumping-off point for "joie de mots" and skits. It has been bothering Ben that the audience thought it was perfectly normal for the Beans to have such a book as part of their fabulous stage set.
- Discussion of whether the Beans do Pompidous any more (they've been locked in the Pompidou Centre for years and so no longer see it). It's "absolutely fascinating" to look behind the curtains in a curtain shop. Andrew from Devon sent a Pompidou jingle six months ago that sounds like the Patreon jingle with bits of the Pompidou jingle and "Pompidou" said in a weird way over the top. Like tapping your mum on the shoulder, she turns around and has the face of a horse.
- Another Pompidou jingle from James (a technical death metal version (ed: this one was played already in the haircuts episode)).
- Another Pompidou version from Mica that reminds Henry of tapping his mum on the shoulder, she turns around and has Henry's face and dances with him (maybe he feels safe, but then they start kissing).
- Another Pompidou version from Jo/Joe in Marple that could be the music from Antiques World (the first global antiques programme) or an Oscar ceremony (where the Oscar for best Three Bean Salad podcast goes to Shagged, Married, Annoyed).
- Henry lives by the authoritarian slogan "If you haven't done anything wrong, there's nothing to fear (genuinely though)". He doesn't care if we know he's done three dumps today.
- Animals that have "long snout, unkempt" versions of themselves, their dark shadows, their Wario version: horse/donkey, frog/toad, mouse/rat, dog/wolf (then werewolf, then Tory MP – snip out cos Major is their paymaster), bee/wasp, butterfly/moth, snake/eel (or vice versa), rabbit/hare (but are they both neutral? No cos a hare is folk horror and likes a punch-up). Is crab on its own? No: hand has crab.
- George from Stockport (the Cherbourg of the north) has sent in The Renaissance.
- Henry claims to know "shitloads" about it. Does he? No. He was leaning hard into the anti-truth. But he did watch an antiques-based TV show last night.
- The Death of Linear TV is part of The Digital Renaissance.
- Ben's broadband was recently renegotiated (the Merry Dance, which he hates because it turns him into Professor David Starkey) and TV is now something they pay you for (a mega, 250-channel package). Dr Henry Pakerheimer explains that the reason this is no longer exciting is that we live in a vertical TV landscape.
- One channel that only plays Come Dine With Me (streaming for people who can't work out streaming). A bit like the TV channels (e.g. Bravo for Men) Mike gets at the Novophallus hotel, that urban Henry hasn't seen because he thinks it's okay to be sensitive and hug. The 250 channels for free if you buy fast broadband = going to buy a car in 1925 and being offered 250 horses.
- Ben reads the DigiRenaissance channels you can get, which he can watch one of each day till he dies during the hit Henry has booked for him for the autumn (children kicking their way through the golden leaves/Ben's corpse until the Wall's sausage van hauls him off). Channels include a load of +1 ones (completely irrelevant, there's just now), Gems TV (cultural gems like the David Jason back catalogue or selling semi-non-precious rings?). Gems TV ad voiced by Henry (with background muzak) selling Jason-inspired jewellery items. HGTV is not heavy goods. The Beans as a cultural bib. Henry likes the sound of Now 70s, Now 80s... The big list of channels makes Henry want to go out into a cabin in the mountains and watch that Now 90s channel. Channel for Mike: Discovery Shed – a channel aimed at provincial dads/borderline preppers.
- Henry watched an antiques show (not high-stakes Buckaroo with 7 grandfather clocks on a Shetland) the night before where he did quite want to find out what was inside a stately home. Henry focuses in on Ben to say how gorgeous the stately home was (divide and conquer method) and Mike to describe the gardens (Mike wouldn't appreciate the paintings on the stair). The posh bloke finds a painting that might be a Bandandi/Bandini, while wearing full corduroy (even in the gaps). While cleaning the painting, he discovers underneath an Athena poster of John McEnroe shouting an an umpire while wearing a tennis skirt and scratching his bottom.
- The painter was a Dutch master who painted heads much higher up than you'd expect. A dead trout might represent death, a clock might represent time – bad symbolism that wouldn't wash in an episode of Eastenders (Grant Mitchell holding a skull). Henry describes the painter's preferred stance: head a peach orb (apprentices could learn about the dancing of light), eyes of a dead horse, body as a series of lumps like children dressing as an old man to get into the cinema to see Total Recall – description is the Renaissance version of a selfie.
- Henry is lost for words because he has to plug his solo Illustratinator (a name that people struggle with) WIP shows, including a bonus Machynlleth show on 2-May. Ben explains the venue name to Henry (the gym of the school (not ladder)). Beans tour tickets still left and also new shows in Glasgow, Leeds (extra one) and London (extra one). It's going to be 'talked-about theatre' so make sure you have your bird of prey insurance for the Three Bean Salad Live Show Raven (Kevin) who loves biltong (so you should just bring cream puffs). Also tickets left for Ben's short film screening in Manchester.
- Byron emails about Henry's religion Pakerdonia, and the political movement Beaker Nationalism. He lets Henry know that the Beaker people were not the original British peoples (they came from the Continent). Henry talks of the schism in Pakerdonia re whether the Beaker people built Stonehenge. Beaker is a British word so that's a big clue. The Beakers would have been pro ID card/anti-CCTV, whereas Pakerdonians are for universal CCTV coverage. Stonehenge is shaped like a watchful eye, with a druid atop each stone looking outward, spreading their watch as far as the A303.
- Beth emails re her nascent crush on Henry being squashed after listening to 'Romeo's Tune' by Steve Forbert. Is she negging, or something next-level? Henry has been mentally pancaked, so better cover him in Nutella and roll him up. On relistening to Forbert, Henry is less convinced it's a good song, but more convinced he likes it.
- Mark thought he spotted Henry in Paris in the Gare de Nord so shouted 'Pompidou' but 'Henry' was an elderly, confused French man. Could have been one of Henry's body doubles. Henry is so flattened after these two emails that he may need to start again.
- Gleb (made up name in an effort to cheer Henry up?) disappointed by time spent on the Keir Starmer pub anecdote in hamsalad considering the Beans are a politically neutral podcast. A switcheroo and also satirical. Henry offers a wonderfully specific burn on Gleb's name being the first four letters of Belgium but the wrong way around.
- Pam (0:24, curtailed version)
- London (3:54)
- Pompidou version from Andrew in Devon (17:45)
- Pompidou technical death metal version from James (18:50)
- Pompidou version from Mica that Pompidous the Pompidou jingle (19:16)
- Pompidou Oscar ceremony/global antique show version from Jo/Joe in Marple (20:14)
- Bean Machine (23:08)
- Emails (47:02)
- Listener Bollocking of the Week (47:50)
- Bollocking Accepted (49:11)
- The Old Satire-aroo (57:02)
- Patreon (58:08)
- Johnny in Nice complains about Ben saying people weren't eating salad 50 years ago, and they were fine 'they won the war'. The Falklands War? The Cod War? Ben accepts the bollock and admits it's because in his head it's still 1995 (when his development arrested), when he and his classmates were given a mug to celebrate 50 years since VE day. Mike didn't get such a mug, despite being in school then, and a school that would have loved that sort of thing, but instead he got a string of bullets and a Gatling gun. Ben was primary/Mike was secondary, which explains the lack of mug. Mike would have cherished it and not let it be used for storing paintbrushes and then smashed on the floor. Henry has an RIP Diana tea towel signed by Prince Philip in 1996.
- Oh god, did I photocopy my cloaca and send it to the Taiwan branch?
- A rat can't get up a bloody pen, mate!
- I've seen rats the size of boys in this town.
- Always check your bonfire in case there's a hedgehog in it. Or a granny.
- You cannot sidle gracefully out of dashcam footage.
- I don't want to be the person to stoke a sleeping bull.
- Thanks for including me in the list of pets, Henry.
- Who's Flea??? Are you being serious?
- I don't even remember what that reference is. And I'm in it!
- An antiques guy but not in a cool, sexy, Lovejoy way.
- Mummy, mummy, we found an autumn corpse! I'm going to keep my conkers in his arsehole!
- Rendered in Australian opal, the words "You plonker, Rodney!".
- We are culturally being fed our own sick. Welcome to Three Bean Salad!
- Amnesty on Toffee Hammers (150 patrons)
- James from Manchester's country slide guitar theme with extra guitar info to annoy Henry.