¶ Opening Chat
- Ben and Mike have had wholesome weekends. Mike has been narrow boating in Oxfordshire; less stop-motion animated hedgehog and more 6 puffy-around-the-edges middle-aged men wedged into a narrowboat. The "6 slightly hungover dads" set was never made by Sylvanian Families. Hopefully no one will dredge up the boat and discover the skeleton of murdered Prince Jeremy of Lichtenstein.
- Prince Jeremy must stay on the safe canal routes because, as a pretender to the throne, he would have to be pelted with onions should he go on land. The worry is the risk of an exponential onion off. The great onion is of course the foundational myth of Pakadonia.
- The view from the narrowboat was poorly maintained hedgerows (Mike was like a confined lab rat), and in any clearings there was a pub (the equivalent of the rat's cocaine button). All of the pubs claimed to be the one where Morse was filmed. Kevin Whately manages to be in every pub - they needed lots of Whatelys for filming. Whatelys are of course a by product of attempts to make cultured pork.
- When Ben used to write for others, he would often suggest Kevin Whately (who never says yes, hard to get all the Whatelys to agree). After this conversation, Ben will never be able to work with Kevin Whately (he could go swimming with him though).
- Ben slept overnight at Shepton Mallet prison - Britain's most haunted prison - with Sammy Dobson. Others there were wanting to hunt ghosts with their own equipment, like boxes with LED lights on. Miele hoovers do have a "ghost" setting and a poltergeist attachment.
- The ghost hunter was telling Ben that ghosts emit an electromagnetic field - this science talk gives it validity. He also had lots of cat toys that light up when movement is present. Sometimes they would move and the ghost hunter would command the ghost to "move it again", no real manners which Mike thinks if he was 450 years old he would be cheesed off by. If you were 450 years old and cursed to roam the Earth as a ghost, you wouldn't be knocking cat balls around in a prison you'd be sneaking into Phantom, Abba Voyage or Bjorn from Abba's arse.
- Henry has read that Shepton Mallet was burnt to the ground, and it's actually a Premier Inn with some temporary signage.
- There was a toilet there without plumbing, and this is where Mike and Ben's weekends are similar. If wholesome is without plumbing, then Henry had the most debauched weekend ever.
- Ben then went to an owl sanctuary - which sounds wholesome but maybe he had any owl threesome. Was the owl sanctuary plumbed? Ben saw a Steppe eagle ("a big boy", "the size of a 9 year old", could pick up a horse).
- Ben tried to rotate the step eagle's head 360 degrees (by keeping eye contact and stalking around it?) which it didn't like.
- Henry gets lots of bird content on social media. Mike went to a swannery to see cygnets not long ago. Most of the swans would ignore you, but occasionally there would be a menacing swan on a walkway, daring you to walk past (has a royal charter to peck through your torso). Henry is imagining swan pods like the film Alien. The swan mother is a hugely grotesque, slug-like being, with the face of Kevin Whately.
¶ Topic Chat
- London is a town of dreams, nightmares and Itsus.
- Moths are "the devil's butterfly". Mega-moths, with mascara brush antenna, are preferable to tiny moths that disintegrate into powder (as if they are conjured from the dust by dark magic). Moths are made of death - you cannot kill death but you can hoover it or wipe it with a damp cloth.
- Ben lived in a flat in London that was structurally mostly moths. This is the London way, living amongst plagues of insects/ foxes/ unemployed actors. There were also cluster flies that hibernated in the chimney breast and all came out on one day.
- Henry was in a menswear boutique recently and there was a bee "the size of a bread bin". It got stuck by the window and everyone had to try and guide it out with man bags, ties and garters.
- When Ben lived in the moth flat, he didn't try diatomaceous earth or Ichneumon wasps.
- Diatomaceous earth is difficult to say. Ben describes this as a rock of fossils that if a moth touches it all the moisture from it's body is gone. Shame you've had to smash up a T-rex femur in the process. One T-rex per moth is doable. Henry wonders if Ben was sold this by a man also selling anti-ghost cat toys.
- Ichneumon wasps are tiny wasps you put into carpet (moths aren't interested in tiny clothes). Is this solving one problem and creating another? Your clothes are hole free, but your head has now become a mobile wasp's nest.
- Ben has found a website to buy the Ichneumon wasps. They are tiny, parasitic wasps (start with your selling points) that are invisible to the human eye and safe for humans and pets. It sounds a bit "Emperor's New Clothes" for Henry.
- Henry has been living in a new build recently and not had a problem with insects. In older properties they are in the fibre of the building; they are the estate agent, they are the Marquess of Stoke Newington who technically owns the property on paper, one of your kids will just be a collection of moths ("Mothelina"). Recently though he has started to see moths and has had to put his jumpers back into plastic bags.
- Ben knows how this happened. At Machynlleth Comedy Festival Henry had bought a jumper from a shop in Birmingham and told Ben the shop was "rank with moths". Henry hadn't prepared for the weather in mid-Wales in May, so had to buy an "emergency jumper". There was the "moth Olympics" going on on the cardigans. Henry wondered if he should tell the (pleasant) shop owner. Henry likens the dilemma to when he went scuba diving and saw a sea snake swim through the legs of the instructor - he told the instructor who reacted badly to it. Henry gives another example of telling a baker there is a turd on his croissants. Not sure how the sea snake anecdote links to the moth-infested cardigan one. The difference is the diving instructor cannot do anything about it, plus he thought they were making a joke about his penis ("it had swum off?").
- Like you cannot unread the Necroniconicon (sic), you can't unsee the moth Olympics.
- Henry had also considered sending the shop keeper an anonymous postcard with a moth pinned on it, or a jack in the box full of wasps.
- When Ben and Mike are killed in a horrible Hyundai i10 accident, what would Henry say? He would say it was weird that he sourced the car and didn't take a lift with them.
- Subsequently, Henry has been to another shop where the same thing happened. Maybe he is carrying the moths - they tumbled out of his cuffs like footballers coming out of the tunnel for a match. Henry is moth ground zero ("moth Mary").
- If you would like to buy wasps so small you cannot see them visit www.threebeansaladshop.com. Seriously though, new merch is available at the shop with a provincial dad theme. Mike features heavily in the artwork for this. Henry models a Three Bean Salad cap (difficult to find on the website, has Ben made it easier to find them yet?). Henry has been wearing his cap around town and it is riddled with moths.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
- Fabio emails in. He recalls a story of an elderly neighbour visiting an optician. Fabio has put too many sizes in the story for Henry to follow. The optician told his neighbour if he could see the moon he could see. The story sounds like bollocks ("a Fabiorication"). Detour as Henry can't get the concept that opticians may be of different sizes. Henry once drew a character that was too tall to fit on TV - he shrunk the character and it meant their eyes were too small. If you shrink a town down, would the opticians stay the same size? Henry has another detour questioning who owns the sky (less poetic when you mention British airspace).
- Lots of emails about forest schools. William emails in. He went on a forest school weekend with his mum. At the start of the buffet style meal there was a bowl of lukewarm, filthy water in for people to wash their hands, which may have come from a hose from a leechate pond. There was an outbreak of sickness, and on spotting a local GP at the campsite William's mother told him to leave him alone as he was on holiday and couldn't help anyway. William shat himself on the journey home. Henry remembers the smell of pig swill when visiting farms as a child, which was so bad it became good again.
- Lots of emails following Ben claiming he could smash Geography GCSE. He is up for doing a past paper and getting it marked by a geography teacher listener. Henry is up for a competitive element - Mike is absolutely not up for this and looks "so tired" by the idea.
¶ Jingles
- 1.22 - Regal Zone
- 4.02 - Pakadonia
- 11.24 - Satire
- 17.01 - The Flighted Bird Zone
- 22.11 - Bean Machine
- 44.26 - Emails
- 45.25 - Listener Bollocking of the week
- 46.00 - Bollocking Accepted
- 48.41 - A View From The Illustrator's Chair
- 1.01.22 - Patreon
- 1.05.46 - Joe's Jazz Trio version of the theme tune
¶ Bollockings
- A crisp bollocking from Si in Tyneside - Rockalina is not a tortoise, she is a box turtle. Henry accepts this bollock, he sees all shelled creatures as tortoises.
¶ Notable Quotes
- "Big tax rebate on your Whatelys as well"
- "I want an aqua oven and I want it soon"
- "What's wrong with a good old fashioned inner city brothel trip?"
- "We've parked in the beak!"
- "You cannot kill death"
- "Yes, you can hoover death"
- "How many parasitic wasps do I need?"
- "We're going to have to buy an Ichneumon Hyundai"
- "Do I need to send this man a box of wasps?"
- "Can I say darling tonight your eyes remind me of British airspace"
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
- Gut Bacteria Q and A
¶ Listener Theme Tune
- Joe has sent in a jazz trio version.