¶ Opening Chat
- Summer is over and Mike was in his wellies that morning, tending to the autumnal hogs (covering them in an apricot reduction to baste until winter is upon us). A wave of wild hogs runs across Exeter to signal the start of autumn, preceded by the hog warning winds, as everyone in the UK knows. Listen for the hog fawn (bastardisation of fog horn), a half-pig/half-man, with the parts marbled throughout. One eye sees the world as a human, and one as a pig would see it.
- The hog fawn becomes the Archbishop of Exeter, a nod of course to the period of history containing the schism between Catholic and Protestant factions, which the Beans don't have time to get into. There's still a reward in Exeter for the capture of a papal bull or a Methodist gang leader.
- One of the hog fawn's legs is Spanish ham and the other is more Danish bacon (or an American salad). Canned ham is the biggest drink in America (very brackish).
- When the hogs run through Exeter, Mike is out grabbing. Today he grabbed a 300-lber. The gentry and a butcher's child can be equals on this one day, wrestling hogs, naked (just like the pigs) bar their wellies in the ham crucible. The great leveller.
- Every 7th year, look out for The Big Crow (not a comet), called Alison this year. She works in HR from home, putting on her ceremonial crow costume (but, to be clear, she is also actually a crow underneath it).
- Is the local river the Tamar or the Exe (named by Elon Musk)? The druids will check to see if a turd floats or sinks in it at spring tide.
- Tag the slugs at birth so can check if their prevailing movement is clockwise/anti-clockwise. Musk's satellite (Sluglight 3000) can spot this.
- The cheese roll can often take out a few hogs with concussion, while making ham and cheese sandwiches in mid-air.
- Capitalising on people being out and about by having a car boot sale. Ben hasn't been to one for 15 years. Are they still 'cash is king'? Need to get to one at 4:30am to get a mug with Princess Anne on and a VHS of The Abyss (the Princess Anne Cut) (feat. Princess Anne cutting oxygen pipes as if they're ribbons and doing high-pressure guffs that instantly give you the bends cos of the meat battenberg cakes she's been eating). David/James Cameron was a visionary.
- Princess Anne was cut out of so many 80s classics: Top Anne, Rain Anne, Dances With Anne, and Anne With Wolves (released at the same time). Ridley Scott's terrifying space horror: Anneian (or Alieanne) versus Predator Prince Andrew.
- David Cameron having The Abyss taken out of his hands as a 17-year-old gave him the passion to enact policies like Hug a Hoodie and The Big Society (a simpler time). A Cameron photoshoot in the early days of being seen to be 'green' involved being dragged around the Arctic by huskies. This was a sign that he planned to build a Husky Superhighway, starting in Svalbard. Vote Blue, Go Green.
- Ben's next-door neighbour just bought a husky, which will need 400 nautical miles of exercise each day, followed by destressing with 16 hours of intense howling. Huskies were popular when Game of Thrones was on, as the closest thing to a dire wolf. Everyone also bought Vietnamese Sean Bean-faced piglets when Sharpe was big. Sentient water sold huge off the back of The Abyss.
- Ben hasn't seen Dances With Wolves so Henry explains it as 'Grease, in the Outback' then Mike explains the actual plot. Costner is on the 'big moustache' side of the Civil War. Confederate? Union. Henry remembers that Costner shags the chieftan's daughter. He gets 'Costner's tab' on all his scripts – the tab shows the bit where he gets his end away. Mike remembers it as the first film he saw with an interval. Henry sees it as an example of a film that won loads of Oscars but no-one (except Mike) remembers. Another example: Argo. Die Hard (watched by Mike every Christmas) didn't bother the Academy. Or Elf. Or Have Yourself A Wayne Rooney Christmas.
- Wayne Rooney has a lovely soft voice that you wouldn't expect based on his football style (like a bollard covered in fairy dust), boiled face, or lovemaking habits. Henry considers Rooney a traitor because of his hair replacement therapy, and offers a curse to rain upon his house for 2,000 years. Henry tries to do an impression of his soft, ASMR voice but can't get the Scouse right (always sounds diminished or in death-throw mode). Mike is going to Liverpool the next day and will have to apologise. Rooney is now the Beans' competitor thanks to his new podcast on BBC Sounds.
¶ Topic Chat
- Ben's partner will often buy a kitchen gadget, which Ben will see as an encroachment on counter space as the one who does more cooking. Mike sees Ben's cooking style as 'first principles', i.e. blades and spoons.
- Mike used a microwaveable rice cooker just today. Ben also uses the same one (white plastic bowl with red lid) which makes him think about all the microplastics in it. Mike made some rice for Pam, who had a dicky tummy overnight. Dogs are currently evolving to eat rice.
- Henry bought an electric scale to weigh Bluebell (RIP). Mike wonders if Henry got on it too as he has to do with Pam (then deduct Pam or Mike's weight, whichever way works). Poor Pam sicked up some grass on the floor at 5:50am, Mike's alarm call. Did she Sydney Pollack the floor or Jackson Pollock it? Or Polanski? Mike thinks it was more smooth metal sculpture-like (not Jeff Koons) – Henry Moore!
- When Henry had to weigh Bluebell, he should have just used the luggage scales at Gatwick. He ended up buying a celebrity chef's scales, possibly Antony Worrall Thompson. He goes to show his kitchen scales (H: "Should I bring them over? Is it worth it?" / M: "Probably not."). There follows a lot of clanking noises mixed with Henry's giggling, like an over-acting Foley artist (fired on Day 1). Different Ken Loach-esque scenarios follow accompanied by kitchen scales-based Foley-style crashing and clanking.
- The scales Henry shows the others are the ones he needed a tiny nut for in DIY. They're retro, classic, mechanical scales. Kitchen gadgets go retro or go German clean lines Bosch (function, function, function) that take 4 hours to work out how to set the clock (but what a lovely way to spend a rainy Saturday, with the Princess Anne cut of Dances With Wolves on in the background).
- Henry wants to live the life that was promised to families by Eisenhower in the 50s: chunky design, pastel colours (or Stratocaster Red). It's Smeg fridges and Dualit toasters. Waffles for breakfast, dobbing in Commies before lunch, making a lambhead mousse to welcome your husband home from work, who's bringing one of the partners home from the office (are they Russian illegals?). The full Don Draper.
- National stereotyping around devices: Zanussi appliances are charming but a bit of a rogue, look great on a Vespa and will end up killing Henry in a revenge garotting, revolutionising independent cinema.
- Bluebell wouldn't get in the dish part of Henry's kitchen scales so he bought flat digi-scales, a whole other kitchen paradigm. The digi-scale set-up gives Henry the same level of panic as if you had hog-tied him and thrown him down a lift shaft. With only two metal buttons, everything needs to be set up and Henry hates it. He's an analogue guy.
- Mike imagines Ben getting big into the Internet of Things with everything operated from a digital throne. Ben clarifies that when his partner buys a new gadget and he initially complains about it, he then always realises she was right, it's the greatest machine ever.
- Henry likes to use a nice bit of QLQVCBMDLBCQNVVLDP13LDV (WD-40, with its little red straw). This is what worries him about the Musk space project: everything is touchscreen and will just show old embarrassing photos as he's hurtling into danger in space.
- Henry's set-up of the scales was a fucking absolute shit-fuck show which really fucks him off. Not like the mechancial scales, which only need a small screw from Rumpkin to sort out. Henry had to grapple with 'What is zero?'. Henry demonstrates the crank-twist technology on his mechancial scales that take 2 seconds to set to zero. Bluebell wouldn't even sit on the scale once it was set. What they've learned: you can't weigh a cat.
- The concept of zero is useful to philosophers, which Henry could have sold them had it not already been discussed by ancient Aramaic civilisations (or something) like a Sumarian fisherman. Henry asks for an edit point here, while he looks up who actually discovered zero and relays what he finds out in great detail.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
- Isaac from Putney refutes Mike's claims about the optics problem of people from Putney outlined in Noodles: a gilet and rugby top wearing, entitled, posh stag do type who speaks loudly but makes no good points. Isaac says they are more diverse: twatty estate agents all the way to evil investment bankers.
- A deep seam of emails on the topic of sexy cartoon animals advertising food establishments after Ben's sexy German fox with human boobs from SparrowsEyes and the pizza shop bear in Noodles.
- This image comes from Elizabeth: it shows a horrible chicken temptress from Lewisham plus double entendre on the 'jerk'. Ben is interested in getting Henry's take on how the tail feathers 'interact' with the human buttocks. Mike is troubled by the fact that the chicken may be sexy, but she's also about to go in a deep-fat fryer. Similarly sinister is Mr Porky's pork scratchings where the pig is the butcher. Did the chicken dress/act this way to try to get out of being jerked? Mike tries to give his take on the 'mask-like' face but Henry reminds him that the illustrator should lead on this. Henry explains the thinking behind the way the tail comes through the bikini bottoms. Something for the dads, which Henry can tell has worked as he sees from Mike's shoulder movements that he's screenshotted the image so that he's got something to look at in the interval of Dances With Wolves. Henry sees a fleshy protuberance, Ben sees frillyness in the pants, Mike sees a fleshy bridge (if you will) from pant to tail feather.
- From Nairea (sp?) from Korea, this chicken is more successful as an illustration. She is naked and pouting, which is hard with a beak. She has crossed her cloaca suggestively. She has a classy, old Hollywood vibe, casting the previous chicken in a very rough light.
- Mountain sends in an extraordinary example of a tatoo from an anonymous body part that makes Mike's jaw drop. The photorealistic fish (bass? trout?) is extremely distressed, with unsupported, idealised human boobs hanging off its chin. Ben is disturbed that this one isn't cartoony like the others; they're shooting for realism. A haunting image because of the state of abject despair of the fish and the movement of the fish vs the stillness of the boobs (they should be flying hither and thither). Henry wonders if this is the insignia of an angler gang member (crossover with Hell's Angels).
- Lyra emails to pass on her condolences at the passing of Bluebell and will be giving Natty, her own cat, extra treats in her memory.
- Bea has set up a Just Giving page for Bluebell's memory with the proceeds going to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.
- Tom passes on his condolences and still thinks of her shagging an eight-eyed arachnoform (in titanic) which we assume is now dead. We should acknowledge her complicated past, e.g. how she murdered over 500 moths.
¶ Jingles
- Bean Machine (22:12)
- Pam (24:44)
- Bluebell (25:13)
- Emails (41:52)
- Patreon (56:42)
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
- A lovely Christmassy feeling at the Annual Autumn Nativity (51 patrons)
¶ Listener Theme Tune
- Harold from a cabin in the woods on the southern coast of Finland is a music librarian for the Danish Symphony Orchestra and thinks the Bean Theme scans well onto Jupiter from Holst's Planets. He has sent this along with the score. Triumphant!
¶ Notable Quotes
- It's human ears, human nose, pig's eyes and mindset.
- Ham Salad: Ice Blast!
- If you get a debit card out, you get punched to the ground at a car boot sale.
- It's either that or we eat Princess Anne, and she's so bloated on meat battenberg, I dread to think what her offal will taste like.
- Costner always gets his end away.
- Imagine a tic tac but the size of a human, with a red face.
- You can make your own mortar and pestle out of a blade and a spoon if you try hard enough. Or a skull and a fist.
- It's a Ken Loach film. It's not bloody Looney Tunes!
- You had to set the zero level. Don't give me that amount of power! I don't want the power of a god! I just want to weigh a cat.
- She's essentially offering the farmer a different form of jerk.
- You don't ruffle the feathers of an illustrator mid-monologue.
- Are you ready for another chicken?