¶ Opening Chat
- Disappointing end to the saga of Mike's crumbling tooth introduced in ExtremeSports: an old crown needed replacing from a 'Woz versus wall' incident from childhood. Clarification given of the difference between 'wanged into' and 'ran into' vis-à-vis walls: it's an airborne component. It's possible Mike invented parkour as a child.
- The dentist made the repair using 'cement or something' but wasn't interested in Mike's dog poo bag of shattered bits, saliva and UHT milk that had been basting in his hot car. An alternative to this concoction would be to place a live cuttlefish in a bag (e.g. bag for life) with a shard of tooth and wait for it to lactate.
- Béchamel sauce is in the same ballpark as the world of teeth: both involve calcium and are rich and creamy. Mushroom soup also works to preserve a tooth, or the inside of a fish pie.
- Henry's dental hygienist is battering down his doors to get access to his gob. The process starts with a text that is put in the 'think about in 3 months' pile. Dental hygienists: a malevolent and cruel cabal of sadists.
- Ben's dentist suddently pivoted to 6-monthly check-ups after being yearly or even biennial (Mike knows this means every 2 years). He keeps saying 'no' to Invisalign. Henry mock tooth-shames Ben by comparing his teeth to a Brontë-esque gothic graveyard (or the Giant's Causeway).
- Henry is not slagging off the dental health community, irrespective of the words he's using.
- Crumbling, falling-apart teeth are how we can age people. Ben's dentist thought he must be grinding, but he was actually biting his nails. They should have offered him Plastinails to replace his bleeding stumps. Remember that Ben's nails, as a result of the Bean Machine's attachment, are more like hooves, made of the keratin in a rhino's horn, with Nosferatu length. The nails also emit a bison pheromone, making Ben attractive to bison when they are in heat (locks himself away once a year, stays away from Montana, able to collect and sell bison semen).
- Ornaments that bedeck the human form: teeth, nails, vestigial tail, protruding bones, hard dry skin around Henry's heels, Ben's pectoral fin, Mike's dick antler (dantler) shed each year during a fight with a stag at Christmas on Dartmoor (the resultant penis antler fondant pudding is eaten on New Year's Day).
- Getting tweakments is becoming more prevalent. Is Invisalign the first step on the journey to boobs for Ben? He doesn't need the dump-truck ass enhancement as he has that in the bag ready for his appearance as 'Cousin Bonjamin' on the Kardashians' TV series.
- Henry has looked into Invisalign for his front two teeth, he's booking two tickets to Istanbul (one for him, one for his grotesquely mis-shapen teeth) and he and his teeth will have a nice holiday with fresh tomatoes and dark olives. The no. of men with head bandages in Istanbul airport is quite noticeable: a mass concussion event?
- Middle-aged men are plied with ads for hair-loss treatments, but it's just pissing in the wind, or dribbling in the wind while emitting wind.
- Henry has done his research and he can fix his teeth himself with orange peel and pylon wires (remember your rubber boots). Because it's so expensive, perhaps an alternative would be to get a new event going at a Slovakian strongman competition where the strongmen prise them apart for free in a public park in Bratislava. Henry could be The Incredible Beaver Man.
- Ben's algorithm serves him fishermen gutting open giant squid and pulling fish from the inside. Look! Look! The comments accuse them of stuffing the fish in. Mike thinks this is soothsayers trying to tell Ben about impending disaster. Ben should not set sail for the Indes, nor set too much store by his asparagus harvest, nor trust/truss his goats. If out of the squid is pulled a baby wolf, we are in big trouble. Or is Ben the first unifying, aquatic Pope? Neptune's master, arise!
- Invisalign is a pain like having your head in a clamp, but the sort of pain you can 'get into'. Ben had a brace as a child and the tightening process felt compulsively painful. Henry's school friend, Roger Panko (of the breadcrumb family) was into Warhammer 4,000/40,000 and its rat-faced robots (deep sigh from Mike as he has no understanding of that sphere which is 'great stuff') but invited Henry for a sleepover 'too soon' (e.g. they only ate boiled onions for dinner). Henry didn't get into the maths/admin/multi-sided dice side of D&D. Henry was freaked out by Roger wearing his external metal brace headgear in the night. Roger had become a cyborg/junior Hannibal Lecter.
- Mike's trip to Germany in 3 sentences: subperb start. Outstanding middle. Complicated end with loss of luggage, hence Mike is wearing his old denim bikini. Mike and thousands of others got cyberpunked (cyberattacks in multiple airports). The airline tried to manage with Post-Its and pencils. Henry goes through the checks to make sure Mike did not miss the 'luggage carousel at Heathrow Terminal 5' stage. Mike hopes his trousers are having a lovely time somewhere he's never been. He might never see his black leather holdall again – a classy, Bond/assassin bag. Henry realises that the reason his luggage comes out sooner than everyone else's is because he was last to check in. He is also amazed by the amount of different types of bag: the diversity of life is so inspiring!
¶ Topic Chat
- Henry wonders if 'Lee in the Black Country' is just Ben wanting to talk about carveries. Ben's local carvery, where it's Sunday every day, offers 'unlimited' returns to the meat station. The St John Ambulance will throw you an onion ring if you drown in the gravy. Meat death = external protein causes the brain to think you are a pork chop.
- Henry had his first roast of the season that weekend, as he sees it as seasonal, but a true patriot would eat them in the summer. The people at Ben's carvery hate him because he's even in there on the hottest day of the year/throughout covid.
- Fetishisation of roasts goes with the fetishisation of autumn as a whole. It's not all pumpkin spice coffee and walks and jumpers in real life; it's sideways rain and wind. Henry is deeply unhappy because wind, the invisible bastard, is back. He suggests walling in the UK (purely in a weather sense) to make it the first indoor nation. Like Center Parcs, in a geodesic dome.
- Ben is away on tour during the unlimited meats deal at the carvery, so needs to get a 'patty patsy'/'meat page' to go in on his behalf and siphon off the gravy into envelopes. Can you Deliveroo a roast?
- The ceremony of a roast: squeezing the Oxo cube into the fizzy water, filling the bird's cavity with McCoy's crisps.
- The idea that UK food is bad stems from the UK during WWII dehydrating noodles while the US were mastering the bomb. The US GIs had to eat powdered egg in the UK whereas rationing wasn't so prevalent back home.
- French nickname 'les rosbifs' for Brits is weird because roast beef is lovely. Is it to do with overboiling veg? Boiled potatoes brings back prison for Henry. Institutional cooking. Mike will give a boiled potato next to a trout his full support.
- Cynical roasts as a monetisation of hygge as a moneymaker for pubs at the weekend. Roast tax was brought in by King John: 30% of what you pay for a roast goes into the campaign against the Burgundians.
- Some pubs do too fancy a roast so they can charge £27 and use the word 'jus' and have the beef too pink.
- Ben doesn't do a roast at home, not for two. Mike thinks of Ben as someone who does ornate meals and would be the one of the three Beans to do a mean roast, at which Henry looks furious because he's made Mike a roast every weekend for the past 15 years (he makes it then goes to wait in the bedroom while Mike eats it and leaves).
- A wee plug: Henry's one-man 'Hello Dolly' at the London Pallanium, in the sewers, but not the cool ones where Bane has his lair or the teenage mutant turtles live; it's a working sewer. The plug is actually for Icklewick FM on BBC Radio 4, which Henry appears in. The show is made by Amy Gledhill and Chris Cantrill and Ben was in an ep in the first season. So who will be in season 3? Henry again, probably.
- A second plug from Ben from his hotel room in Leeds, plugging the Beans' upcoming gig in Newcastle's Tyne Theatre.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
- A celebrity voice note from John Robins re Ben's mention of the citrus fruit the pomelo in the Australia ep. Ben has added music for dramatic effect. John is looking at a pith apocalypse. The whole fruit is protection (2-inch pith) so why the red netting? As in Franco Manca, there's a whole lot of shore before the sea. Two food waste caddies are filled with pith.
- The Beans' reactions to John's voice note include: shame (Ben), interest in the pronunciation of 'pomelo' (is it Alfred Molina/Mol-lu-na all over again?), the news that it can also be called a shaddock (Mike) which is the opposite sound to 'pomelo', the fact that bins can be called 'caddies' (Henry), the red netting presentation as a bit sexy (Henry). Ben did some digging and what he ate that Christmas morning wasn't a pomelo, it was a sweetie grapefruit (perhaps John should try it). Plug for Elis James and John Robins podcast.
- Ben has created a trailer to introduce the next email. It recaps Henry's unplumbed toilet story from the hiking ep. The Beans have had an email from Henry's old pal, the shitter. Subject: Culprit Impact Statement. He offers the wider cultural context. He offers the context of Henry behaving out of character because he had 'developed' a girlfriend. Breaking apart from the tight-knit group of lads. Bantered for having an avocado in his cupboard. The shitter says they are quits because Henry was his cat-sitter but locked himself out, resulting in the cat being fed by the neighbours over the fence. Rashomon-style, will we some day get the lover's story, or the janitor's, or the turd's? Perhaps this is what inspired Rory Stewart to walk across Iran.
¶ Jingles
- Bean Machine (27:11)
- Emails (42:45)
- Patreon (1:00:05)
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
- Bloodthirsty re-enactment of the Battle of the Nile (45 patrons).
¶ Listener Theme Tune
- Ben plays last week's theme again (Sheldon from Melbourne's doo wop version) because he's obsessed with it.
- Nicky has submitted a feedback-laden theme. Guitar feedback, not critique.
¶ Notable Quotes
- Travel béchamel sauce kits: Just add your own cuttlefish!
- You've always deliberately gone for the decrepit old tombstones in a ye olde gothic graveyard look, haven't you?
- But you wouldn't be able to notice if you couldn't see them, which you can.
- If you don't believe me, come to the car park where I'll gut a squid in front of you.
- I'm really sorry, I've got to go home early, I've had a shaddock. I'm going to miss the end of the play.
- [trailer man voice] This summer. Jesse Plemmons as the janitor. Chalamet as the turd. A de-aged Steve Buscemi as the eccentric dickhead.