- Pre-chat warning: do not listen with children. Too spicy. Scenes of amorous congress with a Minotaur warning.
- Pre pressing record, all three Beans had not a thought in their heads. Seeing too much of each other because of the tour.
- Mike has bought a mattock. Not related to a shaddock (non-consumable). If it's not a fruit, what is left out of all things: veg, the animal kingdom, medicinal roots, astronomical phenomena, wind patterns, dead religions, concepts, other podcasts, rucksacks, wicker products, beeswax-related products, a kind of donkey milk...
- The last thing Ben bought for himself was a bar of donkey milk soap. The tour has allowed the Beans to see each others' self-care regimes, including Ben encasing himself in a beeswax cocoon which he breaks out of pre-show, then lathers up with the milk soap of an ungulate.
- Henry is mentally writing the memoirs of their tour, which is already at several volumes. They went to the Yorkshire Moors... on the way to the place that sells donkey milk soap (Castleton in the Peak District, home of Peveril Castle). Henry describing the sign outside of the gift shop sets off Pam barking: "Ask us about our famous Donkey Milk Soap".
- Ben launched himself at the gift shop like a bolt from the crossbow they saw at Leeds Armouries Museum 2 days before. He barged 2 old ladies out of the way and would have cut through a troupe of clickety-clackety cyclists like a scythe. He marched straight up to the metaphorical grill/grille of the salesperson (Henry is exaggerating for comic effect) but noted that it wasn't obvious where the donkey milk soap was, to make you look at the other wares. Supermarkets will often do similar, pumping the smell of donkey udders from their massive papier mâché set of udders that point the way to the premium items. Donkey pheromones are used to subliminally guide shoppers around.
- Ben bought the soap as a gift then ran the maths on it: who is this appropriate for? What's the messaging? Need to explain what it is, then it's just simpler to lather them yourself. Ben will self-lather, but hasn't done so yet. Perhaps he will be hairless everywhere the bar touches. Or the opposite (thick donkey weft all over).
- If Henry got a hamper of donkey milk soap for Christmas, it would be hard to say whether that said "super luxury": would you need permission from the King? Ass's-milk bathing (not asps), Cleopatra-style. What is an ass and how does it relate to a donkey? Transgressive: an adorable donkey foal may be going thirsty for the sake of Ben's armpits.
- Equally, it could be that donkey milk soap is the cheapest soap of all time because donkeys are constantly pissing out rancid milk.
- Where is the emphasis? Is it donkey-milk soap (as opposed to cat-milk soap or wolf-milk soap) or (donkey milk) soap?
- Could Pam be milked? It would be a struggle as she has been spayed, so might involve some kind of hormonal treatment that Mike will not be putting her through. Sign would read: "Please don't ask us about our infamous Dog Milk Soap".
- Is a mattock related to one of the little U-shaped carpets that go around the base of a toilet? The ones that are designed to absorb piss? No younger listener will have heard of this 'pedestal mat'. Is a mattock like that but on top of the toilet?
- Ben guesses 'tool' and is correct. Is it for removing the footwell of a car? It is the tool most useful for that of the tools Mike has. An element of smashing and wood going on. It does not harvest olives from any tree nor does it kill a sparrow mid-air. It is double-bladed, sir, at 90 degrees. You could make scrambled eggs while still in the nest. It isn't for checking if there's a tortoise in your tree trunk. Mike could use it to harvest tree rubber to save money on tyres. It is for mashing roots!
- Mike gets the mattock and demonstrates putting it together ("Careful, Mike!"). It's a pickaxe's brutal cousin, like what an old prospector might use in the Gold Rush. A tool for hewing and for prying of tree stumps. Hew and pry.
- "Wayne", the 70s horror film, would have Mike wielding the mattock on the poster. Perfect for taking someone's head off or taking to a PTA meeting when your child gets bad grades.
- Mike is clearing the very bay tree he fell off in thenetherlands episode nearly a year ago. He will have his revenge.
- Henry is looking at pictures of mattock catastrophes online, e.g. the coachload of pensioners on a day out to buy donkey milk soap – on their way back their coach was super-lubricated while being mattocked and is still crashing. A perma-crash.
- The pictures say to Henry that the mattock is pre-Enlightenment, a simpler, more violent time. No safety features: no scabbard, no emergency key. From a numbers-game era: you had five sons when you only wanted two. Mike will only wear a pair of shades as PPE (for when chips are a-flyin') or just to look cool.
- Henry received an email during the break and exclaimed "Oh my god!". The algorithm (or is it "my algorithm"?) threw up something that proves it was listening to them talking about the taboo of milking: a review of a book called "Morning Glory Milking Farm" by CM Nascosta, a monster romance erotica novel. The main character is Violet, mid-20s, burdened by student debt, might have to live with her parents... this is Henry in his mid-30s.
- Violet is offered a job, which "seems like a normal job" – a tip-off that it isn't a normal job. If the boss, Harold Blimpton seems like he isn't a crypto-zoological horror then it might be he is, e.g. if he seems like he has hooves (but if he has hooves, it's fine). Ben might answer "It would behoove me to do so" (to siphon off his milk for soap) at a job interview with such a hooved ungulate. Discussion of whether a horse is an ungulate (Henry has seen an ad for a book entitled "My Ungulate Lover").
- Ben quotes Morphological Work's (a name Henry doesn't trust) list of animals related to one another. Turns out horses are ungulates.
- The catch in Violet's job offer is that the clientele are all Minotaurs. Editor's note: Do you think these difficult locals could be Minotaurs? No, we've already designed the front cover.
- Nice to hear there's a community of Minotaurs when before we may have thought he was The Minotaur (a one-off) with no chance to mingle, let alone breed. Discussion of King Minos, Knossos, Zeus, swans, Thesus, Icarus, Daedalus... Was the labyrinth built to tire people out so that they spent more at the cafe and gift shop? The paradox of the pencil with a sharpener on the top.
- Henry wonders if it's a satire about Gen Z being worse off than their parents, but Ben reassures him it's just an erotic book about people who want to jack off a Minotaur. Mike wonders what the message is: don't get a job cos if you do, it might be with a Wanky Dinosaur. Or Minotaur. Mike's kids book The Wanky Dinosaur is being self-published and distributed by popping it under people's doors (guerilla marketing).
- Violet's job is to collect the Minotaur semen for pharmaceutical purposes. Is this an exposé of the donkey soap industry? It is a satire!
- She ends up developing feelings for a particularly stern, deep-voiced Minotaur. All a bit Beauty and the Beast/Heathcliff. Minotaurs mostly have squeaky, high voices: "Hiyyaaaa!". Strange they're wearing black trousers in the semen-milking area. Some light linen might be better.
- Male monsters, no matter how grotesque, will have Sally "come this way" if they just have a deep voice and are stern. Like Nosferatu. Various Nosferatu impressions: importance of dinner rather than lunch for a first date (sunlight reasons), don't order the garlic soup or the chicken crucifix, of course Nosferatu has been to a Harvester!
- Is there a scene out there of women finding Minotaurs sexy or else a writer who wishes that scene exists because he resembles a Minotaur/is a bit grumpy? It's not rocket science: being muscly is sexy, having hooves is sexy. Henry has never actually held an ungulate's dick, but they're famously well-hung, symbols of masculinity. But which bit of the bull do you get, and which bit of the human? By Henry's contention, the Beast in Disney had a big old swinger, and similar Disney heroes (e.g. "I'm the king of the swingers, the jungle VIP" song).
- Why does Henry find the Minotaur requesting Violet gross? It's getting a bit Stockholm Syndrome-y. It shouldn't matter who's tossing you off, if it's for pharmaceutical purposes. It should be cold, transactional, mechanised. Ben's Minotaur Dick Pump invention is still at the "putting it under people's doors" stage, but he has to mattock away the doors' bottoms to fit its girth.
- Slow-burn romance when your lover is semi-humanoid. The description warns of "size differences, fluid, etc". Where do I sign (to get the book)?
- A Pompidou is suggested because there is no topic, perhaps with a jingle from a listener? There is no Pompidou jingle from a listener, so a Dompidou is needed.
- Someone was too busy rubbing donkey milk soap into their body to rub it into the Bean Machine to keep it lubricated. The read-out from the Al-Gore-rhythm (finger clicks, mmm Global Warming), very slow-paced, is taking over the hindquarters of the Bean Machine, creeping into Henry's Al-Gore-rhythm, leading to what we just listened to.
- Ben is the fall guy as the one who technically works for the Bean Machine, doing its maintenance, being its "Violet". Ben had to take some cogs and sprockets out of it to make his Minotaur Milking Machine. Also, he might perish in the next 20 minutes as he's under the weather.
- Sophie was doing fieldwork on limestone pavements, listening to the Beans, when she broke her ankle in three places. She had 4 eps on her phone to listen to while in hospital and this caused her to not listen for months after. She has recently been forcing herself to listen to get over it but did not enjoy the mention of limestone in the hiking episode. Normally it's just a simple drill through the hand, sorted out with Blu Tack (fairly antiseptic). The Beans promise to focus on more igneous rocks in future, and granite, which Henry believes is man-made ("let's just move on with the conversation") – a form of compacted gravel using concrete as the creosote (the Pennines beg to differ).
- Dental warning! Ellie shares a dentistry adventure after hearing about Mike's internal ceramic landslide from the ExtremeSports episode. On cycling back from a swim near her houseshare in Grenoble, with trainers dangling over her handlebars (Ben: sounds idyllic / Mike: screams of imminent danger – Casualty: Grenoble edition), Ellie came a cropper over the bars when a trainer got stuck in the spokes. She went teeth-first into the pavement. When asked "Have you always been like that?" by a passer-by, she found her teeth were in the grass next to the road. Henry checks to make sure she wasn't listening to the Beans; no guilt needs to be taken on board. Ellie also uses the spit and milk preservation method favoured by Google and Mike. Ben skips some more horrible bits when reading now that the dentist has entered the story. The dentist said she should have shoved it all back in straight away. Surely medicine is a bit more complicated than that? The lesson: put your trainers on your feet (the last thing Ellie needs to hear).
- Lewd Content (0:27)
- Pam (11:43)
- Pompidou (Dompidou version) (37:52)
- Email jingle from Memnor, a prog rock band/infiniDuke, Lord of the 19th Realm/Mike's aunty who fought with Henry at the Battle of Ungardor, with her cyberlance skewering the hovering eyeball that Memnor called his wife. Possibly the first band-submitted jingle (hope for going all the way to symphony orchestra) in the style of Rush/Yes/Genesis. Mike feels the jingle should be accompanied by an 80s cartoon show with a credit sequence with too much going on. Henry quickly updates his CV ("I like going to the cinema") to apply to join Memnor (they were missing a flute). Memnor is a deity from Dungeons and Dragons/band from Huddersfield. (42:12)
- Bollocking accepted (45:35 & 53:38)
- Patreon jingle from the same Morgan who sent the cybergoth bollocking. Foreboding cranked up with a choir and Morgan's voice pitch-shifted down a few octaves. Memnor, arise! (55:02)
- Jack emails in a speed bollock re Mike's "Ice Road Sex" title for a cold version of Sex and the City from the antarctica episode. Jack suggests "Ice Road Fuckers" which confuses Henry (it's a play on Ice Road Truckers). Speed bollock accepted.
- Morgan bollocks Ben for mixing up cybergoth (neon hair, latex and gasmasks) and steampunk (begoggled top hats, Victorian suits and brown). As Henry described the people as 'kids' (in the ExtremeSports episode), Morgan finds it unlikely they were steampunk, as they are all over 35. Morgan is a metalhead (T-shirts with unreadable logos). Bollocking accepted.
- Making donkey milk soap (lovely smell in the lounge) (68 patrons)
- Mike from Gateshead introduced to the pod by Tom, principal oboe of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, in the style of Debussy. Immersing himself in the process, Mike contracted syphilis while having a sit-down wee in the Gateshead Weatherspoons.
- I'm not drinking the milk. I'm milking it and soaping it.
- The foals won't go anywhere near it. They're very much 'jam on toast' first thing.
- Things are so bad at the moment, we're having to use donkey milk soap.
- Are you making and storing your own sap? I know you've always dreamt of becoming completely sap independent.
- Ben is using a different kind of logic to the magical child, Henry.
- They didn't get the plague, annoyingly, so you've just got to give them a swift mattock at 18.
- Even if I'm feeling lazy, I will not operate the mattock in flip-flops.
- The algorithm is very much putting you in the "ignorant but horny" section.
- If you shag a swan, you get a cow-headed man. Everyone knows that.
- It's like a poison, you've got to get it out. You couldn't toss me off, could you, I've had such a rough day?
- We did get the Memnor, and we liked it. Does that work?