¶ Opening Chat
- Henry has let the Beans know beforehand that he has some things to chat about. Alarm bells ring at this announcement. Will this be the beginning of a long shift? On the tugboat, heading to the oil rig, thinking of the hard 8 months ahead, seeing your wife on the harbour in the distance, already texting her boyfriend. You've forgotten your 8 months-worth of cheese sandwiches vacuum compacted into the size of a credit card.
- You can see your wife on the harbour snogging the new octopus mayor of your town. Things have really changed since your last shore leave. Any riggers should not be listening to the podcast, as they make very clear. They do not have the special licence. Throwing yourself overboard into a flaming sea is a confusing way to go.
- Are rig people into podcasts? Maybe on the less whimsical end of the spectrum? Are they modelling for watercolours each night? Staging Little Women? If you haven't seen it in the North Sea, you haven't seen it.
- You may feel regret, on your month of shore leave, that you didn't keep up to date with the news cycle and the changing social mores of your community, instead spending your time watching the new Scarpetta series on Amazon and the various filmed versions of Little Women so that you can report back to the riggers about whether any feature young Beth March dying in a flaming sea. The various versions include: everyone covered in oil, all characters played by sea birds, cheese puppetry version, the little women beseiged by Greenpeace protestors.
- This episode is the banternox: the halfway point of the season. Henry wishes to do an anecdotal clear-out, to purge in the interests of renewal. Henry is like the hibernating bear, either rousing or going to sleep, depending on how much he understands about hibernation, which is that it's (like a Spanish siesta) every day during the summer for 2hrs.
- Four things that Henry needs to get off his anecdotal desk: 1. gloves; 2. anchovy butter; 3. something that happened recently; and 4. something that happened during his holiday in Paris. The listener can ffwd through these, but Mike and Ben have to listen live, though Henry can never be sure what they're listening to on the headphones he can see on the video feed. Classic FM, but just the Alexander Armstrong introductions?
- Henry enjoys the delicious voice of Sean Pertwee on MasterChef: The Professionals. Pertwee was also in Cadfael, which Mike loves. The original sexy monk? The voiceover on MasterChef often mentions a combo of French word + ordinary foodstuff, e.g. Pondesneuf de mushrooms (not full Le Havre though).
- No. 3. on the list above concerns ping-pong (but not in Paris). They may have burned the ping-pong halls down in Paris after what Chalamet said about the ballet. Points 1. to 4. are an agenda for a meeting that Mike is too late to excuse himself from. He can no longer use the "safety call" as the "wife giving birth" excuse has been used too many times and he's run out of fake names (Galliano? St Albans?).
- Mike chooses the gloves anecdote, which has been trailed for weeks so has now really been workshopped and punched up in the high-end anecdote salons and by the Eastenders writers room and Tina Fey when she was recently in London. Henry panics and drowns in anecdotal flames, getting stuck on the glottal 'gl' of 'gloves'.
- Henry is a famous loser of things, including gloves and scarves at the gym. Recently though, he found THREE of the same glove in his gym locker. Were they his Michael Jackson collection? He has anti-lost a glove. In the film of this, finding the three gloves would be at the start, after the pre-credits montage of Henry at the gym, played by Statham. Has Henry now realistically got a lost glove that may turn up in most places, like a form of territory marking? Ben interjects "ping-pong", but Henry is not done with the glove anecdote and is angry that Ben and Mike are not keen to find out how he got that third glove, because they are not humans with empathy, but bollards with faces painted on. Not the kind that make you feel safe though, more like danger bollards blocking a hospital entrance.
- Mike and Ben have suffered anecdotal ossification. Please call the action line, assuming your fingers still work, if you've been affected. You may just have reached 'retractable bollard' state, like the ones you see in Belgium that make you wonder why we pay so much Council Tax in the UK and have worse chips, but at least we didn't have to make any territorial surrenders during WWII, insulting your wife who is from Jersey ("my Jersey Girl") and her gran who is from Malta ("my little Malteser" – inappropriate).
- We're at minute 5 of the gloves movie, after 4 mins of Statham working out. Henry lost a glove at a party recently that Mike was also at, hosted by someone who is a listener (not Mike, who is a co-host). Ben wonders why Henry was wearing gloves in the summer – was he handling rare bird eggs or being shown a first folio of Tamburlaine the Great? Henry's friend couldn't find the lost glove (which was precious, as a gift from a family member) so Henry bought the same pair again. He's now sitting pretty with 3 gloves, perfect for the end of Act 1. But hang on! Who's Ray Liotta?
- Act 2: the party host tells Henry his dog has found Henry's glove. That guy is now finding out, live, that Henry had already bought a spare pair. In the film, the editor would have edited this all down. Henry now has 4 gloves of the same style, so sometimes ends up out and about, riding a Lime bike with 2 left-handed gloves. Too many gloves – clip it up (jaunty anecdote music plays)!
- Henry's business idea: a subscription model for gloves. Streaming gloves! Henry's company owns all the gloves and sends out a pair a week (surgical! gauntlet! falconry! Michael Jackson! marigold! crime scene investigator! gardening! veterinary! proctology! (you may accidentally receive an oven mitt)).
- When a glove is lost, the reference number (which all gloves have) is entered into the database (which Henry is ideal to set up) and the company can sell you the individual glove for slightly more than the cost of half of the pair cost (e.g. £40 pair (Mike: nice gloves!) would cost £22 for one glove). Name: Mr Gloverman (Shabba!).
- The only stumbling block is finding a venture capitalist willing to buy "all of the gloves". Mike points out the £40 Henry is buying the gloves for is retail price, so Henry takes him on board for "expertise" (Ben is needed for the £50,000 10% share). Transportation costs of sending the glove to the coded locker better not be more than £2. Renting the gloves on a car-rental system could be an option, including a collab with Wagamama – gloves filled with hot noodles (hot and wet at the point of opening the locker).
- Anchovy butter, ping-pong, and the Paris anecdote now hang over us like the Sword of Damacles. This is like getting an enema: more fun for the person receiving the enema (Mike: you've said something very revealing there, Henry) (jaunty anecdote music plays).
¶ Topic Chat
- What does Henry need to do to become a saint? Mr Gloverman will certainly improve lives but is mainly about the shareholders. Need to wait 5 years, unless you're Mother Teresa, who was hot right now. No way you can be a saint in your lifetime as too much temptation to fall off the wagon. Henry would be straight down Belushi's: "Hi, I'm Saint Henry Paker. Where's my VIP card?" Just Henry and some of the Gadafi cousins with the Owl Fuckerz crew. Welcome to the new moral compass (pissing on pigeons)!
- Early Christians were radical hippies getting Catherine wheels shoved up their arses by Romans, so how do you incentivise being Christian, when you could be a Roman with a cool helmet, sword, sewers, dormice to eat, communal shitting, having the stencil of your body on a wall for eternity (take that, Athena posters!), helmet sideburn modesty guards, tending to a Northern Britain tree by a wall that will be there for 2,000 years till a pair of local legends chop it down for a laugh (beatify those two!). Be a Roman and have interesting, fit Gods with lives like a soap opera, paint a dick on your wall and have dick-shaped furniture. The Christian God has never been discussed as fit (implication: he isn't), even though Michelangelo tried it, he was still a ripped old man with a beard, like Odenkirk or Neeson, or Henry (whose personal trainer described his body as like a statue of Neptune, complete with tiny dolphin and seaweed, which is congenital).
- Christians then just had old towels to wear and had to be nice to Maude and give her their only potato (the Romans wouldn't give her it, they'd roast it and slather it in sparrow guts), or help Robert move house. So they had to sell it on the saint thing. Poor old Peter had his skin torn off by crabs (crab bell: 33:15), then was dunked in a series of increasingly piquant vinegars, then limes squeezed on his red-raw balls (but he was already dead).
- Phase One: Local Investigation by a bishop, then declared Venerable by the Pope. How would the Beans measure up? Henry looked after a neighbour's dog for 3hrs for no money but he got joy and cuddles so was rewarded in a way. Henry secured the information that the dog wouldn't shit in his flat before allowing it in, thus demonstrating the absence of heroism. A Roman would look after the dog till he got bored, then eviscerate it and eat it, but it wouldn't be a problem as long as he gave some to Aphrodite. Is Henry arguing for the return of the Roman gods? Pakadonia!!!
- The bishop is gathering everything the person wrote, including social media, your WhatsApps, scathing Amazon reviews, toilet door graffiti ("toilet tennis, see other wall").
- Phase Two: Beatification. Miracles-wise, Henry once saw a key ring on the floor and then his friend called and it was his key ring – would that count (only if his leprosy had cleared up when Henry met him in Hyde Park)? You are then 'blessed' but another distinct miracle needs to take place after beatification – get your relatives to say they've seen a statue crying or a pigeon that looks like Nigel Havers. Does anyone ever get stuck at 'Blessed' and not make it to sainthood?
- Three types of saint: a Confessor, a Martyr (such as Susan of Cadiz, who was rotisseried to death), or an Offer of Life. Anyone's a Saint if they go to heaven, and contemporary Christians say everyone goes nowadays, so is everyone a Saint (apart from Hitler)? Mixed views from the fire and brimstone contingent, but not the cool Pope.
- Moments in life that are so bad, if they were unending, it would be Hell, e.g. an anecdote about gloves (a cheap, easy goal from Mike there, so Henry hopes he chokes on his half-time orange).
- Patron saint of comedians is Saint Lawrence – he said "I'm well done on this side. Turn me over." as he was being martyred on a giant grill.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
- The Junior Fraudster competed in the Junior Olympics in foil fencing but got the place automatically because there weren't enough competitors in their region. What if they had gone in for the sabre or the epee? They came 117th out of 126. This story is a hit with the ladies. Henry sees an opportunity to talk about ping-pong here (Ben: Oh no!) which Ben edits out via an editing Pompidou. The ping_pong anecdote is now available on Patreon. Henry thought this was a good place to tell the ping-pong anecdote. He doesn't want it to affect his beatification so please don't bring it up in meetings with the local bishop.
- Gabe from Canada went to the Winter Olympics this year with a skeleton competitor (married to another skeleton competitor) as their personal chef. Both competitors set national records. Gabe got to stay in the Olympic Village where they run out of condoms on Day 1 (probably just a shot-putter stockpiling them to waterproof his shot-puts). Spermicidal jelly increases a shot-put's aerodymicsnadinity, so it is banned.
- Sidenote on the troubles Henry had doing an illustration for The_Olympics because of how litigious the Olympic body is. The first idea was to do the Beans as mascots, with Ben as the French revolutionry hat mascot that looks like a cockerel, Henry as a Brazilian big cat, and Mike as the UK mascot (ghastly semi-computerised shape with an eye). Mike assumes the mascots are designed by the niece of a committee member because of how atrocious they are. In Henry's design, other mascots were chasing the Beans, but Ben had to point out that they might get sued. Then Henry tried to do a drawing using the rings but that was verboten too. They are v v protective. Sending lawyers to local cafes who put fun pics in the window using the rings, or dead chickens with javelins through them turn up on your front step. Henry advises they should chill out. Ben worries they will now be sued for describing the mascots or even mentioning the rings.
- Tommy was once the No. 1 epee fencer in the UK – Commonwealth fencing champion and competed at the test event for the Rio Olympics. Tommy mentions corruption, which the Beans do not back up. It's all on Tommy, who can defend himself well in a duel. Tommy advises Mike, who expressed a wish to try fencing in the swords episode, that he could get through to LA based on the corruption endemic in the sport. Mike thinks sabre would be best (the meatiest of the 3). Henry wants to bring a double-headed broadsword into the Olympics, for clean beheadings and plenty space for sponsorship on the blade (Premier Inn Family Room down the length of it – "You'll sleep so well, you'll think you've been beheaded!"). Only Gold winner in the broadsword category (everyone else dead) creating quite a scene in the home pub in Lancaster as everyone watches: a party and a funeral.
- Sophie has competed at the Paralympics sprinting event (below-knee amputee category) and broke the world record during qualifying but came 4th in the final – exactly the sort of cruel situation Henry was talking about. Sophie is now an illustrator and animator. Two Dutch women have subsequently broken Sophie's record. Sophie's success and Henry's ping-pong story have shone a little golden light on us all. Henry is angry about what is happening at 4:30 (the final) when the world record was already broken in the morning. Who cares what happens at 4:30?!? If it's brain surgery though, that's different. Henry couldn't watch the ice skating at the "chilly Olympics" because it was too cruel, and he felt the same watching MasterChef: The Professionals – he turned it off just before they announced who would win.
- Call-out for any listeners who have broken a world record doing their interesting pursuits and passions.
¶ Jingles
- Henry's Beefcake Journey (11:09 – but used to buy time in the background of Henry telling his gloves anecdote)
- Bean Machine (25:53)
- Emails (42:35)
- Pompidou (45:44) (and sped up at 49:33)
- Lewd Content (48:20)
- Patreon (59:55)
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
- The Beatification of Sean Bean (25 patrons)
¶ Listener Theme Tune
- Nick's 8-bit Gameboy flamenco theme. All the birds left Nick's garden when he played it back, like a sonic bigfoot. Bill Oddie, turn off now!
¶ Notable Quotes
- If you're a whimsical rigger, get in touch!
- Like a newly woken bear, passing the fecal plug, before gorging on the first rambler it sees.
- Oh no, Roger's completely made a balls-up of his "fin-de-sneude de beans".
- We didn't start life as bollards, we were made bollards. We've been bollardified.
- I'm not a listener, I am one of the co-hosts. I'm not here because of a prize.
- Why were you wearing gloves in the summer, you absolute pervert!?
- My own uncle can be looking at my face while I have a dump.
- A hero would not have asked: "Will it shit in my flat?"
- What's the chilly Olymnpics called? The brrr – what are they called? ... Winter Olympics?