- Will Henry talk about anchovy butter and gloves this week? He has dangled that carrot, stuffed with anchovy paste and concealed in the middle figure of a glove, for the audience. It has been enrobed in chocolate and studded with anchovy heads, to really push that salt and sweet thing at M&S this summer. Great for celebrating Uncles' Day.
- How do you celebrate Uncles' Day? Criminal record and DBS check in bed? Remember to serve your uncle a saveloy and large chips with lashings of pig gravy, with the chips cold in the middle like a savoury Arctic Roll.
- Was Uncles' Day invented by Starbucks or does it go back to pre-Christian times, when the uncle was feared and reviled, and lured from the village and off a cliff with a saveloy on a string, sharpening the rocks below?
- Don't invite an uncle to a stag do, no matter how good you think it will be to have him look after your dad. And if your social group doesn't have an uncle in it, better have a good look at your family tree, up and to the left. The uncle apocalypse theory is that we will eventually become our own uncles: when the self-uncle comes to pass...Derby becomes a decent away break option (been a while since Derby got a lashing).
- Uncles and sharks are the great evolutionary survivors: gotta keep moving (also, gills) and can chum with a Steely Dan record or a flyer about a chino sale. Put The Best of Steely Dan on the car stereo and push it off a cliff and just watch those uncles follow.
- Environmentally, uncles are crucial for flood wall wadding in Monmouthshire (called a Greg Dyke). Is Des Lynam the nation's uncle?
- Starbucks have put their cinnamon away now it's post-Easter (in corporate thinking terms) and have brought out the anchovy-head latte, the haddock spine bap, the Nose o' the Pike cortado. Snout to tail coffee.
- No need to welcome new listeners as they won't have made it through the last 9 minutes of chat. Henry compares holding onto his gloves/anchovy butter anecdotes to holding onto his beard, which is now at the stage that he is holding onto a hairy rope with a balloon on the end, i.e. he has worked harder on the beard than anything else in the last couple of years and the longer he waits to tell the gloves/anchovy butter anecdotes, the harder he will fall.
- If Henry were writing his memoirs, the gloves/anchovy butter anecdote would be ground out by the editors with a mortar and pestle.
- Ben's Hyundai cliffhanger from Road_Trips has had people writing in: it passed the MOT with no notes. Mike's voice belies his disbelief at this news.
- When Henry had a car, there was a choice of whether to get an MOT from Halfords or Pete's Dodgy Wheel Shack (the Rumpkins of mechanics).
- Is the deal that Ben has made with his mechanic, "We'll say there's nothing wrong with your car, even though there is, if you do some crime for us"? Perhaps being the wheel guy in a heist?
- The car is actually making a weird knocking noise and troubling vibrations while braking. Is there bullion hiding in it? Or an enemy in the boot? Or a fugitive? Is it a mobile safe house? Has Ben been asked to pass a meat pasty up the exhaust? Are small, malodorous pellets being produced? Does Ben sometimes hear a quiet "Henderson's relish?" being requested as he walks by? Would it kill him to go somewhere a bit warmer in the summer? Croatia?
- The gloves anecdote is thrown into next week.
- Ben tried to take up figure skating, as mentioned in the Memory episode. But which scene would he fit into best: the under-9s or the under-12s? Probably the under-9s because of his love of K Pop, bright rucksacks and a labubu or two, but unfortunately a lot of them don't know what an MOT is.
- There's a sold-out Adults Only class on a Monday (what goes on, on the rink, stays on the rink) which the Zamboni needs to do a big clean-up job on. A lot of the Zambonistas aren't ready for Henry's opinions on Zambonis. Mike thinks that Zambonis shouldn't be left near a population centre, and only deep sea creatures like alabaster crabs should have to deal with them.
- The Beans' Top Five Zambonis: 1. classic ham and cheese; 2. Celine Dion cover; 3. Zambourne Identity; 4. single-vented, double-breasted; 5. Colonel Zamboni (RIP). Does Henry know what a Zamboni is?
- Ben could go to an All Ages skating class on a Saturday, but this includes "Skating Tots", and he doesn't have his own special trolley to hold onto, so would have to attach steak knives to a Zimmer frame. The booking lady said you CAN go, but DON'T go.
- Henry is wrestling with the new concepts of labubu and Zamboni. He imagines Odysseus sailing between the Valley of the Labubu and the Cliff of the Zamboni/Zambozi. Henry doesn't know what a Zamboni is, but pictures a robot hoover, but for ice. Mike is being ambushed by little droid hoovers in hotel foyers whilst on tour.
- Ben saw a robot hoover in an airport but it was being watched by a member of staff, so what's the point, if an employee still has to be employed? Is that our future? At least a robot isn't a dickhead in meetings, but the guy watching the robot might be.
- Can those robot hoovers do corners? They do distract small children while parents are e.g. having an argument at check-out. It could have Pied Pipered right out into Liverpool city centre with the children following, all the way to a data mining centre in Hamelin. Explanation of the Pied Piper story for Ben, who is now on his side, because you've got to pay your freelancers, guys. The piper was a classic uncle type – don't treat your uncle kindly, and he'll put your children in a mountain.
- What is the proper name for the little auto-vac? The Floor Buddy? Fluff Friend? Self-Mortar Project 5000 (from its days in the military). Roomba? Henry hoover had industrial versions – possibly Hetty. Mike saw ones that were more like R2D2 or a benevolent Stavros (Henry means Davros – (Dalek voice) banter computation problem). Henry pitches re-recording with Davros rather than Stavros but it's too late. Pompidou!
- Henry pictures the losers and misfits at the Saturday skating class, including a hairy guy in shorts with his tongue stuck to the ice – is that Zamboni? A cordon-off sign is placed beside him reading "Wet Uncle". Then "Saturday Night Fever (Banjo Version)" starts playing as Ben comes in with his feet gaffered to a robovac. Better hope they go in the same direction or he might be torn asunder, bifurcated like a human clothes peg (nice!). The ice will help with stitching back together.
- The classes were full again when Ben tried to re-sign up, possibly because of the success of the Winter Olympics. Were they trying to give him an off-ramp? Trying to point him in the direction of the mental health + woodworking class? Go to work with old Rumpkin? Learn about WWI mustard gas?
- All 3 Beans watched some Winter Olympics, perhaps imagining they could join the skeleton/luge club in Tiverton near Mike. Henry mentally replaced the ice skaters' faces with Ben's face. He got into watching the UK couple who did a Spice Girls routine, then fell over in the final doing a Proclaimers number. Then Henry could no longer watch: the cruelty of "You can be brilliant, but if you fall over you get nothing".
- Henry takes on The Olympics as a concept – life is falling over, getting up, and starting again. Only psychopaths don't fall over.
- Ben watched the US ice skating dead-cert, Illia Mallinin, in his "baddie from a pantomime" outfit, skating to the sound of himself delivering a monologue, then he fucked it and came 8th: delicious schadenfreude. Mike is aware that not all Americans would ice skate to their own monologue. You wouldn't want a plucky Lithuanian to fall over.
- The vibe of figure skating is disco swan, but when that swan falls over, the ducks attack. Need to go much more humble: a cardigan, brogues, like a Staffordshire vet in a Belle and Sebastian T-shirt with a Thermos, record bag and an untreated rash in the shape of the Adidas stripes (got to get those sponsorships).
- Henry was heartbroken watching the UK curling team in tears in an interview. Why are we putting people through this? Change the Olympics to once a week so it's lower stakes. Or Eastenders it (twice a week with an Omnibus on Sundays)?
- Callout for listeners to write in if they've been in The Olympics, or come the closest (assuming no one has actually been in the games). Perhaps Jayne Torvill is a listener (she would have struggled through the Zamboni chat).
- Martin (38, male, 6ft2, 82 kilos) emails about firefighters but he isn't one (Mike is disappointed). If Martin is experiencing a fire, call Ben, and he'll drop a massive cube of gelatin/gelignite on your house, making it explode, but stopping the fire. On walking past his local fire station, Martin noticed the truck had been moved so that they could set up a badminton court in the bay. Very Top Gun.
- Becca is the daughter of a firefighter and can confirm that they are giant little boys who made the first job they heard of when they were 3 into their career. More do-able than astronaut or knight. Most of their anecdotes are about corpses. Mike offers to give a lift (a fireman's lift?) to any firefighter, as he'd love to hear those stories.
- Subject: "Email from a firefighter" – a corporate trick to get people to read your email. Henry teases the "firefighter as overgrown 3-year-old" in a non-respectful way, putting him on the red/yellow/black-list ("we leave his home to be red and yellow, and then black, then deploy the robovac"). Helen is a Firefighter Control (not the sexy hose kind), answering 999s (adrenaline but sitting down). Her colleagues, in their down-time, are watching TikToks/the football along with cooking bolognese (like Mike said). Bolognese is a forgiving food for a brigade who are always on the go. Soufflé and meringue won't do. They will often eat the bolognese on naan bread, covered in cheese. These people take risks. Carpe bolognese. Mike would eat it if he saw it at a street food market. Marco Polo's Cheesy Bolognaan? The Doppler effect causes the fire engine sirens to sound like na-na-naan. Henry finds it ridiculous that there are actually firemen's poles (though Helen hasn't had the right training). Mike thinks poles should be part of the working lives of other dangerous service personnel to improve recruitment. The RNLI should get to their boats on a flume (accountants don't deserve it). The fire brigade already has the merch to appeal to 3-year-olds, along with palaeontologists. When making that bolognese though, remember the Worcester sauce, for the umami (or Marmite).
- Joe (Watch Commander) – is he top dog? Does he source the mince for the bolognese? Joe's son Leo (11) is a listener but Joe hates to think his son's favourite podcasters are viewing his profession through a disturbingly aroused/entirely unrecognisable lens. Joe is doing a mandatory e-learning module on data protection. He has noticed his colleagues practising heroic squints and reading between the lines of the phallic imagery in the hose. He also calls out a Bean's (probably Mike's) use of fireMAN and bloke. Joe confirms that there is a big bolognese, but it's not as big as Mike imagines.
- The Patsy Zone (12:06)
- Bean Machine (17:33)
- Lewd Content (19:42)
- Crab Bell (21:10)
- Pompidou (30:19)
- Emails (41:41)
- Patreon (58:39)
- They drove an ice cream van into the SBL and it was all free (17 patrons)
- Jamie's Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place"
- Can you be your own uncle? Is that possible?
- Uncles reproduce through cellular division.
- I normally end up being persuaded to buy a round of windscreen wipers for everyone else in Kwik Fit.
- Just keep pushing the pasty up until you hear a muffled "Thanks".
- Don't get Henry started on a Zamboni.
- They've made off with your asthma inhaler and they're pumping it into their labubu.
- If they start cleaning up that Wet Uncle, you're in big trouble.
- That's the story of the Winter Olympics: they were brilliant but they fell over.
- The vibe of ice skating is: I'm dressed as a futuristic disco swan.
- What could be more masculine than badminton?
- I'm firefighter. Me send it so from me it is firefighter message from me now.