!
¶ Opening Chat
1,2,3,4,5,6 sound check.
Ben is going to be boiling and basting a ham and it's suggested he should have Festive Meats every day of 2022. He pledges to eat only things that are 'Bone-In', like a high-end Super Size Me.
How the Beans saw in the New Year: Henry couldn't be bothered to move the TV cables so didn't watch Hootenanny. (Explanation of Hootenanny and of Jools Hollland). Previously, Clive James had hosted New Year TV in the UK and, before him, it was a Navy Admiral smoking 80 cigarettes and firing deserters out of a cannon towards Jerusalem at the stroke of midnight.
Ben watched BBC1 which had a choir singing ABBA hits from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (random concepts left on a whiteboard).
Mike didn't watch any TV so is still, technically, in 2021.
What do Americans watch? The Grinch? Ben asks, 'Are you aware of the £85 Grinch?' 16:37 - 18:11 Ben absolutely losing it.
Lift music fills the space while he tries to recover.
Eventually, he is able to tell the others about the orange juice. But only just.
¶ Topic Chat
Ben recently went on a trip to an Estonian Submarine Museum housed in the biggest freestanding concrete dome of its kind. 'Oh darling, the hangar is the dome!'
Discussion about Non-crete, Concrete and Crete. 'THE HANGAR IS THE DOME HENRY!'
When Henry visited The Louvre, he stood in the middle of each room and span on the spot, Michael Jackson style, so he could say he had seen everything in the room.
In the Uffizi, he only wanted to see paintings by famous artists. Eye tests in the old days consisted of answering, 'Is this a swede or one of those long things with all the Brussels sprouts still stuck on?'
Ben went to the Vatican and saw 'big-hitting, ceiling-based art but also 'a dog-shit mural.' 'Even Raphael must have had a warm-up phase, right?'
Ideas for a gameshow: 'Swap the Blurb.'
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
An appeal for fewer Bollock-heavy emails
¶ Jingles
29:20 Pompidou
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
Sean Bean Departure Lounge
¶ Listener Theme Tune
Nick Gill with 'Guitar-Choir style of Brian May circa 1977'.
¶ Bollockings
Ben's first Bollocking so Mike reads out the email: from Paul from The Hague (400km WSW of Bremen). Paul points out that it was Portugese escudos and Spanish pesetas (not Spanish escudos as Ben mentioned in the Zombies ep).
But Ben then reads an email from Jon which proves to be a 'Pre-emptive Listener Bollock-Back for Ben.' Jon explains that Ben was probably referring to the fact that Spain used the escudo between 1864 and 1869 and so shoots the Bollock down before it hits Ben. 'He is the Guardian Bollock!' Verdict: A Handsfree Reflecto-Bollock.
Email from Simone Hudson: 'G'day Beans. Henry ate a shuttlecock?!'
Rachel from Canada wrote with some concern about the fact that, in 'Portraiture', the Beans had mentioned that the Bean Machine emissions are causing a 3 degree rise in temperature of the earth and, therefore, sea levels to rise. She called for alternative forms of energy to be used. Ben's reply: 'Unfortunately, the Bean Machine can only run on fossil fuels, specifcally tyres.' But Henry does recycle, Mike doesn't use his woodburner, and Ben only drives in reverse, so sucking the carbon back up.
¶ Notable Quotes
- Also, what is a Hootenanny? That’s a question I’ve wondered sometimes over the years.
- It stinks of group think.
- If he’s getting own-brand orange juice, the margins are spectacular there.
- The Dome is the hangar! Oh darling, this is so magical!
- There are three things in my world: there’s concrete, there’s noncrete and then there is Crete. Which is an island.
- Balkan and Baltic. The two “Bals”. Balkan … Baltic … balls-out holiday. Let’s have a good time.
- The hanger is the dome, Henry!
- I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to have been there.
- And each one of those onions represents one of the Duchys of the Netherlands.
- And also, that rotten skull that he’s holding on his right hand with lots of worms on it might represent … death?
- Botticelli from his nose-moisture period.
- It is time for me to fall on my own bollock.
- He’s Jedi mind bollocked the guy from The Hague!
- Hands-free reflecto-bollock!