¶ Opening Chat
Ben feels he has impaired sound quality in his new house but, on a positive note, he feels like everything has changed for the better now that he has a soft-close toilet lid (it 'kisses the rim'). He recently used a third-party (display) toilet in John Lewis, but closed the lid with huge force. The force absorbed by his toilet lid goes out into the world so much that they have had to adjust the flight paths above Ben's house. Adjustments have to be made for different toilets (e.g. houseboat, lighthouse/White House). 'Wherever you go, there you arse'.
Ben feels that congratulations for a new property purchase are weird. But he can now enter a higher level of banal chat (mortgages, boilers). Mike uses his 'boring chat voice' to disguise the fact he does actually do boring chat. Mike takes Ben under his wing by suggesting opening gambits ('Gas BBQ or charcoal?') Henry's advice to Ben re: boiler maintenance is to kick it down the road/into the long grass.
Henry learnt a Welsh phrase from his father-in-law: 'A house is a thief'. He feels there are two main skills that make you feel like you are a man in charge of stuff:
knowing where the fuse box is ('absolute buzz')
and adjusting pressure on a combi-boiler.
Ben knows this stuff already but Henry carries on regardless with his radiator bleeding anecdote. ('Have we torpedoed the podcast?')
Henry's boiler engineer put a 'Danger!' sticker on his boiler and he then had howling winds blowing through a hole in the wall - 'He treppaned your house!'
¶ Topic Chat
All three Beans had some snow yesterday. Mike had large, black, winged, eyed, hovering, worm-in-mouth flakes.
Ben once drove to Bangor, North Wales with Mike Bubbins and shared a double-room (Ben was in the child cot). The next day, Ben was driving his Daewoo Matiz (not built for handling Snowdonia) through thick snow. He decided to overtake a grit lorry as it was going too slowly - 'You probably shouldn't have done that' - and they immediately entered a 720° spin (Bubbins: 'Here we go'). As they span, Ben shouted, 'Daewoooooo!'
Henry feels pressure that he should know about cars. He has the same thing his mum had in that he drives on pure instinct. Ben agrees you often don't think about what you're doing as it ruins it.
Similarly, during Henry's flute recital (James Galway was in the boot of his car until being released into the forest) where he did a duet with Alex Rotsley on stage in front of school, Henry got the yips when he started thinking about his breathing. He should have kept it unconscious. Operating a car and operating your body is the same.
Henry's no good under the bonnet (Ben's baldist insult). Henry still washes his head and Ben wonders why. Henry admits that his greasy head leaves patches on armchairs so Ben suggests he needs the antimacassars from trains.
Henry's mum asked him to put something between his head and her cushions because he has molto-macassar! Perhaps antimacassars could be the first bit of Bean merch.
Macassar oil is an unguent (not an ungulate). Mike doesn't leave trails of any kind whereas Henry's optimistic hair oil leaves for work every day but ends up glossing a sofa.
Henry's weird walk in the park with his ex-girlfriend and her dad when some urchins lobbed snowballs at him. Henry chucked one back then carried on walking and trying to join in the conversation. But soon the park was teeming with urchins that only Henry could see and he was caught up in a massive snowball psychodrama.
Henry slowed them down so that Professor Barbara could get to the military installation by paddleboat and, luckily, his training in operating decommissioned Napoleonic canons came in useful. The incident was never mentioned again by Henry's ex. Her father was extremely relieved when they broke up, and rewarded his 30 London street urchins with Curly-Wurly bars.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
Jenny (from Scotland) emails with a strong pitch for a pissing tiger jingle and also suggests the genres to be used. Mike's big cat noise astounds the Beans (his mother's a lynx) and would come in handy to get him out of a tight spot when hiding in a bush.
Callum had been to Marwell Zoo on numerous occasions as a child but was never pissed on. He is now suffering from FOMOOBPOBAT. While visiting Calgary Zoo, his mother was in the line of fire from the hippos as they used their tails to fling poo at visitors. She was, however, well prepared and saved the situation with wet-wipes. Mike thinks that Callum has been marked by a hippo and the tigress knows to stay away.
Rosie visited Marwell Zoo aged 11 and narrowly avoided being shat on 'with some force' by a pygmy hippo. Her mum saved the day with her primal, protective instinct. The hippo had used its tail like a propellor to fling the shit ('like a hand fan'). Rosie now needs to go to the tiger enclosure and see if she will be pissed on to prove whether or not she has been marked by the hippo or not.
Henry feels short-changed by fun-size animals.
Yedze awoke at 5:14am to a mysterious woman's voice saying, 'Oh, it IS mice'. The sound was coming from a closed laptop where a video was playing of 2 cassowaries wolfing down whole dead mice by a zookeeper. Who could have played this on the closed, password-protected laptop of a sleeping man? Mike thinks Sperbs is coming for the listeners now and suggests that Yedze gets his affairs in order.
Will, an Exeter medical student saxophonist, has been press-ganged into joining three rural swing bands by senior colleagues, causing Mike to exclaim, 'Poor sod!'
Henry believes that the saxophone is all about the steamy, seedy, smoky Big City and is not for the hens. Though he is very tempted by the sound of the barnyard jazz ensemble.
¶ Jingles
42:09 - Tiger Piss
52:18 - Provincial Dad
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
Kangaroo Court
¶ Listener Theme Tune
Jazzy Wine Bar Version from Rebecca's dad, Richard from Hereford (the home of the SAS).
¶ Notable Quotes
- Rolling into the bath to hose yourself down, as per.
- That’s the thing, Henry, wherever you move, you’ve always got the same arse.
- Wherever you go, there you arse.
- You’re constantly pursued by your arse and your shadow; they’re very much a tag team.
- My boiler is proper fucked.
- A house is a thief.
- He basically trepanned your house.
- But Ben, apart from the toilet lid, how did the gig go?
- Daewoooooooooooooooooo!
- You were panic punning.
- You nearly killed Bubbins!
- Never had lessons, just pure instinct.
- Henry, do put something between your greasy head and our cushions, please.
- My mother’s a Lynx.
- It’s like a really scary carpet.