¶ Opening Chat
- Ben used a knife that had been sitting in congealed duck fat from a Thai takeaway to chop strawberries: haunted strawberries eaten with wedding cake.
- Henry wonders where to dispose of cooking fat – which sea/ocean/lake/outer space?
- Is there a fat layer to the atmosphere? Can we plug the ozone layer or will it contribute to global warming?
- What to do with fat: can't make candled out of it (sausagey living room).
- Henry shocks Ben by saying cooking fat can be reused: you could massage it back into the duck.
- Henry's parents pour old fat into a soup container and freeze it, cryogenically frozen to be awoken in the future.
- Beans don't understand the cultural mores/currency/language of a crab future.
- Crabs are lateral moving but forward thinking.
- Dimblecrab presides over the Great Century of Referendi.
- Future crabs will perform 'the separating of the meats' on humans – stuffing the carapace, but will there even be be humans?
- A halfway stage in evolution, expelling eggs onto street. Will one be born with (full-size) human arms on a medium crab? Is this the child that holds the key to bringing humans and crabs together?
- Crabby bags instead of doggy bags.
¶ Topic Chat
- Ben remembers listener email on AI topic: Alexander G fed an episode into an algorithm (Markov chain) that spat out an AI version of the podcast – beans read the script...gobbledegook follows...
- Mike takes two things from this: 1. machines not ready to take over; 2. Henry had more lines than the others.
- Henry reminded of going abroad and hearing people talking in a foreign language – all you hear is the 'music of the language.
- Henry tries to make up a language – sounds like perfect Flemish.
- Henry wants the others to try to make the 'music' of English.
- Ben busts out some stereotypical French sounds and Mike offers to try but it sounds 100% Dutch.
- Mike was thinking about burning his mouth on a hot drink but wasn't saying it which is spoiling Henry's game: ruining Henry's birthday on the one day the podcast is played that is his birthday.
- Crabs in the future are only interested in the future, not the past.
- Crab newspapers/bookies – crabookies – bookmakers pissing into rockpools and dissolving crabs.
- Henry has never managed to pull off the 'music of the English language' when trying it in quiet moments – he tries but also just sounds Dutch.
- Ben tries but sounds like an adorable 70s robot sidekick, Carmarthenbot, wearing a necklace of human dicks.
- Vodophone AI assistants – Ben types 'I want to speak to a human' and this is the threshhold phrase for middle-age.
- Ben is confused as to whether one of them was a bot or a human from their use of 'I hope you're having the time of your life'.
- In the future, you're a robot too but you don't realise (the real you is on a beach). You're a steam-driven crab – missing the touch of a human cheek.
- Henry, during a type chat, plays cards close to chest and uses key phrases until being farmed to a human – feels he's getting close to the help chat person but never asked out for a drink.
- Ben invokes John Lewis as the home of real humans and great service. When buying champagne flutes for wedding present, the customer service person was being too much/too obsequious (Mike posits that he may have started the day with a bollocking). To Ben's right another customer tried to invoke the warranty on a 10-year-old pan. John Lewis would offer anything from the store as a pan, including Gerald (test the pan by cooking Gerald's palm on it).
- What does 'lifetime guarantee' mean? The Queen dying resets all lifetime guarantees.
- Henry's 'buying a dishwasher at John Lewis' story begins but Ben shuts it down – tell it from the point of view of the dishwasher – "I'll rinse you in a minute, you berk" – hair conditioner in the dishwasher because of Henry's lifetime supply of conditioner "softest pubes in the business" – mites falling to their deaths – pile of them at bottom of Henry's left trouserleg.
- Mike's friend took him for a ride in an autopilot Tesla (Ben's sure that's not legal yet). Henry would be worried about what to do with his hands (strumming ukulele?) or what deep convos would ensue without the ceremony of driving.
- With auto-driving cars, Ben wants to be the one making the error, not an AI.
- Henry thinks he should be able to programme a car with his ethics (Mike: real or as you wish the outside world to perceive them?). Henry reckons traffic is ethics in action, except that he will cut up a black cab/Royal Mail van because they're generally dicks.
- The AI car will scan the other person in the potential crash: Insta history, carbon footprint, up to date with thank-you letters, over 40 but still wearing tight trousers, someone who fishes out the fruit from muesli.
- Two avatars will fight each other like in Pokemon – apps will donate money to charity (Help the Aged, RSPCA, donkey sanctuary) – donkey sanctuaries now rely on road accidents for funding, but you were actually going to hit a lifesize policeman (from Poundland) cardboard cutout.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
- Laura (Wakefield) has a robot vacuum cleaner called Mike Woznivac – Mike likes it: a creature restoring order to chaos.
- Christopher (New Hampshire) is hurt by 'pink sludge from nozzle' misinformation and wishes to let beans know Americans 'consume pink sludge directly from hoses' – 'live free or die' libertarian mecca in New Hampshire.
- Anna (Prickwillow) – new mum to Iris – does listen to pod while breastfeeding or asleep. She listened to 'Canada' during labour.
- Henry wonders if anyone likes to have sex listening to the pod and is admonished by Mike. Could be a generation conceived, birthed and breastfed listening to the pod – Generation Beans.
- Prickwillow in East Cambridgeshire sounds magical – 440/441 elves live there – an elder must die when a baby is born.
¶ Jingles
- Bean Machine (11:20)
- Provincial Dad (24:40) (first play of paraffin and white spirit version instead of rum-raisin)
- Emails (44:03)
- Lewd Content (47:48)
- Patreon (49:50)
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
- The Old Sean Bean Flute Fight (23 patrons)
¶ Listener Theme Tune
- Conor's Hendrix version
¶ Notable Quotes
- You’re having a very sausagey flavoured bath.
- And until next time, sweet friends, goodbye, cheerio, being out!
- I take two things from that: 1. I don’t think the machines are quite ready to take over, yet; 2. it did feel like Henry had quite a few more lines than the rest of us.
- I felt I wasn’t getting enough lines, which also feels right.
- You’re spoiling my game and it isn’t my birthday, but it feels like it is my birthday and it’s being ruined.
- If this podcast is taken over by AIs and goes on forever, I will have an infinite amount of birthdays.
- Neither a borrower nor a lender nor a crab bookie be.
- I miss the touch of a human cheek.
- What are we all but particles in a rinse cycle?
- I’ll rinse you in a minute, you berk!
- Live free or die, right?
- I suppose in a way there’s a generation now … who were conceived, birthed and breastfed listening to Three Bean Salad.
- Baby Iris may look like a little human being at the moment, but it won’t be long before you hear the clickety clack of little pincers.
- I heard, in Prickwillow, that when a baby is born, one of the elders must die.