¶ Opening Chat
- Welcome to S7 – caught up to The Sopranos – difference between series/season/serial/aliquots – goats walking vertically up granite = 100% cliffhangers – and they're off.
- Like a warm bath with friends – bit cold – suds and oily rainbow sheen on top of water – fart bubbles don't burst (like bubble tea) – algae allows fisheries to thrive (tiger/rhino/trout pike) – inside glass cloche/terrarium (tickets available).
- So steamy, like Titanic scene of car sex in galley? (Mike questions this term) – just like any cross-channel ferry at the end of a booze cruise – Asterix film so go back to the car port to 'rut'/shove cheap stubby of weak French lager up arse.
- Henry reveals he hasn't seen Titanic to incredulity of others – Henry couldn't swear in clincher of big legal case whether he has seen it (he is a man who likes to have a pen)
- Ben has same with Crocodile Dundee – gifs/memes/snatches of convo on buses/2-week ski holiday with James Cameron are enough to get by re Titanic film knowledge – hope in-flight movie is Titanic – on James Cameron ski holiday, it's all blue slopes (Hopla!)
- Henry saw trailer for Avatar 2 in cinema – doesn't matter if you can't remember Avatar 1 as 2 is exactly the same (might not need 'Previously on...') – fellow audience members had a palpable lack of awe – Cameron wants awe (dropping babe from teat)
- Trailer had indigenous music like playing shuffle in Peter Gabriel's car – global uplift mood – more like a holiday ad to a country you don't fancy 15,000 years away (a real ball-ache if you've got small kids) – terrible jet lag ('not worth it, darling') mainly feel crap from CGI conversion
- Holiday Avatar experience – back to compound for blue (appropriately) cabaret but fall in with resistance movement and end up missing the cabaret cos too busy executing the Maître D' (Henry doesn't know what he does)
- Henry has channel-hopped and seen bits of it so thought Ben was joking re car sex – Mike reminds Henry about Steven Segal's involvement in Titanic
- Ben & Mike describe Winslet's moment of ecstacy (dirty lower-decks sex) – she's previously only had the kind of posh sex that has doilies under everything, ladies-in-waiting, petticoats, parents, doctor with calibrated specula, phrenologist for bollock phrenology – v. difficult because bollocks in motion – contrasting data need 2 rival bollock phrenologists swinging about – French fancies, duelling pistols and gammon pie (couple have to burst into it 'get in the ham' to hide their shame)
- In Titanic, they signifiy how Winslet has fallen by meeting poor but happy Irish people in subtle, textured social commentary – just need to find a car – Ben reminds Henry of the sabre-tooth tiger scene and the naked drawing scene (Henry has heard of that one) – is Toulouse-Lautrec there or Thierry Henry dribbling a piece of coal into the boiler?
- Henry asks if Leo is in the habit of drawing French girls – hobby or job? – Henry talking as if he's the parent of Winslet – Mike would prefer that scene be properly scrutinised
- Ben & Mike summarise the start of Leo's story – bit of a scamp, gambler – Jack Frost in the last scene – Winslet pushes him in moment of realisation, righting the social order – kept him frozen for a sequel/in the Avatar universe (he'd be blue after all) – smallest of tweaks needed.
¶ Topic Chat
- What is animal husbandry?
- You are a chicken husband but they're not your hen wives
- Henry's feminist diatribe – full of ideas/eggs – strutting it (girl) – Ben interrogates this brand of feminism but Henry is talking about hens who are going places (can't tell a hen where to peck) – in contrast to hogs/sows who don't know what they're doing
- Henry reminds us hens want to get inside at night cos of foxes – Mike has friends who keep chickens in back gardens to teach children about death
- Henry tells international listeners of this tradition: construct mini-gallows/firing squad/lynch mob/kangaroo court for a pet rabbit – send child into garden with mini shovel to learn difference between law and justice – fox hit rate massive round Mike's way
- London foxes are straggly as hell/Exeter ones are sleek, glossy and hench
- Henry does ad for 'bags of dog turd' lifestyle of hench foxes (like tech billionaires)
- London foxes don't have bushy tail, just a wet thing dragged behind them
- Moment of connection with fox for Ben in London when fox came into house (Joanna Lumley trains foxes to come in for cuddles) and pissed in both of his shoes and ate a bag (of Ben's shit) – shoe piss tea to accompany bag of shit – submerge shoes in passata to ward off foxes – Dolmio in shoe care section of supermarket
- Are dogs still animal husbandry? – dogs have functions – like DVD players/wireless charging – Great Dane with obsolete DVD player on haunch – playing Marley and Me, stuck on menu – did Pam have upgrades? – she's leather upholstered, has dashcams – Henry disappointed she doesn't have a handle (but does have an ashtray) – advanced Pam has handle, strap, wheels so carry-on dog, and barfs out liquids – Christmas tree air freshner dangling off her anus ('just not enough') – those things' purpose tells you the driver has a flatulence issue (or 'maybe I farted')
- Henry's taxi ride late at night from Victoria Station in black cab as a treat but it stank of huge dog not being well/on heat/at death's door – Henry exercised the British solution of 'stuck it out'
¶ Emails
- Email received from Kim (Stockholm) who requests a metropolitan elite Henry jingle in contrast to Mike's Provincial Dad jingle
- Some people got brief wrong and made their own jingles – Ben feels territorial about that – Henry reminds the listener to stick to the brief like the beans themselves do
- Elizabeth Smith submits a dark/deconstructed take on the email jingle – Henry has no reference for what it was – like going to the other side/dark underbelly of Ben's music – Henry likens it to a basement in an illegal Soviet sex club in old Berlin – Steve is a bit too into it – need to watch Antiques Roadshow and have a KitKat after or have a Brain Dip – extreme sexual leisure acts (get out if you see that written on a fridge calendar) – no horses were harmed (unbelievably) – Henry thought he couldn't handle it (like a horror film) – Mike likens the jingle to all the terrible things you've done, condensed into one lump of matter that you then eat – Henry's confusion about whether the listener jingle will be played or just talked about – like Alternate Histories / Bad Pompidou – Henry over-analyses and Mike sounds tired – wait and see what Ben does in the edit – Henry takes jumper off (Elizabeth's jingle made him too hot).
- Henry announces he's stopped recording – need to use Zoom backup
- Emily's email – her husband works for IBM – Henry immediately insults him/Mike tells him off – is IBM massive or is the email from the 80s? – suggestible to word porridge – Emily has dropped 'You can't sit on your own arse' into convo and now her husband used the phrase to 12 IBM colleagues and international seniors – corporate trickle down and up – new IMB computer will boot up with the message 'You can't sit on your own arse' – sounds like boilerplate corporate speak or the script to one of Henry's fave Christmas movies on Amazon – husband's colleagues all laughed – or did Zoom call not happen – need to check if IBM still exists – Regent St has an Apple Store but no IBM Store – if laptop bends in more than one place, it's not real or could be made of cake – hopefully the beans' phrase will be just as well used as other nonsense corporate speak – perhaps the couple are living in a Hallmark Christmas movie – have they inherited a Christmas tree farm? – given up promising career to just decorate rooms for Christmas or hang around in small town with husband's parents (a psychological horror).
- Saphia works in politics – will immortalise 'you can't sit on your own arse' in Hansard (almanac of parliamentary business that is absolutely riveting) – she will speak in parliament on climate change next week and will get that phrase into the sub-committee meeting – will Saphia have the mettle to see it through so that the beans can watch it on BBC Parliament channel?
- Chris emails re convo about arses with his wife: 'you can't sit on your own arse'/'and no one will do it for you' – call and response – gone full 'see you later alligator' (Henry's response to which is: 'up yours, what the fuck you on about') – other phrases with a call and response: Hello & Hello... beans can't think of another – 'See you soon big baboon' might be a made-up one.
¶ Jingles
- Lewd Content (normal at 4:31 & sped-up at 13:15)
- Flightless Bird Zone (22:10)
- Pam (29:40)
- London (first time) (33:41)
- Elizabeth's deconstructed email jingle (36:18)
- Pompidou (42:40)
- Patreon (52:35)
¶ Sean Bean Lounge Activity
Piling Lots of Books on Top of Each Other Ball (10 patrons)
¶ Theme Tune
- Someone emailed to say Conor the theme submitter (fifth time!) is famous.
- Is he Conor Hernandez, former president of Costa Rica-cum-volleyball impresario?
- He isn't not Ed Sheeran and the other members of Coldplay are livid with him.
- This theme is genre unknown but involves saxophones and guitars in pure spite at HP's 'dull bastards' jibe in Posters.
- Conor offers to introduce Ben and Mike at a live show with his guitar or Henry with a damaged kazoo.
¶ Notable Quotes
- It’s like getting into a warm bath with two friends, and we’ve all been in the bath together for almost a year.
- There were a lot of posh people on the boat though to be fair, and posh people will park their car bloody anywhere these days.
- You try and put a very very tiny bottle of very very cheap, weak French lager up your arse.
- We did a whole episode about the Titanic, and you didn’t mention that you hadn’t seen the movie!
- You’ve sort of pieced it together with a series of gifs and memes, is that what you’ve done?
- What I sensed was a palpable lack of awe, at everything that was happening on the screen.
- I think presumably what Cameron wants, is, for people to be like, “what the?”, and push their loved ones aside, maybe drop a babe from the teat, into a box of popcorn.
- It was like playing shuffle in Peter Gabriel’s car, music-wise.
- It felt like a sort of holiday ad for a country, for a holiday you just don’t really fancy.
- Cos the kind of sex she’s had is the kind of sex where everything’s got a doily under it.
- Doing bollock phrenology.
- Because they’re poor but happy! Squalid conditions but they’re dancing a jig. It’s a really subtle, textured piece of social commentary.
- So that’s your job, is it? Drawing French women?
- You are a Chicken Husband, but crucially those chickens, they aren’t your Hen Wives. It’s a unilateral marriage.
- Sorry Henry, is your idea of feminism that if women, to quote you directly, are “full of ideas” then they won’t get married?
- It’s a sort of Almanac of Parliamentary Business, and let me tell you, it is absolutely riveting.