- Ben issues a warning, he is in a bad mood as he has "the young man's friend", back pain (young man's lumbago) which he is blaming on Putin's invasion of the Ukraine. His shower is broken so having daily baths (like an aristocrat). Probably costing too much, so Ben has been having shallower baths with no buoyancy, so weight concentrated on his back. Suggestions that water needs to be saline so he will float, Ben says opening packets of salt and vinegar crisps into it didn't work.
- Ben has the posture of a prawn (the dead eyes of a prawn, the abdominal eggs and cooks really quickly). Mike's special occasion meal is a single prawn where he uses the prawn carving knife – Christmas prawn – Mike has pre-ordered his Christmas prawn months ago (trawlermen need to find the right megaprawn). Football coaches on trawlers. Prawns with expressive eyes, dogs eyes look like humans trapped inside a dog. Henry has been told before he has the dead eyes of a shark (Ben: "by your GP?"), the others suggest they are more bovine.
- Christmas game of imagining different animal eyes ("an owl with the compound eyes of a spider, that's busy isn't it?"). Henry attempts some satire about chancellors and flies.
- Henry brings up the Sitz bath (he worries if he is the source of lewd / Digestive Tract talk), he finds them very relaxing and contemplated filling the whole bath (but then his arse would know it wasn't just for them and feel left out). The arse has the personality of a 13-year-old, spoilt, American student (Ben doesn't like this analogy). Henry enjoys the ceremony of the Sitz bath (lowering the Sitz flag etc, lukewarm water). The podcast is the Sitz bath of the podcast world. If people could get together in Sitz baths and talk (like UN headquarters) they would be much more relaxed.
- Ben has night baths (Mike sings "night bath" to the theme of the Night Nurse advert) and listens to BBC World Service's Business Matters (not the shipping forecast as he doesn't want to think about fishermen / is bitter the Tide Times podcast didn't take off).
- Ben imagines Mike's bath has candles. Henry hears handles, and discussion of Mike needing hoists and multiple supports to use a bath, it's actually an internal bath, bath bombs are irresistible but take a long time to recover from. Ben imagines Mike taking time for himself – chocolates, Mariah Carey playing – Mike says this would be ideal but bath at home is short so has to be filled deeply and leads to "bath-based aquarobics" which is obscene and exhausting. Pixelator's nightmare, no one passes that exam, some things are still disgusting despite being pixilated. Sometimes just one big pixel, too powerfully emetic, Mike spending his weekend in a pixelator's lab. Pam thinks Mike is drowning and jumps in, lots of scratches and blood in the bath.
- Crisps not always called crisps around the world (other names include crispy Charlies, crunchy saucers, salty fun wedges, King Edward's diaphragm).
- Mike brings up a ReincarNathan episode about crisps and encourages Henry to do some self promotion (which he struggles with, he's getting hot and stressing out).
- Holiday crisps. Crisps of the past, Mike likes Salt 'n' Shake, Ben still gets these, your own decision as to whether to salt or not, nobody in Brussels is telling you to salt, don't need permission from Herman Van Rompuy and his corrupt sister Susan Van Rompuy. Mike likes to have permission to salt his crisps from Susan Van Rompuy, he also sends her his pink receipts even though she has asked him to stop. This is where 'CC' comes from as Susan Van Rompuy is actually spelt with Cs.
- Ben's recent holiday in Germany and had to go through "Rest of the World" queue on arrival (Anglotube of Shame), his partner was annoyed, Henry wonders if this is how the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand happened. This is why Henry is podcasting from a bunker under the ice, others aren't real just a photo of Susan Van Rompuy stored in a Dropbox.
- Susan Van Rompuy initiated the Van Rompuy protocol at the start of World War III (holographed herself and paid for the business dropbox) she is now waiting for the Van Rompuy era.
- Whilst Ben was in Berlin there was an insurrection – Prince Bonjamin? Ben has the demeanour, body, manners, tone of voice of someone from the Hohenzollern dynasty. Ben says he doesn't want to dwell on something that didn't come off. Ben has proclivities to coups, and says it was a full putsch ("putsches all the way").
- The crown of Germany is on the mezzanine level, people miss that when they visit, it has a food court with loud Wagner as the muzak. Ben's denial of involvement in the insurrection is evidence he did it, also that he is in a cell in Cologne, wearing a plumed Emperor's helmet. Ben had no crisps in Germany.
- Henry separates crisps into UK and rest of the world. Are snacks in general included in crisps? Henry talks about taxonomy of animals (can you turn its legs into an umbrella stands?) and then crisps. Final evolution of crisps is to crab flavoured. Is it a narwhal or is it a crisp? Mike suggests Henry is using the Middle English pronunciation of narwhal. "The Narwhal's Tale" by Chaucer – the Knight is doing his tax return and needs to store his paperwork – Mike speaks in Middle English. You can use the taxonomy system but at the end of the day you just know a crisp is a crisp. When AI can tell the difference between a narwhal and a crisp, that's when you're in trouble (self battening hatches). Edge cases: Snyders, bag of charcoal, underwater bats / duck-billed platypus (is it a thought animal?), Twiglets, a lemur that can sing.
- 44:39 - Time email section starts
- Charming minuette version of Email Jingle from Steven and Hedwig. Ben's original now feels very crude. Henry can make Hedwig a star (but she would have to leave Steven behind). Steven and Hedwig sound like they have the perfect life (playfully hurling plates at each other).
- Ruby with a warning bollock about naysaying Paddington, giving Eddie Harrison's 2-star review of Paddington as a warning. Imagine if station Paddington had arrived at was Bristol Temple Meads / Didcot Parkway / Gatwick / Southampton Airport Parkway / Luton / RAF Brize Norton / Launceston Request Stop. Naysaying is a stronger format than Three Bean Salad – presented by Claudia Winkleman standing on the Winkleface in the Winkleverse. Suggestions that naysaying is a dark path but listeners prompted to email them in.
- Digestive Tract Talk (11.00)
- Pam (21.21)
- Bean Machine (21.45)
- Regal Zone (31.40)
- Crab Bell (37.08)
- Steven and Hedwig's minuette email jingle (44.39)
- Listener Bollocking of the Week (48.40)
- Bollocking Accepted (50.06)
- Reflecto-bollock (50.24)
- Patreon (55.58)
- Cluster Omnibollock for Mike (25 emails about this but Adam's read out): Trivial Pursuit Genus Edition not Genius. Adam's email continues telling Ben his opinions on Wallace and Gromit are wrong, Ben doesn't accept this. Henry has survived Adam's "Bollocking Roulette" but Henry fears now he has won he will become addicted to it.
- The Meditation with Dire Straits evening
- Will – Lullaby version
- Followed by Happy New Year from the Beans – spice all your fruits with all the spices, condiments and milk you have (including the spice pouch from next week's fajita kit).
- Young man’s lumbago?
- Have you been targeted by drones, in the lower lumbar region?
- The Spring Sloughing
- I’ve been having a bath every day, like an aristocrat.
- So then were you then trapped under the meniscus?
- Imagine a prawn with really expressive eyes. Absolutely horrible.
- The easily foxed dull glossy eyes of a grass-eating ungulate.
- An owl with the compound eyes of a spider. That’s busy, isn’t it?
- Henry, do you need me to ready the Digestive Tract Jingle?
- What you’ve created there, perhaps unbeknownst to yourself, is a Sitz Bath.
- Soothe the angry anus.
- We’re the anal cleansing baths of podcasts? / A Sitz Bath for your ears.
- We are hearing that the two sides of the conflict are Sitzing down with one another, and we hope for a resolution by the morning.
- It’d be a pixellator’s nightmare!
- Fried Potato Discs / Starch Pucks / Crunchy Saucers / Crispy Charlies / Salty Fun Wedges / King Edward’s Diaphragm
- YOUR choice whether to salt, nobody in Brussels is telling you to salt your potatoes, it’s your choice, it’s within your own sovereignty of your own heart!
- Is this a bag of crisps or a narwhal?
- Didcot Parkway the Bear!